War Papers Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...Quaker Road, White Oak Ridge, Five Forks and Dinwiddie Court House. This was a military assignment, but circumstances necessitated something like a civil jurisdiction. The homes and people here had been run over time and again by one army and then the other, with gangs of lawless camp-followers unchecked by any authority, law or gospel, and there was scarcely left here happiness, peace or property in any homes. My efforts to restore a semblance of civil order, and respect for personal rights, and even to preserve the physical existence of these suffering people, and their grateful recognition of this, held me by something more than memory, --by an abiding and living interest. I will not try your good nature by dwelling on points interesting perhaps only to me, --simply remarking that for the most part this country looks much as it did in 1865, --but will quickly pass over that hundred miles to Appomattox Court House. Here I found everything in ruin and designed forsakenness. It is not to be expected that the survivors of a lost cause should cherish with much enthusiasm the scenes and tokens of the last days of their glory, and the ground of their surrender. Even the roads are changed. I could not find that by which Sheridan switched off my command from the main column a mile out from the station, to strike Gordon's left, then pressing back our cavalry. The fancy of marking field boundaries had wiped this out. In the village, the former owners are said to have sold out and abandoned the place and everything about it. The new owners manifest little interest in it, --hardly enough to cultivate the ground. The county-seat is removed to Appomattox Station. Here, indeed, is a fine set of county buildings, well kept up. Three fairly good little hotels are here, and so...