Breckinridge, Lee, Johnston, and the end of the War.

   When the surrender of the two principal Confederate armies is discussed, those conversations focus on two sets of interactions: Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant at Appomattox and Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place. Hovering around the periphery of those discussions is John C. Breckinridge. In the final days, he counselled both Lee and Johnston.

   John C. Breckinridge kind of slips through the cracks of history. While there are scores of biographies on Lee and Johnston, there are only three on Breckinridge. Born in Kentucky, he graduated from Transylvania University, practiced law, and served as an officer in the 3^rd Kentucky Volunteers during the war with Mexico. Breckinridge served two terms as a Kentucky legislator, two terms in the U.S. House, as Vice President of the United States under President James Buchanan, and was serving in the U.S. Senate after his term as Vice President expired. Described as not being a “proponent of secession or of extreme state rights views,” he did run against the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket as a Democrat in 1860.[1]

   Breckinridge might just be the most widely-traveled of Confederate generals. Commissioned as brigadier general in November 1861, he saw service in Kentucky, fought at Shiloh, was promoted to major general in April 1862, was in Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, Port Hudson, and at Murfreesboro. In 1863, he led a division at Jackson, Chickamauga, and a corps at Chattanooga. Breckinridge then moved east, leading the Confederate forces at New Market in May 1864, Cold Harbor, and then back to the Shenandoah Valley to defend it against attacks by Federals, eventually leading a corps under Early’s command during the march on Washington, D.C. In January 1865, Breckinridge became the sixth and last Confederate Secretary of War.

Breckinridge, Lee, and Johnston. (LOC)

   Following the breakthrough of Confederate lines below Petersburg on the morning of April 2, 1865, Richmond was abandoned. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet boarded the last train out of Richmond that night, leaving the city a blaze. Breckinridge was not with the group. He rode out of the city early on the morning of April 3. Breckinridge took command of a wagon train moving toward Amelia Court House, having at least one brush with Federal cavalry. In Farmville on the night of April 6 or morning of April 7, Breckinridge found Lee and discussed events, with Lee wishing Breckinridge to deliver a message to President Davis.[2]

   While it is not known what all they discussed, Breckinridge does write Davis on April 8. Amelia Court House was occupied by the Federals on April 5; some 800 Federals had been captured near Rice’s Station on April 6; serious Confederate losses had been sustained-- “High Bridge and other points.” It was Lee’s plan to try and get to North Carolina, Breckinridge wrote. He then outlines the disposition of a few other Confederate commands, like Lomax and Echols. “The straggling has been great, and the situation is not favorable,” Breckinridge concluded. Was surrender something that the two had discussed?[3]

   Breckinridge rode toward the south, escaping Federal troops encircling Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee surrendered on April 9 at Appomattox Court House. On April 11, the day after Davis moved south to North Carolina, Breckinridge arrived in Danville. He set out the following day and reached Davis, meeting with the president at the home of John Wood. It was Breckinridge that brought the official word of Lee’s surrender. That night, Breckinridge met with Joseph E. Johnston.[4]

   According to Johnston, it was his opinion, along with that of P.G.T. Beauregard, that the “Southern Confederacy was overthrown.” Johnston told Breckinridge this and believed that it was Davis’s responsibility to exercise this “power . . . without more delay.” Breckinridge promised to give Johnston the floor to express this view. Johnston was given the opportunity and told the president “that under such circumstances it would be the greatest of human crimes for us to attempt to continue the war.” Davis asked for the views of his cabinet, with Breckinridge, Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, and John H. Reagan, Postmaster General, concurring. Only Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin held out hope. Davis agreed to allow Johnston to begin talks with Sherman.[5]

