Major General Charles Griffin, Commanding Fifth Army Corps at Appomattox Court House wrote to Major General Alex S. Webb, Chief of Staff, Headquarters, Army of the Potomac at City Point, Virginia on 14 APR 1865 explaining the Appomattox paroling process: >>> We have only paroled men belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia. --- General Grant issued an order saying that officers and men paroled here, who to reach their homes are compelled to pass through the lines of the Union armies, will be allowed to pass free on all Government transports and military railroads. This order has been construed by us very liberally where officers and men have manifested an intention to go home and remain there, which large numbers have done. >>> [OR I, Volume XLVI, p.746]
On 19 APR 1865, Major General E. O. C. Ord, Commanding at Richmond, Virginia telegraphed Lieutenant General U. S. Grant directly: >>> Your dispatch is received on the subject of sending paroled prisoners home. My impression is that the printed order furnished them by General Gibbon promises them transportation home free where their routes home are in our lines. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, p.835]
At 5:30 PM, 19 APR 1865, Grant responded to Ord: >>> Your dispatch received. We cannot undertake to bear all the hardships brought on individuals by their treason and rebellion. It was no part of the agreement that we should furnish homes, subsistence, or transportation to Lee’s army. After the surrender, I ordered that the paroles of men should be a pass to go through our lines to reach their homes, and that where transported on roads [railroads] or vessels run by [the] Government fare[s] should not be collected. I did not by any means intend that this should be an excuse for all who choose to come within our lines and stay there, [to be] a public charge, or that men going to North Carolina or Georgia should be furnished a pleasant passage through the North and coastwise to their homes. --- General [Henry W.] Halleck will start to Richmond tomorrow and he will take up and settle the present difficulties. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, p.836]
On 20 APR 1865, Captain A. Gilchrist, Provost Marshal at Fort Monroe, Virginia telegraphed his superior Brigadier General M. R. Patrick in Richmond: >>> There are about 3,000 rebel paroled prisoners here awaiting transportation to New Orleans, Mobile, &c. The quartermaster says he will send five steamers with them. Should a guard be sent on these steamers? If so, I cannot procure guards at this point for more than two of the steamers. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, p.864]
General Patrick forwarded Captain Gilchrist’s message to General Ord who promptly forwarded it to General Grant in Washington. Grant telegraphed back: >>> The 3,000 prisoners at Fort Monroe, bound for New Orleans, Mobile, &c., cannot be furnished transportation by [the] Government. It was no part of the arrangement that they should receive transportation, or be allowed to pass through our lines except when to reach their homes it was necessary to do so. The men living south of Richmond must get home through the country, and if they come within our lines must do so either as prisoners of war who surrender their parole or as persons desirous of quitting the rebel cause and taking advantage of the President’s amnesty. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, p.865]
Grant then instructed Major General C. C. Augur, Commanding the Department of Washington, to increase his guard postings and vigilance around the city: >>> In view of the large number of paroled prisoners coming to Washington --- By agreement with General Lee all paroled prisoners were to return to their homes. After the agreement it occurred to Lee that many of his men lived within our lines. He asked me how they were to get there. I answered by giving an order that their paroles should be their pass for going through our lines where it was necessary for them to pass them to comply with their part of the agreement, and that when they traveled on Government roads [railroads] or vessels they would be transported free. It was never contemplated that they should come North to reach homes in the Southern States, nor that [the] Government should undertake to furnish any of them transportation on private [rail] roads or vessels. All who come within your department in violation of this interpretation of the agreement between Lee and myself may be turned back or taken and imprisoned for violation of their paroles unless they qualify themselves as citizens of the United States by obtaining the President’s amnesty. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, pp.868-9]
The next preserved communication concerning paroled prisoners at Fort Monroe and transportation to Mobile is dated 1 MAY 1865 addressed to Major General George L. Hartsuff, Commanding Petersburg, Virginia from Brigadier General N. M. Curtis, General Ord’s Chief of Staff in Richmond. It reads: <<< A ship will leave Fort Monroe, Virginia on Saturday morning, the 6th, to carry paroled prisoners to Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile and New Orleans. Those having families here can accompany them. General Ord directs that you impart this information to paroled prisoners in and about Petersburg, but that will not have a notice published in the newspapers. Any paroled prisoner whose home is in any State south of this, excepting Texas, will be given transportation free. <<< In a follow-up message also dated 1 MAY 1865, Curtis wrote to Hartsuff: >>> The policy is to get rid of the women, children, and needy, rather than support them. The passing North of officers, soldiers, or civilians who have been in the rebel service is for the present prohibited, expect by [special] order from Washington. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, p.1063]
On 3 MAY 1865, General Ord telegraphed General Grant from Richmond: >>>General [Henry W.] Halleck authorizes the sending away on transports some hundreds of destitute and starving paroled prisoners who had found their way to Old Point [Fort Monroe], and the quartermaster James has a vessel ready to sail with them to Savannah on Saturday next. He now reports that he is ordered not to furnish any paroled prisoners with transportation. As your order from Appomattox Court House of April 10 specially authorizes free transportation to be furnished such paroled prisoners on Government transports, I think there is some mistake on the part of the quartermaster-general, and a even if no such order had issued these people can’t get home except by turning highway robbers on the road, and I presume it is not the desire of the Government to turn them loose on these terms. <<< Later that same day from City Point, General Ord contritely telegraphed General Grant in Washington; >>> I find I am mistaken in supposing your order from Appomattox April 10 allows any transportation home to rebel prisoners going south. I shall try to dispose of the 400 at Old Point in some other way. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, pp.1076-7]
One must keep in mind that Lieutenant General Richard Taylor did not surrender his Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana until 4 MAY 1865 at Citronelle, Alabama. I’m not sure what parts of the state of Alabama were under Union control as of 3 MAY 1865, but this would not have conformed to Grant’s statement of his agreement with Lee at Appomattox.
