Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/318

 312 Southern Historical Society Papers.

in honor of the surrender as we marched, and it proved to be the death-knell of the Confederacy. The Army of Northern Virginia had been the soul of the Confederacy, and that having taken its Might, the Confederacy could not live.

Reaching Lynchburg that night, we found everything in dire con- fusion, and there, all hope having fled, the cavalry, the last organ- ized body of our army, disbanded. When I left my old home in Amelia, I took with me my young cousin, Eugene Jefferson, a boy, who fought by my side at "High Bridge," Farmville, and Appo- mattox. When we disbanded that night at Lynchburg, I took him to the Norvell House, and we got supper. I paid forty dollars for our supper, the last use made of Confederate money till I reached the Appomattox river at Stony Point, where I paid the ferryman ten dollars to ferry us over. I would as soon have given him a bale of it if I had it. This boy and I passed to the Amherst side of the river after supper and slept on the hill. Next morning we passed down the river on that side 'till we reached Howardsville. Singu- larly enough, it was at that place, just four years previously, I had entered the army, and there my career as a soldier ended. There Sheridan's men burned my law books and my trunk with my law license in it, where this document had lain securely and almost for- gotten for four years. I am practicing law now without a license, so far as that goes, and recently in a West Virginia court, when asked for my license before qualifying, I had to plead the vandalism ot Phil. Sheridan, as my excuse for not producing the license.

GOVERNOR SMITH'S ENTREATIES.

At Howardsville my young relative and I encountered Governor William Smith, venerable nomen. He had left Richmond before the enemy entered and was then stopping at the house of Mr. Zack Lewis. The old man came out to see us and expostulated with us on returning home. He begged us to turn back and go to Johns- ton, in North Carolina. He insisted that the end was not yet, that hope had not departed and we would yet gain our independence. This and much to the same effect he said. I had the uttermost re- spect and admiration for this loyal old Virginian. The whole army had been filled with praises of his superb courage, and laughed at the stories of his ignorance of and bitter contempt for military tac- tics, but I knew the game was up, and I bade the heroic and un- daunted old Governor good-bye, and continued my journey, crossing