Chapter XIII: The Fall of Richmond, and the Assassination of President Lincoln (1)

From the Capitol, where he had spoken his inaugural on March 4, 1865, Mr. Lincoln came back to the White House with less than five weeks of life before him; yet for those scant weeks most men would have gladly exchanged their full lifetimes. To the nation they came fraught with all the intoxicating triumph of victory; but upon the President they laid the vast responsibility of rightly shaping and using success; and it was far less easy to end the war wisely than it had been to conduct it vigorously. Two populations, with numbers and resources amply enough for two powerful nations, after four years of sanguinary, relentless conflict, in which each side had been inspired and upheld by a faith like that of the first crusaders, were now to be reunited as fellow citizens, and to be fused into a homogeneous body politic based upon universal suffrage. As if this did not verge closely enough on the impossible, millions of people of a hitherto servile race were suddenly established in the new status of freedom. It was very plain that the problems which were advancing with approaching peace were more perplexing than those which were disappearing with departing war. Much would depend upon the spirit and terms of the closing of hostilities.

If the limits of the President's authority were vague, they might for that very reason be all the more extensive; and, wherever they might be set, he soon made it certain that he designed to part with no power which he possessed. On the evening of March 3 he went up, as usual, to the Capitol, to sign bills during the closing hours of the last session of the Thirty-eighth Congress. To him thus engaged was handed a telegram from General Grant, saying that General Lee had suggested an interview between himself and Grant in the hope that, upon an interchange of views, they might reach a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties through a military convention. Immediately, exchanging no word with any one, he wrote:--

"The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. Meanwhile, you are to press to the utmost your military advantages."

This reply he showed to Seward, then handed it to Stanton and ordered him to sign and dispatch it at once.

About this same time General Lee notified Mr. Davis that Petersburg and Richmond could not be held many more days. Indeed, they would probably have been evacuated at once, had not the capital carried so costly a freight of prestige as well as of pride. It was no surprising secret which was thus communicated to the chief rebel; all the common soldiers in the Confederate army had for a long while known it just as well as the general-in-chief did; and they had been showing their appreciation of the situation by deserting and coming within the Union lines in such increasing numbers that soon General Grant estimated that the Confederate forces were being depleted by the equivalent of nearly a regiment every day. The civilian leaders had already suggested the last expedients of despair,--the enrolling of boys of fourteen years and old men of sixty-five, nay, even the enlistment of slaves. But there was no cure for the mortal dwindling. The Confederacy was dying of anaemia.

Grant understood the situation precisely as his opponents did. That Petersburg and Richmond were about to be his was settled. But he was reaching out for more than only these strongholds, and that he could get Lee's army also was by no means settled. As March opened he lay down every night in the fear that, while he was sleeping, the evacuation might be furtively, rapidly, in progress, and the garrison escaping. He dreaded that, any morning, he might awake to find delusive picket lines, guarding nothing, while Lee and his soldiers were already well in the lead, marching for the South. For him, especially, it was a period of extreme tension. Since the capture of Savannah and the evacuation of Charleston several weeks ago, Sherman with his fine army had been moving steadily northward. In front of Sherman was Johnston, with a considerable force which had been got together from the remnants of Hood's army and other sources. At Bentonsville a battle took place, which resulted in Johnston's falling back, but left him still formidable. General Grant had not yet been able to break the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which ran out from Richmond in a southwesterly direction; and the danger was that by this and the "South Side" railroad, Lee might slip out, join Johnston, and overwhelm Sherman before Grant could reach him. In time, this peril was removed by the junction of Schofield's army, coming from Wilmington, with that of Sherman at Goldsboro. Yet, even after this relief, there remained a possibility that Lee, uniting with Johnston, and thus leading a still powerful army of the more determined and constant veterans, might prolong the war indefinitely.

Not without good reason was Grant harassed by this thought, for in fact it was precisely this thing that the good soldier in Petersburg was scheming to do. The closing days of the month brought the endeavor and the crisis. To improve his chances Lee made a desperate effort to demoralize, at least temporarily, the left or western wing of the Union army, around which he must pass in order to get away, when he should actually make his start. March 25, therefore, he made so fierce an assault, that he succeeded in piercing the Union lines and capturing a fort. But it was a transitory gleam of success; the Federals promptly closed in upon the Confederates, and drove them back, capturing and killing 4000 of them. In a few hours the affair was all over; the Northern army showed the dint no more than a rubber ball; but the Confederates had lost brave men whom they could not spare.

On March 22 Mr. Lincoln went to City Point; no one could say just how soon important propositions might require prompt answering, and it was his purpose to be ready to have any such business transacted as closely as possible in accordance with his own ideas. On March 27 or 28, the famous conference[79] was held on board the River Queen, on James River, hard by Grant's headquarters, between the President, General Grant, General Sherman, who had come up hastily from Goldsboro, and Admiral Porter. Not far away Sheridan's fine body of 13,000 seasoned cavalrymen, fresh from their triumphs in the Shenandoah Valley, was even now crossing the James River, on their way into the neighborhood of Dinwiddie Court House, which lies southwest of Richmond, and where they could threaten that remaining railroad which was Lee's best chance of escape. General Sherman reported that on April 10 he should be ready to move to a junction with Grant. But Grant, though he did not then proclaim it, did not mean to wait so long; in fact he had the secret wish and purpose that the Eastern army, which had fought so long and so bloodily in Virginia, should have all to itself the well-deserved glory of capturing Richmond and conquering Lee, a purpose which Mr. Lincoln, upon suggestion of it, accepted.[80] The President then returned to City Point, there to stay for the present, awaiting developments.

