Like I said, some very cool things are turning up over here at the Littlejohn Collection, and I just couldn't let this one go unmentioned, as it is one of the most historically interesting manuscripts I've found so far.

Last week I found this letter, dated April 23, 1865, Charlotte, N.C. from General Joseph Johnston of the Confederate Army. Johnston was heading up the major contingent of the Confederate Army in the South, trying to delay Sherman's Union forces in their swing north through the Carolinas, following his army's March to the Sea. After doing a little research, it became clear that the date of the letter was fairly significant, as on April 26, three days after the letter was written, Johnston formally surrendered his army to General Sherman. However, I soon found out that the story of Johnston's surrender to Sherman was a little more complicated than a simple surrender on April 26. I'll get to that in a minute. First, here is my transcription of the letter:

"Charlotte, N.C.
April 23d, 1865

My dear Winnie[?]

        I have been detained here longer than was expected when the last telegraph was sent you.

X X X X X

        The dispersion of Lee's army and the surrender of the [illegible] which remained with him destroyed the hopes I entertained when we parted. Had that army held together, I am most[?] confident that we could have successfully executed the plan which I sketched to you, and would have been today on the high road to independence. Even after that disaster, of the men who straggled, say thirty or forty thousand in number, had come back with this army and with a disposition to fight, we might have repaired the damage; but all was sadly the reverse of that. They threw away theirs[?], and were uncontrollably resolved to go home. The small guards along the road have some times been unable to prevent the pillaging of trains and depots. Panic has seized the country.

[Crossed out:] J. c[?] Johnston and[?] Beauregard were [illegible]"

Then, on another, smaller slip of paper:

"X X X X X X X

    The loss of arms has been so great that should the spirit of the people rise to the occasion, it would not be at this time possible adequately to supply them with the weapons of war.

    The above is an accurate extract from the publication in the Globe-Democrat."

Below is an image of the letter:

The acceptance of the bare, authoritative fact of Johnston's surrender on the 26th would make it sound as if Johnston were describing in his letter a rash of desertion in a force debilitated by low morale. While the morale of the force may indeed have been very low, the exodus of soldiers could not necessarily be called "desertion." This is because, as far as Johnston and those under his command were concerned, they had actually surrendered to Sherman on the 18th of April, thus ceasing to be, legally, a fighting military unit.

Johnston had met with Sherman on April 17, 1865. Just prior to that meeting, Johnston had learned of Lee's surrender at Appomatox (on April 9). Soon after, on April 12, Johnston met with the fugitive Jefferson Davis in North Carolina, where he persuaded the Confederate president to authorize a peace initiative. So, on April 17 Sherman offered terms of surrender to Johnston, and he also informed Johnston of Lincoln’s assassination. [Lincoln was shot the evening of April 14 and died the morning of the 15th.]

Johnston signed a memo the next day, April 18, agreeing to surrender his army and believed that by doing so he had ended the war. The offer was rescinded, however, a few days later by the cabinet in Washington due in part, it seems, to the environment in Washington following Lincoln's death.

Johnston accepted the new terms prescribed by Grant and Washington and formally surrendered April 26. It was clear by that time, as we see in the letter, that his force had begun to disintegrate. From what I've learned, Johnston learned that the terms of his surrender had been revoked on April 22 -- so we see in this letter of the following day his rather defeatist (but practical) ruminations about the possibility of re-constituting his force. One Confederate officer's comment seems to well represent the mood of his comrades: ".... the suddenness of a proposed continuation of the struggle is more saddening than the news of the first surrender."

As an aside, a couple interesting yarns also emerge from these few days and weeks of April 1865.

Apparently, Jefferson Davis was opposed to the terms of surrender offered by the cabinet. He ordered Johnston to refuse to sign the ordinance and to escape with his mounted units in order to continue to fight. Johnston, however, disobeyed Davis' order and agreed to the terms. Apparently, Johnston and Davis remained bitterly estranged for years after the war.

A more peculiar anecdote is that about Johnston's death. In 1891, he was a pallbearer at General Sherman's funeral, where, out of respect, he refused to wear a hat in the cold and rainy weather, allegedly commenting that were their places reversed, Sherman would do the same for him. Johnston caught pneumonia and died several weeks later.

[I'll try to get an image of this document online soon.]