The President’s Reception of Negroes—The South opens Negotiations for Peace—Proposals—Lincoln’s Second Inauguration—The Last Battle—Davis Captured—End of the War—Death of Lincoln—Public Mourning.

The political year of 1865 began with the assemblage of Congress (December 5th, 1864). The following day, Mr. Lincoln sent in his Message. After setting forth the state of American relations with foreign Governments, he announced that the ports of Fernandina, Norfolk, and Pensacola had been opened. In 1863, a Spaniard named Arguelles, who had been guilty of stealing and selling slaves, had been handed over to the Cuban Government by President Lincoln, and for this the President had been subjected to very severe criticism. In the Message he vindicated himself, declaring that he had no doubt of the power and duty of the Executive under the law of nations to exclude enemies of the human race from an asylum in the United States. He showed an enormous increase in industry and revenue, a great expansion of population, and other indications of material progress; thus practically refuting General Fremont’s shameless declaration that Lincoln’s “administration had been, politically and financially, a failure.” On New Year’s Day, 1865, the President, as was usual, held a reception. The negroes—who waited round the door in crowds to see their great benefactor, whom they literally worshipped as a superior being, and to whom many attributed supernatural or divine power—had never yet been admitted into the White House, except as servants. But as the crowd of white visitors diminished, a few of the most confident ventured timidly to enter the hall of reception, and, to their extreme joy and astonishment, were made welcome by the President. Then many came in. An eye-witness wrote of this scene as follows—“For nearly two hours Mr. Lincoln had been shaking the hands of the white ‘sovereigns,’ and had become excessively weary—but here his nerves rallied at the unwonted sight, and he welcomed this motley crowd with a heartiness that made them wild with exceeding joy. They laughed and wept, and wept and laughed, exclaiming through their blinding tears, ‘God bless you!’ ‘God bless Abraham Lincoln!’ ‘God bress Massa Linkum!’”

It was usual with Louis the XI. to begin important State negotiations by means of vagabonds of no faith or credibility, that they might be easily disowned if unsuccessful; and this was precisely the course adopted by Davis and his Government when they employed Jewett and Saunders to sound Lincoln as to peace. A more reputable effort was made in February, 1865, towards the same object. On December 28th, 1864, Mr. Lincoln had furnished Secretary F. P. Blair with a pass to enter the Southern lines and return, stipulating, however, that he should in no way treat politically with the rebels. But Mr. Blair returned with a message from Jefferson Davis, in which the latter declared his willingness to enter into negotiations to secure peace to the two countries. To which Mr. Lincoln replied that he would be happy to receive any agent with a view to securing peace to our common country. On January 29th, the Federal Government received an application from A. H. Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President, R. M. T. Hunter, President of the rebel Senate, and A. J. Campbell, the rebel Secretary of War, to enter the lines as quasi-commissioners, to confer with the President. This was a great advance in dignity beyond Saunders and Jewett. Permission was given for the parties to hold a conference on the condition that they were not to land, which caused great annoyance to the rebel agents, who made no secret of their desire to visit Washington. They were received on board a steamboat off Fortress Monroe. By suggestion of General Grant, Mr. Lincoln was personally present at the interview. The President insisted that three conditions were indispensable—1. Restoration of the national authority in all the states; 2. Emancipation of the slaves; and 3. Disbanding of the forces hostile to Government. The Confederate Commissioners suggested that if hostilities could be suspended while the two Governments united in driving the French out of Mexico, or in a war with France, the result would be a better feeling between the South and North, and the restoration of the Union. This proposition—which, to say the least, indicated a lamentable want of gratitude to the French Emperor, who had been anxious from the beginning to recognise the South and destroy the Union, and who would have done so but for the English Government—was rejected by Mr. Lincoln as too vague. During this conference, Mr. Hunter insisted that a constitutional ruler could confer with rebels, and adduced as an instance the correspondence of Charles I. with his Parliament. To which Mr. Lincoln replied that he did not pretend to be versed in questions of history, but that he distinctly recollected that Charles I. lost his head. Nothing was agreed upon. But, as Mr. Stephens declared, Jefferson Davis coloured the report of this meeting so as to crush the great Southern peace-party. He began by stating that he had received a written notification which satisfied him that Mr. Lincoln wished to confer as to peace, when the truth was that Lincoln had forbidden Mr. Blair to open any such negotiation. And having, by an inflammatory report, stirred up many people to hold “blackflag” meetings and “fire the Southern heart,” he said of the Northern men in a public speech—“We will teach them that, when they talk to us, they talk to their masters.”31 Or, as it was expressed by a leading Confederate journal—“A respectful attitude, cap in hand, is that which befits a Yankee when speaking to a Southerner.”

