The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • 48

THE INDIANAPOLIS SUNDAY STAR MAY 80 1903 ra Their Homes and to Locate Their Loved Ones breaking Struggl influence tor Good After the War followed the surrender of Gen Lee disbanding soldiers cur MAKING THEIR WAY HOMEWARD "In Many Places the News of the Surrender Had Not Been Heard and the Worn Out Soldiers Must Needs Rehearse It Again look of these men the bone business for on There 1 i allroad no or he of (Cohtlnbed bn Next Page) the one the disbandment according to down by their victors It done now gathering up bones darkies were putting preparing the ground had and have a care a played out their home were visit Thev hod Mr Talla health It ivid Portrayal of a Phase of the ar Seldom surar Talia Surrender ollowed by Wild Rumors of Last Stand in Texas Stragglers Everywhere Making Their Way Back Home on oot the nearest were in a lion 'They The sup ss of Union Soldiers to Thousands of All out a and shrubbery Their ports had been long blockaded their shipping was destroyed There no postal system and their money useless except as it could be disposed was cleaned of fences of trees of land marks of every description At Manassas a town of forty or fifty houses before the war there stood now forty or fifty chim neys rom the Rappahannock to Rich mond all eastern Virginia was a great and desolate battle field its only crop rusty canteens and moldy bread knap sacks and exploded shells and thick as the grass in spring minle balls Rich mond after the havoc of a long siege he came He vanned and He was one of' sun with their trowels In awkward fashion at unaccustomed tasks cov anfl plaster they were the men had ordeal disband in this hap and he rather Auld: you Well flown mv face enrry and turned them out to gross for grass was one thing wo did have The Whole Th cir Late The Awful Desolation of tl ston when ho saw surrender was i Itable had secured money to pay Ills and officers $1 apiece Leo's mon received nothing Penniless as they were nothing walking had been swept by fire Across South Carolina Georgia and Alabama lay the path of devastation wrought by Sherman's army In the streets of Charleston the grass was growing At Columbia there was block upon block of dwellings shops and institutions of which nothing was left but jagged brick walls and slender melancholy chim neys Atlanta Chattanooga Vicksburg Nashville had been riddled by shell and started across Before he had The I as and for dis had turned topsy turvy by hostile occupation or four years only Irregular crops had been put In and though there was cotton left in the country there was no way for its owners to secure It or dispose of it Most of the great manufactories of the South were destroyed or shut down Not only was fully two thirds of al! property destroyed and all Industries at a standstill but those fundamental con trivances by which property Is made pro ductive and put Into circulation were de stroyed Their labor system was wiped out by the emancipation of the slaves The railroads were gone tracks torn up bridges destroyed engines and cars worn out and was was of to cilriosity hunters It was through this desolation that the disbanding confederates made their was te their homes All of those who lived in the track of the armies were haunted not only by the fear of finding their homes destroyed but finding their families scat tered It had been necessary for women and children all over eastern and north ern Virginia to fly from the country Sherman had driven the entire population from Atlanta when he left the city for his march to the sea not wishing to feed and guard them as would have been nec essary Everywhere the people had scat tered at the coming of the soldiers hun dreds going to Texas a few to Europe many to Canada thousands Into the por tions of the states outside of the track of battle The returning soldiers fre quently knew little or nothing of where their loved ones had gone and had idea of how they would reach them than the following actual experl related to the writer: April 1365 Lawrence Taliaferro for four years had been with Lee's Gen Lee was surrendering them Grant Had he asked them to not be cleared Nothing is finer than the way In which the men of the highest breeding and edu cation went to pulling down the walls clearing brick laying foundations John Wise tn his entertaining volume "The End of an says of the laborers found filling the streets of Richmond the month after the surrender: of them I knew well men as good social position ns my own sol diers como home and resolved not to be Idle but to work for an honest living In any way In which they could make It Sitting In the Jabbing away their new