The story of the downfall of the Confederacy has been many times repeated.  It has entered into our literature, and is known by heart wherever the history of the war is read.  Generally, however, this story has been told as if the narrator approached the event from the Union side.  We have the pursuit of General Lee from Petersburg westward, almost to the spurs of the Alleghanies.  We follow in the wake.  We see the unwearied efforts of the victorious host to close around the retreating army which has so long been the bulwark of the Confederacy.  We hear the summons to surrender, and the answer of “Not yet;” but within a day that answer is reversed, and the stern wills of Lee and his fellow-commanders yield to the inexorable law of the strongest.

Only recently, however, the story has been told with great spirit from the Confederate side, by General John B. Gordon, who was at that time at the right hand of his commander-in-chief, and who stood by him to the last hour.  General Gordon’s account of the final struggle of the Confederate army and of the surrender is so graphic, so full of spirit, so warmed with the animation and devotion of a great soldier, that we here repeat his account of

THE DEATH STRUGGLE.

We always retreated in good order, though always under fire.  As we retreated we would wheel and fire, or repel a rush, and then stagger on to the next hilltop, or vantage ground, where a new fight would be made.  And so on through the entire day.  At night my men had no rest.  We marched through the night in order to get a little respite from fighting.  All night long I would see my poor fellows hobbling along, prying wagons or artillery out of the mud, and supplementing the work of our broken-down horses.  At dawn, though, they would be in line ready for battle, and they would fight with the steadiness and valor of the Old Guard.

This lasted until the night of the seventh of April.  The retreat of Lee’s army was lit up with the fire and flash of battle, in which my brave men moved about like demigods for five days and nights.  Then we were sent to the front for a rest, and Longstreet was ordered to cover the retreating army.  On the evening of the eighth, when I had reached the front, my scout George brought me two men in Confederate uniform, who, he said, he believed to be the enemy, as he had seen them counting our men as they filed past.  I had the men brought to my campfire, and examined them.  They made a plausible defence, but George was positive they were spies, and I ordered them searched.  He failed to find anything, when I ordered him to examine their boots.  In the bottom of one of the boots I found an order from General Grant to General Ord, telling him to move by forced marches toward Lynchburg 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,