On January 31st, the House of Representatives passed a resolution submitting to the Legislatures of all the states a constitutional amendment entirely abolishing slavery, which had already passed the Senate (April 8th, 1864). On the 4th March, 1865, Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated for a second time. Four years before, when the same ceremony was performed, he was the least known and the most hated man who had ever been made President. Since then a tremendous storm had darkened the land, and now the sky, growing blue again, let the sunlight fall on his head, and the world saw what manner of man he was. And such a day this 4th of March literally was, for it began with so great a tempest that it was supposed the address must be delivered in the Senate Chamber instead of the open air. But, as Raymond writes, “the people had gathered in immense numbers before the Capitol, in spite of the storm, and just before noon the rain ceased, the clouds broke away, and, as the President took the oath of office, the blue sky appeared, a small white cloud, like a hovering bird, seemed to hang above his head, and the sunlight broke through the clouds, and fell upon him with a glory afterwards felt to have been an emblem of the martyr’s crown which was so soon to rest upon his head.” Arnold and many others declare that, at this moment, a brilliant star made its appearance in broad daylight, and the incident was regarded by many as an omen of peace. As I have myself seen in America a star at noon-day for two days in succession, I do not doubt the occurrence, though I do not remember it on this 4th of March. The inaugural address was short, but remarkable for vigour and a very conciliatory spirit. He said—

“On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war.... Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish—and the war came. One-eighth of the population were slaves, who constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was the cause of the war. To strengthen and perpetuate this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the Government claimed right to no more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it.... Both parties read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe unto the man by whom the offence cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be requited by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago, so it must still be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward no one, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

If there was ever a sincere utterance on earth expressive of deeply religious faith, in spirit and in truth, it was in this address. And at this time not only President Lincoln, but an extraordinary number of people were inspired by a deeply earnest faith and feelings which few can now realise. Men who had never known serious or elevated thoughts before, now became fanatical. The death of relatives in the war, the enormous outrages inflicted by the rebels on prisoners, the system of terrorism and cruelty which they advocated, had produced on the Northern mind feelings once foreign to it, and they were now resolved to go on, “in God’s name, and for this cause,” to the bitter end. With the feeling of duty to God and the Constitution and the Union, scores on scores of thousands of men laid down their lives on the battle-field. And it was characteristic of the South that, having from the beginning all the means at their command of cajoling, managing, and ruling the North, as easily as ever a shepherd managed sheep, they, with most exemplary arrogance, took precisely the course to provoke all its resistance. Soldiers who had not these earnest feelings generally turned into bounty-jumpers—men who took the premium for enlisting, and deserted to enlist again—or else into marauders or stragglers. But the great mass were animated by firm enthusiasm. I have been in several countries during wild times, and have seen in a French revolution courage amounting to delirium, but never have I seen anything like the zeal which burned in every Union heart during the last two years of the war of Emancipation.

On the 6th March, 1865, Mr. Fessenden, the Secretary of the Treasury, voluntarily resigned, and Mr. Hugh M‘Culloch was appointed in his place. This was the only change in the Cabinet. On the 11th March, the President issued a proclamation, pardoning all deserters from the army, on condition that they would at once return to duty. This had the effect of bringing in several thousands, who materially aided the draft for 300,000, which was begun on the 15th March, 1865.

And now the Southern Confederacy was rapidly hurrying down a darkening road to ruin—nor was it even destined to perish with honour, and true to its main principle; for, in their agony, its leaders even looked to the despised negro for help. It was proposed to the rebel Congress—and the measure was defeated by only one vote—that every negro who would fight for the Confederacy should be set free; which amounted, as Raymond declares, and as many rebels admitted, to a practical abandonment of those ideas of slavery for whose supremacy the rebellion had been set on foot. Of this proposition President Lincoln said—“I have in my life heard many arguments why the negroes ought to be slaves, but if they will fight for those who would keep them in slavery, it will be a better argument than any I have yet heard. He who would fight for that, ought to be a slave.”

