President Lincoln had the news of Lee's surrender to cheer his great soul for five days before the assassin's bullet laid him low.
Grant retired to an improvised camp, and immediately announced his intention to leave the army in the field and start for Washington the next day. He rode within the Confederate lines at 9 A.M. on the 10th, and held a half hour's talk with Lee about the possibility of other Confederate armies surrendering and the speedy ending of the war, but Lee, though expressing himself satisfied further effort was vain, would take no responsibility, even to advising other armies to surrender, without consulting Jefferson Davis.(30) Grant left for Washington at noon.
General Lee retired to his home at Richmond.
The Union Army counter-marched to Burkeville. While there the death of Abraham Lincoln was announced to it. The army loved him, and his assassination excited the bitterest feeling. A memorial meeting was held at my headquarters at Burkeville, and like meetings were held in some other commands, at which speeches were made by officers.
The casualties in the Union Army in all the operations from March 29 to April 9, 1865 (Dinwiddie Court-House to Appomattox inclusive) were, in killed and wounded:(31)
Army of the Potomac . . . . . . 6,609
Army of the James . . . . . . . 1,289
Cavalry (Sheridan) . . . . . . 1,168
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Grand total . . . . . . . . . 9,066
The killed and wounded in the Sixth Corps were 1500, and in my brigade 379 (above one fourth in the corps), and in the campaign, including March 25th at Petersburg, 480.
The brigade in the campaign, besides taking sixteen pieces of artillery and many prisoners in battle, captured six battle-flags, including General Heth's division headquarters flag.(32)
Sheridan with the cavalry and Wright with the Sixth Corps were ordered from Burkeville to North Carolina, to co-operate with Sherman against J. E. Johnston's army. The Sixth left Burkeville the 23d of April, 1865, and arrived, via Halifax Court-House, at Danville, a hundred miles or more distant, on the 27th, where, on learning that Johnston had capitulated, it was halted.
I obtained leave to continue south without my command (with two staff officers and a few orderlies), to visit old friends in Sherman's army with whom I had served in the West in 1861 and 1862. I travelled through bodies of paroled Confederates for fifty miles, to Greensboro, North Carolina, and there came into the lines of the Twenty-Third Corps, commanded by my old and distinguished friend, General J. D. Cox. After a few days' sojourn as his guest, and having seen the surrendered army of Joe Johnston, I returned to Danville and my proper command, feeling the war was about over.