ct was accordingly sent to Lee, under a flag of truce, at 5
P.M. of the 7th. Lee immediately answered, saying he did not
entertain the opinion that further resistance was hopeless on the
part of his army, yet asked Grant to name the terms he would offer
on condition of surrender. Grant, on the 8th, replied that there
was but one condition he would insist on, viz.:

"That the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for
taking up arms against the government of the United States until
properly exchanged."

Lee, the same day, responded, saying that in his note of the day
before, he "did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of
Northern Virginia," but only to ask the terms of Grant's proposition,
adding that he could not meet Grant with the view of surrendering
that army, but as far as Grant's proposal might affect the Confederate
States forces under his command and tend to the restoration of
peace, he would be pleased to meet Grant the next day at 10 A.M.
Very early on the 9th Grant sent Lee a note saying: "I have no
authority to treat on the subject of peace; the meeting proposed
for 10 A.M. to-day could lead to no good."

At the earliest dawn of the 8th, the Sixth Corps pushed after Lee,
compelling him to abandon some of his heaviest artillery and a
further part of his trains. Longstreet covered Lee's rear, and
his troops had not been seriously engaged on the retreat. Ord and
the Fifth Corps struggled westward, cutting off all chance of Lee
turning southward and of thus extricating himself. The 8th was
not a day of battles but of the utmost activity in both armies.

I note an incident. While halted, about noon on the 8th, in some
low pines to drink a cup of coffee and eat a cracker, Colonel Horace
Kellogg, of the 123d Ohio, who had been captured with Washburn's
command on the 6th, near High Bridge, came to us through the bushes
from a hiding-place to which he escaped soon after his capture.
He looked cadaverous, was wild-eyed, and in a crazed condition,
caused by starvation and want of water for two days. We had to
restrain him, and give him water, coffee, and food in small quantities
at first, to prevent his killing himself from over-indulgence.

Sheridan, who had concentrated his cavalry at Prospect Station
under Crook, Merritt, and Custer, at daybreak of the 8th hastened
westward, south of Lee, to Appomattox Station. Sergeant White, of
the scouts, in advance, in disguise, west of the