Before the great army melted away into the greater body of citizens, the soldiers enjoyed one final triumph, a march through the capital, undisturbed by death or danger, under the eyes of their highest commanders, military and civilian, and the representatives of the people whose nationality they had saved. Those who witnessed this solemn yet joyous pageant will never forget it, and will pray that their children may never witness anything like it. For two days this formidable host marched the long stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, starting from the shadow of the dome of the Capitol, and filling that wide thoroughfare to Georgetown with a serried mass, moving with the easy yet rapid pace of veterans in cadence step. As a mere spectacle this march of the mightiest host the continent has ever seen gathered together was grand and imposing; but it was not as a spectacle alone that it affected the beholder most deeply. It was not a mere holiday parade; it was an army of citizens on their way home after a long and terrible war. Their clothes were worn and pierced with bullets; their banners had been torn with shot and shell, and lashed in the winds of a thousand battles; the very drums and fifes had called out the troops to numberless night alarms, and sounded the onset on historic fields. The whole country claimed these heroes as a part of themselves. And now, done with fighting, they were going joyously and peaceably to their homes, to take up again the tasks they had willingly laid down in the hour of their country's peril.
The world had many lessons to learn from this great conflict, which liberated a subject people and changed the tactics of modern warfare; but the greatest lesson it taught the nations of waiting Europe was the conservative power of democracy—that a million men, flushed with victory, and with arms in their hands, could be trusted to disband the moment the need for their services was over, and take up again the soberer labors of peace.
Friends loaded these veterans with flowers as they swung down the Avenue, both men and officers, until some were fairly hidden under their fragrant burden. There was laughter and applause; grotesque figures were not absent as Sherman's legions passed, with their "bummers" and their regimental pets; but with all the shouting and the laughter and the joy of this unprecedented ceremony, there was one sad and dominant thought which could not be driven from the minds of those who saw it—that of the men who were absent, and who had, nevertheless, richly earned the right to be there. The soldiers in their shrunken companies were conscious of the ever-present memories of the brave comrades who had fallen by the way; and in the whole army there was the passionate and unavailing regret for their wise, gentle, and powerful friend, Abraham Lincoln, gone forever from the house by the Avenue, who had called the great host into being, directed the course of the nation during the four years they had been fighting for its preservation, and for whom, more than for any other, this crowning peaceful pageant would have been fraught with deep and happy meaning.
XXXVII
The 14th of April—Celebration at Fort Sumter—Last Cabinet Meeting—Lincoln's Attitude toward Threats of Assassination—Booth's Plot—Ford's Theater—Fate of the Assassins—The Mourning Pageant
Mr. Lincoln had returned to Washington, refreshed by his visit to City Point, and cheered by the unmistakable signs that the war was almost over. With that ever-present sense of responsibility which distinguished him, he gave his thoughts to the momentous question of the restoration of the Union and of harmony between the lately warring sections. His whole heart was now enlisted in the work of "binding up the nation's wounds," and of doing all which might "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace."
April 14 was a day of deep and tranquil happiness throughout the United States. It was Good Friday, observed by a portion of the people as an occasion of fasting and religious meditation; though even among the most devout the great tidings of the preceding week exerted their joyous influence, and changed this period of traditional mourning into an occasion of general thanksgiving. But though the Misereres turned of themselves to Te Deums, the date was not to lose its awful significance in the calendar: at night it was claimed once more by a world-wide sorrow.
The thanksgiving of the nation found its principal expression at Charleston Harbor, where the flag of the Union received that day a conspicuous reparation on the spot where it had first been outraged. At noon General Robert Anderson raised over Fort Sumter the identical flag lowered and saluted by him four years before; the surrender of Lee giving a more transcendent importance to this ceremony, made stately with orations, music, and military display.