and cred with dust CONEDERATE ARMY A GGEAT ME MOB! AL DAV ACT STOHY BY IDA TARBELL of daylight old and hung over their shoulders seeking the nearest mute home they worn and anxious The worst of the who had begun to hazard way was not getting home it was what they found when they got there The inventoiy of destruction in the South by the war is appalling rom the Poto mac to the Rappahannock the country OR a week the a' my of northern Virginia had not whether they mnk tn the mountains and bayous nr started mute to their homes curious and perplexing were literally men without a rnuntry government which had enlisted and ported them was dead its officials prisoners its mnstlt utlon void its rency worthless At the mil set a dread ful practical question faced them How they going to get to their former homes? They had no money Whatever funds their generals had been able to get hold of had been divided among them but It was the merest plll riicp Jrhn but or working their way would have said that man actually brought the humblest tasks Richmond for example The town such condition that business could carried on Its ruins had to be away and the streets rebuilt to Rebuild Homes and Business Le same bright cheerful fellows who had learned to labor In that state of life to which it had pleased God to call them just as thev hud been willing followers In the sunshine and in storm of their be loved Lee At night with their wages in their pockets they would go home change their clothing take aj bathand associate with their families not at all ashamed of their labors but making a joke of their newly discovered method of earning a Many of these people had property to be sure but it was impossible then to realize on it even if they had wished to sacrifice it nobody being willing to buy property which might be liable later to confiscation There were hundreds too who owned valuable jewels plate pic tures or furniture which they would have disposed of if they had been able One of the most pat hetic editorials in the early numbers of the Richmond Whig is one headed Pawnbroker explaining the need there was of such a dealer in the town In country a livelihood was even more uncertain than in the towns Perhaps nothing could illustrate better the straits to which the planters put ence In who army returned to his home on the north side of the Rappahannock perhaps twelve miles from redericksburg He was 25 years of age When he went Into the war his father owned a farm of several hundred acres with handsome buildings fine stock and 150 negroes Lawrence Taliaferro had always lived the life of a son of a country gentleman Returning to redericksburg penniless he crossed the river and country to his old home gone a mile he had lost his wray country which he had once known well as one knows the different halls rooms of his own home was like i a 1 eign field to him The forests had i appeared and where once there been a single road there were now twen ty The army of the Potomac of over 100000 men had occupied this place al I most continuously from November 1862 I until May 1863 They had cut every tree and sapling for miles in every direction Ito get fuel to burn logs for their 'huts and corduroy for their roads to drop out? sir" you know that out four mules and turned them over to They were pretty thin and' tired apologized for them and think you can get them sir the tours just ran 1 said: they walk took them home quickly as possible and those who were unwilling tn give up fighting The former was by far (hr larger class but both THEIR NATIVE TOWN I "At Columbia There Was Block Upon Block of Dwellings Shops and Insltutlons of Which Nothing Was Left But rick Walls and Melancholy Once back in their homes the disband ing soldiers were met by the long series of difficult questions incident to the con dition of the country the first and most Imperative of which was usually how to get bread for the coming year As rule there was nothing for them to do but take hold of Take was mily a fused their compliance and decamped the word of surrender thus im'Tromoniom 1y been fighting retreating ond corn men pursued by 125 090 They had their best but on April 9 they worn a all but 28000 of their number had been captured hilled or scat tered and on all sides they were sur rounded by the federate It was not their hunger or weariness which occupied their thoughts at this moment however It was the dismal fact that off there a little distance their com mander to Gen cut their way out of the circle which held them battered and starved as they were they would have tried to do it hut to sub mit to surrender that was harder Yet when a few hours later the terms of the surrender arranged the