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The Last Days of Rebellion

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The Last Days of Rebellion Roger Hannaford served in the 2nd Ohio Cavalry during the Civil War. Following his discharge in 1865 Hannaford wrote the story of his three years' service. His manuscript was given to the Cincinnati Historical Society by Francis Hannaford, his grandson. This part of the Hannaford narrative covers the last three days of the Civil War in Virginia in the region near and around Appomattox. The Last Days of Rebellion by Stephen Z. Starr "D oger Hannaford, born in England, came to America with his parents in 1844, •*- ^at the age of ten. The Hannafords settled in Cheviot, where Roger, mar- ried in 1855, was living when the Civil War broke out. Three of his four brothers enlisted immediately (one of them, Edwin A., wrote the history of his regiment, the 6th Ohio Volunteer Infantry), but Roger, with a wife and two small children to support, did not feel it his duty to do so until the fall of 1862. Stonewall Jack- son had cleared the Shenandoah Valley of Union troops; George B. McClellan's campaign to capture Richmond had ended in failure; John Pope had been badly beaten in the Second Battle of Bull Run. Those were "dark days" for the Union, and Roger decided, he wrote, that "it was time for me to go, and I went." Hannaford enlisted in a company that was to be part of a new regiment of cavalry, but the War Department added the company and three others to fill up the greatly depleted ranks of the 2nd Ohio Cavalry. That regiment, raised in the Cleveland area in the fall of 1861, had campaigned in Missouri, eastern Kansas, and the Indian Territory for ten months, and lost half its original com- plement in the process. Hannaford has not explained why he chose to enlist in the cavalry, rather than in the infantry or the artillery. His sober, matter-of-fact personality sug- gests that whatever his reason may have been, it was not the glamor, real or assumed, of the cavalry service. After being reorganized and reequipped at Camp Dennison in late 1862, the 2nd Ohio Cavalry campaigned in Kentucky and East Tennessee throughout 1863. In March 1864, after reenlisting as "veterans," the regiment was shipped East, and became part of the Cavalry Corps, commanded by Philip Sheridan, of the Army of the Potomac. Hannaford was a good and exceptionally conscientious soldier. Wounded at Blue Springs, Tennessee, in October, 1863, he returned to duty as soon as he was discharged from the hospital. He was made Quartermaster-Sergeant of his Company M, and had risen to First Sergeant when he was mustered out of the service in the fall of 1865. A year later he began to write the story of his three years' service. He had kept a diary from time to time, he had an excellent mem- ory, and was also able to verify names, dates and places in the many letters he had written his wife, all of which she preserved. When Roger finished writing in 1874, he had produced an intensely interesting, vivid, highly personal nar- rative on 1,528-plus pages of legal-size paper (an obviously small number of concluding pages are missing). The manuscript was given to The Cincinnati Historical Society by Roger's grandson, Mr. Francis Hannaford. The necessarily abbreviated section of the Hannaford narrative here repro- duced covers the last three days of the Civil War in Virginia, April 7-9, 1865. Hannaford's erratic punctuation and paragraphing have been corrected; mili- tary terms, which he habitually but inconsistently abbreviated (e.g., "Batt," "Brig.," "Genl." "i5#NYC." and "Hd. Qrs.") are given in full; otherwise the text is entirely his. Another section of Hannaford's narrative, covering the "Wilson Raid" (June 21-29, 1864) was published in Civil War History, Vol. XXI, No. 3 (September, 1975), pp. 218-41. A third section, covering his experiences in winter camp near Winchester, Virginia in January-February, 1864, is scheduled for publi- cation in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography in late 1977 or early 1978. Friday, April j#. We moved as soon as it was light ... up to the farm house. Here we got breakfast, & Custer, who was in the house, inspected the prisoners, who literally covered acres.1 After breakfast (whether the prisoners rec'd any I can't say) . they were started back toward Petersburg. In starting they marched past Division Headquarters in immense ranks as much as 300 yards long, the men being as close as they [could] conveniently walk; then, on reaching a certain point, they would make a right half-wheel, break into