them to plowing once," he said in Admiral Porter's pres-
ence, " and gathering in their own little crops, eating pop-
corn at their own firesides, and you can't get them to shoul-
der a musket again for half a century." Being cheered at
City Point the day after he left Richmond by a crowd of
Confederate prisoners, he said again to Admiral Porter:
" They will never shoulder a musket again in anger, and if
Grant is wise he will leave them their guns to shoot crows



HIS WORK IN THE WINTER OF 1864-5 25

with and their horses to plow with ; it would do no harm."
As to the people of Richmond his one counsel to the military
governor was to " let them down easy." Nor would he
while there listen to a word of harshness in the treatment
of even the leaders of the rebellion. One day when visiting
Libby Prison, a member of the party remarked to him that
Jefferson Davis ought to be hung, " Judge not that ye be
not judged," Charles Sumner heard him quote. No bit-
terness was in his soul, only a great thankfulness that the
end seemed so near and a firm determination to regulate
with mercy all questions of reconstruction.

Returning to City Point Mr. Lincoln learned that Mr.
Seward had been thrown from a carriage and injured and
he resolved to go at once to Washington. He had only just
reached there when he received word that on April 9 Gen-
eral Lee had surrendered his army to General Grant at Ap-
pomattox. This could mean but one thing, the war was
over. No force was now left to the enemy which must not
surrender on hearing that the principal Confederate force
had laid down its arms. Immediately the President and his
associates began the glad task of shutting down the vast
war machinery in operation — the first act being to issue an
order suspending the draft.



CHAPTER XXX

THE END OF THE WAR



*t



The war is over." Throughout the breadth of the North
this was the jubilant cry with which people greeted one an-
other on the morning of April 14, 1865. For ten days re-
ports of victories had been coming to them ; Petersburg
evacuated, Richmond fallen, Jefferson Davis and his cabinet
fled, Lee surrendered, Mobile captured. Nothing of the
Confederacy, in short, remained but Johnston's army, and
it was generally believed that its surrender to Sherman was
but a matter of hours. How completely the conflict was at an
end, however, the people of the North had not realized until
they read in their newspapers, on that Good Friday morn-
ing the order of the Secretary of War suspending the draft,
stopping the purchase of military supplies, and removing
military restrictions from trade. The war was over indeed,
Such a day of rejoicing as followed the world has rarely
seen. At Fort Sumter scores of well-known citizens of the
North, among them Henry Ward Beecher, William Lloyd
Garrison, General Robert Anderson, and Theodore Tilton,
raised over the black and shattered pile the flag which four
years ago Charleston, now lying desolate and wasted, had
dragged down.

Cities and towns, hamlets and country road-sides blos-
somed with flags and bunting. Stock exchanges met to pass
resolutions. Bells rang. Every man who could make a
speech was on his feet. It was a Millennium Day, restoring
broken homes, quieting aching hearts, easing distracted
minds. Even those who mourned — and who could count the
number whom that dreadful four years had stripped of those

26



THE END OF THE WAR 27

they held clearest ? — even those who mourned exulted. Their
dead had saved a nation, freed a people. And so a subtle joy,
mingled triumph, resignation, and hope, swept over the
North. It was with all men as James Russell Lowell wrote to
his friend Norton that it was with him : The news, my
dear Charles is from Heaven. I felt a strange and tender ex-
altation. I wanted to laugh and 1 wanted to cry, and ended
by holding my peace and feeling devoutly thankful."

One man before all others in the nation felt and showed
his gladness that day — the President, Abraham Lincoln. For
weeks now as he had seen the end approaching, little by lit-
tle he had been thankfully laying aside the ways of war and
returning to those of peace. His soul, tuned by nature to gen-
tleness and good-will, had been for four years forced to lead
in a pitiless war. Now his duties were to w bind up the na-
tion's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the bat-
tle, and for his widow, and his orphan ; " to devise plans by
which the members of the restored Union could live together
in harmony, to plan for the future of the four million human
beings to whom he had given freedom. All those who were
with him in this period remarked the change in his feelings
and his ways. He seemed to be aroused to a new sense of
the beauty of peace and rest, to love to linger in quiet
spots, and to read over and over with infinite satisfac-
tion lines of poetry which expressed repose. The perfect
tranquillity in death seemed especially to appeal to him.
Mrs. Lincoln once related to her friend, Isaac Arnold, that,
while at City Point, in April, she was driving one day with
her husband along the banks of the James, when they passed
a country grave-yard. " It was a retired place, shaded
by trees, and early spring flowers were opening on nearlv
every grave. It was so quiet and attractive that they
stopped the carriage and walked through it. Mr. Lincoln
seemed thoughtful and impressed. He said : ' Mary, you



28 LIFE OF LINCOLN

are younger than I. You will survive me. When I am
gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like this.'

