and cut off General Lee's retreat. The men then confessed that they
were spies, and belonged to General Sheridan. They stated that they
knew that the penalty of their course was death, but asked that I
should not kill them, as the war could only last a few days longer,
anyhow. I kept them prisoners, and turned them over to General
Sheridan after the surrender. I at once sent the information to
General Lee, and a short time afterward received orders to go to his
headquarters. That night was held Lee's last council of war. There
were present General Lee, General Fitzhugh Lee, as head of the
cavalry, and Pendleton, as chief of the artillery, and myself. General
Longstreet was, I think, too busily engaged to attend.

General Lee then exhibited to us the correspondence he had had with
General Grant that day, and asked our opinion of the situation. It
seemed that surrender was inevitable. The only chance of escape was
that I could cut a way for the army through the lines in front of me.
General Lee asked me if I could do this. I replied that I did not know
what forces were in front of me; that if General Ord had not
arrived--as we thought then he had not--with his heavy masses of
infantry, I could cut through. I guaranteed that my men would cut a
way through all the cavalry that could be massed in front of them.
The council finally dissolved with the understanding that the army
should be surrendered if I discovered the next morning, after feeling
the enemy's line, that the infantry had arrived in such force that I
could not cut my way through.

My men were drawn up in the little town of Appomattox that night. I
still had about four thousand men under me, as the army had been
divided into two commands and given to General Longstreet and myself.
Early on the morning of the ninth I prepared for the assault upon the