If the limits of the President's authority were vague, they might for that very reason be all the more extensive; and, wherever they might be set, he soon made it certain that he designed to part with no power which he possessed. On the evening of March 3 he went up, as usual, to the Capitol, to sign bills during the closing hours of the last session of the Thirty-eighth Congress. To him thus engaged was handed a telegram from General Grant, saying that General Lee had suggested an interview between himself and Grant in the hope that, upon an interchange of views, they might reach a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties through a military convention. Immediately, exchanging no word with any one, he wrote:—
"The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. Meanwhile, you are to press to the utmost your military advantages."
This reply he showed to Seward, then handed it
to Stanton and ordered him to sign and dispatch it at once.
About this same time General Lee notified Mr. Davis that Petersburg and Richmond could not be held many more days. Indeed, they would probably have been evacuated at once, had not the capital carried so costly a freight of prestige as well as of pride. It was no surprising secret which was thus communicated to the chief rebel; all the common soldiers in the Confederate army had for a long while known it just as well as the general-in-chief did; and they had been showing their appreciation of the situation by deserting and coming within the Union lines in such increasing numbers that soon General Grant estimated that the Confederate forces were being depleted by the equivalent of nearly a regiment every day. The civilian leaders had already suggested the last expedients of despair,—the enrolling of boys of fourteen years and old men of sixty-five, nay, even the enlistment of slaves. But there was no cure for the mortal dwindling. The Confederacy was dying of anaemia.
Grant understood the situation precisely as his opponents did. That Petersburg and Richmond were about to be his was settled. But he was reaching out for more than only these strongholds, and that he could get Lee's army also was by no means settled. As March opened he lay down every night in the fear that, while he was sleeping, the evacuation might be furtively, rapidly, in progress,
and the garrison escaping. He dreaded that, any morning, he might awake to find delusive picket lines, guarding nothing, while Lee and his soldiers were already well in the lead, marching for the South. For him, especially, it was a period of extreme tension. Since the capture of Savannah and the evacuation of Charleston several weeks ago, Sherman with his fine army had been moving steadily northward. In front of Sherman was Johnston, with a considerable force which had been got together from the remnants of Hood's army and other sources. At Bentonsville a battle took place, which resulted in Johnston's falling back, but left him still formidable. General Grant had not yet been able to break the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which ran out from Richmond in a southwesterly direction; and the danger was that by this and the "South Side" railroad, Lee might slip out, join Johnston, and overwhelm Sherman before Grant could reach him. In time, this peril was removed by the junction of Schofield's army, coming from Wilmington, with that of Sherman at Goldsboro. Yet, even after this relief, there remained a possibility that Lee, uniting with Johnston, and thus leading a still powerful army of the more determined and constant veterans, might prolong the war indefinitely.
Not without good reason was Grant harassed by this thought, for in fact it was precisely this thing that the good soldier in Petersburg was scheming to do. The closing days of the month brought the
endeavor and the crisis. To improve his chances Lee made a desperate effort to demoralize, at least temporarily, the left or western wing of the Union army, around which he must pass in order to get away, when he should actually make his start. March 25, therefore, he made so fierce an assault, that he succeeded in piercing the Union lines and capturing a fort. But it was a transitory gleam of success; the Federals promptly closed in upon the Confederates, and drove them back, capturing and killing 4000 of them. In a few hours the affair was all over; the Northern army showed the dint no more than a rubber ball; but the Confederates had lost brave men whom they could not spare.
On March 22 Mr. Lincoln went to City Point; no one could say just how soon important propositions might require prompt answering, and it was his purpose to be ready to have any such business transacted as closely as possible in accordance with his own ideas. On March 27 or 28, the famous conference[[79]] was held on board the River Queen, on James River, hard by Grant's headquarters, between the President, General Grant, General Sherman, who had come up hastily from Goldsboro, and Admiral Porter. Not far away Sheridan's fine body of 13,000 seasoned cavalrymen, fresh from their triumphs in the Shenandoah Valley, was even now crossing the James River, on their way into the neighborhood of Dinwiddie