   Davis, with the Confederate cabinet, including Breckinridge, set out from Greensboro, heading to Charlotte, on April 15. Breckinridge was with Davis, and, on the following day, learned that Johnston and Sherman had opened talks. Johnston and Sherman began meeting at the Bennett Farm near Durham, and Johnston wanted Breckinridge to help with the negotiations. It was Johnston’s plan (and Davis’s) that the civil departments be surrendered as well. Not reaching a conclusion at the end of the first day, Johnston requested that Breckinridge join him. Breckinridge arrived, along with Reagan, and joined Johnston in drafting a surrender proposal. When Johnston returned to the Bennett Farm, Breckinridge was also there, and it was Johnston’s idea that Breckinridge join the negotiations. Sherman demurred. Breckinridge was one of those civil officials. Johnston reminded Sherman that Breckinridge was also a major general in the Confederate army, and Breckinridge joined in the debate. Eventually, terms were reached on April 18 and sent to various presidents.[6]

   While standing in the yard of the Bennett farm, waiting for copies of the documents to be made, Sherman took Breckinridge aide. Sherman told Breckinridge that “he had better get away, as the feeling of our people, who had as such announced Mr. Lincoln,  of Illinois, duly and properly elected the President of the United States, and yet that he afterward openly rebelled and taken up arms against the Government. He answered me that he surely would give us no more trouble, and intimated that he would speedily leave the country forever.”[7] Of course, Breckinridge would leave the country, heading to Cuba first, then Great Britian and Canada, before a tour through Europe. Upon being assured that he was covered under President Andrew Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation of December 1868, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky. He died in Kentucky in 1875.

   Breckinridge’s council with Joseph E. Johnston is well documented. While what Breckinridge and Lee discussed in Farmville on April 7 is seemingly lost to history, the pair had met frequently after Breckinridge assumed the office of Secretary of War, including a three-day stint after Breckinridge failed to get the Confederate senate to pass a resolution demanding Davis open negotiations with Lincoln. Historian William C. Davis, in an essay on the roles of Breckinridge, Lee, and John A. Campbell, believes that, at that Farmville meeting,  Breckinridge and Lee possibly outlined what Lee could do if he was cornered and forced to surrender.[8]  

 

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[1] Davis, The Confederate General, 1:127.

[2] Knight, From Arlington to Appomattox, 494; Davis, Breckinridge, 507.

[3] OR, Vol. 46, pt. 3, 1389.

[4] Davis, Breckinridge, 509.

[5] Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 397-99.

[6] Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 400-405.

[7] Sherman, Personal memoirs, 2:353-54.

[8] Davis, “Lee, Breckinridge, and Campbell,” in Janney, Petersburg to Appomattox, 155.

Surrendered, Smuggled, or Severed? The Battle Flags of the ANV and the AOT at Appomattox and the Bennett Place.

37th Alabama Infantry

   Back in January/February 1987, an article appeared in Confederate Veteran magazine about the flag of the 37^th Alabama Infantry. As the story goes, that flag escaped surrender twice. After the regiment was surrendered at Vicksburg, the flag was secreted away, folded up in the saddle blanket of Col. James F. Dowdell’s horse. Then after the surrender of the regiment at Greensboro, the flag was “smuggled out of Greensboro” by a Captain Johnson. The flag remained in various families until it was donated to Auburn University and is today in the Alabama Room at Auburn.[1]

   The surrender terms worked out between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, stipulated that “arms, artillery, and public property” were to be stacked and turned over to an officer designated by Grant. Likewise, the final terms worked out between Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place on April 26, 1865, specified once again that  “public property” had to be turned over to an ordinance offer of the United States army. Since flags were issued by the government, they would be considered public property. But like the story above regarding the flag of the 37^th Alabama, not all flags were surrendered. Some were, but others were secreted away, while others were destroyed by Confederate soldiers.

