Appomattox by Varon Elizabeth R.;

Author:Varon, Elizabeth R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2014-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

When it came to assessing the surrender terms, unanimity among Confederates on the home front broke down. Some were hopeful that the terms would be the blueprint for a soft peace. For example, John B. Jones, a clerk in the Secretary of War’s office in Richmond, speculated on April 11 that “from the tone of the leading Northern papers, we have reason to believe President Lincoln will call Congress together, and proclaim an amnesty.” For many, the restoration of the Union on any terms—even one premised on Northern respect for Lee and his army—was simply unacceptable. While they attributed great dignity to Lee, Confederate civilians felt robbed by defeat of their own dignity. Their diaries and letters testify to the deep sense of humiliation they felt upon hearing of the surrender. Diarist Cornelia Peake McDonald, a refugee in Lexington, Virginia, wrote of how she and her family absorbed the news from Appomattox: “Grief and despair took possession of my heart, with a sense of humiliation that till then I did not know I could feel. The distress of the children was as great as mine; their poor little faces showed all the grief and shame that was in their hearts, and each went about sad and dejected as if it was a personal matter.” As refugees and soldiers streamed back into the city, she observed that some were “happy at the thought of being released from danger, hunger, and weariness.” “By far the greatest number, however,” she added, “seemed to regard peace as a dire misfortune.” Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain of East Tennessee watched as paroled soldiers returned to her home state in late April; a group of them left with her family a copy of Lee’s Farewell Address, prompting Fain to observe in her diary that the noble Confederates were “overpowered but not defeated,… might for the time overpowering right.” The soldiers’ reports that they had been “treated respectfully by the Yankees since the surrender” could not dispel Fain’s “fearful foreboding of evil” and her sense that the South could never again “link her political destiny” to the North.10

Confederate civilians were, on the whole, more distrustful than Confederate soldiers were of Grant’s motives and intentions. Many regarded the conciliatory surrender terms as a transparent bid to lure Southerners into accepting renewed subjugation. Emma LeConte of Columbia, South Carolina, a fervent Confederate with a keen intellect and acid pen, wrote in her diary in late April, “I used to dream about peace, to pray for it, but this is worse than war. What is such peace to us?… It is too horrible. What I most fear is a conciliatory policy from the North, that they will offer to let us come back as before. Oh no, no!… Let them oppress and tyrannize, but let us take no favors of them.” Sarah Fowler Morgan Dawson, who produced a massive diary of life in wartime Baton Rouge and New Orleans, was equally defiant. She learned of Lee’s surrender on April 13. To

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