Still, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected against George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate, who carried only three States. This was endorsement enough for the policy of President Lincoln.
Sherman's army of sixty thousand, after a month's rest at Savannah, started north to unite with Grant in the final blow. "Before it was terror, behind it ashes."
Columbia was captured February 17, and burned, without Sherman's authority, the night following. Charleston was evacuated the next day. Johnston was recalled to take command, and opposed the march of Sherman, but was driven back after fierce engagements at Bentonville and Averysboro. On March 25 Lee decided to attack Grant, and, while the latter was busy, get out of Richmond and join Johnston, but when this battle, known as the attack on Fort Steadman, was over, Grant's hold was tighter than ever.
Sheridan attacked Lee's rear with a heavy force, and at Five Forks, April 1, the surprised garrison was defeated with five thousand captured. The next day the entire Union army advanced, and the line of Confederate intrenchments was broken. On the following day Petersburg and Richmond were evacuated, but Mr. Davis was not there. He had gone away. Rather than meet General Grant and entertain him when there was no pie in the house, he and the Treasury had escaped from the haunts of man, wishing to commune with nature for a while. He was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, under peculiar and rather amusing circumstances.
He was never punished, with the exception perhaps that he published a book and did not realize anything from it.
Lee fled to the westward, but was pursued by the triumphant Federals, especially by Sheridan, whose cavalry hung on his flanks day and night. Food failed the fleeing foe, and the young shoots of trees for food and the larger shoots of the artillery between meals were too much for that proud army, once so strong and confident.
Let us not dwell on the particulars.
As Sheridan planted his cavalry squarely across Lee's path of retreat, the worn but heroic tatters of a proud army prepared to sell themselves for a bloody ransom and go down fighting, but Grant had demanded their surrender, and, seeing back of the galling, skirmishing cavalry solid walls of confident infantry, the terms of surrender were accepted by General Lee, and April 9 the Confederate army stacked its arms near Appomattox Court-House.
The Confederate war debt was never paid, for some reason or other, but the Federal debt when it was feeling the best amounted to two billion eight hundred and forty-four million dollars. One million men lost their lives.
Was it worth while?