On April 1 General Sheridan fought and won the important battle at Five Forks. Throughout that night, to prevent a too vigorous return-assault upon Sheridan, the Federal batteries thundered all along the line; and at daybreak on the morning of April 2 the rebel intrenchments were fiercely assaulted. After hard fighting the Confederates were forced back upon their inner lines. Then General Grant sent a note to City Point, saying: "I think the President might come out and pay us a visit to morrow;" and then also General Lee, upon his part, sent word to Jefferson Davis that the end had come, that Petersburg and Richmond must be abandoned immediately.

The news had been expected at any moment by the Confederate leaders, but none the less it produced intense excitement. Away went Mr. Davis, in hot haste, also the members of his cabinet and of his congress, and the officials of the rebel State of Virginia, and, in short, every one who felt himself of consequence enough to make it worth his while to run away. The night was theirs, and beneath its friendly shade they escaped, with archives and documents which had suddenly become valuable chiefly for historical purposes. Grant had ordered that on the morning of April 3 a bombardment should begin at five o'clock, which was to be followed by an assault at six o'clock. But there was no occasion for either; even at the earlier hour Petersburg was empty, and General Grant and General Meade soon entered it undisturbed. A little later Mr. Lincoln joined them, and they walked through streets in which neither man nor animal, save only this little knot, was to be seen.[81]

At quarter after eight o'clock, that same morning, General Weitzel, with a few attendants, rode into the streets of Richmond. That place, however, was by no means deserted, but, on the contrary, it seemed Pandemonium. The rebels had been blowing up and burning warships and stores; they had also gathered great quantities of cotton and tobacco into the public storehouses and had then set them on fire. More than 700 buildings were feeding a conflagration at once terrible and magnificent to behold, and no one was endeavoring to stay its advance. The negroes were intoxicated with joy, and the whites with whiskey; the convicts from the penitentiary had broken loose; a mob was breaking into houses and stores and was pillaging madly. Erelong the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a negro regiment under Colonel C.F. Adams, Jr., paraded through the streets, and then the Southern whites hid themselves within doors to shun the repulsive spectacle. It may be that armed and hostile negroes brought to them the dread terror of retaliation and massacre in the wild hour of triumph. But if so, their fear was groundless; the errand of the Northern troops was, in fact, one of safety and charity; they began at once to extinguish the fires, to suppress the riot, and to feed the starving people.

On the following day President Lincoln started on his way up the river from City Point, upon an excursion to the rebel capital. Obstructions which had been placed in the stream stopped the progress of his steamer; whereupon he got into a barge and was rowed to one of the city wharves. He had not been expected, and with a guard of ten sailors, and with four gentlemen as comrades, he walked through the streets, under the guidance of a "contraband," to the quarters of General Weitzel. This has been spoken of as an evidence of bravery; but, regarded in this light, it was only superfluous evidence of a fact which no one ever doubted; it really deserves better to be called foolhardiness, as Captain Penrose, who was one of the party, frankly described it in his Diary. The walk was a mile and a half long, and this gentleman says: "I never passed a more anxious time than in this walk. In going up [the river] ... we ran the risk of torpedoes and the obstructions; but I think the risk the President ran in going through the streets of Richmond was even greater, and shows him to have great courage. The streets of the city were filled with drunken rebels, both officers and men, and all was confusion.... A large portion of the city was still on fire." Probably enough the impunity with which this great risk was run was due to the dazing and bewildering effect of an occasion so confused and exciting. Meantime, Lee, abandoning Petersburg, but by no means abandoning "the Cause," pushed his troops with the utmost expedition to gain that southwestern route which was the slender thread whence all Confederate hope now depended. His men traveled light and fast; for, poor fellows, they had little enough to carry! But Grant was an eager pursuer. Until the sixth day that desperate flight and chase continued. Lee soon saw that he could not get to Danville, as he had hoped to do, and thereupon changed his plan and struck nearly westward, for open country, via Appomattox Court House. All the way, as he marched, Federal horsemen worried the left flank of his columns, while the infantry came ever closer upon the rear, and kept up a ceaseless skirmishing. It had become "a life and death struggle with Lee to get south to his provisions;" and Grant was struggling with not less stern zeal, along a southerly line, to get ahead of him in this racing journey. The Federal troops, sanguine and excited, did their part finely, even marching a whole day and night without rations. On April 6 there was an engagement, in which about 7000 Southerners, with six general officers, surrendered; and perhaps the captives were not deeply sorry for their fate. Sheridan telegraphed: "If the thing is pressed, I think that Lee will surrender." Grant repeated this to the President, who replied: "Let the thing be pressed,"--not that there was any doubt about it! Yet, April 7, General Lee was cheered by an evanescent success in an engagement. It was trifling, however, and did not suffice to prevent many of his generals from uniting to advise him to capitulate. Grant also sent to him a note saying that resistance was useless, and that he desired to shift from himself the responsibility of further bloodshed by asking for a surrender. Lee denied the hopelessness, but asked what terms would be offered. At the same time he continued his rapid retreat. On April 8, about sunset, near Appomattox Station, his advance encountered Sheridan's cavalry directly across the road. The corral was complete. Nevertheless, there ensued a few critical hours; for Sheridan could by no means stand against Lee's army. Fortunately, however, these hours of crisis were also the hours of darkness, in which troops could march but could not fight, and at dawn, on April 9, the Southerners saw before them a great force of Federal soldiery abundantly able to hold them in check until Grant's whole army could come up. "A sharp engagement ensued," says General Grant, "but Lee quickly set up a white flag." He then notified Sheridan, in his front, and Meade, in his rear, that he had sent a note to General Grant with a view to surrender, and he asked a suspension of hostilities. These commanders doubted a ruse, and reluctantly consented to hold their troops back for two hours. That was just enough; pending the recess Grant was reached by the bearer of the dispatch, and at once rode in search of Lee.

The two met at the house of a villager and easily came to terms, for Grant's offer transcended in liberality anything which Lee could fairly have expected. General Grant hastily wrote it out in the form of a letter to Lee: The Confederates, officers and men, were to be paroled, "not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly exchanged;" arms, artillery, and public property were to be turned over to the Federals except the side-arms of the officers, their private horses, and baggage. "This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside." This closing sentence practically granted amnesty to all persons then surrendering, not excluding even the rebel general-in-chief. It was afterward severely criticised as trenching upon the domain of the President, and perhaps, also, on that of Congress. For it was practically an exercise of the pardoning power; and it was, or might be, an element in reconstruction. Not improbably the full force of the language was not appreciated when it was written; but whether this was so or not, and whether authority had been unduly assumed or not, an engagement of General Grant was sure to be respected, especially when it was entirely in harmony with the spirit of the President's policy, though it happened to be contrary to the letter of his order.

General Lee had no sooner surrendered than he asked for food for his starving troops; and stated, by way of estimate, that about twenty-five thousand rations would be needed. The paroles, as signed, showed a total of 28,231. To so trifling a force had his once fine army been reduced by the steady drain of battles and desertions.[82] The veterans had long since understood that their lives were a price which could buy nothing, and which therefore might as well be saved.

The fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee were practically the end of the war. Remnants of secession indeed remained, of which Mr. Lincoln did not live to see the disposition. Johnston's army was still in the field; but on learning that there really was no longer either a Confederacy or a cause to fight for, it surrendered on April 26. Jefferson Davis also arranged for himself[83] the most effectual of all amnesties by making himself ridiculous; for though some persons had designed a serious punishment for this dethroned ruler, they recognized that this became impossible after he had put himself into petticoats. It was hardly fair that Mr. Lincoln was robbed of the amusement which he would have gathered from this exploit.

On April 11, in the evening, a multitude gathered before the White House, bringing loud congratulations, and not to be satisfied without a speech from the President. Accordingly he came out and spoke to the cheering crowd, and by a few simple, generous words, turned over the enthusiastic acclamation, which seemed to honor him, to those "whose harder part" had given the cause of rejoicing. "Their honors," he said, "must not be parceled out with others. I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for plan or execution, is mine. To General Grant, his skillful officers and brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach to take an active part." He then at once turned to the subject of reconstruction, and the last words which he addressed to the people were mingled of argument and appeal in behalf of the humane and liberal policy which he had inaugurated in Louisiana, which was still in the experimental stage, yet which had already excited the bitter denunciations of the politicians.

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So soon as it was known in the autumn of 1860 that Abraham Lincoln was to be the next president of the United States, he was at once beset by two pests: the office-seekers, and the men who either warned him to fear assassination or anonymously threatened him with it. Of the two, the office-seekers annoyed him by far the more; they came like the plague of locusts, and devoured his time and his patience. His contempt and disgust towards them were unutterable; he said that the one purpose in life with at least one half of the nation seemed to be that they should live comfortably at the expense of the other half. But it was the fashion of the people, and he was obliged to endure the affliction, however it might stir his indignation and contempt. The matter of assassination he was more free to treat as he chose. A curious incident, strangely illustrating the superstitious element in his nature, was narrated by him as follows:--

"It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day, and there had been a great 'hurrah boys!' so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself upon a lounge in my chamber. Opposite to where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it; and, in looking in that glass, I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass; but the illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler--say five shades--than the other. I got up and the thing melted away; and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it,--nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang, as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home, I told my wife about it; and a few days after I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough, the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was 'a sign' that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term."

From this time forth anonymous threats and friendly warnings came thick and fast up to the fatal day when the real event befell. Some of these he kept, and after his death they were found in his desk, labeled "Assassination Letters." Before he left Springfield for his journey to Washington, many ingenious fears were suggested to him; but, except for his change of route toward the close of his journey, none of these presagings visibly influenced him, and his change of purpose concerning the passage through Baltimore was never afterward recalled by him without vexation. From that time forth he resolutely ignored all danger of this kind. During most of the time that he was in office any one could easily call upon him, unguarded, at the White House; he moved through the streets of Washington like any private citizen; and he drove about the environs, and habitually in the warm season took the long drive to and from the Soldiers' Home, with substantially no protection. When, at last, a guard at the White House and an escort upon his drives were fairly forced upon him by Mr. Stanton (who was declared by the gossip of the unfriendly to be somewhat troubled with physical timidity), he rebelled against these incumbrances upon his freedom, and submitted, when he had to do so, with an ill grace. To those who remonstrated with him upon his carelessness he made various replies. Sometimes, half jocosely, he said that it was hardly likely that any intelligent Southerner would care to get rid of him in order to set either Vice-President Hamlin or, later, Vice-President Johnson, in his place. At other times he said: "What is the use of setting up the _gap_, when the fence is down all round?" or, "I do not see that I can make myself secure except by shutting myself up in an iron box, and in that condition I think I could hardly satisfactorily transact the business of the presidency." Again he said: "If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again." This was an obvious reflection, easy enough of suggestion for any one who was not within the danger line; but to live every day in accordance with it, when the danger was never absent, called for a singular tranquillity of temperament, and a kind of courage in which brave men are notoriously apt to be deficient.

On April 9 the President was coming up the Potomac in a steamer from City Point; the Comte de Chambrun was of the party and relates that, as they were nearing Washington, Mrs. Lincoln, who had been silently gazing toward the town, said: "That city is filled with our enemies;" whereupon Mr. Lincoln "somewhat impatiently retorted: 'Enemies! we must never speak of that!'" For he was resolutely cherishing the impossible idea that Northerners and Southerners were to be enemies no longer, but that a pacification of the spirit was coming throughout the warring land contemporaneously with the cessation of hostilities,--a dream romantic and hopelessly incapable of realization, but humane and beautiful. Since he did not live to endeavor to transform it into a fact, and thereby perhaps to have his efforts cause even seriously injurious results, it is open to us to forget the impracticability of the fancy and to revere the nature which in such an hour could give birth to such a purpose.

The fourteenth day of April was Friday,--Good Friday. Many religious persons afterward ventured to say that if the President had not been at the theatre upon that sacred day, the awful tragedy might never have occurred at all. Others, however, not less religiously disposed, were impressed by the coincidence that the fatal shot was fired upon that day which the Christian world had agreed to adopt as the anniversary of the crucifixion of the Saviour of mankind. General Grant and his wife were in Washington on that day and the President invited them to go with him to see the play at Ford's theatre in the evening, but personal engagements called them northward. In the afternoon the President drove out with his wife, and again the superstitious element comes in; for he appeared in such good spirits, as he chatted cheerfully of the past and the future, that she uneasily remarked to him: "I have seen you thus only once before; it was just before our dear Willie died." Such a frame of mind, however, under the circumstances at that time must be regarded as entirely natural rather than as ominous.

About nine o'clock in the evening the President entered his box at the theatre; with him were his wife, Major Rathbone, and a lady; the box had been decorated with an American flag, of which the folds swept down to the stage. Unfortunately it had also been tampered with, in preparation for the plans of the conspirators. Between it and the corridor was a small vestibule; and a stout stick of wood had been so arranged that it could in an instant be made to fasten securely, on the inside, the door which opened from the corridor into this vestibule. Also in the door which led from the vestibule into the box itself a hole had been cut, through which the situation of the different persons in the box could be clearly seen. Soon after the party had entered, when the cheering had subsided and the play was going forward, just after ten o'clock, a man approached through the corridor, pushed his visiting card into the hands of the attendant who sat there, hastily entered the vestibule, and closed and fastened the door behind him. A moment later the noise of a pistol shot astounded every one, and instantly a man was seen at the front of the President's box; Major Rathbone sprang to grapple with him, but was severely slashed in the arm and failed to retard his progress; he vaulted over the rail to the stage, but caught his spur in the folds of the flag, so that he did not alight fairly upon his feet; but he instantly recovered himself, and with a visible limp in his gait hastened across the stage; as he went, he turned towards the audience, brandished the bloody dagger with which he had just struck Rathbone, and cried "_Sic semper tyrannis!_" Some one recognized John Wilkes Booth, an actor of melodramatic characters. The door at the back of the theatre was held open for him by Edward Spangler, an employee, and in the alley hard by a boy, also employed about the theatre, was holding the assassin's horse, saddled and bridled. Booth kicked the boy aside, with a curse, climbed into the saddle with difficulty,--for the small bone of his leg between the knee and ankle had been broken in his fall upon the stage,--and rode rapidly away into the night. Amid the confusion, no efficient pursuit was made.

The President had been shot at the back of the head, on the left side; the bullet passed through the brain, and stopped just short of the left eye. Unconsciousness of course came instantaneously. He was carried to a room in a house opposite the theatre, and there he continued to breathe until twenty-two minutes after seven o'clock in the morning, at which moment he died.