A few days after this, as he was sailing down the James
bound for Washington, Charles Sumner, who was in the
party, was much impressed by the tone and manner in which
Mr. Lincoln read aloud two or three times a passage from
Macbeth :

" Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further!"

There was a marked change in his appearance. All through
1863 and 1864 his thin face had day by day grown more hag-
gard, its lines had deepened, its pallor had become a more
ghastly gray. His eye, always sad when he was in thought,
had a look of unutterable grief. Through all these months
Lincoln was, in fact, consumed by sorrow. " I think I shall
never be glad again," he said once to a friend. But as one by
one the weights lifted, a change came over him ; his form
straightened, his face cleared, the lines became less accentu-
ated. " His whole appearance, poise, and bearing had mar-
vellously changed," says the Hon. James Harlan. " He was
in fact, transfigured. That indescribable sadness which had
previously seemed to be an adamantine element of his very
being, had been suddenly changed for an equally indescriba-
ble expression of serene joy, as if conscious that the great
purpose of his life had been achieved."

Never since he had become convinced that the end of the
war was near had Mr. Lincoln seemed to his friends more
glad, more serene, than on the 14th of April. The morning
was soft and sunny in Washington, and as the spring was
early in 1865, the Judas-trees and the dogwood were blos-
soming on the hillsides, the willows were green along the
Potomac, and in the parks and gardens the lilacs bloomed—




THE LAST PORTRAIT OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, TAKEN AI'RII 9. 1SO5, THE
SUNDAY BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION.

Drawn from a photograph made by Alexander Gardner, photographer to the Army of
the Potomac, while the President was sharpening a pencil for Ins son Tad. Copyright,
1894, by Watson Porter.






'3Z



THE END OF THE WAR 29

a day of promise and joy to which the whole town responded.
Indeed, ever since the news of the fall of Richmond reached
Washington the town had been indulging in an almost un-
broken celebration, each new victory arousing a fresh out-
burst and rekindling enthusiasm. On the night of the 13th,
there had been a splendid illumination, and on the 14th, the
rejoicing went on. The suspension of the draft and the
presence of Grant in town — come this time not to plan new
campaigns, but to talk of peace and reconstruction — seemed
to furnish special reason for celebrating.

At the White House the family party which met at break-
fast was unusually happy. Captain Robert Lincoln, the
President's oldest son, then an aide-de-camp on Grant's staff,
had arrived that morning, and the closing scenes of Grant's
campaign were discussed with the deepest interest by father
and son. Soon after breakfast the President received
Schuyler Colfax, who was about to leave for the West, and
later in the morning the cabinet met, Friday being its regular
day. General Grant was invited to remain to its session.
There was the greatest interest at the moment in General
Sherman's movements, and Grant was plied with questions
by the cabinet. The President was least anxious of all.
The news would soon come, he said, and it would be favor-
able. He had no doubt of this, for the night before he had
had a dream which had preceded nearly every important
event of the war.

" He said it was in my department, it related to the
water," Secretary Welles afterward wrote ; " that he seemed
to be in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always the
same, and that he was moving with great rapidity toward a
dark and indefinite shore; that he had had this singular
dream preceding the firing on Sumter, the battles of Bull
Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone River, Vicksburg, Wil-
mington, etc . . . Victory did not always follow his dream,



30 LIFE OF LINCOLN

but the event and results were important. He had no doubt
that a battle had taken place, or was about being fought, ' and
Johreton will be beaten, for I had this strange dream again
last night. It must relate to Sherman; my thoughts are in
that direction, and / know of no other very important event
which is likely just now to occur.' "

