9
" Aboard a Chesapeake Bay steamer, not long after his surrender, the general heard a fellow passenger insisting that the South had been “conquered but not subdued.” Asked in what command he had served, the bellicose young man — one of those stalwarts later classified as “invisible in war and invincible in peace” — replied that, unfortunately, circumstances had made it impossible for him to be in the army. “Well, sir, I was,” Johnston told him. “You may not be subdued, but I am. "
― Shelby Foote , The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox
15
" Who knows," he asked as his
narrative drew toward its close, "but it may
be given to us, after this life, to meet again in
the old quarters, to play chess and draughts,
to get up soon to answer the morning roll
call, to fall in at the tap of the drum for drill
and dress parade, and again to hastily don
our war gear while the monotonous patter of
the long roll summons to battle? Who knows
but again the old flags, ragged and torn,
snapping in the wind, may face each other
and flutter, pursuing and pursued, while the
cries of victory fill a summer day? And after
the battle, then the slain and wounded will
arise, and all will meet together under the two
flags, all sound and well, and there will be
talking and laughter and cheers, and all will
say: Did it not seem real? Was it not as in the
old days? "
― Shelby Foote , The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox
16
" Another was a return to the suggestion advanced informally by Pat Cleburne the previous winter, soon after Missionary Ridge, that the South free its slaves and enlist them in its armies. Hastily suppressed at the time as “revolting to Southern sentiment, Southern pride, and Southern honor,” the proposition seemed far less “monstrous” now than it had a year ago, when Grant was not at the gates of Richmond and Sherman had not made his march through Georgia. Seddon, for one, had been for it ever since the fall of Atlanta, except that he believed emancipation should follow, not precede, a term of military service. "
― Shelby Foote , The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox