547. Efforts to Secure Peace by Negotiation.—Throughout the year 1864 there had been attempts in the North, as well as in the South, to bring about negotiations for peace. These attempts culminated in February, 1865, when President Lincoln and Secretary Seward met Alexander H. Stephens^[257] and two companions, on a steamer in Hampton Roads, for an amicable discussion of the situation. Lincoln refused to negotiate except on the basis of a disbanding of the Confederate forces and a restoration of the national authority. Stephens attempted to convince Lincoln that he would be justified in treating with “rebels,” and referred to the case of Charles I. in England. Lincoln replied that he was not strong in history but relied upon Seward for all such knowledge; what he specially remembered of that contest was that “Charles I. lost his head.” The negotiations came to nothing.

548. Sherman’s Advance.—There was enough activity of the Federal troops in the Southwest during the early spring of 1865 to prevent any important movements of the Confederates to reËnforce Lee, and accordingly interest was concentrated in the campaigns of Sherman and Grant. Sherman broke camp in Savannah, February 1, and at once moved northward. In the course of his march, Sherman passed through Columbia, South Carolina, and while the army was there the city was burned. Each side has accused the other of the act; but the facts have never been determined beyond dispute.^[258] In order to strengthen the army under Johnston, whom Davis had felt obliged to reinstate, the Confederates evacuated Charleston, thus giving their last port into the hands of the Federals. Johnston had collected about thirty thousand men, but he did not venture an engagement until Sherman had advanced nearly as far north as Goldsboro. The winter rains had not subsided, and Sherman’s forces encountered very great difficulties. Near Goldsboro, March 16, and again March 19, Johnston attacked with vigor, but the Confederates were driven back, and Sherman entered the town, March 23. Here he received reËnforcements from Wilmington. Johnston was now in no condition to meet the augmented Union army, and Sherman seems to have wished not to push his advantage until he knew the results of the movements about Richmond.

549. Cavalry Movements of Wilson and Stoneman.—While Sherman was advancing in North Carolina, two cavalry expeditions were ordered by Grant to set out from Thomas’s army in Nashville,—one for Alabama, under General J. H. Wilson, and one under General Stoneman for East Tennessee and Virginia. The purpose of these expeditions was not only to clear the regions visited of Confederate stores and troops, but also to prevent Lee and Davis from escaping toward the west or south. Stoneman, having rapidly completed his work in East Tennessee, destroyed the important depot of Confederate supplies at Lynchburg, late in March, and on the 9th of April captured and destroyed the large military magazines at Salisbury, North Carolina. Wilson devastated much of Alabama; and on the 2d of April met and dispersed Forrest’s last available force near Selma, where he completely destroyed a great arsenal of arms and stores. The dwindling Confederate force in Richmond was now confronted in four directions.

550. Grant’s Advance.—Grant began his campaign by a further movement south of Petersburg, January 31, when he took possession of Hatcher’s Run. While attracting the attention of Lee at this point, he sent Sheridan,^[259] with an army of ten thousand picked cavalry, up the Shenandoah Valley, for the purpose of cutting the Lynchburg and Richmond railroad, by which Lee was receiving the larger part of his supplies. Sheridan scattered the forces of Early and was completely successful. Returning by way of Charlottesville, Sheridan rejoined Grant, March 29, and was at once put in command of the extreme left of the Union army, with orders to push on around the Confederate left, to Five Forks. This movement obliged Lee to extend his line to that point, but, as he now had only about fifty thousand men with whom to contend against the one hundred and twenty thousand commanded by Grant, it was impossible to protect Richmond in the north and to guard his communications at the south. The Confederate lines were so long that Lee hardly had one thousand men to a mile. He therefore, after his lines had been broken at Five Forks, April 1, decided to abandon the city.

