MILITARY: Sabre Strokes of the Pennsylvania Dragoons in the War of 1861-1865 - Chapter 18 Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/1pa/1picts/dornblaser/sabre-strokes.htm ________________________________________________ SABRE STROKES of the PENNSYLVANIA DRAGOONS in the WAR OF 1861-1865. INTERSPERSED WITH PERSONAL REMINISCENCES By T. F. DORNBLASER PENNSYLVANIA DRAGOONS 225 CHAPTER XVIII. SHOUTS AND TEARS. FROM the time we left Chickasaw Landing on the Tennessee, until our arrival at Macon, we were cut off from all communication with the north, and isolated from the rest of the Federal armies. We had no news from the seat of war, only as it came to us through the Confederate press, which was always perverted so as to keep up the courage of their dispirited troops. At Columbus, we learned through the Rebel papers that Lee's army had abandoned Richmond, and was moving to the support of Johnston, and with their combined forces they would crush Sherman. We lay at Macon one month, before railroad communication was opened with Nashville. But a few days after reaching Macon, Wilson was informed officially by couriers from General Thomas' headquarters, that "Lee had surrendered his army and himself to Grant on the 9th of April, 1865." Rumors to this effect had been in the air for a week, but they were too good to be trusted. For two weeks the wave of joy had been sweeping over the country from Maine to California; the loyal states vied with each other in chiming their 226 SABRE STROKES. bells, and raising their voices to the high notes of victory. The "good news" coming to us a fortnight later, was no less precious, when it once broke upon our hearts in all its glad reality. It was a lovely morning in May, when the booming of cannon announced the surrender of Johnston to Sherman, including all the armed forces east of the Mississippi. The cry went up from every part of the camp, "The war is over!" "Thank God! the cruel war is over!" The "boys" simply turned wild for one hour. They shouted, they leaped for joy. They tossed their hats in the air. The colored cooks danced a jig to the music of camp-kettles and frying pans. The air was full of canteens, tin cups, haversacks; and thick as snow-flakes with the army-cracker. Men of all creeds, and all temperaments, joined in the general jubilee. Methodists shouted, "Glory to God!" "Hallelujah!" Presbyterians looked on approvingly, and inwardly praised God for his eternal decree of victory to the Union cause. The natives of the Fatherland, remembering Luther's battle-hymn, said, "Gott sei dank!" "Varlich, ein feste Burg ist unser Gott!" Men of every creed, and of no creed, could join as never before or since, in singing the long meter doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." In the midst of these demonstrations of joy, the paroled prisoners of the South were returning to PENNSYLVANIA DRAGOONS. 227 their homes. Many of them were ragged and bare-footed. Some carried an arm in a sling, others limped from bullet wounds yet unhealed. This mournful procession was the funeral march of the "lost cause." In their weary journey these dejected, battle-worn veterans halted in our camps, rested peacefully in our tents, shared our coffee and hard-tack; and, seated around our camp-fires, they spoke freely of their blasted hopes and broken fortunes. They must return to their homes without honor and without money. Many of these brave men found their families in want, their homes devastated, their servants gone, and their "scrip" worthless. The cause for which they had fought so bravely was lost. To those who believed their cause to be just, this was the bitterest cup of all. In the hospital at Murfreesboro, we met a Confederate soldier, with a bullet-hole in his breast, letting the light of day to his very heart, and yet he declared with the solemn utterances of a dying man, "I'm dying for the right!" There were many brave men, honest men, sincere men, in the Confederate ranks, who believed firmly in the cause which they were defending. Bitter tears, scalding tears, were shed for the lost cause. The maimed soldiers of the Confederacy could not expect pension from a government which had no longer any existence. The widows and orphans left by the three hundred thousand who had fallen 228 SABRE STROKES. in the battle, could not obtain any redress from the late government at Richmond. You may be sure there was no ringing of bells in the south! There was no place for the doxology, except only to thank Providence that it was not any worse. The hymn which at this time expressed more fully perhaps than any other, the doleful sentiments of the southern heart, was that of Isaac Watts: "Plunged in a gulf of dark despair, We wretched sinners lay, Without one cheerful beam of hope, Or spark of glimm'ring day." The news of Lincoln's assassination was given to the army by piecemeal. "Lincoln wounded." "Lincoln shot by an actor." "Lincoln dying!" "Dead!" The guns were silenced, the flags were lowered, the whole country was moved to tears! The captain fell at the helm, just as the ship of State was entering the port of peace. The North wept for a fallen leader, who with steady hand and cheerful heart had brought them safely through the storm of rebellion. The South lamented the loss of a friend who knew no malice. The emancipated Israel of the South mourned bitterly for their deliverer - "Father Abraham." Tears! and only tears, for the Confederate soldier. There was no ray of hope, no sunny evangel, PENNSYLVANIA DRAGOONS. 229 to wipe away one bitter tear. The Union soldier had a shout for every tear! How strange was the ending! The conqueror and the conquered, sitting together like brothers around one camp-fire. The memory of a hundred battle-fields need not beget one feeling of malice or revenge toward a worthy foe. True soldiers met on the bloody field, not in anger, not to avenge themselves, but in sublime devotion to principle. The human heart is not capable of a purer, more exalted feeling than that which swells the breast of a soldier, as he stands before the cannon's mouth for the sake of principle. We have reason to believe that the future historian, in narrating the wonderful prosperity of our country, and the universal freedom exercised by all classes, without distinction of race or color, will yet convince the survivors of the Confederate armies that the achievement of their cherished hopes would have been a calamity, not only to the North, but also to the South; and that the children of the conquered will rise up and thank the armies of the Union for averting the wreck of disunion, and transmitting to posterity, "One country and one flag." May the "shouts" of prosperity of peace and of harmony continue until all "tears" are wiped away!