The greater part of the meeting was taken up with a dis-
cussion of the policy of reconstruction. How were they to
treat the States and the men who had tried to leave the
Union, but who now were forced back into their old rela-
tions? How could practical civil government be reestab-
lished; how could trade be restored between North and
South ; what should be done with those who had led the
States to revolt? The President urged his cabinet to consider
carefully all these questions, and he warned them em-
phatically, Mr. Welles says, that he did not sympathize with
and would not participate in any feelings of hate and vin-
dictiveness. " He hoped there would be no persecution, no
bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he
would take any part in hanging or killing these men, even
the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, let
down the bars, scare them off, said he, throwing up his hands
as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We
must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and
union. There was too much desire on the part of our very
good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to
those States, to treat the people not as fellow-citizens ; there
was too little respect for their rights. He didn't sympathize
in these feelings."

The impression he made on all the cabinet that day was ex-
pressed twenty-four hours later by Secretary Stanton : " He
was more cheerful and happy than I had ever seen him, re-
joiced at the near prospect of firm and durable peace at home
and abroad, manifested in marked degree the kindness and



THE END OF THE WAR 31

humanity of his disposition, and the tender and forgiving
spirit that so eminently distinguished him."

In the afternoon the President went for his usual drive.
Only Mrs. Lincoln was with him. Years afterward Mrs.
Lincoln related to Isaac Arnold what she remembered of Mr.
Lincoln's words that day: " Mary." he said, " we have had
a hard time of it since we came to Washington ; but the war
is over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four years
of peace and happiness, and then we will go back to Illinois,
and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have laid by some
money, and during this term we will try and save up more,
but shall not have enough to support us. We will go back to
Illinois, and I will open a law office at Springfield or Chicago,
and practice law, and at least do enough to help give us a
livelihood."

It was late in the afternoon when he returned from his
drive, and as he left his carriage he saw going across the
lawn toward the Treasury a group of friends, among them
Richard Oglesby, then Governor of Illinois. ' Come back,
boys, come back," he shouted. The party turned, joined the
President on the portico, and went up to his office with him.

" How long we remained there I do not remember." says
Governor Oglesby. " Lincoln got to reading some humorous
book; I think it was by ' John Phcenix.' They kept sending
for him to come to dinner. He promised each time to go, but
would continue reading the book. Finally he got a sort of
peremptory order that he must come to dinner at once. It
was explained to me by the old man at the door that they
were going to have dinner and then go to the theater."

A theater party had been made up by Mrs. Lincoln for that
evening — General and Mrs. Grant being her guests — to see
Laura Keene, at Ford's theater, in " Our American Cousin."
Miss Keene was ending her season in Washington that night
with a benefit. The box had been ordered in the morning,



32 LIFE OF LINCOLN

and unusual preparations had been made to receive the presi-
dential party. The partition between the two upper proscen-
ium boxes at the left of the stage had been removed, com-
fortable upholstered chairs had been put in, and the front of
the box had been draped with flags. The manager, of
course, took care to announce in the afternoon papers that
the "President and his lady" and the "Hero of Appo-
mattox " would attend Miss Keene's benefit that evening.

By eight o'clock the house was filled with the half-idle,
half-curious crowd of a holiday night. Many had come
simply to see General Grant, whose face was then unfamiliar
in Washington. Others, strolling down the street, had
dropped in because they had nothing better to do. The play
began promptly, the house following its nonsensical fun with
friendly eyes and generous applause, one eye on the Presi-
dent's box.

The presidential party was late. Indeed it had not left the
White House until after eight o'clock, and then it was made
up differently from what Mrs. Lincoln had expected, for in
the afternoon she had received word that General and Mrs.
Grant had decided to go North that night. It was suggested
then that the party be given up, but the fear that the public
would be disappointed decided the President to keep the en-
gagement. Two young friends, the daughter of Senator Ira
Harris and his stepson, Major H. R. Rathbone, had been in-
vited to take the place of General and Mrs. Grant.

