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.”