551. Surrenders of Lee and Johnston.—With the attack of Sheridan on the extreme left, Grant ordered an assault, April 2, all along the line. Lee found that the only way to save his army was not only to abandon Richmond, but to withdraw rapidly to the west. He had wished to abandon the capital before, but had deferred to the wishes of Davis. On the morning of April 3, the Union troops entered Richmond without opposition. Lee and his army turned westward, but the advance of Sheridan was so rapid that escape was impossible. Great blunders were committed by the Confederate commissariat, and Lee’s forces were almost without food. At Appomattox Courthouse, further retreat was cut off, and on the 9th of April Lee surrendered his army to Grant at an interview between the two commanders which brought out the best qualities of each. Lee’s troops were required only to bear no more arms against the United States; and they were allowed to retain their horses for spring plowing. Never before at the end of a great war had such magnanimous terms been given. On the retreat from Richmond, many men had thrown away their arms and taken to the woods, so that the number finally surrendered was only twenty-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty-six. After a sharp dispute between Sherman and Stanton, as to the conditions that should be granted, Johnston capitulated to Sherman, on similar terms, April 26. All the other Confederate armies surrendered before the end of May.

THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

552. Assassination of Lincoln.—While the people of the North were everywhere rejoicing over the termination of the war, they were suddenly cast into the deepest grief by an event of the utmost horror. A conspiracy to assassinate the President was successful. On the evening of April 14, President Lincoln was sitting in a private box at one end of the stage in Ford’s theater. Between two of the acts, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, stole into the box and, from the rear, shot the President through the head. Then leaping out from the front of the box upon the stage in full view of the audience, he shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Ever thus to tyrants,”—the motto of Virginia), and passing through a rear door of the stage, escaped. In the midst of the excitement that ensued, the President was tenderly carried to a neighboring house, where he received every possible surgical aid, but no effort could save his life. He expired the next morning. Booth in his leap to the stage injured one of his legs, but he succeeded in mounting a horse that was in waiting, and crossed one of the bridges into Virginia. For several days he evaded his pursuers; but the whole region was in arms, and he was finally brought to bay. Refusing to give himself up, he was shot by a Union soldier. On the evening that Lincoln was shot, one of the other conspirators entered the house of Secretary Seward and attacked him in bed with a huge bowie-knife. Though desperately wounded, Seward finally recovered. Of the conspirators arrested, four were hanged and four imprisoned. It is still a question whether, in the prevalent excitement, injustice was not done in some of these executions.

553. Funeral of Lincoln.—The grief of the people was unprecedented. The greatness of Lincoln’s life and the pathos of his death touched every heart. His body was taken for interment to Springfield, Illinois; and so universal was the love and sorrow, that the people insisted upon making the movement a national event. At New York and other important points along the route, his body lay in state and was viewed by millions of people. Three weeks were required for the funeral train to reach Springfield.

554. Lincoln’s Policy toward the South.—The people of the South showed something of the grief of the North, for many had already begun to see that in war Lincoln had not been a harsh enemy, and that in peace he was likely to be a real friend. They very naturally felt that the murder of the President would probably make the people of the North harsher toward the South, now that the victory had been secured. They did not at that time know what has since been revealed of Lincoln’s generous feeling toward them. At a Cabinet meeting on the very day of his assassination he had discussed the reconstruction of the South. “Enough lives have been sacrificed,” he said; “we must extinguish our resentment, if we expect harmony and union.”

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE WAR.

555. The Army and the Navy.—The Union army had grown steadily in numbers, until at the close of the war the lists showed an enrollment of 1,000,516 men, of whom more than six hundred thousand were fit for active service.^[260] The Union navy had grown until it consisted of about seven hundred vessels, of which sixty were ironclads. It was at that time the most powerful navy in the world.

556. Extent of the Losses.—The Union forces had 44,236 killed in battle, while 49,205 died from wounds. Those who died of disease numbered 186,216. In prison and from accidents and unknown causes, the deaths were 50,352, making a sum total of 330,009. There were buried in the national cemeteries the bodies of 318,870, but a considerable number of these were Confederate soldiers. The number of deaths in the Confederate service was less, but figures have not been so carefully preserved, and the exact truth can, probably, never be known. The number of actions in the course of the war of sufficient importance to receive names was no less than twenty-four hundred.