The beginning of the end was now approaching. Early in February, Grant advanced in person with four corps, with the object of establishing his position near the Weldon road. After several days’ fighting, the Union forces were in a position four miles in advance. On the 25th March, 1865, the rebels desperately assaulted and captured Fort Stedman, a very important position near Petersburg; but the Union reserves speedily retook it. General Grant was now afraid lest Lee should escape, “and combine with Johnston, in which case a long campaign, consuming most of the summer, might become necessary.”

On the 30th March, 1865, Grant attacked Lee, “with the army of the Potomac, in front, while the army of the James forced the enemy’s right flank, and Sheridan, with a large cavalry force, distracting Lee’s attention by a blow at the junction of the South-side, Richmond, and Danville railroads, suddenly wheeled, struck the South-side railroad within ten miles of Petersburg, and, tearing it up as he went, fell upon the rebel left flank.” During this time, and the four days which ensued, there was much resolute and brilliant strategy, desperate and rapid flanking, hard fighting, and personal heroism. It was the perfection of war, and it was well done by both adversaries. Now Petersburg was completely at the mercy of the national armies. During the tremendous cannonading of Saturday night, April 1st, 1865, Lee, in dire need, called for Longstreet to aid him. “Then,” in the words of Arnold, “the bells of Richmond tolled, and the drums beat, calling militia, citizens, clerks, everybody who could carry arms, to man the lines from which Longstreet’s troops were retiring.” At early dawn on Sunday, April 2nd, 1865, Grant ordered a general assault along the entire line, and this, the last grand charge of the war, carried everything decisively before it. Away the rebel lines rushed in full retreat. At eleven a.m. of that eventful Sunday, Jefferson Davis, in church, received a despatch from Lee, saying Petersburg and Richmond could no longer be held. He ran in haste from church, and left the city by the Danville railroad. During the night, Richmond and Petersburg were both evacuated, the rebels first setting fire to the principal buildings in Richmond, being urged by the desperate intention of making another Moscow of their last city. The flames were, with difficulty, put out by Weitzel’s cavalry. His regiment of black troops was the first to enter the stronghold of slavery, its band playing “John Brown’s Body.”

Lee, who had lost 18,000 prisoners and 10,000 in killed and wounded, or half his force, fled with the remainder, in the utmost disorder, toward Lynchburg. But he had not the merciful Meade in command after him this time, but a man of blood and iron, “who was determined then and there to make an end of it.” “Grant’s object,” says Raymond, “in the whole campaign, had been, not Richmond, but Lee’s army; for that he pushed forward, regardless of the captured cities which lay behind him, showing himself as relentless in pursuit as he had been undaunted in attack.”32

President Lincoln immediately went to the front and to Richmond the day after it was taken. He entered quietly without a military guard, accompanied only by his son, Admiral Porter, and the sailors who had rowed him up. But the negroes soon found out that he was there, and came rushing, with wild cries of delight, to welcome him. This scene has been described as inexpressibly touching. The poor creatures, now knowing, for the first time, that they were really free, came, their eyes streaming with tears, weeping aloud for joy, shouting or dancing with delight, and crying, without exception, in long chorus, “Glory, glory, glory to God!” These people, who had acquired, as it were, in an instant that freedom which they prized far above wealth, or aught else on earth, found only in religious enthusiasm vent for their feelings.

It was at Grant’s suggestion that President Lincoln had so promptly visited Richmond, to which he again returned on April 6th, 1865. Meanwhile, the entire North and West was in a frenzy of delight. Those who can recall it will always speak of it as such an outburst of joyful excitement as they can hardly expect to take part in again. Cannon roared and bells were rung from the Atlantic to the Pacific; drums beat and trumpets sounded, no longer for war, but for gladness of peace. There was such gratulation and hurrahing for happiness, and such kindly greeting among strangers, that it seemed as if all the world were one family at a merry-making. And, in every family, relatives and friends began to get ready for husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, or lovers, for all knew that, in a few days, more than a million of Union soldiers would return home. For, at last, the war was over. The four years of sorrow and suspense were at an end.

