Restless After Appomattox
(Painting by Conrad Wise Chapman, who after the war went to Mexico.)
"Recognizing the hopelessness of further resistance, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9. But the joy of the victorious North turned to sorrow and anger when John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington on April 14th... The man who had spoken of the need to sacrifice for the Union cause at Gettysburg had himself given 'the last full measure of devotion' to the cause of 'government of the people, by the people, for the people.'
Four days after Lincoln's death the only remaining Confederate force of any significance, the troops under Joseph E. Johnston who had been opposing Sherman in North Carolina, laid down their arms. The Union was saved."
So goes the common narrative about the end of the War Between the States as taken from a high school history text sitting on my shelf. That first sentence is all most Americans will ever get concerning Appomattox, and most won't even bother to remember it.
That very narrative, the one that hints to immediate peace, is the one I received and did not think on much. Later I was even told of how some of the Union troops shared their rations with members of Lee's starving army, and the noble gesture of General Joshua Chamberlain who had his men salute Confederate General J.B. Gordon. It was a fuzzy feeling of "everyone shook hands and went home, and were good Americans."
(Painting showing the warm glow around the handshake between Grant and Lee.)
“Sure, the Yankees took me prisoner along
with the rest. The next day,
when they were changing the camps to fix up for the wounded, I asked them what
they would do with me. They told me to ‘go to the divil.’ I tould them, ‘I’ve
been long enough in his company; I’d rather choose something better’… They then
brought us to Burkesville, where all the Yankees were gathered together. There
was an ould doctor there, and he began to curse me, and to talk about all we
had done to their prisoners. I tould him, ‘And what have you to say to what you
done to our poor fellows?’ He tould me to shut up, and sure I did. They asked
me fifty questions after, and I never opened me mouth. The next day was the day
when all the Confederate flags came to Petersburg. I had some papers in my
pocket that would have done harrum to some people, so I chewed them all up and
ate them, but I wouldn’t take the oath, and I never did take it. The flags were
brought in on dirt-cars, and as they passed the Federal camps them Yankees would unfurl them and shake them about to show them” (Beers 219-220).
Where were the nice Union troops ready to share their food and give an honorable salute to their worn out, defeated foe? Evidently not where Rose Rooney was. And when I researched what she meant by, "the Yankees took me prisoner along with the rest," I discovered that her unit, the 15th Louisiana, refused to surrender and had to be put under guard.
Perhaps this was just one instance, but I soon found others. I also began to run across accounts such as that of sharpshooter Berry Benson:
“I would not stay if a
surrender was to be made. I had been in prison once, and was not going again. I
would make my way out and join General Johnston in North Carolina. Gen. McGowan
advised me not to act hastily; wait until surrender became certain, then if I
would, to go. I talked with Blackwood [Berry’s brother]. He was ready to follow me anywhere. I did not want many companions and
spoke to only one other. This was Bell—‘Old Gator.’ Yes, he would go with us
anywhere—to Texas, if we said so…So Blackwood and I left the little tattered,
weary, sad, and weeping army…carrying our rifles, skulking through thick bushes
and behind trees, or now crawling along in a ditch to conceal ourselves, now hiding
in a fence corner, we at last eluded the vigilance of the enemy’s pickets and
made good our way out of his lines. Then we set off on our march to join Gen.
Johnston in North Carolina" (Benson 200-202).
A new impression of Appomattox was forming as I read these accounts and began to realize a large group of participants did not fit the warm fuzzy narrative. John S. Mosby, the famous "Gray Ghost" cavalry leader decided to just disband his unit and a reward for $2000 was placed on his head for his failure to surrender properly. There was Edmund Ruffin, an aged Confederate soldier who went home and shot himself. Manse Jolly who when he returned home to South Carolina and found 5 brothers had been killed and a Federal troop garrison set up near his house, went on a murderous rampage that ended in the death of 28 Federal soldiers before he escaped to Texas. Can we forget Jesse James and his cohorts? Jesse had been a soldier under William Clarke Quantrill, and in my family's home state of Missouri, we were brought up being taught Jesse was an American Robin Hood.
Another problem with the common narrative, was the writing off of any Confederate troops in the west. A considerable force was left in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas under General Kirby Smith. They faced little resistance as they had soundly thrashed General Banks' Federal forces during the Red River Campaign a year earlier. Smith had the leisure to consolidate his troops in Marshal, Texas and his officers unanimously decided to continue the fight on April 29th, 1865.
Smith would not concede the war was over until May 26th, when he decided to go to Shreveport, Louisiana with a few of his men to give a formal surrender. Most of his men decided surrender was not in their interest and decided to go home. The hundreds of pension records that show end of service in May of 1865 in Marshal, are the many soldiers who ended the war in this way.
Then there was General Joseph Shelby. When Shelby got wind of Smith's decision to head to Shreveport to surrender, he gathered up the men who would go with him, and in Chatfield, Texas, called for those who would, to follow him to Mexico. 600 men followed him across the Rio Grande and near Eagle Pass they buried their flag in the river.
Shelby and his men were only the beginning as tens of thousands of Confederates emigrated to Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, British Honduras (today Belize), England, France, and Egypt.
Nearly two dozen Confederate leaders fled to Mexico ranging from governors to generals. Conrad Wise Chapman, famous as the artist for the Confederacy followed General Magruder into Mexico and Jubal Early and Kirby Smith joined him for a short time before heading on to Cuba. The C.S.S. Shenandoah, a Confederate raider who decimated the New England whaling industry in June of 1865--yes, that is correct--sailed into a British port in November of that year. It's American officers and sailors, took off for Venezuela, including a nephew of Robert E. Lee. (Many sailors had been British, German, French, and even Pacific Islanders--in a quirky twist, the last Confederate to die while in service was a Pacific Island native named Bill Billy who died at sea in October.)
