Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/176

 164 Southern Historical Society Papers.

(.From the Times-Dispatch, May 8, 1904.]

GOVERNOR Z. B. VANCE.

Story of the Last Days of the Confederacy in North Carolina.

HISTORICAL FACT vs. FICTION.

How Injustice Was Done this Gallant War Executive.

The story told by my friend, Major A. B. Stronach, in his inter- esting narrative of a "Boy Rear Guard," in the Raleigh, N. C. , Post, of April 17, 1894, of the attempt on the part of certain patri- otic ? citizens to persuade Governor Vance, our great war Governor, to be false to his oath of office, and surrender to General Sherman this city and State upon his entrance into the former on the morning of the i3th of April, 1865, has a sequel ! Perhaps I am one of the few now living who can furnish the data from which the future biog- rapher of that great man may correct history.

The appointment by Governor Vance of a commission to nego- tiate with General Sherman terms for the surrender of this city, that would save it from the fate of Columbia, had preceded the efforts to force Governor Vance to remain at his office in the Capitol on that fatal day and receive and surrender to General Sherman the Capital of the State. As I understand it, this commission, consisting of Governor William A. Graham, Governor Swain and others, had not as yet returned from their mission, as I will be able to show. I was at the time a member of Lieutenant-General Wade Hampton's staff, who, with the cavalry under his command, was moving on the Middle road toward the town of Hillsboro, General Wheeler mov- ing by the Chapel Hill road with the cavalry of his command, of course, both protecting the rear of General Joseph E. Johnston's army, then falling back before Sherman, and having his magnificent cavalry under General Kilpatrick in advance.

Our force was engaged in constantly skirmishing, as we fell back slowly before him, and for the two days consumed in this march from Raleigh to Hillsboro, we were barely out of sight of each other. I had repeatedly warned General Hampton of an old dis-