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to accept at our hands a pittance of biscuit and coffee, to save him and his Staff from starvation!
While they too talked, I asked General Lee after his son “Roonie,” 1 who was about there somewhere.
It was the “Last ditch” indeed!
He too is punished enough: living at this moment at Richmond, on the food doled out to him by our government, he gets his ration just like the poorest negro in the place!
We left Lee, and kept on through the sad remnants of an army that has its place in history.
It would have looked a mighty host, if the ghosts of all its soldiers that now sleep between Gettysburg and Lynchburg could have stood there in the lines, beside the living.
Colonel:--In parting with you after an association of over twenty months, during which time you have served on my Staff, I feel it due to you to express my high sense of the assistance I have received from you, and to bear testimony to the zeal, energy, and gallantry you have displayed in the discharge of your duties.
Be assured I shall ever preserve the liveliest reminiscences of our intercourse, and wherever our separate fortunes may take us, I shall ever have a deep interest in your welfare and happiness, which, by the blessing of God, I trust may be long continued.
