Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-06-13
Se1istellaueuns &eadiug.
THE LAST SCENE AT APPOMATTOX.


There was reunion of the Society of the
Army of the Potomac, held at Cincinnati, on
the 7th ult. At this celebration the Grafton
was delivered by General Stewart L. Wool
ford, of New York, and from this oration we
make the following extracts ..........,
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 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 advance,
saw the serried line of Union troopers Cor
don 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 possibility of escape,
they closed their lines with fidelity Of disci.
pline 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 EN-
peror at Waterloo, so these men closed round
the flags Of their lost cause. My heart ab-
hors their treason. But it warns beyond re-
straint to their manhood go grandly brave,
even in disloyalty. Slowly they advanced to
their last attack. No battle yell, no crack of
the skirmisher's rife broke the strange still
ness of that Sabbath morn. Steadily, silently
they came, when Sheridan drew back his
horsemen, as parts some mighty curtain, and
there stood the closeformed battalions of your
infantry, the cannon cleaning in the open.
ings, quietly awaiting the coming Of Gordon's
men. ..... - ....... 49,.
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 Custar reached Long
street. Assurance of surrender was given,
and the end had come. ...-...
That Sabbath day, with tears and in sor-
row, Southern men folded the banners of the
"Lost Cause" and their bravest and best
sought honorably to bury them from sight for
ever. .....
How sad it is that poor ambitions, jealousies
of race, the wretched greed of pelf and place,
and the miserable haters of social rivalries,
should so often disturb the hearty reconcilia-
ton 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 I think of that heroic past, which your
faces and presence so vividly 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 prejudices 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 malcon-
tents out, give them drum-head court-martial,
immediate execution and soldierly burial un-
der the apple treeat Appomattox.