ine.

We took our position an hour or two before day. The Yankees had three
strong lines of earthworks, with stockade in front, but they only had a
skirmish line holding it, while their comfortable encampments were in the
rear. We could easily have taken the lines on our left to Appomattox River
when we first went in, but it was soon strongly reinforced. As we were
marched back to the rear we met battery after battery of field artillery
coming in. An artilleryman said, "Johnnies, if you had held them works an
hour longer we would have had five hundred guns and cannons playing on
you." We were soon back in our camps and marched around through them for
three miles to General Meade's headquarters. In some camps the men were
playing ball and frolicking like no enemy was near. Others were falling
into line of march; others had muskets stacked ready to fall in at a
moment's notice. Far back in the rear endless columns were marching to the
left flank of their lines to outflank Lee's right. At Meade's headquarters
we were joined by two thousand more of our men who had been captured that
morning on Hotche's Run. About 2 p. m. we were reviewed by General Grant
and President Lincoln, riding horseback, followed by a troop of cavalry
and a number of fine carriages containing officers and ladies. They
marched by us and returned and came back by us, where we were in the open
along the road. We were then put on some flat or freight cars and shipped
to City Point. There we were put inside their large barrack inclosure
where their own men were kept under the same guard with us. The next
morning they gave us some boiled fat pork and a handful of hardtack. As we
came down we passed through Sheridan's cavalry camp of thirty thousand
strong.

On Sunday evening, March 26th, General McHenry, a white-headed old man,
commanding the post, got upon a barrel and made a speech. He said the war
would soon be over, and that President Lincoln had offered amnesty to all
who would lay down their arms or desert the Confederate army and come over
to the Union side, and that they would be allowed to go North and work. He
said that no doubt some of us had wished to desert and quit fighting and
had not had a chance to do so, and now he would give us a chance to take
the oath of allegiance to the United States if we would volunteer to do
so. He would send such up to Washington and see if President Lincoln would
accept it and allow them to take the oath and go