Schuyler Colfax and Mr. Ashmun, of Massachusetts, had
called early in the evening, and the President had talked with
them a little while. He rose finally with evident regret to go
to his carriage. The two gentlemen accompanied him to the
door, and he paused there long enough to write on a card,
"Allow Mr. Ashmun and friends to come in at nine a. m. to-
morrow." As he shook hands with them he said to Mr. Col-
fax : " Colfax, don't forget to tell those people in the mining



FORD'S THEATRE



KAMI |



■

|P Friday Evening Apr 1 14th 1065

BENEFIT!

LAST NSCHT

■

tTOH TAYLOR? CrUSHATED ECCENTRIC COMEDT,
I



lillii



MR. JOHN FYOTT

ME. HARRY HAWK.






'**



•j - *



OCR AMKRH'W



a




■



■






BENEFIT:.: Mks JENHIE GOURLAY

EDWain ADAMS



: c i : i ■ i .' i .



.*_



J



I M SIMILE OF THE PROGRAMME USED BY PRESI-

DENT LINCOLN ON THE NIGHT I IF

HIS A.SS VSSIN \ I t( IN.

The original (now owned by .!. S. Case of Brook-
lyi was found by I- T. Ford, proprietor of the thei
beside the chair in which the President sal at the time
of the t ragedy.



THE END OF THE WAR 33




TBI LAST BIT OF WHITING DONK BY LINCOLH.

Loaned by G. A. Morton, New Haven, Conn.

regions what I told you this morning." Then, entering the
carriage, he was driven to the theater on Tenth street, be-
tween E and F.

When the presidential party finally entered the theater,
making its way along the gallery behind the seats of the dress
circle, the orchestra broke into " Hail to the Chief," and the
people, rising in their seats and waving hats and handker-
chiefs, cheered and cheered, the actors on the stage standing
silent in the meantime. The party passed through the nar-
row entrance into the box, and the several members laid aside
their wraps, and bowing and smiling to the enthusiastic
crowd below, seated themselves, Mr. Lincoln in a large arm-
chair at the left, Mrs. Lincoln next to him, Miss Harris next,
and to the extreme right, a little behind Miss Harris, Major
Rathbone ; and then the play went on.

The party in the box was well entertained, it seemed, es-
pecially the President, who laughed good-humoredly at the
jokes and chatted cheerfully between the acts. He moved
from his seat but once, rising then to put on his overcoat, for
the house was chilly. The audience was well entertained,
C3)



34 LIFE OF LINCOLN

too, though not a few kept an eye on the box entrance, still
expecting General Grant. The few whose eyes sought the
box now and then noticed, in the second scene of the third
act, that a man was passing behind the seats of the dress cir-
cle and approaching the entrance to the box. Those who did
not know him noticed that he was strikingly handsome,
though very pale ; that was all. They did not look again. It
was not General Grant.

One man did watch him. He knew him, and wanted to
see who in the presidential box it could be that he knew well
enough to call on in the middle of an act. If any attendant
saw him, there was no question of his movements. He was a
privileged person in the theater, having free entrance to
every corner. He had been there in the course of the day;
he had passed out and in once or twice during the evening.

Crowding behind some loose chairs in the aisle, the man
passed out of sight through the door leading into the pas-
sage behind the President's box. He closed the door behind
him, paused for a moment, then did a curious thing for a
visitor to a theater party. He picked up a piece of stout
plank which he seemed to know just where to find, and
slipped one end into a hole gouged into the wall close to the
door-casing. The plank extended across the door, making
a rough but effective bolt. Turning to the door which led
from the passage to the boxes, he may have peered through
a tiny hole which had been drilled through the panel. If he
did, he saw a quiet party intent on the play, the President
just then smiling over a bit of homely wit.

Opening the door so quietly that no one heard him, the
man entered the box. Then if any eye in the house could but
have looked, if one head in the box had been turned, it would
have been seen that the man held in his right hand a Derrin-
ger pistol, and that he raised the weapon and aimed it
steadily at the head of the smiling President.




CHAIR IN" WHICH PRESIDENT LINCOLN

\V HEN SHOT.



WAS SITTING















■J»X



THE END OF THE WAR

No eye saw him, but a second later and even- ear heard a
pistol shot. Those in the house unfamiliar with the play
thought it a part of the performance, and waited expectant.
Those familiar with " Our American Cousin," the orches-
tra, attendants, actors, searched in amazement to see from
where the sound came. Only three persons in all the house
knew just where it was — three of the four in the box knew it
was there by their side — a tragedy. The fourth saw nothing,
heard nothing, thought nothing. His head had fallen quietly
on his breast, his arms had relaxed a little, the smile was still
on his lips.

