pend habeas corpus, and virtually anything
that smacked of a threat to states’ rights
was strenuously resisted.
Provost responsibility extended to the
operation of detention facilities and service
prisons, with Winder tasked with their
administration. Initially appointed inspec-
tor general of all camps, including the pris-
ons in the Richmond area, Winder met
with constant disapproval from the major-
ity of Richmond civilians, who considered
the general “active but outrageous.” Said
one disgusted citizen, “Evildoers were the
only ones the police did not trouble. [They
were] oppressive only to the peaceful.”
Unceasing efforts to control desertion
occupied more and more provost troops as
the Confederacy’s fortunes deteriorated.
Large areas in western North Carolina’s
rugged Sauratown Mountains and parts of
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi became
sanctuaries for huge numbers of deserters.
Constant appeals to deserters to rejoin the
colors fell on deaf ears, in many cases not
due to cowardice but to increasing concerns
for and acute anxiety over the welfare of
their families in the war-ravaged South. In
numerous dispatches from November 1864
to March 1865, Lee’s message on desertion
was virtually the same: “Hundreds of men
are deserting nightly. I do not know what
can be done to put a stop to it.”
The decline in confidence and morale
significantly decreased the chances of Con-
federate victory. It is perhaps telling that
one of the last operational tasks performed
by the provost guard occurred during the
evacuation of Richmond in April 1865,
exactly seven days before Lee’s surrender
to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. A local
defense brigade officer was charged with
defending the last bridge over the James
River east of the city as the remaining
provost troops withdrew. As the last of the
cavalry crossed the bridge and an engineer
officer set it afire, one of the retreating cav-
alrymen exclaimed, “All over, goodbye;
blow her to hell.” It seemed fitting that a
provost guard should have been among
the last to leave the burning capital, serv-
ing as the rear guard of a nation also
blown to hell.Get these authoritative
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