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The man Booth, who had done this deed of blood and madness, was an unworthy member of the family of distinguished actors of that name. He was young, handsome, given to hard drinking, of inordinate vanity, and of small capacity in his profession; altogether, he was a disreputable fellow, though fitted to seem a hero in the eyes of the ignorant and dissipated classes. Betwixt the fumes of the brandy which he so freely drank and the folly of the melodramatic parts which he was wont to act, his brain became saturated with a passion for notoriety, which grew into the very mania of egotism. His crime was as stupid as it was barbarous; and even from his own point of view his achievement was actually worse than a failure. As an act of revenge against a man whom he hated, he accomplished nothing, for he did not inflict upon Mr. Lincoln so much as one minute of mental distress or physical suffering. To the South he brought no good, and at least ran the risk of inflicting upon it much evil, since he aroused a vindictive temper among persons who had the power to carry vindictiveness into effect; and he slew the only sincere and powerful friend whom the Southerners had among their conquerors. He passed a miserable existence for eleven days after the assassination, moving from one hiding-place to another, crippled and suffering, finding concealment difficult and escape impossible. Moreover, he had the intense mortification to find himself regarded with execration rather than admiration, loathed as a murderer instead of admired as a hero, and charged with having wrought irreparable hurt to those whom he had foolishly fancied that he was going to serve conspicuously. It was a curious and significant fact that there was among the people of the North a considerable body of persons who, though undoubtedly as shocked as was every one else at the method by which the President had been eliminated from the political situation, were yet well pleased to see Andrew Johnson come into power;[84] and these persons were the very ones who had been heretofore most extreme in their hostility to slavery, most implacable towards the people of the Confederacy. There were no persons living to whom Booth would have been less willing to minister gratification than to these men. Their new President, it is true, soon disappointed them bitterly, but for the moment his accession was generally regarded as a gain for their party.

Late on April 25 a squad of cavalry traced Booth to a barn in Virginia; they surrounded it, but he refused to come out; thereupon they set fire to it, and then one of them, Boston Corbett, contrary to orders, thrust his musket through a crevice and fired at Booth. Probably he hit his mark, though some think that the hunted wretch at this last desperate moment shot himself with his own revolver. Be this as it may, the assassin was brought forth having a bullet in the base of his brain, and with his body below the wound paralyzed. He died on the morning of April 26.

While the result of Booth's shot secured for him that notoriety which he loved, the enterprise was in fact by no means wholly his own. A conspiracy involving many active members, and known also to others, had been long in existence. For months plans had been laid and changed, and opportunities had been awaited and lost. Had the plot not been thus delayed, its success might have done more practical mischief. Now, in addition to what the plotters lost by reason of this delay, only a part of their whole great scheme was carried out. At the same time that the tragedy was enacting at Ford's Theatre an assault was perpetrated upon Mr. Seward, who was then confined to his bed by hurts lately received in an accident. The assassin gained admission into the house under pretense of bringing medicine; thus he reached the bedroom, and at once threw himself upon the secretary, whom he stabbed about the face and neck; then encountering in turn two sons of Mr. Seward and two men nurses, he wounded them all more or less seriously, and escaped. But much as had been done, as much or more was left undone; for there can be little doubt that the plot also included the murder of the Vice-President, General Grant, and Secretary Stanton; the idea being, so far as there was any idea or any sense at all in the villainy, that the sudden destruction of all these men would leave the government with no lawful head, and that anarchy would ensue.

Not many days elapsed before the government had in custody seven men, Herold, Spangler, Payne, O'Laughlin, Arnold, Atzerodt, and Mudd, and one woman, Mary E. Surratt, all charged with being concerned in the conspiracy. But though they had been so happily caught, there was much difficulty in determining just how to deal with them. Such was the force of secession feeling in the District of Columbia that no jury there could be expected to find them guilty, unless the panel should be packed in a manner which would be equally against honesty and good policy. After some deliberation, therefore, the government decided to have recourse to a military commission, provided this were possible under the law, and the attorney-general, under guise of advising the administration, understood distinctly that he must find that it was possible. Accordingly he wrote a long, sophistical, absurd opinion, in which he mixed up the law of nations and the "laws of war," and emerged out of the fog very accurately at the precise point at which he was expected to arrive. Not that fault should be found with him for performing this feat; it was simply one of many instances, furnished by the war, of the homage which necessity pays to law and which law repays to necessity. That which must be done must also be stoutly and ingeniously declared to be legal. It was intolerable that the men should escape, yet their condemnation must be accomplished in a respectable way. So the Military Commission was promptly convened, heard the evidence which could be got together at such short notice, and found all the accused guilty, as undoubtedly they were. The men were a miserable parcel of fellows, belonging in that class of the community called "roughs," except only Mudd, who was a country doctor. Mrs. Surratt was a fit companion for such company. Herold, Atzerodt and Payne were hanged on July 7; O'Laughlin, Spangler, Arnold, and Mudd were sent to the Dry Tortugas, there to be kept at hard labor in the military prison for life, save Spangler, whose term was six years. Mrs. Surratt was also found guilty and condemned to be hanged. Five members of the commission signed a petition to President Johnson to commute this sentence, but he refused, and on July 7 she also met the fate which no one could deny that she deserved. John H. Surratt escaped for the time, but was apprehended and tried in the District of Columbia, in 1867; he had then the advantage of process under the regular criminal law, and the result was that on September 22, 1868, a _nolle prosequi_ was entered, and he was set free, to swell the multitude of villains whose impunity reflects no great credit upon our system of dealing with crime.