61st Virginia Infantry 

   Federal General John Gibbon wrote on April 13, 1865, that 71 Confederate flags were surrendered at Appomattox.[2] Most of the descriptions of the surrender of flags come from the Federals. One Federal wrote that the Confederates seemed to hate to give up their flags more than anything else. Many kissed the flags with tears in their eyes.[3] Federal General Joshua L. Chamberlain, supervising the stacking of arms, wrote that “Then, slowly and with a reluctance that was appealingly pathetic, the torn and tattered battleflags were either leaned against the stacks or laid on the ground.”[4] However, one North Carolinian wrote that the flags were placed on the stacks, not on the ground.[5] Among those surrendered include the flags of the those of the 5^th, 48^th, and 60^th Alabama Infantry regiments; the 13^th, 15^th, and 28^th North Carolina regiments, and the 61^st Virginia Infantry. A few Army of Northern Virginia flags were secreted away. Ensign Emanuel Rudisill, 16^th North Carolina State Troops, sewed his regiment’s silk battle flag inside the lining of his coat and brought it home.[6] Likewise the flags of the 2^nd South Carolina Infantry, 12^th South Carolina Infantry, 38^th North Carolina Troops, and 25^th North Carolina Troops were not surrendered and were brought home. The flag of the 14^th South Carolina Infantry was concealed under a rock before the surrender, and was later retrieved.[7] A few flags, like the headquarters flag of Robert E. Lee, and the flags of the 23^rd and 24^th Virginia Regiments, were not surrendered or brought home, intact. Instead, they were cut up and the pieces distributed among the paroled soldiers.

It was a different scenario with the Army of Tennessee. Instead of being boxed in like the Army of Northern Virginia, the various Confederate regiments in North Carolina were spread out, from Greensboro to High Point to Salisbury, even Charlotte. There were no formal surrender ceremonies. Instead, artillery was parked and some regiments stacked some of their arms, although Confederates were allowed to keep some of their weapons. Very few flags were surrendered. A report from the New York Herald noted that “We have got very few battle flags or horses.”[8] Many of the Army of Tennessee soldiers concealed their flags to take home. The third bunting issue Army of Northern Virginia flag of the 26^th Alabama Infantry (the regiment served in both the ANV and the AOT) was wrapped around the body servant of Dr. Hayes, the brigade surgeon, and brought back to Alabama.[9]

3rd Tennessee Infantry

The flag of the 49^th Tennessee was concealed on the person Robert Y. Johnson, only to be forcibly taken by Federals when the group reached Lenoir City, Tennessee.[10] Other flags that were concealed and brought home include those of the 3^rd, 7^th, 10^th, 12^th, 16^th, and 24^th South Carolina Infantry, 20^th, 33^rd, 34^th, 36^th, and 40^th Alabama Infantry; 8^th and 17^th North Carolina Troops; 3^rd, 4^th, 6/9^th, 11^th, 13^th, 18^th/26^th, 24^th, 32^nd, and 49^th Tennessee Infantry regiments; 7^th Florida Infantry; 9^th Arkansas Infantry; and 1^st and 42^nd Georgia Infantry regiments. Some flags, such as those of the 7^th and 58^th North Carolina Troops, 1^st Tennessee, and 7^th South Carolina Battalion, were cut up and the pieces distributed to the remaining members. A member of the 2^nd Tennessee Cavalry recalled cutting their flag up into 160 pieces.[11] A member of the 47^th Georgia recalled cutting up their flag,  concealing the pieces in a saddle blanket and setting off to the Trans-Mississippi department.[12] Except for the flag of the 26^th Tennessee Infantry, it is not clear if any other flags were surrendered by the Army of Tennessee, and this banner could have been captured at the battle of Bentonville.[13]

This post just barely scratches the surface of Confederate battle flags and the last month of the war. Unless it is hidden away at the National Archives, there does not seem to be a list of Confederate flags that were captured, destroyed, surrendered, or secreted home through the months of April and May 1865. What a project! 

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[1] Golden, “The 37^th Alabama Flag,” Confederate Veteran (January-February 1987): 24-25.

[2] Official Records, 46, pt.3, 734.

[3] Cauble, The Surrender Proceedings, 95-96.

[4] Chamberlain, “Last Salute,” 362.

[5] Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, 3:77.

[6] Dedmondt, The Flags of Civil War North Carolina, 100.

[7] Dedmondt, The Flags of Civil War South Carolina, 106.

[8] New York Herald, May 9, 1865.

[9] Dedmondt, The Flags of Civil War Alabama, 80.

[10] Cox, Civil War Flags of Tennessee, 361.

[11] Cox, civil War Flags of Tennessee, 431.

[12] Dunkerly, The Confederate Surrender at Greensboro, 116.

[13] Cox, Civil War Flags of Tennessee, 294.