557. The Cost of the War.—The cost of the war was enormous; but it cannot be accurately told. In addition to about $780,000,000 that had been paid by taxation, while the contest was going on, the national debt had, from $65,000,000, in June, 1861, grown in 1865 to be $2,850,000,000. If to this vast sum we add the debts of states and cities, and the pensions that were paid before 1900, the total cost of the war to the country, exclusive of expenditures by the Confederates, can hardly have been less than ten billions of dollars.

558. Suffering.—In the South the suffering in consequence of the war was vastly greater than in the North. The freeing of four million slaves completely changed the organization of society. Wherever the Northern armies had gone, there had been great destruction of property and thousands of homes had been ruined. Throughout the later years of the war there had been much suffering of individual families, and the sources of income of many that had previously known independence or affluence, had been entirely taken away. When emancipation took place, the suffering was somewhat increased, although, as a rule, the negroes showed remarkable fidelity to their owners.

559. Final Review.—On the 23d and 24th of May such parts of the Armies of the East and of the West as were within reach, had the privilege of passing in review before their commanders and the representatives of the nation. For two whole days the armies filled the long stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to Georgetown, and, in a compact mass, from curbstone to curbstone, passed in front of the reviewing stand at the White House. The spectacle was the mightiest the continent had ever seen; but it was much more than a spectacle. It was a vast army of citizens peaceably going home after the most bloody and terrible of modern wars. Of the more than a million Union soldiers under arms in the spring of 1865, before the next winter all but about fifty thousand had been quietly mustered out and become, in the main, orderly and industrious citizens.

560. The Military Lessons of the War.—As time has passed, students have learned that the military lessons taught by the war were numerous and important. Four of them are especially worthy of note.

(1) The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac convinced every one that wooden vessels could no longer be of any service against ships of iron. In less than a generation, every navy of importance in the world was made up exclusively of iron ships.

(2) The habit of instantly throwing up protecting intrenchments, whenever either army came to a halt near the other, completely revolutionized military field practice.

(3) More important still was the lesson that military training of officers cannot be dispensed with in any nation. The successful commanders of the war in the North, as well as in the South, were, almost without exception, officers who had been trained in the military schools. In the early part of the contest, especially in the North, men with political influence were often put into responsible positions; but such appointments generally proved disastrous, and the authorities had to fill their places with men who had received a careful military training.

(4) But the greatest lesson of all was taught by the rapidity with which a great army could be put into the field in an emergency, and then quietly disbanded. Stanton, in his report as Secretary of War in 1865, called attention to several remarkable facts in this connection. After the disaster in the Peninsula more than eighty thousand troops were enlisted, organized, equipped, and sent into the field in less than thirty days. Sixty thousand new troops repeatedly went into the field within four weeks; and from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin ninety thousand men were raised and sent into the armies within twenty days.^[261] These facts showed that a large standing army is unnecessary in a self-governing nation.

561. The French in Mexico.—The immense military power and prestige of the United States were soon illustrated in a striking manner. Throughout the war the imperial government of France, under Napoleon III., was in active sympathy with the effort to destroy the Union. When Napoleon III. found that Great Britain would not, as he desired, acknowledge the independence of the Confederacy, he turned his attention in another direction, and stirred up a revolution in Mexico, which overthrew the Republican form of government and established an empire under Maximilian, an Archduke of Austria. While the United States government was at war, it was in no condition to do more than to issue a formal protest; but when the war was over, and there were a million men available, France perceived the advisability of withdrawing her troops from Mexico at the suggestion of the United States. With a courage worthy of a better cause, Maximilian refused to withdraw with them. The Mexicans soon revolted, and in 1867, the emperor was taken prisoner and shot. The United States government entreated for his life, but the request was formally refused.