"If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause, a common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the men of the grey and those of the blue.
At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment. Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April, the right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at Five Forks, and on the day following Richmond is evacuated by the rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always take a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been in vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or in 1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of the rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars and whose fighting during the last of those months was done in tattered uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than that which had been accepted as normal.
On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into Richmond by the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping to be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified, for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, when necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves into their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that the first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.
Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might be taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events, made a drawing which was purchased later by the New York Union League Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic adoration trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people from the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slavery. It is sad to recall the many disappointments that during the forty years since the occupation of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of the race. Lincoln's hope that some representative of the Confederacy might have remained in Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to bring to a close as rapidly as possible the waste and burdens of continued war, was not realised. The members of the Confederate government seem to have been interested only in getting away from Richmond and to have given no thought to the duty they owed to their own people to cooperate with the victors in securing a prompt return of law and order.
On the 9th of April, came the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, four years, less three days, from the date of the firing of the first gun of the War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by the ragged and starving files of the remnants of Lee's army represented only a small portion of those which a few days earlier had been holding the entrenchments at Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign in North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a memorial fairly earned by plucky and persistent service. There never was an army that did better fighting or that was better deserving of the recognition, not only of the States in behalf of whose so-called "independence" the War had been waged, but on the part of opponents who were able to realise the character and the effectiveness of the fighting.
The scene in the little farm-house where the two commanders met to arrange the terms of surrender was dramatic in more ways than one. General Lee had promptly given up his own baggage waggon for use in carrying food for the advance brigade and as he could save but one suit of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. He was, therefore, notwithstanding the fatigues and the privations of the past week, in full dress uniform. He was one of the handsomest men of his generation, and his beauty was not only of feature but of expression of character. Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about the group in the room, which included, in addition to two staff officers who had come with Lee, a group of five or six of his own assistants, who had managed to keep up with the advance, to select the aid who should write out the paper. His eye fell upon Colonel Ely Parker, a brigade commander who had during the past few months served on Grant's staff. "Colonel Parker, I will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to draft this paper." Parker was a full-blooded Indian, belonging to one of the Iroquois tribes of New York.
Grant's suggestion that the United States had no requirement for the horses of Lee's army and that the men might find these convenient for "spring ploughing" was received by Lee with full appreciation. The first matter in order after the completion of the surrender was the issue of rations to the starving Southern troops. "General Grant," said Lee, "a train was ordered by way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army and it ought to be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye, now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations will be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue and then of the grey. Every hat came off from the men in blue as an expression of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, while from the ranks in grey there was one great sob of passionate grief and finally, almost for the first time in Lee's army, a breaking of discipline as the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, or possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader who had fought and failed but whose fighting and whose failure had been so magnificent.