Chapter 17

The Final Battles

On January 1, 1865, Captain Mooney promoted John to the rank of corporal and used him from that point on as a scout and flag bearer.

A dreary winter changed into a pleasant spring. Few flowers bloomed in the flattened fields, which became ankle-deep, boot-sucking quagmires when it rained. John looked across the wide expanse between the lines and saw red earth torn by shells, rutted by wagons, and trampled by the feet of marching armies. He longed and prayed desperately for an end to the war.

On April 1 at 9:00 a.m., Grant ordered a general assault. Feelings were running high all up and down the Union lines. Confederate soldiers were refusing the orders of their officers. Small groups raised white flags and gave themselves up. Union soldiers were attacking without orders and were carrying Confederate positions.

That evening after a full day’s fighting and Confederate troops in retreat from positions they had held for months, John was as elated as any Union soldier. Instead of celebrating that night around the campfire, he visited with the chaplain of the 164th. He had visited with Father Gillen three times over the past three years. Tonight, he decided it was time to reload spiritually once again. The priest greeted John with a broad smile.

“Father Gillen, I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you have time for me. It seems like this war is crowding out anything good from my head. The only thing I hold onto is my faith in God.”

“John, you are fortunate. I’ve been seeing men who after three years have lost everything: the memory of their loved ones, faith in God, and whatever it is holds them together.”

“The bodies of my fallen friends keep crashing in on my sleep, Father. Their faces won’t go away. I can still pray the prayers my grandmother taught me, but they are nothing but empty words,” said John.

“At least you still make the effort to pray, John. You are still in touch with God. Many other soldiers in the 155th and 164th are living in a world without God and Jesus. They talk to me about shooting themselves or running carelessly before an assault.” He arose, took his breviary from a bedside table, and used a ribbon to open it.

“We Catholics don’t read the Bible as frequently as we should, but I know of no better way to restore our faith. The breviary, which every priest is obliged to pray daily, is mostly drawn from Sacred Scripture, much of it from the psalms.”

“I see where you are going, Father. Why don’t you read one of the psalms? And please, read it slowly or my mind won’t take it in.”

Father Gillen read a psalm from the evening hour of prayer of the breviary, Vespers, and then explained what the psalmist was saying.

John leaned back in his chair, shut his eyes, and relaxed. Afterward, he did something he had never done. John prayed in his own words, letting the priest continue the prayer whenever he grew silent. When both men ran out of words, they were content to remain several minutes without saying anything. They finished by praying for all those on both sides who had lost life and limb in the war.

“Father, now I’d like to confess, if I may.”

“Of course, John,” The priest took a stole from the bedside table, draped it over his shoulders, and said, “May God give you the grace to make a good confession, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

For the first night in months, John slept soundly until reveille the next morning. Near sun-up, he gathered with the other noncommissioned officers outside a Sibley tent where the officers of the Corps were to meet their new commander, Major General Francis Barlow. The weather was warm and clear. Everyone was in high spirits. They passed the time competing with one another over who had had the best officers over the last three years. They recalled the many officers killed, seriously wounded, or captured. John commented that he had changed his mind about his commanding officers. Other than one, they had all turned out to be valiant leaders.

As they talked, in rode General Barlow, only thirty and already a grizzled veteran of every battle fought by the Army of the Potomac. Twice wounded at Antietam and again at Gettysburg, his health betrayed him at times, but he drove himself like no other general the men knew. Beneath his officer’s frock coat, he wore a woodsman’s plaid hunting blouse. His boyish face was clean-shaven, unlike other generals and their adjutants, who wore carefully groomed beards. He stopped outside his tent and addressed the men briefly in a low voice that had them leaning forward. After he spoke, Mooney turned to the officers and bellowed loud enough that Barlow heard him, “That man is one of us. He’ll lead us to victory.”

In rode one of Grant’s adjutants with orders from their commander. Barlow wasted no time. He ordered an attack of the whole Corps at Hatcher’s Run and the Boydton Plank Road for 10:00 a.m. After a short fight, the 155th and 164th overran the positions of North Carolina and Alabama regiments and captured a rebel battery and three cannons.

John sat atop a huge, captured parrot gun, gazing upon the happiest scene of his life: Confederate officers losing control of their ranks, their soldiers surrendering or fleeing in disarray. More Confederate units retreated, and holding the city became untenable. At midnight, Lee called for the city to be evacuated.