The Quartermaster Department which provided ocean going transportation was tightly controlled out of the Federal War Department in Washington. But, given all the confused interpretation of Grant’s side bar agreement with Lee, it seems a little hard to imagine that the 3,000 paroled Appomattox prisoners at Fort Monroe awaiting transportation home by ocean going steamers on 20 APR 1865 walked home. Private Andrew J. PETERS’ military pass for government transportation up the Alabama River from Mobile issued 3 MAY 1865 by the Provost Marshal at Mobile would seem to confirm that some, if not all, of the 3,000 paroled prisoners were sent from Fort Monroe to Mobile between 20 APR 1865 and 3 MAY 1865 without General Grant’s approval.
Grant continued to stand firm against providing transportation home for Confederate prisoners paroled in the field. General Halleck telegraphed Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War from Richmond on 10 MAY 1865: >>> There is a large number of paroled rebel officers at Fort Monroe, congregated there under some agreement, as they say, between Generals Grant and Lee to give them transportation to Southern ports. They are now refused, and they are in a destitute condition. The commander of the French corvette Phagelon has offered to take a part of them to New York and put them on a New Orleans steamer without landing. Is there any objection to their accepting this offer? <<< Grant telegraphed back on 11 MAY 1865: >>> You may order transportation for all rebel prisoners now at Fort Monroe to their homes. I would not let French vessels take them. <<< [OR I, Volume XLVI, pp.1123, 1133]
My research into the history of the 12th Louisiana Infantry provides some additional information concerning the Confederate soldiers surrendered in the field under the Greensboro agreement between Generals Johnston and Sherman dated 26 APR 1865. Under terms identical to the Appomattox agreement, transportation home was not authorized.
Paroling for the 12th Louisiana Infantry was completed in their camp on 28 APR 1865. On 3 MAY 1865, the Army of Tennessee marched from their various camps surrounding Greensboro down to Salisbury where they drew rations. On 5 MAY 1865, the men separated into three columns and headed for home. The sick and those unable to walk were given railroad passes. The able bodied started out on foot.
The 12th Louisiana’s able bodied group, about 70 men, made their way south through Charlotte and Atlanta to Montgomery, Alabama. Many dropped out along the march to visit with extended family in Georgia and Alabama. Reaching Montgomery in the last week of May, they were given Federal quartermaster passes to travel by river steamer down to Mobile. At Mobile, they got government passage aboard steamers to New Orleans. And from New Orleans, they were given passage aboard river steamers to travel up the Mississippi, Red and Ouachita Rivers to ports near their homes. Near the mouth of the Red River, their steamboat was hailed from the east bank by a group which included members of the regiment who were given railroad passes in North Carolina. From various river ports along the Red and Ouachita Rivers, they walked the last few miles to home. Most of these men reached home by the first week of June 1865.
The issue of transportation home for prisoners of war being held in northern POW camps when the war ended was a separate matter directed from the War Department in Washington. General Orders No. 85 dated 8 MAY 1865 was the first to direct that certain POWs be allowed to take the Oath of Allegiance and be released with transportation furnished them to their respective homes. Following the surrender of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department dated 26 MAY 1865 at New Orleans but not signed by Lieutenant General E. Kirby Smith until 2 JUN 1865 in Galveston Bay, War Department General Orders No. 104 dated 2 JUN 1865 directed that transportation be furnished to all prisoners of war and citizen prisoners who had been, or were soon to be, released from military prisons in the North upon taking the Oath of Allegiance.
I hope I haven’t bored you, but I find all of these details very interesting!!
Hugh Simmons
Fort Delaware Society www.fortdelaware.org
12th Louisiana Infantry Research www.rhsresearch.org/12LAINF.htm