The articles of capitulation were signed next morning under the famous "apple tree," I suppose; what we saw of it was this: General Lee was seen, dressed in full Confederate uniform, with his sword on, riding his fine grey charger, and accompanied by General Gordon, coming from the village, and riding immediately in front of where we were lying. He had not been particularly noticed as he had gone toward the town, for, though with the regiment, I have no recollection of his doing so. As soon as he was seen it acted like an electric flash upon our men; they sprang to their feet, and, running to the roadside, commenced a wild cheering that roused our troops. As far as we could see they came running down the hill sides, and joining in, along the ground, and through the woods, and up into the sky, there went a tribute that has seldom been paid to mortal man. "Faithful, though all was lost!"
The Federal army officers and men bore themselves toward us as brave men should. I do not recollect, within my personal observation, a single act that could be called discourteous--nor did I hear of one. On the other hand, much kindness and consideration were exhibited when circumstances made it warrantable--such as previous acquaintance, as was common among the officers of the old army, or a return of kindness when parties had been prisoners in our hands, as was the case with a portion of the Seventh regiment when it was the cavalry battalion of the Holcomb Legion, under Colonel Shingler, and the Fifth Pennsylvania cavalry.
Regular rations were issued to men and horses. An apology was offered, on one occasion, by the Federal Quartermaster, for not serving out horse feed, as General F. Lee's division of cavalry, who were, as I mentioned before, outside, up in the James River direction, had cut off a wagon train that held their provender, so we had to send out a forage detail in the neighborhood, with a pass from General Sheridan, to get through the Federal troops that filled the woods for miles around, for their name was legion. We stacked eight thousand stands of arms, all told; artillery, cavalry, infantry stragglers, wagon-rats, and all the rest, from twelve to fifteen thousand men. The United States troops, by their own estimate, were 150,000 men, with a railroad connecting their rear with Washington, New York, Germany, France, Belgium, Africa, "all the world and the rest of man-kind," as General Taylor comprehensively remarked, for their recruiting stations were all over the world, and the crusade against the South, and its peculiar manners and civilization, under the pressure of the "almighty American dollar," was as absolute and varied in its nationality as was that of "Peter the Hermit," under the pressure of religious zeal, upon Jerusalem.