On the 3d, he was in Richmond, writing, "There is no longer a Confederacy."
He had been awakened by the roar of the Confederate blowing up of ironclads in the James River. A few minutes later he was in the Petersburg entrenchments. He rode solitary and lone from City Point to Richmond, entering the city by the Newmarket road, and overtaking a division of the Twenty-fifth Corps. Dismounting at the Spottswood House, he registered his name on the hotel book, so thickly written with the names of Confederate generals, as the first guest from a "foreign country," the United States. The clerk bade him choose any room, and even the whole house, adding that he would probably be burned out in a few minutes. Parts of the city had already become a sea of flame, but Richmond was saved, and the fire put out by Union troops. Military order soon reigned, and plundering was stopped. He met President Lincoln, and helped to escort him through the streets lined with the black people whom he had set free. Later, Carleton saw and talked with Generals Weitzel and Devens in the capitol, shaking hands also with Admiral Farragut. From the top of the capitol building, he reflected on the fall of Secession. He saw Libby Prison inside and out, as well as the old slave-mart, holding the key of the slave-pen in his hand. He has told the story of his Richmond experiences in lectures, magazine articles, and in his book, "Freedom Triumphant." His verbal descriptions enabled Thomas Nast to paint his famous picture of Lincoln in Richmond.
Carleton's last letter, completing his war correspondence, is dated April 12th, 1865. It depicts the scene of the surrender, thus completing a series of about four hundred epistles, not counting the ten or a dozen lost in transmission. In these he not only wrote history and furnished material for it, but he kept in cheer the heart of the nation.
Finally the great rebellion was crushed by the navy and army. Foote, Farragut, Dupont, and Porter, with their men on blockade and battle-deck duty, made possible the victories of Grant, Thomas, Sheridan, and Sherman. Carleton as witness and historian on the ships, in water fresh and salt, as well as in the camps and field, appreciated both arms of the service. His letters were read by thousands far beyond the Eastern States, and often his telegrams were the only voice crying out of the wilderness of suspense, and first heard at Washington and throughout the country, proclaiming victory.[Back to Content]
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GLORIES OF EUROPE.
After four years of strenuous activity of body and brain, it was not easy for Carleton to settle down at once to commonplace routine. Having exerted every nerve and feeling in so glorious a cause as our nation's salvation, every other cause and question seemed trivial in comparison. Succeeding such a series of excitements, it was difficult to lessen the momentum of mind and nerve in order to live, just like other plain people, quietly at home. One could not be drinking strong coffee all the time, nor could battle shocks come any longer every few weeks. The sudden collapse of the Confederacy, and the ending of the war, was like clapping the air-brakes instantaneously upon the Empire State Express while at full speed. While the air pressure might stop the wheels, there was danger of throwing the cars off their trucks.
It took Carleton many months, and then only after strong exertion of the will, careful study of his diet and physical habits, to get down to the ordinary jog-trot of life and enjoy the commonplace. He occupied himself during the latter part of 1865 in completing his first book, which he entitled "My Days and Nights upon the Battle Field." This was meant to be one in a series of three volumes. He had written most of this, his first book, in camp and on the field. In form, it was an illustrated duodecimo of 312 pages, and was published by Ticknor and Fields, and later republished by Estes and Lauriat.
It carries the story of the war, and of Carleton's personal participation in it in the Potomac and Mississippi River regions, down to the fall of Memphis in the summer of 1862.