As mentioned in some of my previous posts about the Franco-Prussian War, a number of Shelby's men joined the 3rd Zouave unit and traveled to France when the colonies in Mexico collapsed with the destruction of Maximillian's empire. A footnote in the history of the 1870 battle at Sedan, tells of the 3rd Zouaves refusing to surrender with the rest of the French army and fleeing to Paris with their eagle...
Not to be missed was the wild post war adventures of Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, who fled to Mexico then Austria, Egypt, and England, where somehow procured a ship and captained it during the Cuban revolution of '68. After being captured and sentenced to hang as a pirate, he managed to make an escape and traveled to New York City where he proceeded to write dime novels. When he came down ill, he chose to return to his Southern roots and lived out his last days at Beauvior, Jefferson Davis' home, which the Davis family had turned into a soldier's home.
As the saying goes, truth can be stranger than fiction. Truly, the case of the Confederate soldiers after Appomattox, the fiction is the overall warm fuzzy common narrative in the textbooks and truth is much more complex, violent, and displays the quintessential Southern determination and stubborn pride.
After all, we need not look too hard for a taste of the sentiment as we can still listen to a popular ballad written by an anonymous song writer after the war:
If you found this information interesting, please check out the novels loosely based on these individuals: The Grayback Series
Text (c) S.H. Ford, 2017.
Smith would not concede the war was over until May 26th, when he decided to go to Shreveport, Louisiana with a few of his men to give a formal surrender. Most of his men decided surrender was not in their interest and decided to go home. The hundreds of pension records that show end of service in May of 1865 in Marshal, are the many soldiers who ended the war in this way.
(Confederate veterans in Mexia, Texas in 1900. Some pictured left at Marshal. Note upside down flags.)
Shelby and his men were only the beginning as tens of thousands of Confederates emigrated to Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, British Honduras (today Belize), England, France, and Egypt.
Nearly two dozen Confederate leaders fled to Mexico ranging from governors to generals. Conrad Wise Chapman, famous as the artist for the Confederacy followed General Magruder into Mexico and Jubal Early and Kirby Smith joined him for a short time before heading on to Cuba. The C.S.S. Shenandoah, a Confederate raider who decimated the New England whaling industry in June of 1865--yes, that is correct--sailed into a British port in November of that year. It's American officers and sailors, took off for Venezuela, including a nephew of Robert E. Lee. (Many sailors had been British, German, French, and even Pacific Islanders--in a quirky twist, the last Confederate to die while in service was a Pacific Island native named Bill Billy who died at sea in October.)
As mentioned in some of my previous posts about the Franco-Prussian War, a number of Shelby's men joined the 3rd Zouave unit and traveled to France when the colonies in Mexico collapsed with the destruction of Maximillian's empire. A footnote in the history of the 1870 battle at Sedan, tells of the 3rd Zouaves refusing to surrender with the rest of the French army and fleeing to Paris with their eagle...
Not to be missed was the wild post war adventures of Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, who fled to Mexico then Austria, Egypt, and England, where somehow procured a ship and captained it during the Cuban revolution of '68. After being captured and sentenced to hang as a pirate, he managed to make an escape and traveled to New York City where he proceeded to write dime novels. When he came down ill, he chose to return to his Southern roots and lived out his last days at Beauvior, Jefferson Davis' home, which the Davis family had turned into a soldier's home.
As the saying goes, truth can be stranger than fiction. Truly, the case of the Confederate soldiers after Appomattox, the fiction is the overall warm fuzzy common narrative in the textbooks and truth is much more complex, violent, and displays the quintessential Southern determination and stubborn pride.
After all, we need not look too hard for a taste of the sentiment as we can still listen to a popular ballad written by an anonymous song writer after the war:
Oh, I'm a good old rebel,
Now that's just what I am,
And for this yankee nation,
I do not give a damn.
I'm glad I fought against her,
I only wish we won.
I ain't asked any pardon for anything I've done.
Now that's just what I am,
And for this yankee nation,
I do not give a damn.
I'm glad I fought against her,
I only wish we won.
I ain't asked any pardon for anything I've done.
Further Reading and Source Material:
Baldwin, John. Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last
Confederate Warship. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
1. Benson, Berry and Susan
Williams Benson, Ed. Berry Benson’s Civil
War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter. Athens, Georgia:
University of Georgia Press, 1962.
2. Beers, Fannie A. Memories: A Record of Personal Experience
and Adventure During Four Years of War. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott,
1888.
3. Harter, Eugene C. The Lost Colony of the Confederacy.
College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2000.
4. Nunn, W.C. Escape from Reconstruction. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1956.
5. Bassham, Ben L. Conrad Wise Chapman: Artist & Soldier of
the Confederacy. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998.
6. Johannsen, Albert.
“Prentiss Ingraham” from The House of
Beadle and Adams and its Dime and Nickle Novels: The Story of a Vanished
Literature. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois Public Libraries. An Online
Project, accessed 2017 at http://www.ulib.niu.edu/badndp/ingraham_prentiss.html
7. Kinard, Jeff. Lafayette of the South: Prince Camille de
Polignac and the American Civil War. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M
University Press, 2001.
If you found this information interesting, please check out the novels loosely based on these individuals: The Grayback Series
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