Besides those who have been named, the government also charged several other persons with complicity in the plot. Among these were Jefferson Davis and some members of that notorious colony of Confederates who, in the wholesome and congenial safety of Canada, had been plotting mean crimes during the war. Of course, since these men could not be captured and actually placed upon trial, there was little object in seeking evidence against them, and only so much was produced as came to the possession of the government incidentally in the way of its endeavor to convict those prisoners who were in its possession. Under these circumstances there was not sufficient evidence to prove that any one of them aided or abetted, or had a guilty knowledge of, the conspiracy; yet certainly there was evidence enough to place them under such suspicion, that, if they were really innocent, they deserve commiseration for their unfortunate situation.

* * * * *

It is startling to contemplate the responsibility so lightly taken by the mad wretch who shortly and sharply severed the most important life which any man was living on the fourteenth day of April, 1865. Very rarely, in the course of the ages, have circumstances so converged upon a single person and a special crisis as to invest them with the importance which rested upon this great leader at this difficult time. Yet, in the briefest instant that can be measured, an ignoble tippler had dared to cut the life-thread from which depended no small portion of the destinies of millions of people. How the history of this nation might have been changed, had Mr. Lincoln survived to bear his influential part in reconstructing and reuniting the shattered country, no man can tell. Many have indulged in the idle speculation, though to do so is but to waste time. The life which he had already lived gives food enough for reflection and for study without trying to evolve out of arbitrary fancy the further things which might have been attempted by him, which might have been of wise or of visionary conception, might have brilliantly succeeded or sadly failed.

It is only forty years since Abraham Lincoln became of much note in the world, yet in that brief time he has been the subject of more varied discussion than has been expended upon any other historical character, save, perhaps, Napoleon; and the kind of discussion which has been called forth by Lincoln is not really to be likened to that which has taken place concerning Napoleon or concerning any other person whomsoever. The great men of the various eras and nations are comprehensible, at least upon broad lines. The traits to which each owes his peculiar power can be pretty well agreed upon; the capacity of each can be tolerably well expressed in a formula; each can be intelligibly described in fairly distinct phrases; and whether this be in the spirit of admiration or of condemnation will, in all cases which admit of doubt, be largely a question of the personal sympathies of the observer. But Lincoln stands apart in striking solitude,--an enigma to all men. The world eagerly asks of each person who endeavors to write or speak of him: What illumination have you for us? Have you solved the mystery? Can you explain this man? The task has been essayed many times; it will be essayed many times more; it never has been, and probably it never will be entirely achieved. Each biographer, each writer or speaker, makes his little contribution to the study, and must be content to regard it merely as a contribution. For myself, having drawn the picture of the man as I see him, though knowing well that I am far from seeing him all, and still farther from seeing inwardly through him, yet I know that I cannot help it by additional comments. Very much more than is the case with other men, Lincoln means different things to different persons, and the aspect which he presents depends to an unusual degree upon the moral and mental individuality of the observer. Perhaps this is due to the breadth and variety of his own nature. As a friend once said to me: Lincoln was like Shakespeare, in that he seemed to run through the whole gamut of human nature. It was true. From the superstition of the ignorant backwoodsman to that profoundest faith which is the surest measure of man's greatness, Lincoln passed along the whole distance. In his early days he struck his roots deep down into the common soil of the earth, and in his latest years his head towered and shone among the stars. Yet his greatest, his most distinctive, and most abiding trait was his humanness of nature; he was the expression of his people; at some periods of his life and in some ways it may be that he expressed them in their uglier forms, but generally he displayed them in their noblest and most beautiful developments; yet, for worse or for better, one is always conscious of being in close touch with him as a fellow man. People often call him the greatest man who ever lived; but, in fact, he was not properly to be compared with any other. One may set up a pole and mark notches upon it, and label them with the names of Julius Caesar, William of Orange, Cromwell, Napoleon, even Washington, and may measure these men against each other, and dispute and discuss their respective places. But Lincoln cannot be brought to this pole, he cannot be entered in any such competition. This is not necessarily because he was greater than any of these men; for, before this could be asserted, the question would have to be settled: How is greatness to be estimated? One can hardly conceive that in any age of the world or any combination of circumstances a capacity and temperament like that of Caesar or Napoleon would not force itself into prominence and control. On the other hand, it is easy to suppose that, if precisely such a great moral question and peculiar crisis as gave to Lincoln his opportunity had not arisen contemporaneously with his years of vigor, he might never have got farther away from obscurity than does the ordinary member of Congress. Does this statement limit his greatness, by requiring a rare condition to give it play? The question is of no serious consequence, since the condition existed; and the discussion which calls it forth is also of no great consequence. For what is gained by trying to award him a number in a rank-list of heroes? It is enough to believe that probably Lincoln alone among historical characters could have done that especial task which he had to do. It was a task of supreme difficulty, and like none which any other man ever had to undertake; and he who was charged with it was even more distantly unlike any other man in both moral and mental equipment. We cannot force lines to be parallel, for our own convenience or curiosity, when in fact they are not parallel. Let us not then try to compare and to measure him with others, and let us not quarrel as to whether he was greater or less than Washington, as to whether either of them, set to perform the other's task, would have succeeded with it, or, perchance, would have failed. Not only is the competition itself an ungracious one, but to make Lincoln a competitor is foolish and useless. He was the most individual man who ever lived; let us be content with this fact. Let us take him simply as Abraham Lincoln, singular and solitary, as we all see that he was; let us be thankful if we can make a niche big enough for him among the world's heroes, without worrying ourselves about the proportion which it may bear to other niches; and there let him remain forever, lonely, as in his strange lifetime, impressive, mysterious, unmeasured, and unsolved.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] See _ante_, pp. 237-241 (chapter on Reconstruction).

