A History of the United States

by Charles Kendall Adams; William P. Trent

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

THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

House at Appomattox in which Lee
and Grant arranged the Surrender.

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

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

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

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE WAR.

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

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