"Young sir, do not judge by appearances; and for the future treat your elders with more respect."
"NOTHING CAN TOUCH HIM FURTHER."
Returning to Washington from Richmond, Lincoln read twice to friends on the journey, from his pocket Shakespeare:
Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
"WENT AND RETURNED!"
The last days of March, 1865, contained the three battles, closing with that of Five Forks, signalizing the collapse of the Confederacy at Richmond. The President, at the front, sent the news of victories to the Cabinet at home. After the battles, the advance of the triumphing Unionists. On Monday morning Lincoln was enabled to telegraph the talismanic words so often dreamed of in the last agonizing years of fluctuating hope:
"Richmond has fallen! I am about to enter!"
Secretary Stanton, of the war office, immediately implored: "Do not peril your life!"
But in the morning he received this line from the most independent President known since Jackson:
"Received your despatch; went to Richmond, and returned this morning!"