The Falling Flag - Evacuation of Richmond, Retreat and Surrender at Appomattox

PREFACE. The writer only attempts to give some account of what occurred within his own observation; he would have esteemed it a privilege to enter into all the detail that lights up the last desperate struggle, made by that glorious remnant of the ... Read more

PREFACE. The writer only attempts to give some account of what occurred within his own observation; he would have esteemed it a privilege to enter into all the detail that lights up the last desperate struggle, made by that glorious remnant of the Army of Northern Virginia, with its skeleton battalions from every Southern State; illustrating their own fame and that of their noble leader, mile by mile, on that weary march from Richmond to Appomattox. But he has confined himself to his own experiences, and in a great measure to what happened to his own Brigade, because it was written out, immediately after the war, from that standpoint. And if there be any merit in it, it is simply as a journal—what one man saw, and the impression produced thereby. This, even within a limited range, if truly put, represents at least a phase of the last act in the bloody drama that had been enacting for four years. More than this he could not hope to do, but leaves to abler hands the greater task that swells the current of events into the full tide of history. Less