Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/24

12 to which Longstreet replied that he had no more right to surrender it than Custer had to demand it. Custer then said that Longstreet would be responsible for the bloodshed to follow. Longstreet replied that he could "go ahead and have all the bloodshed that he wanted." Custer then learned that General Lee had gone to see General Grant, and mounted his horse and rode off. Captain Sommers, our quartermaster, had been captured, paroled, and recaptured in the attacks on our train, and he went up to General Custer and asked his status, but Custer said impatiently, "Oh, I've no time to attend to that now."

General Longstreet mentions this incident, and Alexander says of it, that Longstreet rebuffed him more roughly than appears in Longstreet's account of it.

I have related it as it was stated at the time.

Shortly after that we saw General Lee coming back, and a crowd of officers and soldiers gathered around him with cheers. He stopped his horse, and, looking around, said: "Men, we have fought the war together and I have done the best I could for you. You will all be paroled and go to your homes until exchanged." I was close to him and climbed upon a wagon-hub to see and hear distinctly. He said a few more words which I cannot repeat accurately, but those which I record are engraved upon my memory. I looked around and the tears were in many eyes and on many cheeks where they had never been brought by fear.

Words cannot describe our feelings then. All of the struggles and sacrifices of the long years were in vain and the future loomed before us, dark and unpromising. Even the fate of those who had not lived to see that day was envied then. The rest of that day was given to sad reflections and gloomy forebodings. The next morning, Monday, April ioth, we moved over to the grove where General Lee had his tent and pitched a wagon sheet about one hundred yards from his tent, which was the only one there, as I remember. All of the headquarter departments were assembled there.

The terms of the surrender were then known, and we began to discuss the future. General Alexander said that he was