Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: Monday, May 18, 1863

This morning we had the gratification of a short visit from General Lee. He called and breakfasted with us, while the other passengers in the cars breakfasted at the hotel. We were very glad to see that great and good man look so well and so cheerful. His beard is very long, and painfully gray, which makes him appear much older than he really is. One of the ladies at table, with whom he is closely connected, rallied him on allowing his beard to grow, saying, “Cousin R., it makes you look too venerable for your years.” He was amused, and pleaded as his excuse the inconvenience of shaving in camp. “Well,” she replied, “if I were in Cousin Mary's place (Mrs. L’s) I would allow it to remain now, but I would take it off as soon as the war is over.” He answered, while a shade passed over his bright countenance, “When the war is over, my dear L., she may take my beard off, and my head with it, if she chooses.” This he said as the whistle summoned him to his seat in the cars, not meaning to depress us, or imagining for an instant that we would think of it again; but it proved to us that he knew that the end was not yet, and disappointed us, for after every great victory we cannot help hoping that the Federal Government may be tired of war and bloodshed, rapine and murder, and withdraw its myriads to more innocent pursuits.

Yesterday evening we were agreeably surprised by a call from W. B. C., just recovered from his dreadful wound, received at Fredericksburg last winter. He is an infantry captain of the Stonewall Brigade, and is just returning to his company. Alas! alas! his great Captain has passed away during his absence, which makes his return very sad. He thinks that General Ewell is the man of all others to put in his place, though no man can fill it. General Ewell, he says, is one of General Jackson's most enthusiastic admirers, believing him to have been almost an inspired man. General E. relates an incident of him, when on their victorious march through the Valley last summer, which is beautifully characteristic of General J. One night, when it was evident that there must be a battle next day, he (General E.) went to General Jackson for his plans. General J. replied that he would give them to him next morning, as they had not yet been formed. General E. felt uneasy and restless, and could not sleep. About midnight he arose, and, passing through the sleeping multitudes, he reached General Jackson's tent, and was about to raise the curtain to enter it, when his attention was arrested by the voice of prayer. General Jackson was praying fervently for guidance through the coming day. General E. remarked to a friend that he had never before heard a prayer so devout and beautiful; he then, for the first time, felt the desire to be a Christian. He retired to his tent quietly, without disturbing General J., feeling assured that all would be well. The next morning a fight came off, replete with victory. General Ewell was subsequently wounded at the second battle of Manassas, and it is said that he has since become a Christian. God grant that it may be so!

I have been in Richmond for two days past, nursing the wounded of our little hospital. Some of them are very severely injured, yet they are the most cheerful invalids I ever saw. It is remarked in all the hospitals that the cheerfulness of the wounded in proportion to their suffering is much greater than that of the sick. Under my care, yesterday, was one poor fellow, with a ball embedded in his neck; another with an amputated leg; one with a hole in his breast, through which a bullet had passed; another with a shattered arm; and others with slighter wounds; yet all showed indomitable spirit; evinced a readiness to be amused or interested in every thing around them; asked that the morning papers might be read to them, and gloried in their late victory; and expressed an anxiety to get well, that they may have another “chance at them fellows.” The Yankees are said to have landed at West Point, and are thence sending out raiding parties over the country. Colonel Davis, who led the party here on the third, has been severely wounded by a scouting party, sent out by General Wise towards Tunstall's Station. It is said he has lost his leg. So may it be!

