Greyback Diary: "We fight for General Lee."

Monday, April 3, 1865, west of Amelia Court House

We are as mixed a bag of soldiery as ever trod a road. Ever since our lines were breached yesterday, I have seen it all. Most are infantry and I recognize only a few as being of our regiment. I have not a clue who these other people are. In with us are artillery gunners, cavalrymen, not all with horses. There is militia, old men and some boys of tender years. Even the navy is here.

There is also a mixed bag of opinions. Some whom I have overheard, have said that our fortunes are in the assent now that we are free of fixed positions. Since we are now in the open country, our Lee has had his freedom of movement restored. We will rest and restore ourselves for a short while. Then, refreshed and ready, we will turn on the Yankees, march around them and give them another Chancellorsville. Would that Jackson were with us.

Lieutenant General Thomas J. Jackson.

Others feel that all that can be done, has been done. The best course of action to pursue would be to disband and return home. We have done our duty and need not feel ashamed of anything.

These are the two extremes of opinions in the ranks. We dare not let our officers hear what we say. A great many of us, perhaps a majority, feel that is useless to continue the fight for our country, the country that has not sustained its boys in the field. We fight for General Lee. He had taken good care of us and has led us, his boys, to many victories. We hope there is at least one more victory left. We will not fail him.

General Robert E. Lee

There is not a great amount of order to our march. A man goes along as far as he has strength for and then drops out beside the road. When he feels up to it, he gets up and comes along. I suspect some drop out and are either captured by Yankee cavalry or just go home.

General Hill is dead, we are told. He died facing the Yankees in a fight. Peace to his ashes.

Lieutenant General A. Powel Hill

While we were coming away from Sutherland Station, yesterday, we could see a great glow far in the distance in the direction of the capital. The Yankees would burn our hearts out.

Richmond burning.

We march in a certain direction until some courier says that the Yankees are down this road or that one. We then change direction, having no clue if the Yankees are anywhere hard by. We hear shooting pretty much all around us.

Lieutenant Rallings is missing and we think captured. Captain Bell now commands the regiment.

We crossed the Appomattox onto the north side with much difficulty. Had we been well fed, it would have been an easy affair. We were fighting our hunger and a current made swollen and swift by the rains. Along our route of march, we have seen burned wagons and artillerymen attacking their cannon wheels with axes. Nothing must be left for the Yankees.

McGowan's brigade is supposed to have crossed to the north side of the Appomattox at Goode's Bridge.

We have now halted for the night, if we may be left alone. Our mess sat around our campfire, trying to combine our meager rations for at least one meal today. Amongst all of us, our haversacks are empty. None of us has so much as a crumb. Tomorrow will be better. It cannot be worse.

I Send You These Few Lines.

Rallings is J. C. Rallings, the senior lieutenant of the company. He has disappeared. Rawlings vanishes from Confederate records and Union records do not list him as a prisoner.

Bell is John C. Bell. He joined the army in September, 1861 and worked his way up to the rank of captain of Company F. Now, as ranking officer, he commands the entire (what's left of it), 12th South Carolina.

One could perhaps follow the line of retreat by the sight of burning wagons, ambulances, wrecked artillery and cassions. The routes must have been littered with castaway equipment of all sorts.

The glow behind Tooms that everyone saw was the Confederate capital, Richmond, burning. Rooms has it wrong. Union troops did not burn Richmond. Items and facilities of military value to Union forces was burned and the fires grew beyond the abilities of the city fire department to control.

Petersburg fared little better. Although Petersburg did not burn like Richmond did, it had been shelled by Union artillery for months.

Union troops occupy Petersburg.

Once the Petersburg defenses are breached, neither Richmond nor Petersburg could be saved. On April 2, Lee sent a telegram to Richmond:

It is absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position tonight, or run the risk of
being cut off in the morning.

After sending word to Richmond that the city was doomed, Lee remarked to Armistead Long:

This is a bad business. Well, it has happened as I told them at Richmond it would. The
line has been stretched and it has broken.

Brigadier General Armistead Long.

On that day, President Jefferson Davis was attending services at St. Paul's Episcopalian Church. He read a telegram from General Lee stating that the Petersburg defenses would be abandoned. The President left the church, causing concern amongst the other parishioners who saw him leave.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, northwest corner, Main and Foushee Streets.

Word spread rapidly that the Yankees were coming. Panic set in with the populace who jammed every possible means of evacuation. On the military side, orders were implemented to destroy military material. The fires took off, unrestrained, gutting large sections of the downtown city area. The fires and the sight of troops evacuating the city fed the panic.