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‘To you, Colonel, and to my brother officers and brother soldiers of Hays' and Stafford's brigades, I claim to say that you can carry with you the proud consciousness that in the estimation of your commanders, you have done your duty.
Tell Louisiana, when you reach her shores, that her sons in the army of Northern Virginia have made her illustrious upon every battleground from the First Manassas to the last desperate blow struck by your command on the hill of Appomattox; and tell her that, as in the first, so in the last, the enemy fled before the valor of your charging lines.’
The record of the services of both Louisiana infantry and artillery is now made out to their last battle.
That record cannot be safely impeached.
The ceremonies of surrender were simple but most impressive, by reason of their very simplicity.
With the carnage of the whole four years behind them stand the representatives of two mighty armies.
On this day, April 9, 1865, a chasm long yawning was filled.
Between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant rose, supreme, the humanities of God!
President Jefferson Davis, having left Richmond on the night of April 2d, proceeded to Charlotte, N. C. While in that city, the news of President Lincoln's assassination came to fill him with horror—a horror which he never ceased strongly to express during the remainder of his long and eminent life.
He finally resolved to cross over to the Trans-Mississippi department.
On his way to Washington, Ga., he was protected by a bodyguard of honorable veterans drawn from every State in the Confederacy.
Each man of the escort felt himself honored by the high trust confided to his sense of patriotism.
It was after his separation from his escort that the President was captured by Wilson's raiders.
Fidelity, when extended to him to whom it is justly due, resembles the ‘stars of Friedland’ that shine best in the blackest night.
Each member of the President's bodyguard
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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