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 214-6

Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman to Elizabeth Russell Lyman, April 23, 1865

On Board River Queen In Potomac River

April 23, 1865

I think I must write you a letter, though it may get to you not much before the winter, to tell of the end of our campaign. Monday April 10 is a day worthy of description, because I saw the remains of our great opponent, the Army of Northern Virginia. The General proposed to ride through the Rebel lines to General Grant, who was at Appomattox Court House; and he took George and myself as aides; a great chance! for the rest were not allowed to go, no communication being permitted between the armies. At 10.30 we rode off, and, passing along the stage road, soon got to the picket line, where a row of our men were talking comfortably with an opposite row of theirs. There the General sent me ahead to see some general of theirs who might give us a guide through the lines. I rode a little beyond a wood, and came on several regiments, camped there. The arms were neatly stacked and the well-known battle-flags were planted by the arms. The men, looking tired and indifferent, were grouped here and there. I judged they had nothing to eat, for there was no cooking going on. A mounted officer was shown me as General Field, and to him I applied. He looked something like Captain Sleeper, but was extremely moody, though he at once said he would ride back himself to General Meade, by whom he was courteously received, which caused him to thaw out considerably. We rode about a mile and then turned off to General Lee's Headquarters, which consisted in one fly with a camp-fire in front. I believe he had lost most of his baggage in some of the trains, though his establishment is at all times modest. He had ridden out, but, as we turned down the road again, we met him coming up, with three or four Staff officers. As he rode up General Meade took off his cap and said: “Good-morning, General.” Lee, however, did not recognize him, and, when he found who it was, said: “But what are you doing with all that grey in your beard?” To which Meade promptly replied: “You have to answer for most of it!” Lee is, as all agree, a stately-looking man; tall, erect and strongly built, with a full chest. His hair and closely trimmed beard, though thick, are now nearly white. He has a large and well-shaped head, with a brown, clear eye, of unusual depth. His face is sunburnt and rather florid. In manner he is exceedingly grave and dignified — this, I believe, he always has; but there was evidently added an extreme depression, which gave him the air of a man who kept up his pride to the last, but who was entirely overwhelmed. From his speech I judge he was inclined to wander in his thoughts. You would not have recognized a Confederate officer from his dress, which was a blue military overcoat, a high grey hat, and well-brushed riding boots.

As General Meade introduced his two aides, Lee put out his hand and saluted us with all the air of the oldest blood in the world. I did not think, when I left, in '63, for Germantown, that I should ever shake the hand of Robert E. Lee, prisoner of war! He held a long conference with General Meade, while I stood over a fire, with his officers, in the rain. Colonel Marshall, one of his aides, was a very sensible and gentlemanly man, and seemed in good spirits. He told me that, at one time during the retreat, he got no sleep for seventy-two hours, the consequence of which was that his brain did not work at all, or worked all wrong. A quartermaster came up to him and asked by what route he should move his train: to which Marshall replied, in a lucid manner: “Tell the Captain that I should have sent that cane as a present to his baby; but I could not, because the baby turned out to be a girl instead of a boy!” We were talking there together, when there appeared a great oddity — an old man, with an angular, much-wrinkled face, and long, thick white hair, brushed a la Calhoun; a pair of silver spectacles and a high felt hat further set off the countenance, while the legs kept up their claim of eccentricity by encasing themselves in grey blankets, tied somewhat in a bandit fashion. The whole made up no less a person than Henry A. Wise, once Governor of the loyal state of Virginia, now Brigadier-General and prisoner of war. By his first wife he is Meade's brother-in-law, and had been sent for to see him. I think he is punished already enough: old, sick, impoverished, a prisoner, with nothing to live for, not even his son, who was killed at Roanoke Island, he stood there in his old, wet, grey blanket, glad to accept at our hands a pittance of biscuit and coffee, to save him and his Staff from starvation! While they too talked, I asked General Lee after his son “Roonie,”¹ who was about there somewhere. It was the “Last Ditch” indeed! He too is punished enough: living at this moment at Richmond, on the food doled out to him by our government, he gets his ration just like the poorest negro in the place! We left Lee, and kept on through the sad remnants of an army that has its place in history. It would have looked a mighty host, if the ghosts of all its soldiers that now sleep between Gettysburg and Lynchburg could have stood there in the lines, beside the living.

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¹ He was at Harvard with Lyman.

SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, p. 359-62