[Footnote: Generals Lee and A. P. Hill were at the former's headquarters, within the city, discussing the prospects of the day. Suddenly General Lee, listening, said to Hill: "General, your men are giving way." Instantly Hill was mounted and dashing down the road. As he was spurring his steed, he caught a glimpse of two or three blue coats with rifles leveled at him. "Throw down your arms!" he authoritatively cried. For an instant the men hesitated, but the next moment they fired, and General Hill fell dead.]
That night Petersburg and Richmond were evacuated. The next morning the Union troops took possession of the Confederate capital, the coveted goal of the Army of the Potomac for four long bloody years.
[Footnote: Sunday, the day before, the Confederate President, Davis, was at church, when a note was handed him by a messenger. It was from Leo, informing him that the Confederate army was about to leave Richmond. His pallid face and unsteady footsteps, as he passed out, betrayed the news. Pollard says: "Men, women, and children rushed from the churches, passing from lip to lip news of the impending fall of Richmond. . . . It was late in the afternoon when the signs of evacuation became apparent to the incredulous. Suddenly, as if by magic, the streets became filled with men, walking as though for a wager, and behind them excited negroes with trunks, bundles, and luggage of every description. All over the city, it was the same—wagons, trunks, bandboxes, and their owners, a mass of hurrying fugitives filling the streets. Night came, and with it confusion worse confounded. There was no sleep for human eyes in Richmond that night. About the hour of midnight, hundreds of barrels of liquor were rolled into the street, and the heads knocked in, by order of the City Council, to prevent a worse disorder. As the work progressed, some straggling soldiers managed to get hold of a quantity of the liquor. From that moment law and order ceased to exist." By order of General Ewell, the four principal tobacco warehouses, in different parts of the city, were fired, and soon the flames became unmanageable. "Morning broke upon a scene such as those who witnessed it can never forget. The roar of an immense conflagration sounded in their ears; tongues of flame leaped from street to street; and in this baleful glare were to be seen, as of demons, the figures of busy plunderers, moving, pushing, rioting through the black smoke, bearing away every conceivable sort of plunder.">[
LEE'S SURRENDER.—Meanwhile, Lee, having only the wreck of that proud array with which he had dealt the Union army so many crushing blows, hurried west, seeking some avenue of escape. Grant urged the pursuit with untiring energy. Sheridan, "with a terrible daring which knew no pause, no rest," hung on his flanks. Food now failed the Confederates and they could get only the young shoots of trees to eat. If they sought a moment's repose, they were awakened by the clatter of pursuing cavalry. Lee, like a hunted fox, turned hither and thither; but at last Sheridan planted himself squarely across the front. Lee ordered a charge. His half-starved troops, with a rallying of their old courage, obeyed. But the cavalry moving aside, as a curtain is drawn, revealed dense bodies of infantry in battle line. The Civil War was about to end in one of its bloodiest tragedies, when the Confederate advance was stopped. General Grant had already sent in a note demanding the surrender of the army. Lee accepted the terms; and, April 9th, eight thousand men—the remains of the Army of Virginia—laid down their arms near Appomattox Court House, and then turned homeward, no longer Confederate soldiers, but American citizens.
[Footnote: The officers and men were allowed to go home on their paroles not to take up arms against the United States until exchanged, and the former to retain their private baggage and horses. After the surrender had been concluded, General Lee said that he had forgotten to mention that many of his soldiers rode their own horses. Grant at once replied that such should keep their horses to aid them in their future work at home—That the two armies so fiercely opposed for four years could have parted with no words but those of sympathy and respect was an assured presage of a day when all the wounds of the restored Union should be fully healed.]
The Effect.—This closed the war. The other Confederate armies—Johnston's, Dick Taylor's, and Kirby Smith's—promptly surrendered. Jefferson Davis fled southward, hoping to escape, but was overtaken near Irwinsville, Georgia (May 11), and sent a prisoner to Fortress Monroe.
[Footnote: The last fight of the war happened near Brazos Santiago,
Texas, May 13. A small expedition sent out to surprise a
Confederate camp was overtaken, on its return, by a larger force
and defeated with a loss of eighty men.]
COST OF THE WAR.—In the Union armies probably three hundred thousand men were killed in battle or died of wounds or disease, while doubtless two hundred thousand more were crippled for life. If the Confederate armies suffered as heavily, the country thus lost one million able-bodied men. The Union debt, Jan. 1, 1866, was nearly $2,750,000,000. At one time, the daily expenses reached the sum of $3,500,000. During the last year of the war, the expenses were greater than the entire expenditures of the government from Washington to Buchanan. The Confederate war debts were never paid, as that government was overthrown.
ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN.—In the midst of the universal rejoicings over the advent of peace, on the evening of April 14 the intelligence was flashed over the country that Lincoln had been assassinated. While seated with his wife and friends in his box at Ford's Theatre, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth who insanely imagined he was ridding his country of a tyrant.
[Footnote: Booth stealthily entered the box, fastened the door, that he might not be followed, shot the President, then—waving his pistol shouted "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (so be it always to tyrants), and leaped to the stage in front As he jumped, the American flag draped before the box—mute avenger of the nation's chief—caught his spur and, throwing him heavily, broke his leg The assassin, however escaped from the house in the confusion, mounted a horse which was waiting for him, and fled into Maryland He was at length overtaken in a barn, here he stood at bay The building was fired to drive him out, but, being determined to defend himself against arrest, he was shot by one of the soldiers The accomplices of Booth were arrested, tried and convicted. Herold, Payne, Atzerott and Mrs Surratt were hanged, Arnold, Mudd and McLaughlin imprisoned for life and Spangler was sentenced for six years]