column of fours, & march. They had some spirit in them notwithstanding all the hardships they had passed thro'. The Division Band were playing as ... they marched; when they played "Yankee Doodle," "Hail Columbia" & kindred tunes, they would groan, but as ... they struck up "Dixie," this called out rousing cheers from them ... it had a sharpness about it, reminding us of the rebel yell... it was a noble sight [as] they moved off, with the manner & tread of trained soldiers, & it was impossible not to accord them respect as brave men. Often enough had we met them to prove this. The sun lifted the fog & shone mildly down as they moved away, but it soon clouded up & was a showery day. The 1st Connecticut was detailed as a guard for the prisoners, so that our Brigade was now very small, [the] 2nd New York, 2nd Ohio & 3d New Jersey Cavalry being all [that were] left.2 Talking about the size of our Division, it always used to be called 5,000 in newspapers, reports, &c.; now, I had it from excellent authority, being from a staff Officer at Division Headquarters, that on the morning of April 6#, 1865, the total number of men reported for duty was exactly 2,121. There were 3 Brigades in the Division, ours I think decidedly the smallest; but, calling it 700 men, it did pretty well ... to capture 3,400 of the enemy, which was the number in round figures ... I cap- tured 5 men, 2 of the g# Alabama, 1 of the 22nd Georgia, 1 of the 2nd Maryland Battalion, & 1 of the Engineer Corps ... If a small man did all this, what would not some of the big fellows do? Poor Quince Park had his stallion shot when our boys got in such a tight place (on the 6#) & this morning the animal would scarcely move.3 Quince nearly cried as he turned him loose, have brot him back within a few miles of where he was captured, for Quince captured him on the Wilson raid, & but a few miles south of where he left him. .4 As soon as the prisoners left, we mounted; taking the road, we ... came to Big Sailor Creek, the banks of which [are] steep & precipitous, covered too with bushes of evergreens. Across the stream the top of the bank was covered with "gopher holes" to protect skirmishers, & farther back, the road on both sides was cut up by rifle pits, at times reaching quite a distance into the fields. All the way to & beyond Rice's Station it was the same.5 Here we [saw] the train[s] of the 24# Corps, proving that they were somewhere near.6 A mile or two beyond we came on the 6# Corps; they were in what seemed a kind of slough, busy making a ... corduroy road.7 I see my diary says the day was fine, but I am almost sure that we had quite a shower after crossing this low place. I have an indistinct idea of ... riding in the woods among the dripping trees to overtake the column & regain my place, & also that the roads were horrible & that the clouds were breaking away as we neared Prince Edward Court House at 4 ... P.M.8 We halted an hour or more in this place & got dinner. I rode up in the village, & found a lot of corn. In passing one house I saw a boy some 15 years of age, who was in a terrible rage. It seemed that some soldier had when at his house found a shotgun which he forthwith confiscated. The boy talked of his rights, after the most approved Southern fashion. As I returned to camp, I rode alongside of one of the [men of the] 1 st Michigan Cavalry. He was talking about his Division. Why, said he, since Custer left the 1st Division, it has done nothing.9 We have captured but two flags since; "now," said he, "all you hear about is the 3d Division. The 3d Division captured so many cannon, Custer's Division captured so many battle flags, nothing but the 3d Division, while the 1st Division is scarcely heard of. The fact is, you have Custer now." I well knew he spoke the truth, for while Wilson had command of the 3d Division, it was scarcely ever heard of, except to speak of its ill-luck.10 Take the Wilson raid, for example. Its reputation in the Corps was at the lowest; scarcely a member of it would willingly acknowledge his connection with it, but now it was very different. Each member felt proud to be known as one of Custer's Di- vision, & for some time there had been much talk about adopting some distinc- tive badge for our Division, but during the hurry & excitement of an active campaign nothing definite had been reached. Why, we ask, should these things be so? The material of the Division was the same then as now; in truth, we had lost many veterans since then, & rec'd some recruits, so really the material may be said to have been better then.
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