general grave and pale rode the length of their lines they crowded about him as he went their eyes wet with tears their voices choked with sobs struggling to kiss his hands even to touch his horse to show In some way that bitter as their hearts love Problem of Making a Living Bravely aced by all Classes Spreading southward the news on the 12th readied Joe Johnston whose army was in North Carolina facing that of Sherman Johnston knew only too well what Lee's surrender meant for him and on the 13th asked Sherman for a sus pension of active operations Two weeks later he surrendered his entire force The effect of the news was the same on the only other Confederate army east of the Mississippi that of Dick Taylor which on May 4 surrendered' to Gen Canby The principal Confederate force west of the Mississippi was stationed in Texas hu leitgi a pn ucjvnu ry line at that date only penetrated the state and were all blockaded so that it April before the news came to came with it rumors that if Hie federate hnd not wisely and Justly come to their relief Gen Grant Inaugu rated this movement by allowing Lee's men to keep their horses He also allowed his own quartermaster to turn over to the confederates whatever horses and mules they could spare army fare a little better for not only were they given their animals but it was ar ranged that those who lived beyond the Mississippi should have transportation by water to some Southern port The same arrangements were mnde for army With the signing of thp paroles all or ganization ceased and the men were ex pected to disperse Those who had horses and In twos and threes Sometimes a body of men whose homes were far away were kept together and marched under federal direction to a conventient point and a limited amount of transportation furnished to them which would bring them within easier distance of their jour ney's end Often and often mere were no horses or mules no transportation and the men were obliged to shift for them selves with the result that thousands straggled across country afoot often for hundreds of miles trusting to the hos pitality of the people for food "I am daily touched to the wrote a correspondent of the New York Tribune in May seeing these poor homesick boys and exhausted men wandering about in threadbare uniforms with scanty outfits of slender haversack and blanket roll But whether Tkoukt of the North The Pathetic Struggles of the Horseless and Provisionless Soldiers to Reach were there was nothing in thein bnt and honor for him The next day these men who fought from Bull Run to Petersburg won as brilliant victories as history re cords marched up stacked their muskets signed a printed form of parole not to take arms again against the United States and that alone In their pockets to face the world with scattered north and south east and west The news of Lee's surrender spread slowly but steadily through the Confed eracy By the evening of the 10th It had reached a force of 7000 or 8000 men near Christianburg At first the officers tried to conceal it from the men but' it could not be hushed "Before we had concluded' our brief writes Col Duke one of the staff knew from the hum and stir in the anxious dark browed crowds nearest us from excitement which soon grew almost to tumult that the terrible I mounted them tidings had got abroad That night no or half dozens rode away man slept Strange As the declaration may sound now there was not one of the six or seven thousand then gathered at Christianburg who had entertained the sightest thought that such an event could happen and doubtless that feeling per vaded the ranks of the Confederacy During all the night officers and men were congregated In groups and crowds discussing the hews Great fires were lighted every group had its orators who succeeding each other spoke continu ously Every conceivable suggestion was offered Some advocated a guerrilla war far4 some proposed marching to the trans Misslssippi and thence to Mexico the more practical and reasonable of course proposed that an effort to join Gen Johnston should immediately be made I inds Only Shell of House I and Parents in Poverty When Lawrence Taliaferro attempted I to get to his old home he was in a coun I try of which he knew nothing His way lost he could only wander from one new I road to another until at last upon an unfamiliar hut an old darkv name nut his former slaves and the man I conducted him to his old home houses and fences had disappeared I CIC tho cVmdn ImAe LV There was only the shell of the house He found his father and sister living: there Two of the old servants had re mained refusing to leave then' master Upon Inquiry he found that all that was left of the