Meanwhile, Grant was hunting Lee with headlong haste. The rebel army was cut off from its supplies and starving, its cattle falling dead, “its men falling out of the ranks by thousands, from hunger and fatigue.” Fighting desperately, flanked at every turn, on April 6th, 1865, Lee was overtaken by Sheridan and Meade at Deatonville, and met with a crushing defeat. On Sunday, April 9th, 1865, he was compelled to surrender to Grant on terms which, as Arnold rightly states, were very liberal, magnanimous, and generous. The whole of Lee’s army were allowed to return home on condition that they would not take up arms again against the United States—not a difficult condition for an enemy which made no scruple of immediately putting its paroled men into the field, without regard to pledge or promise, as had happened with the 37,000 Vicksburg prisoners. This stipulation gave much dissatisfaction to the Union army. On the 26th April, 1865, General Johnston surrendered his army to Sherman, not before the latter had blundered sadly in offering terms on conditions which were entirely beyond his powers to grant. Johnston finally obtained the same conditions as Lee. The other rebel forces soon yielded—General Howell Cobb surrendering to General Wilson in Georgia, on the 20th April; Dick Taylor surrendering all the forces west of the Mississippi to General Canby, to whom General Kirby Smith also surrendered on May 26th. On the 11th day of May, Jefferson Davis, flying in terror towards the sea, was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, by the 4th Michigan Regiment. He was attired at the time as a woman, wearing his wife’s waterproof cloak, and with a woman’s shawl drawn over his head. Those who captured him say he was carrying a water-bucket. A rebel officer who was with him admits that he was in a loose wrapper, and that a Miss Howell fastened the shawl on to disguise him, but declares he was followed by a servant with a bucket.33 It has been vigorously denied that Davis was thus disguised as a woman; but the affidavit of the colonel who captured him, and the clumsy attempt of the rebel officer to establish the contrary, effectually prove it. On the 4th October, 1864, Mr. Davis, speaking of “the Yankees,” declared that “the only way to make spaniels civil is to whip them.” A few months only had elapsed, and this man who spoke of Northerners as of dogs, was caught by them running away as an old woman with a tin pail. This was the end of the Great Rebellion.

Mr. Raymond declares that “the people had been borne on the top of a lofty wave of joy ever since Sheridan’s victory; and the news of Lee’s surrender, with Lincoln’s return to Washington, intensified the universal exultation.” On the 10th April, 1865, an immense crowd assembled at the White House, which was illuminated, as “the whole city also was a-blaze with bonfires and waving with flags.” And on this occasion, so inspired with joy soon to be turned to the deepest grief which ever fell on the nation, Lincoln delivered his last address. Hitherto he had always spoken with hope, but never without pain; after he had for once lifted his voice in joy he never spoke again. In this address he did not exult over the fallen, but discussed the best method of reconstruction, or how to bring the revolted states again into the Union as speedily and as kindly as possible.

No time was lost in relieving the nation from the annoyances attendant on war. Between the 11th April, 1865, and the 15th, proclamations were issued, declaring all drafting and recruiting to be stopped, with all purchases of arms and supplies, removing all military restrictions upon trade and commerce, and opening the blockaded ports. The promptness with which the army returned to peaceful pursuits was, considering its magnitude, unprecedented in history. The grand army mustered over 1,200,000 men. The population of the twenty-three loyal states, including Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland—which latter state furnished soldiers for both sides, from a population of 3,025,745—was 22,046,472, and this supplied the aggregate, reduced to a three years’ standard, of 2,129,041 men, or fourteen and a-half per cent. of the whole population. Ninety-six thousand and eighty-nine died from wounds, 184,331 from disease—total, 280,420—the actual number being more. The cost of the war to the United States was 3,098,233,078 dollars, while the States expended in bounties, or premiums to recruits, 500,000,000 dollars. The blacks furnished their fair proportion of soldiers, and, if suffering and death be a test of courage, a much greater proportion of bravery than the whites, as of 178,975 black troops, 68,178 perished.

