Newberry, S. C. ,
May 2, 1865.
It was well you left Petersburg when you did, for the very
next day (April 2) our extreme right was attacked, and, as our line was very
thin, it was easily broken. Billie was digging a rifle pit when some Yankees
charged it and captured all who were at work on it, and he is now a prisoner.
During the day a few prisoners were brought back, and among
them was a smoke-begrimed captain with gray hair. I invited him into my tent
and gave him something to eat. He had been in some of the hardest fighting of
the war, and he said to me: "You see these white hairs. When I came into
the army they were all coal black." As night came on many wounded were
brought back to some huts lately occupied by soldiers, but now used by us as a
hospital. Among them was Mose Cappocks, and I amputated his thumb. General Hill
was killed.
The next day we began to leave, and there was continuous
fighting. Our march soon developed into a disastrous retreat, and we were
pushed to the extreme every hour of it for eight days. At Sailors Creek we were
compelled to abandon our wagons, and they were burned. In one of them I had a
new case of the finest surgical instruments. They had recently run the blockade
and I hated to see them destroyed. General Kershaw and his young son were
captured here. I saw some Yankee spies in gray uniforms marched along with us
under guard. They had been captured in our lines, but the surrender occurring
so soon afterwards saved them from being hung.
Our retreat was most trying, and when we reached Appomattox
on the morning of the 9th General Gordon had a fight and captured a battery.
Appomattox is in a basin with high hills on all sides. The Yankees seemed to
have surrounded us, and their blue lines, with white flags here and there, came
moving in slowly and silently. There was a report in the early morning that we
had surrendered, and this made us think it might be true.
I heard some of our men yelling, and saw General Lee and his
staff riding towards us, and as he stopped to dismount the men crowded around
him to shake his hand and every man was shedding tears. Sad as was the
sight, everyone felt relieved that it was all over.
The Yankees camped on the hills, and men from both armies
went back and forth on apparently friendly terms. Their wagons, mules, harness
and entire equipment was the very best and everything was in perfect condition
throughout. All of their wagon covers were white and new. Ours made a sorry
spectacle in comparison. I unhitched a little mule from an ambulance, and that
afternoon Colonel Hunt, Lieutenant-Colonel Lester, Captain Copeland and I
started together for South Carolina.
We had one little fly tent under which we slept at night.
Bill Byers, who was mounted on a tall, gaunt horse, joined us before we reached
the Catawba River. Copeland's horse gave out and he continued with us on foot.
The river was swift and deep at Island Ford, and in crossing only the face and
ears of my little mule remained above the surface. We found a farm house near
by, where we stood before a blazing fire to dry. The people were very kind to
us and gave us the best they had to eat, but our clothes were too dirty and
vermin-infested for us to sleep in their houses, so we slept in the barns.
At one house where we stopped and asked for something to eat
the man's wife was in a pitiful condition with cancer, but was without medicine
to alleviate her suffering. I happened to have a bottle of morphine in my
haversack, which I gave her and which was enough to last her for the short time
she could live.
We were three weeks on the way, and when I reached my
father's home nobody was expecting me. I was completely exhausted, but after
getting on some clean, whole clothes and sleeping in a bed once more I felt
greatly refreshed. Father has given me a good horse in exchange for my little
mule, and I hope to be rested enough to leave here day after to-morrow and go
through the county in a buggy for you.
SOURCE: Dr. Spencer G. Welch, A
Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 117-20