Hi CobaltBlue; Okay, please edit my comment to something like "Just days after giving me all that bullshit about how the soldiers under Lee were ready to fight to the death against the Union, but were spared by their wise and humane leader."
Lee's soldiers were deserting him in mass. He surrendered because it was the best deal he could get for them, not because he didn't want to see them killed. During the course of his hopeless war he gave orders that resulted in the deaths of many tens of thousands of them (not that he wished this, but merely to point out that he wasn't exactly a softy leftist peacenik). He surrendered with 20,000 men. Just a few days before, 6,000 of his men had been captured, for God's sake. They were weak with hunger, and Grant had just captured their resupply column. He was about a couple weeks away from being "an army of one", LOL.
He was completely beaten, and so were his men. While they might have been "spiritually" in the mood to follow him into the gates of hell, they weren't physically strong enough to take any Union soldiers with them, so what was the point.
After years of bloodshed, tears, and hardship, the war all came to a close at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Confederate troops were weary and in terrible need of food towards the end of the war, so they were headed to Amelia Court House to eat and gain back their health. Unfortunately, Lee's troops found no food after their long journey. They then realized that they had to travel even further to Appomattox Court House in order to be fed.
Grant had heard of the Confederates' problems and wanted to stop the weary troops while they were weak and hungry. Therefore, he decided to send General Sheridan to block the route where Lee's troops were headed. On April 6, the Union armies caught up with their enemies at Sayler's Creek, Virginia. They captured about 6,000 southerners, along with General Richard Ewell. After their retreat, the rest of the Southerners continued on the long journey for food. Meanwhile, on April 7th, Grant's armies set out to capture Appomattox Court House, thus forcing the hungry Confederates to surrender. Confederate General Lee and Union General Grant began corresponding later that evening with one another about a possible surrender. Grant asked very courteously if he would be willing to back down from the battle to avoid further struggle and bloodshed. To answer, Lee replied, "Not yet," but still asked what the terms of a surrender would be. On April 8th, Lee and Grant continued to correspond. Stubborn General Lee refused to surrender and claimed that the South had not lost the war yet. Later that day, Union General Sheridan captured some supply trains sent to Lee's troops and had the control in his hands.
The day of April 9th, the lines of troops marched out from each side and Lee's troops realized their efforts would be pointless. Not seeing it fit to surrender on the field, General Lee asked to meet with General Grant at William McLean's home at 1:00 pm. The two spoke with one another and agreed it would be fair to let the southern soldiers go home and keep their weapons and horses. They decided to depart in peace. As soon as news reached the Union troops that they had won the war, they began to cheer. Then, Grant silenced them and said, " The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again." By saying this, he unified the winners and the losers and helped them realize that the Unions and Confederates were no longer enemies, but again brothers in one country together. The South surrendered over 20,000 men that day and their actions will long be remembered.
katy.isd.tenet.edu
Here's another source that puts into perspective what the soldiers went through, and how their loyalties were divided:
Lonn's book on desertion [p.13] reproduces a letter to a Confederate soldier from his wife, (signed "Your Mary") which was introduced as evidence at the man's trial for desertion. She got the letter from A.B. Moore's "History of North Carolina." Here it is:
"My dear Edward: -- I have always been proud of you,
and since your connection with the Confederate army,
I have been prouder of you than ever before. I would
not have you do anything wrong for the world, but
before God, Edward, unless you come home, we must die.
Last night, I was aroused by little Eddie's crying.
I called and said, 'What is the matter, Eddie?' and
he said, 'O mamma! I am so hungry.' And Lucy, Edward,
your darling Lucy; she never complains, but she is
growing thinner and thinner every day. And before God,
Edward, unless you come home, we must die."
geocities.com
The big argument is over the question of whether the South had a "Will to Fight". I agree that the South had an a strong will to fight. But at a certain level of casualties, that will goes away:
A close look at that effort is often breathtaking. Jonathan M. Bryant in 1996 published a study of Greene County, Ga., which had an 1860 population of 1,075 white males age 13 to 45. The county sent 800 men into eight companies of regular infantry and cavalry and hundreds more into militia units. "Virtually all of the county's military-age males of all class backgrounds, plus many older men and some boys, served in the Confederate armed forces or the militia during the war," he concluded.
Having studied military records on a county level in the North, I can tell you, that's as astonishing as it looks. Bryant focused on four regular companies and derived a 30 percent mortality rate of men in service, 14 percent discharged as permanently disabled, only 14 men listed as official deserters, and one-quarter of the 141 who were left in service at the surrender at Appomattox having been wounded at least once.
The Confederacy mobilized between 750,000 and 850,000 men, which translates into an amazing 75 to 85 percent of its available draft-age white military population (The presence of slaves, to keep the economy moving, allowed this, but so did the work of women on the yeoman farmsteads).
The losses the South took would translate into, say, six million U.S. battle casualties in World War II (instead of 961,977, the actual figure); nearly a million in Vietnam, instead of 201,000. Yet they lost the war, and, to the "lack-of-will" partisans, this makes the Confederacy a failed society.
geocities.com
Here's a first hand account by a Union General on the starvation of Lee's troops. I'm showing quotes from Lee's soldiers (like Ewell) admitting that they were defeated:
THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE
Horace Porter, Brevet Brigadier General, U.S.A.
...
Dr. Smith, formerly of the regular army, a native of Virginia and a relative of General Ewell, now one of our prisoners, had told General Grant the night before that Ewell had said in conversation that their cause was lost when they crossed the James River, and he considered that it was the duty of the authorities to negotiate for peace then, while they still had a right to claim concessions, adding that now they were not in condition to claim anything. He said that for every man killed after this somebody would be responsible, and it would be little better than murder. He could not tell what General Lee would do, but he hoped he would at once surrender his army. This statement, together with the news that had been received from Sheridan saying that he had heard that General Lee's trains of provisions which had come by rail were at Appomattox, and that he expected to capture them before Lee could reach them, induced the general to write the following communication:
... I feel that it is so, and regard it as my
duty to shift from myself the responsibility of
any further effusion of blood by asking of you
the surrender of that portion of the Confederate
States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.
-- U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General
Lee's reply:
GENERAL: I have received your note of this
date. Though not entertaining the opinion you
express of the hopelessness of further resistance
on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I
reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion
of blood, and therefore, before considering your
proposition, ask the terms you will offer on
condition of its surrender.
-- R.E. LEE, General
...
There turned up at this time a rather hungry-looking gentleman in gray, in the uniform of a colonel, who proclaimed himself the proprietor of the hotel. He said his regiment had crumbled to pieces, he was the only man left in it, and he thought he might as well "stop off " at home. His story was significant as indicating the disintegrating process that was going on in the ranks of the enemy.
...
civilwarhome.com
-- Carl
P.S. This same sort of reasoning is why the French gave up in WW2. Armies march (and fight) on their stomaches. When the other guy gets a hold of your logistics line, your soldiers quit fighting and start surrendering. That is why the German attack that cut the French supply lines are so important. |