Then from the box, now filled with white smoke, came a
woman's sharp cry, and there was a sound of a struggle.
Major Rathbone, at the sound of the shot, had sprung to his
feet and grappled with the stranger, who now had a dagger
in his hand, and who struck viciously with it at the Major's
heart. He, warding the blow from his breast, received it in
his upper arm, and his hold relaxed. The stranger sprang to
the balustrade of the box as if about to leap, but Major Rath-
bone caught at his garments. They were torn from his
grasp, and the man vaulted toward the stage, a light, agile
leap, which turned to a plunge as the silken flag in front
caught at a spur on his boot. As the man struck the floor his
left leg bent and a bone snapped, but instantly he was up;
and limping to the middle of the stage, a long strip of the
silken banner trailing from his spur, he turned full on the
house, which still stared straight ahead, searching for the
meaning of the muffled pistol shot. Brandishing his dagger
and shouting — so many thought, though there were others
whose ears were so frozen with amazement that they heard
nothing — "Sic semper tyrannis!" he turned to fly. Not,
however, before more than one person in the house had said
to himself, " Why. it is John Wilkes Booth ! " Not before
others had realized that the shot was that of a murderer, that



36 LIFE OF LINCOLN

the woman's cry in the box came from Mrs. Lincoln, that the
President in all the turmoil alone sat calm, his head unmoved
on his breast. As these few grasped the awful meaning of
the confused scene, it seemed to them that they could not rise
nor cry out. They stretched out inarticulate arms, struggling
to tear themselves from the nightmare which held them.
When strength and voice did return, they plunged over the
seats, forgetting their companions, bruising themselves, and
clambered to the stage, crying aloud in rage and despair,
" Hang him, hang him ! " But Booth, though his leg was
broken, was too quick. He struck with his dagger at one who
caught him, plunged through a familiar back exit, and, leap-
ing upon a horse standing ready for him, fled. When those
who pursued reached the street, they heard only the rapidly
receding clatter of a horse's hoofs.

But while a few in the house pursued Booth, others had
thought only of reaching the box. The stage was now full of
actors in their paint and furbelows, musicians with their in-
struments, men in evening dress, officers in uniform — a mot-
ley, wild-eyed crowd which, as Miss Harris appeared at the
edge of the box crying out, " Bring water. Has any one
stimulants ? " demanded, " What is it ? What is the mat-
ter?"

" The President is shot," was her reply.

A surgeon was helped over the balustrade into the box.
The star of the evening, whose triumph this was to have
been, strove to calm the distracted throng; then she, too,
sought the box. Major Rathbone, who first of all in the
house had realized that a foul crime had been attempted, had
turned from his unsuccessful attempt to stop the murderer
to see that it was the President who had been shot. He had
rushed to the door of the passage, where men were already
beating in a furious effort to gain admission, and had found
it barred. It was an instant before he could pull away the



THE END OF THE WAR 37

plank, explain the tragedy, demand surgeons, and press back
the crowd.

The physicians admitted lifted the silent figure, still sitting
calmly in the chair, stretched it on the floor, and began to
tear away the clothing to find the wound, which they sup-
posed was in the breast. It was a moment before it was dis-
covered that the ball had entered the head back of the left ear
and was imbedded in the brain.

There seemed to be but one desire then : that was to get
the wounded man from the scene of the murder. Two per-
sons lifted him, and the stricken party passed from the box,
through the dress circle, clown the stairs into the street, the
blood dripping from the wound faster and faster as they
went. No one seemed to know where they were going, for as
they reached the street there was a helpless pause and an ap-
peal from the bearers. " Where shall we take him? ' : Across
the street, on the high front steps of a plain, three-storied
brick house, stood a man. who but a moment before had left
the theater, rather bored by the play. He had seen, as he
stood there idly wondering if he should go in to bed or not, a
violent commotion in the vestibule of the theater; had seen
people rushing out, the street filling up, policemen and sol-
diers appearing. He did not know what it all meant. Then