The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1872-06-07
The Last Scene at Appomattox-Speech of
Federal Officer.

There was a reunion of the Society o.
the Army of the Potomac, held at Cincin'
natl, on the 18th ult. At this celebration
the Grafton was delivered by General Stew
art L. Wooford, of New York and from
this Grafton we make the following ex.
tracts:
The morning crept slowly on-first into
gray dawn, then into rosy flush. Still on
still on! The mists crept upward and into
line you wheeled, and on your muskets lay
down, each man in place, to get scant rest,
which, even in the exhaustion of those
thirty-six hours of terrible marching, you
neither sought nor needed. You were
squarely across Lees front, and had closed
forever his last line of retreat.
The enemy, reaching your cavalry adj
vance, saw the serried line of Union troop
ers. Gordon gathered and massed his men
for their last charge. Tattered and hungry,
worn by ceaseless marching and fighting,
with no hope of victory, with little posi-
bility of escape, they closed their lines with
Il fidelity of discipline and soldierly res
olution, to which words can do little jus.
tice-but which each soldiers heart must
recognize and honor.
AS the old guard closed around their
Emperor at Waterloo, so these men closed
around the flags of their lost cause. My
heart abhors their treason. But it warns
beyond restraint to their manhood so grand
ly brave, even in disloyalty. Slowly they
advanced to their last attack. No battle
yell, no crack of the skirmisher's rifle broke
the strange stiffness of that Sabbath morn.
Steadily, silently they came, when Sheri-
dan drew back his horsemen, as parts some
mighty curtain, and there stood the close
formed battalions of your infantry, the can
non cleaning in the openings, quietly
awaiting the coming of Gordon's men.
Instinctively your enemy halted. Mean
while Lee has turned back to meet Grant
and surrender his command Sheridan
swung his cavalry around upon Gordon's
left, and was about to charge, when Gustav
reached Longstreet. Assurance of surren-
der was given and the end had come.
That Sabbath day, with tears and in sor-
row, Southern men folded the banner of the
"Lost Cause" and their bravest and best
sought honorably to bury them from sight
forever.
How sad it is that poor ambitions, jeal-
ousies of race, the wretched greed of pelt
and place, and the miserable hates ofsocial
rivalries should so often disturb the hearty
reconciliation of that surrender, and for
time revive the bitterness which you then
sought to bury in common grave.
This hour is no time for politics. Mine
not the lips, I trust, to introduce them here
But when think of that heroic past, which
your faces and presence so wildly recall,
and then how trading, trickster 9 T ,,,ns5
clans, torgetful ofwhase. .sptism OF blood
array races in needless hostility, to excite
the ignorance of the one and the brutal
preiudicoo of the other l would like to
Summon guard, half from the rebel army
of Northern Virginia and half from the 10y
al army of the Potomac, take such malcon-
tents out give them drum-head court mar
tial immediate execution and soldierly
burial under the apple tree of Appomattox.