Mr. Lincoln’s last speech was entirely devoted to a kind consideration of the means by which he might restore their privileges to the rebels; and his last story was a kindly excuse for letting one escape. It was known that Jacob Thompson, a notorious Confederate, meant to escape in disguise. The President, as usual, was disposed to be merciful, and to permit the arch-rebel to pass unmolested, but his Secretary urged that he should be arrested as a traitor. “By permitting him to escape the penalties of treason,” remarked the Secretary, “you sanction it.” “Well,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “that puts me in mind of a little story. There was an Irish soldier last summer who stopped at a chemist’s, where he saw a soda-fountain. ‘Misther Doctor,’ he said, ‘give me, plase, a glass ov soda-wather—and if ye can put in a few drops of whiskey unbeknown to anyone, I’ll be obleeged till yees.’ Now,” continued Mr. Lincoln, “if Jake Thompson is permitted to go away unknown to anyone, where’s the harm? Don’t have him arrested.”

And now the end was drawing near. As the taper which has burned almost away flashes upwards, as if it would cast its fire-life to heaven, so Abraham Lincoln, when his heart was for once, and once only, glad and light, perished suddenly. During the whole war he had been hearing from many sources that his life was threatened. There were always forming, in the South, Devoted Bands and Brotherhoods of Death, sanctioned by the Confederate Congress, whose object was simply arson, robbery, and murder in the North. Many have forgotten, but I have not, what appeared in the rebel newspapers of those days, or with what the detective police of the North were continually busy. The deeds of Beal and Kennedy,34 men holding commissions from the authorities of Richmond for the purpose, showed that a government could stoop to attempt to burn hundreds of women and children alive, and throw railway trains full of peaceable citizens off the track. It is to the credit of the North that, in their desire for reconciliation, the question as to who were the instigators and authorisers of Lincoln’s death was never pushed very far. The world was satisfied with being told that the murderer was a crazy actor, and the rebels eagerly caught at the idea. But years have now passed, and it is time that the truth should be known. As Dr. Brockett declares, a plot, the extent and ramifications of which have never yet been fully made known, had long been formed to assassinate the President and the prominent members of the Cabinet. “Originating in the Confederate Government, this act, with others, such as the attempt to fire New York, ... was confided to an association of army officers, who, when sent on these errands, were said to be on ‘detached service.’” There is direct proof of Booth’s actual consultation with officers known to belong to this organisation, during Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg. The assassination of the President was a thing so commonly talked of in the South as to excite no surprise. A reward was actually offered in one of the Southern papers for “the murder of the President, Vice-President, and Secretary Seward.” Now when such an offer is followed by such an attempt, few persons would deny the connection. It is true that there were, even among the most zealous Union-men at this time, some whose desire to acquire political influence in the South, and be regarded as conciliators, was so great, that they hastened to protest, as zealously as any rebels, that the Confederate Government had no knowledge of the plot. Perhaps from the depths of Mr. Jefferson Davis’s inner conscience there may yet come forth some tardy avowal of the truth. When that gentleman was arrested, he protested that he had done nothing for which he could be punished; but when he heard, in answer, that he might be held accountable for complicity in the murder of President Lincoln, he was silent and seemed alarmed. But the almost conclusive proof that the murder was carried out under the sanction and influence of high authorities, may be found in the great number of people who were engaged in it, and the utter absence among them of those guiding minds which invariably direct conspiracies. When on one night a great number of hotels were fired in New York, the Copperhead press declared that it was done by thieves. But the Fire Marshal of Philadelphia, who was an old detective, said that common incendiaries like burglars never worked in large parties. It was directed by higher authority. Everything in the murder of President Lincoln indicated that the assassin and his accomplices were tools in stronger hands. The rebellion had failed, but the last blow of revenge was struck with unerring Southern vindictiveness. After all, as a question of mere morality, the exploits of Beal andfKennedy show that the Confederate Government had authorised deeds a hundred times more detestable than the simple murder of President Lincoln. Political enthusiasm might have induced thousands to regard Lincoln as a tyrant and Booth as a Brutus; but the most fervent madness of faction can never apologise for burning women and children alive, or killing them on railways.

Ford’s Theatre, where President Lincoln was assassinated.