[80] Grant, _Memoirs_, ii. 460.

[81] Grant, _Memoirs_, ii. 459. This differs from the statement of N. and H. x. 216, that "amid the wildest enthusiasm, the President again reviewed the victorious regiments of Grant, marching through Petersburg in pursuit of Lee." Either picture is good; perhaps that of the silent, deserted city is not the less effective.

[82] Between March 29 and the date of surrender, 19,132 Confederates had been captured, a fate to which it was shrewdly suspected that many were not averse.

[83] May 11, 1865.

[84] Hon. George W. Julian says: "I spent most of the afternoon in a political caucus, held for the purpose of considering the necessity for a new cabinet and a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln; and while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feeling was nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the presidency would prove a godsend to the country." _Polit. Recoll._ 255.

INDEX

[**Transcriber's Note: The index covers volume I and volume II of the work. For every term, the individual entries are arranged in order of appearance in the two volumes. Index entries are therefore marked with "see vol. i.", and "see vol. ii." accordingly. References that have no mark refer to the same volume as the last entry with a mark.]

Abolitionists,
denounced by Illinois legislature, see vol. i.;
disapprove emancipation with compensation;
wish to induce Lincoln to join them;
unpopular at North;
difference of Lincoln from;
refuse to support Lincoln in 1860;
urge peaceful secession in 1861;
denounce Lincoln for not making war an anti-slavery crusade,
see vol. ii.;
demand a proclamation of emancipation;
unwisdom of their course;
unappeased, even after emancipation proclamation;
their small numbers;
their attitude toward Lincoln.

Adams, Charles Francis,
letter of Seward to, on impossibility of war, see vol. i.;
appointed minister to England;
instructions;
complains to England of privateers, see vol. ii.;
complains of the Alabama.

Adams, Charles F., Jr.,
enters Richmond with negro cavalry regiment, see vol. ii.

Adams, John Quincy,
in Congress with Lincoln, see vol. i.

Alabama,
not ready to secede, but opposed to coercion, see vol. i.;
wishes Southern convention;
secedes.

Alabama,
Confederate privateer, see vol. ii.;
sunk by Kearsarge.

Albert, Prince,
revises Palmerston's dispatch on Trent affair, see vol. i.

Anderson, Robert,
signs Lincoln's certificate of discharge in Black Hawk war, see vol. i.;
commands at Fort Moultrie in 1860;
moves forces to Sumter;
asks instructions in vain;
appeals to Lincoln;
refuses to surrender Sumter.

Andrew, Governor John A.,
prepares Massachusetts militia, see vol. i.;
asks United States for muskets;
sends on troops.

Anthony, Henry B.,
in Senate in 1861, see vol. i.

Antietam,
battle of, see vol. ii.

Arkansas,
refuses to furnish Lincoln troops, see vol. i.;
at first Unionist, finally secedes;
campaign of Curtis in;
reconstructed, see vol. ii.;
chooses electors.

Armstrong, Jack,
his wrestling match with Lincoln, see vol. i.;
his later friendship with Lincoln;
aids him in politics.

Arnold, Isaac N.,
in House in 1861, see vol. i.;
describes drilling of Army of Potomac;
on importance of Lincoln's action in Trent case;
introduces bill abolishing slavery under federal jurisdiction,
see vol. ii.;
on composition of Gettysburg address;
dreads danger in election of 1864;
Lincoln's only supporter in Congress;
refusal of Lincoln to help in campaign;
on Lincoln's attempt to push thirteenth amendment through Congress;
on second vote on thirteenth amendment.

Arnold, Samuel,
accomplice of Booth, tried and condemned, see vol. ii.

Ashley, James M.,
in House in 1861, see vol. i.;
moves to reconsider thirteenth amendment, see vol. ii.

Ashmun, George,
presides over Republican Convention of 1860, see vol. i.

Assassination of Lincoln,
plot of 1861, see vol. i.;
threats during term of office, see vol. ii.;
successful plot of 1865;
death of Booth;
trial and punishment of other persons concerned.

Atlanta,
battle of, see vol. ii.

Atzerodt, Geo. A.,
accomplice of Booth, tried and condemned, see vol. ii.

Baker, Edward D., in Illinois campaign of 1838; at Illinois bar; candidate for Congress; elected; his agreement with Lincoln and others; introduces Lincoln at inauguration; killed at Ball's Bluff; responsible for disaster.

Ball's Bluff,
battle of, see vol. i.

Banks, Nathaniel P.,
in Federal army, see vol. i.;
his corps in 1862, see vol. ii.;
defeated by Jackson;
takes Port Hudson.

Barnard, General John G.,
opposes McClellan's plan of campaign, see vol. i.;
on impossibility of taking Yorktown, see vol. ii.

Bates, Edward,
candidate for Republican nomination, see vol. i.;
favored by Greeley;
his chances as a moderate candidate;
vote for;
attorney-general;
opposes reinforcing Sumter.

