previous next
[397] University, and expect that you will also maintain the present position of your forces until each has notice of a failure to agree.

‘That a basis of action may be had, I undertake to abide by the same terms and conditions as were made by Generals Grant and Lee, at Appomattox Court-house, on the 9th instant, relative to our two armies; and, furthermore, to obtain from General Grant an order to suspend the movements of any troops from the direction of Virginia. General Stoneman is under my command, and my order will suspend any devastation or destruction contemplated by him. I will add that I really desire to save the people of North Carolina the damage they would sustain by the march of this army through the central or western parts of the State.’

In accordance with this arrangement General Hardee was ordered to halt his command wherever it might be, and to draw his supplies from Greensboroa. The same order to halt was extended to the other commands. The officers to whom it was sent—General Hardee especially—were much concerned as to its meaning, and thought its effect would be detrimental to the troops, if it were not quickly explained. To their inquiries and remarks General Beauregard's answer was, that he could not, just then, inform them of General Johnston's purpose; that the latter would, no doubt, do so himself, on his return from Hillsboroa; and that, meanwhile, the troops should be kept well in hand for rapid movement, at a moment's notice. But that was a difficult task to perform. The men knew they were on the eve of an extraordinary event; that something worse than a battle overhung them; that, like General Lee's forces, they also might at any hour be compelled to surrender; and they feared that they might thus lose their arms and whatever private property they might then be possessed of. This apprehension—which, we must admit, was a natural one—induced many a good and gallant soldier—especially in the cavalry—to abandon the ranks and start for ‘home,’ without first obtaining permission to do so. Indeed, the whole army seemed to understand that they had fought their last fight; that the cause, for which they had so intrepidly struggled, was now lost; and that the sooner they were disbanded the better. Their irregular manner of leaving the army, by hundreds and more at a time, was another argument against the sanguine expectations indulged in by Mr. Davis.

Through General Hampton's instrumentality the time and place of meeting were arranged for the proposed conference between Generals Johnston and Sherman, who met, accordingly, at noon,

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
North Carolina (North Carolina, United States) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
S. D. Lee (2)
J. E. Johnston (2)
William J. Hardee (2)
Ulysses S. Grant (2)
Stoneman (1)
W. T. Sherman (1)
Wade Hampton (1)
Jefferson Davis (1)
G. T. Beauregard (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
9th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: