The Last to Die

They lay mutely in uninterrupted rank as they had once so often stood when duty called.  They had endured and weathered unimaginable hardships, had shared the bonds that only those who have fought side by side can know, had witnessed firsthand the inhumanity of war, and just as the great conflict was about to reach its conclusion, they were taken.

Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had valiantly withstood the Federal siege around Petersburg for eight months, the trenches and redoubts gradually stretching farther and farther west, wrapping around the city, the Yankees steadfastly working to outflank the Rebel fortifications, the Rebs busily thwarting every attempt.  But the breakthrough was inevitable; the Rebs couldn’t muster enough men to defend the miles of trenches against a concentrated attack.  When it finally came, Lee and his outnumbered army had no viable option but to flee.

For a week they ran, their flight taking them west toward their supply line.  Constantly harassed by pursuing Union troops, Lee’s army was rapidly disintegrating around him, some killed or wounded in the relentless fighting, so many more taken prisoner, still others deserting as the promise of the Southern cause faded.  In just seven days, Rebel ranks dwindled from 60,000 to less than half that number.  Union cavalry raced ahead and captured the badly needed Rebel supply trains.  There were no rations for the men.  Ammunition ran low.

As Lee’s lead units approached the hamlet of Appomattox Courthouse on the 8^th of April, dismounted Union cavalry were formed in a defensive position on a low ridge west of town blocking the Rebel’s path of retreat.  The Rebels skirmished with the horse soldiers hoping to dislodge them, but to no avail.  At dusk the cavalry still held the ridge.

The following morning Lee’s infantry formed battlelines and marched toward the ridge, toward the cavalry they knew could not long resist a determined assault.  But as the cavalry mounted and melted away, just beyond stood the infantrymen of two entire Union corps, thousands of battle-hardened veterans in formation, far more than the Rebs could ever hope to brush aside.  Grant had ordered his army to march through the night so that sunrise would find them in formation across the Richmond to Lynchburg Road preventing the Rebel’s escape.

It was over.  Lee knew the end had finally come.  Flags of surrender were produced.  Lee would meet with General Grant in Wilmer McLean’s parlor a few hours later to sign the terms of surrender.  The men of the Army of Northern Virginia would stack their arms one last time.  In an act of reconciliation, Grant ordered rations issued to feed the half starving Rebs.  There would be no more dying on this field.  Lee would simply tell his men to go home and fight no more.

It was all so surreal.  They had been fighting for almost four years, and suddenly it was over.  Less than twenty-four hours earlier men were still locked in deadly conflict; men were still dying.  These are the men whose remains now lie buried in a small cemetery along what was once the Richmond to Lynchburg Road, eighteen Rebels who had the misfortune to be among the last to die in that unholy war.  In death they are joined by a lone Yankee whose remains were discovered some time after the conflict.

Most are unknown but to God.  One grave in particular stands out from the others, that of Private Jesse H. Hutchins.  He had enlisted three days after the guns first fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and was mustered into the 5^th Alabama infantry regiment shortly after.  His regiment was present at the First Battle of Bull Run, though it was not engaged.  Their baptism under fire came much later at the Battle of Seven Pines during McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign.  Within a few weeks they fought again at Cold Harbor and again at Malvern Hill.  The big battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg followed.  The sacrifice at Gettysburg was particularly severe; the regiment suffered sixty percent casualties on the first day of fighting.  The badly decimated regiment participated in the Battle of the Wilderness the following year.  After that there were so many engagements it seemed to be a blur of constant fighting.  At war’s beginning most regiments mustered in with close to 1000 men.  By April 9^th, 1865, the 5^th had but four officers and fifty-three enlisted men remaining.

Jesse Hutchins survived all of that, survived until the final day of the fighting.  In just one more week, he might have celebrated his fourth anniversary in the army, but somehow fate intervened and the good fortune with which he had been blessed abandoned him; abandoned him and the others who died that day.

And now their remains reside in the small cemetery some five hundred yards west of the McLean house.  Situated in such a quiet, pastoral setting, it’s hard to imagine the dramatic events that once unfolded here.  It’s not like Gettysburg or Antietam or Fort Sumter, sites that host hordes of visitors each year, not like Arlington Cemetery where tens of thousands have been laid to rest.  No, Appomattox Courthouse is relatively remote, the number of visitors comparatively modest.  Fewer still visit the small cemetery.

Despite its size, it numbers among the saddest of Civil War cemeteries, sad because there was really no need for these men to die.  Lee and his army were already beaten, had been for several days.  Those who deserted him could see it.  Surely, he could see it as well. Had he acknowledged and acted upon that stark reality, those whose remains now lay here would have had the opportunity to live to a ripe old age, perhaps to marry and have a family.

Imagine the heartbreak to learn that the one you loved, whether son, brother, husband, or father, had been the last to die.  What an evil twist of fate.  At least the loved ones of those who could be identified would be made aware of their death, as heart rending as that may have been.  For those marked “unknown" family would never know their plight.  They would know only that their loved one had stopped writing and as others returned from war, their loved one would not.  Which would be worse, to know yours was the last to die or to never know what befell the one who never returned?

Either way, heartbreak persists.  Someone had to be the last to die.  If not these men, someone else.  Better yet, if no one had been the first to die four years earlier, no one would have had to be the last.