Bayard, James A.,
in Senate in 1861, see vol. i.

Beauregard, General P.G.T.,
commands at Charleston, see vol. i.;
notified by Lincoln of purpose to reinforce Sumter;
requests surrender of Sumter;
commands bombardment;
commands Confederate army at Manassas;
at battle of Bull Run;
at battle of Shiloh;
evacuates Corinth.

Bell, John,
candidate of Constitutional Union party, see vol. i.;
vote for.

Benjamin, Judah P.,
denounces Buchanan, see vol. i.;
in Confederate cabinet.

Bentonsville,
battle of, see vol. ii.

Berry, Wm. F.,
his partnership with Lincoln, and failure, see vol. i.

Big Bethel,
battle of, see vol. i.

Black, Jeremiah S.,
in Buchanan's cabinet, see vol. i.;
succeeds Cass in State Department;
after vacillation turns toward coercion;
forces Buchanan to alter reply to South Carolina commissioners.

Black Hawk war, see vol. i.

Blaine, James G.,
on purpose of war, see vol. ii.;
on Lincoln's order to McDowell to pursue Jackson;
on crisis in congressional elections of 1862;
on admission of West Virginia;
on Vallandigham case.

Blair, F.P., Jr.,
tries to keep Lee in Union army, see vol. i.;
leads Unionist party in Missouri;
in House in 1861;
confers with Davis, see vol. ii.

Blair, Montgomery,
in Lincoln's cabinet, see vol. i.;
wishes to relieve Sumter;
at council of war;
favors McClellan's plan of war;
visits Missouri to investigate Fremont;
arrested by Fremont;
warns Lincoln that emancipation proclamation will lose fall elections,
see vol. ii.;
hated by radicals;
his dismissal urged;
upheld by Lincoln;
resigns at Lincoln's request;
wishes chief-justiceship.

Blenker, General Louis,
favors McClellan's plan of campaign, see vol. i.;
sent to strengthen Fremont, see vol. ii.

Booth, John Wilkes,
murders Lincoln, see vol. ii.;
his character;
his end.

Border States,
necessity of retaining in Union, see vol. i.;
dealings of Lincoln with, in 1861;
their neutrality policy explained in annual message;
both pro-slavery and Unionist, see vol. ii.;
desire to conciliate controls Lincoln's policy;
with their slave property guaranteed by North;
oppose bill freeing slaves used in war;
oppose other anti-slavery bills;
irritated by congressional policy;
urged by Lincoln to agree to emancipation;
refuse to approve;
Lincoln's policy toward, denounced by Abolitionists;
their support in 1862 saves Lincoln.

Boutwell, George S.,
urges emancipation upon Lincoln, see vol. ii.

Bragg, General Braxton,
invades Kentucky, see vol. ii.;
outmarched by Buell;
at battle of Stone's River;
retreats;
reinforced;
at battle of Chickamauga;
besieges Chattanooga;
defeated by Grant.

Breckenridge, John C.,
elected Vice-President, see vol. i.;
nominated by South for President;
carries Southern States;
announces election of Lincoln;
expelled from Senate.

Bright, Jesse D.,
expelled from Senate, see vol. i.

Brooks, Preston S.,
assaults Sumner, see vol. i.;
praised at the South.

Brough, John,
nominated for governor in Ohio and elected, see vol. ii.

Brown, Aaron V.,
in Buchanan's cabinet, see vol. i.

Brown, B. Gratz,
supports Fremont against Lincoln in 1864, see vol. ii.

Brown, Mayor Geo. W.,
thinks Maryland will secede, see vol. i.;
burns bridges and cuts wires north of Baltimore.

Browning, O.H.,
at Illinois bar, see vol. i.

Bryant, William Cullen,
introduces Lincoln in New York, see vol. i.;
favors postponement of Republican convention in 1864, see vol. ii.

Buchanan, James,
nominated by Democrats, see vol. i.;
elected President, his character;
refers to Dred Scott decision in inaugural address;
his recognition of Lecompton Constitution in Kansas;
despised by Douglas;
accused by Lincoln of plotting to make slavery national;
his hard situation in 1860;
distracted in body and mind;
receives secession commissioners of South Carolina;
a Unionist in feeling;
his message on secession;
wishes to shirk responsibility;
declares coercion unconstitutional;
ridiculed by Republicans;
excuse for his position;
declines to receive Southern commissioners;
virtually abdicates power to cabinet;
denounced by South;
forced to appoint Dix to Treasury Department;
calls extra session of Senate to aid Lincoln;
his futile policy towards Fort Sumter.

Buckner, General Simon B.,
surrenders Fort Donelson, see vol. i.

Buell, General D.C.,
his resemblance in character to McClellan, see vol. i.;
refuses to seize East Tennessee;
snubbed by McClellan;
recommended by Halleck for promotion;
takes Nashville;
saves battle of Shiloh;
allows slave-owners to reclaim fugitives, see vol. ii.;
seizes Louisville before Bragg;
opposes Halleck's plan to invade Tennessee;
resigns.

Bull Run,
first battle of, see vol. i.;
second battle of, see vol. ii.

Burlingame, Anson D.,
hopes that Douglas will join Republicans, see vol. i.

Burns, Anthony,
seized as a slave in Boston, see vol. i.