Within a few hours, John sat once again on a captured rebel cannon and watched long lines of blue-clad troops marching smartly into Petersburg and smoke pouring from warehouses and mansions. Men and women jammed the streets, yelling and shouting, drinking and praying, cursing at the soldiers and wringing their hands in despair.

Petersburg had finally fallen after a ten-month siege. The mayor formally surrendered his city the next morning. That evening, Richmond fell, eliciting wild celebrations across the Union lines.

The 155th was held in reserve until April 7 and the Battle of Sailor’s Creek, which was actually three battles occurring simultaneously on the north and south roads of Sailor’s Creek Valley and at a battle line north and west of two high bridges over the creek. Rapidly pursuing and taking prisoner of hundreds of Gordon’s men, the Corcoran Legion attacked the high bridge to Farmville on the north road. Fleeing rebels had torched it. Twenty men formed a bucket brigade and doused the flames with water from the creek.

Carrying the company flag, John led a squad to the creek, where they wet blouses and filled canteens. Companies I and K then charged confidently across the smoldering bridge. A few Confederate soldiers delayed 100 yards down the road to fire on the leaders, but they did not tarry long as 1,600 of the late General Corcoran’s Legion poured through the smoke and rushed onward. Alongside the bridge, Union engineers quickly cobbled a pontoon bridge and more federal troops and artillery crossed with cavalry.

Most Southern troops wisely surrendered.

John acquitted himself that day just as he had throughout the war. He ran to protected positions, held the flag aloft, and waved the company on. Company I took not a single fatal casualty in the last week of the war.

The three battles of Sailor’s Creek cost Lee twenty percent of his army, 7,700 casualties in all. Eight Confederate generals were captured, including Lee’s oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.

On Saturday, April 9, Lee, blocked by four Negro regiments and surrounded by the Army of the Potomac, sent a major under white flag to tell Grant he would accept the terms of surrender offered on the 7th. He had hoped to break through a Union line and link up with General Joe Johnston’s army in North Carolina.

By early afternoon, thousands of Union soldiers encamped across the small village of Appomattox, awaiting their generals. Occasional shots rang out in the distance as a few die-hard Southern soldiers refused to accept the inevitable and paid with wounds or worse. The Civil War in Virginia was over. The 155th sat only yards away from the McLean House, where the surrender was to take place.

John sensed this was a privileged moment in American history, and he was there to take it in. He had never seen General Lee, but had felt his presence and admired the way he led his armies to victory, often against heavy odds. Lee was a superior general in John’s mind, unequalled by anyone on the Union side, even Grant.

Suddenly, soldiers were standing, crowding the roadway, hoping to get a glimpse of this larger-than-life nemesis in grey. John craned his head. He felt a hand on his shoulder from the soldier next to him, leaning left to get a better view. Every eye stared forward.

There he was! General Lee, dressed in a splendid new uniform, bearing a handsome ceremonial sword, and accompanied by three aides. Erect in the saddle, he carefully guided his faithful mount, Traveler, through parted masses of blue. He dismounted and entered the McLean House. A half hour later at about 1:30 p.m., Grant, dressed in an old mud-splattered uniform and without his sword, rode in with three generals and his personal staff of over a half dozen.

At 3:00 p.m., Lee emerged, nodded respectfully to the Union soldiers crowded around the McLean House, and rode off with poise and grace.

Minutes later, Union soldiers began to fire into the air in celebration of their great victory. Grant ran out of the house and shouted orders that out of respect to the brave men of the Confederacy, living and dead, there was to be no show of triumph.

John admired the class and character of his supreme commander. Like Grant, he felt no triumph. He had witnessed many of his friends die or be maimed for life. He had also walked across hundreds of dead and wounded Confederates, some of whom no doubt he had shot himself. These images haunted his sleep and would, he thought, for the rest of his life.

On April 12, around their evening campfire with a New York newspaper in hand, John sat reading what went on inside the McLean House to members of his squad. Ely Parker, a full-blooded Seneca Indian from the Tonawanda Reservation near Niagara Falls and Grant’s indispensable adjutant, had prepared the terms of surrender. When the book was written, Grant showed it to Lee, who read it and remarked that Grant’s stipulation that Confederate officers could keep their side arms, horses, and baggage would have a very happy effect on the Southern army. He pointed out that Confederate soldiers often brought their own animals to war. Grant reflected for a moment on the need these men would have for their horses and mules once home and adjusted the terms to include them as well.