Grant was in Farmville on the 7th, and he sent a letter to Lee, reminding him of the uselessness of further resistance and asking for his surrender. Lee still declined, and continued his retreat. Then Sheridan threw his powerful division of cavalry in front of the Confederates, and Lee decided to cut his way through the ring of bayonets and sabres by which he was environed. This desperate task was assigned to the indomitable Gordon. He made a resistless beginning, when he saw the impossibility of success. The news was sent to Lee, who realized at last that all hope was gone. He forwarded a note to Grant, asking for a suspension of hostilities with a view to surrender. The two generals met at the house of Major McLean, in the hamlet of Appomattox Court-House, on the 9th of April, where Lee surrendered all that remained of the Confederate army, which for nearly four years had beaten back every attempt to capture Richmond.
Grant's terms as usual were generous. He did not ask for Lee's sword, and demanded only that he and his men should agree not to bear arms again against the government of the United States. They were to surrender all public property, but Grant told them to keep their horses, "as you will need them for your spring ploughing." The soldiers who had fought each other so long and so fiercely fraternized like brothers, exchanged grim jests over the terrible past, and pledged future friendship. The reunion between the officers was equally striking. Most of them were old acquaintances, and all rejoiced that the war was at last ended. General Lee rode with his cavalry escort to his home in Richmond and rejoined his family. He was treated with respect by the Union troops, who could not restrain a feeling of sympathy for their fallen but magnanimous enemy.
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
The bonfires in the North had hardly died out and the echoes of the glad bells were still lingering in the air, when the whole country was startled by one of the most horrifying events in all history. President Lincoln, on the night of April 14th, was sitting in a box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, accompanied by his wife and another lady and gentleman, when, at a little past ten o'clock, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, stealthily entered the box from the rear, and, without any one suspecting his awful purpose, fired a pistol-bullet into the President's brain. The latter's head sank, and he never recovered consciousness.
Booth, after firing the shot, leaped upon the stage from the box, brandished a dagger, shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" and, before the dumbfounded spectators could comprehend what had been done, dashed out of a rear door, sprang upon a waiting horse, and galloped off in the darkness.
No pen can describe the horror and rage which seized the spectators when they understood what had taken place. The stricken President was carried across the street to a house where he died at twenty-two minutes past seven the next morning.
About the time of his assassination, an attempt was made upon the life of Secretary Seward, who was confined to his bed, suffering from a fall. A male attendant prevented the miscreant from killing the secretary, though he was badly cut. The best detective force of the country was set to work, and an energetic pursuit of Booth was made. He had injured his ankle when leaping from the box upon the stage of the theatre, but he rode into Maryland, accompanied by another conspirator, named David E. Harrold. At the end of eleven days they were run down by the pursuing cavalry, who brought them to bay on the 26th of April. They had crossed from Maryland into Virginia and taken refuge in a barn near Port Royal, on the Rappahannock.
THE CIVIL WAR PEACE CONFERENCE.
Three commissioners from the Confederacy suggesting terms of peace to President Lincoln and Secretary Seward in Fortress Monroe, January 1865.