The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-05-30
The Last Scene at Appemattox.

There was reunion of the Society of the
Army of the Potomac, held at Cincinnati, on
the 7th instant. At this celebration the ora
tion was delivered by General Stewart L..
Woolford, of New York who describes the last
scene at Appomattox Court House in the fol-
lowing language:
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 wheel
ed, and on your muskets lay down, each man
in place, to get scant rest which even in the
exhaustion of those 36 hours of terrible march
ing you neither sought nor needed. You were
squarely across Lees front, and had closed for
ever his last line of retreat.
The enemy reaching your cavalry advance,
saw the serried line of Union troopers. Gordon
gathered and massed his men for their Last
charge. Tattered and hungry, worn by cease.
less marching and fighting, with no hope of
victory, with little possibility of escape, they
closed their lines with fidelity of discipline
and 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 Empe-
ror 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 grandly brave, even in dis
loyalty. Slowly they advanced to their last
attack. No battle yell, no crack of the skirm-
isher's rife broke the strange stiffness of that
Sabbath morn. Steadily, silently they came,
when Sheridan drew back his horsemen, 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. =,
Instinctively your enemy halted. Meanwhile
Lee had turned back to meet Grant and surren-
der his command. Sheridan swung his cavalry
around upon Gordon's left, and was about to
charge, when Custar reached Longstreet. As
surance of surrender was given, and the end
had come.
The Sabbath day, with tears and in sorrow,
Southern men folded the banners of the Lost
Cause" and their bravest and best sought hon
orably to bury them from sight forever.
How sad it is that poor ambitious, jealousies
of race, the wretched greed of pelf and place,
and the miserable hates of social rivalries,
should so often disturb the hearty reconciliation
of that surrender and for time revive the bit
terness 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 1 think of that heroic past, which your
faces and presence so wildly recall, and then
how trading, trickster politicians, forgetful of
what baptism of blood sealed the new birth of
the nation, seek to array races in needless hos.
tility, to excite the ignorance of the one and
the brutal prejudces Of the other, would like
to summon guard, half from the rebel army
of Northern Virginia and half from the loyal
army of the Potomac, take such malcontents
out, give them drum-head court martial, i'm
mediate execution and soldierly burial under
the apple tree at Appomattox.