Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-06-21
The Last Scene at Appomattox-speech
of a Federal Officer.


There was reunion of the Society oil
the Army of the Potomac, held at Cincin-
natl, on the 7th ult. At this celebration
the grafton was delivered by General Stew
art L. Woolford, of New York and from
this Grafton we make the following ex-
tracts:
The morning crept slowly on-frst into
gray dawn. then into rosy flush. Still on
still on! The mists crept upward and
into line you wheeled, and on your mus
kets lay down, each man in place to get
scant rest, which, even in the exhaustion
of those thirty-sx hours of terrible march
ing, 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 ad-
vance, saw the serried line of Union troop
ers. Gordon gathered and mass"d bis
men for their last charge. .Tattered and
hungry, worn by ceaseless marching and
| fighting, with no hope of victory, with
little possibility of escape, they closed their
lines with fidelity of discipline and a
soldierly resolution, to which words can
do little justice-but which each soldiers
heart must recognize and honor.
AS the old guard closed around their
Emperor at Waterloo. so these men clos
ed around the flags of their lost cause
My heart abhors their treason But it
warns beyond restraint to their manhood
so grandly brave. even in disloyalty. Slow
ly 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 Sheridan drew back his horse
men. as parts some mighty curtain, and
there stood the close-formed battalions of
your infantry, the cannon cleaning in the
openings, quietly awaiting the coming of
Gordon's men.
lnstinctively 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 Gus
tar reached Longstreet. Assurance of
surrender was given and the end had come.
That Sabbath day, with tears and in
sorrow, Southern men folded the banner
of the Lost Cause" and their bravest and
best soug hit honorably to bury them from
sight forever.
How sad it is that poor ambitions, jeal-
ousies of race, the wretched greed of pelf
and place, and the miserable hates of social
rivalres should SO often disturb the hear
ty 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, trust. to introduce them
here. But when | think of that heroic
past, which your faces and presence so
wildly recall, and then how trading, trick
ster politicians. forgetful of what baptism
of blood sealed the new birth of the nation,
seek to array races in needless hostility,
to excite the ignorance of the one and the
brutal prejudices of the other, I would
like to summon guard, half from the re-
bel army of Northern Virginia and half
| from the loyal army of the Potomac, take
such malcoutents out, give them drum
head court-martial, immediate execution
and soldierly burial under the apple tree
of Appomattox.