farm property was one old mule and a much patched harness few days after his return an older romer came back from Lee's army and brought with him a worn out horse Then began the struggle for daily bread The two young men patched up the harness for the mule and horse borrowed an old plow and began to prepare the ground tor a garden They had not been at home many daya wnen they learned that a couple of men were in redericksburg buying hones Now for miles around redericksburg the neids were thick with the bones of worn out mules and horses which had died during that long period when the country was occupied by Northern and Southern troons As soon as the Taliaferrns lie covered that those bones were salable they borrowed from a friend the rem nant of wagon and started out to pick them up As the result of two days work they found they had 2000 pound: which they sold for 2 cents a pound "I thought my fortune was macle when I got that said Mr Taliaferro rom that time on they put in every hour while the two in the garden for corn Thev carried a month when they made a new discov ery Quantities of old iron were lying on the fields This thev found was sal able xand accordingly they went into the junk business They were much crippled In their work bv the fact that their team was so poor that not more than halt a day's work could possibly be gotten out of it This had been going on about a month when a great piece of good fortune fell to them A wing of the federal army in marching north passed near and one night the Tallaferros ed by" two Union officers come they said to see if old ferro was living and In good seems that at the time the Union army had been encamped on and around his plantation the old gentleman had become a great favorite with the officers The visitors were invited In and the Tallaferros did their best to get them a good supper Ths men were very much pleased with their entertainment and when they went home Insisted that the boys should go over to the army with their wagon the next day and return their visit This thev did and when thev started to go home they found that tha wagon had been filled with coffee bacon etc said Mr ferro last six months" And not only this: one of the went to thoquarcrmaster and said: "See here aren't you turning loose every day jaded mules which can't keep up with the army? Haven't you now three four which you know you will soon have If so give them to these Mr Taliaferro "do harbors late in A Texas President Davis and his Cabinet and the armies of Johnston and Taylor were on for J1 tn A I zn 1V twn nn Af I eci orlr 1 A UCil Wd till? Ciail0iUlDSi9Clipp IV gion and that thers a new stand was to be taken and a new country opened On this i timer such hopes were built that thcie was of surrender Mass meetings of citizens and soldiers wore held all over the state and resolutions of i A 'resistance adopted But swift upon the report that Johns ton and Taylor and Davis had escaped came reports of their surender As soon 4 as news was confirmed In Texas fnllriwnd In tha nrmv what war Innu ip as the It was a wlde ttu turn iicuir ir iv ei uipiug tn! i Bcldiei with whatever army property could get hc ir hands on Officers ilcened In the morning to find tbit where they had had three companies at night they bad one now In squads or by twos the soldiers started for I ipme without aS much as a word of fare It was a complete conviction that '9 the game was up and they must shil't for 'ainemseives wmcii nan iaxcn noia or me Texas jimy and to which only a inlnorlty a were sufficiently superior to remain until their officers could give them proper dis charge papers i Thus In tlx weeks an army scattered over a country nearly 2000 miles in length and 1000 la width on army which had conducted a brave resistance for four jeans had crumbled Into Its original units a The great bulk of this army took the first step In their the rules laid Ep 4 ''T nv DISBAND 11 jJKttnr i i THE I I I 1 Hf A BL I ff In If Bp 7 i i I IML 3 KW 1 fl 1 urn IB Wl I MA fll 1 Al 4H I a i I II lit i i I in Bd I fl I I IliH Illi Mi 'H an ri officers BB ii I rwa aa ns sfl Bb aa' A ft wB 1) 11 1 I ii kr III 1 I BBBSBIoMBMBBflMflBBMMBP es Great WBIHP JSQBBflAG frjaKu WBBtcBf hf PM JMBsKw The men who ic ft 1 rjrWSMk AgaMpaMI ore of two lassos i VUHV lose who were sick of llw whole hnsl ywi yM 11 Mm ers and simply wanted io get home is WpWRB flflflflilK I i4 JlrBBBIr In ZB'' Jr liMflBBlw' 7A 7 'P pt 7 X4flEBB ire: A 7 ''I''' a bMK' l'7aB" P' flB'" tPP" JflhP wMKOMB' 7 4 1 7 a i dTlWKEs gMMMMWMwwBMMwNwBCTMMgMIWMiaftyyis 1 4 'T A 1 'X 'Tv rivv 7 7' ut vp i A I 1 'u S'' '0 a Ai s' A s''a 1 1 A 1' A Jf A A I i iT 5 7 'T 'a? 1 I Sy it A TT 77 7 J1 4 A AA ''e I.