M 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
hear  the  result,  left  Greensboro'  to  continue 
their  journey  southward.1 
The  dignity  and  resources  o(  the  Confeder- 
-.  Government  were  rapidly  shrinking;  rail- 
travel  had  ceased  on  account  of  burned 
bridges,  and  it  could  no  longer  even  maintain 
enjoyed  in   its   car  at  Greensboro'. 
We  are  not  informed  what  became  of  the  ar- 
chives :  its  personnel  —  President,  Cabinet,  and 
sundr  ricers  —  scraped  together  a  lot 
oi'  miscellaneous  transportation,  composed  of 
riding  horses,  ambulances,  and  other  vehicles, 
which,  over  roads  rendered  almost  impassable 
by  mud.  made  their  progress  to  the  last  degree 
vexatious  and  toilsome.  The  country  was  so 
full  of  fugitives  that  horse-stealing  seems  to 
have  become  for  the  time  an  admitted  cus- 
tom and  privilege.  We  have  the  statement 
of  Davis's  private  secretary  that  eight  or  ten 
young  Mi->i->ippians,  one  of  them  an  officer, 
who  volunteered  to  become  the  rebel  Presi- 
dent's bodyguard,  equipped  themselves  by 
"  pressing  "  the  horses  of  neighboring  farmers, 
rendering  necessary  a  premature  and  some- 
what sudden  departure  in  advance  of  the  offi- 
cial party.-  Obtaining  shelter  by  night  when 
they  could,  and  camping  at  other  times,  the 
distinguished  fugitives  made  their  way  to 
Charlotte.  North  Carolina,  where  they  arrived 
on  the  1 8th  of  April.  Since  the  Confederate 
Government  had  considerable  establishments 
at  Charlotte,  orders  were  despatched  to  the 
quartermaster  to  prepare  accommodations; 
and  this  request  was  reasonably  satisfied  for 
all  the  members  of  the  party  except  its  chief. 
The  quartermaster  met  them  near  the  town 
and 
explained  that,  though  quarters  could  be  furnished 
for  the  rest  of  us.  he  had  as  yet  been  able  to  find 
only  one  person  willing  to  receive  Mr.  Davis,  saying 
the  people  generally  were  afraid  that  whoever  enter- 
tained him  would  have  his  house  burned  by  the 
enemy;  that,  indeed,  it  was  understood  threats  to 
that  effect  had  been  made  everywhere  by  Stoneman's 
cavalry.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing  to  do  but  to 
go  to  the  one  domicile  offered.  It  was  on  the  main 
street  of  the  town,  and  was  occupied  by  Mr.  Bates, 
a  man  said  to  be  of  Northern  birth,  a  bachelor  of 
convivial  habits,  the  local  agent  of  the  Southern  Ex- 
press Company,  apparently  living  alone  with  his 
negro  servants,  and  keeping  a  sort  of  "  open  house," 
where  a  broad,  well-equipped  sideboard  was  the 
most  conspicuous  feature  of  the  situation  —  not  at 
all  a  seemly  place  for  Mr.  Davis.3 
Mr.  Davis  was  perforce  obliged  to  accept 
this  entertainment ;  and  whether  he  failed  to 
realize  the  significance  of  such  treatment  or 
whether  he  was  moved  by  his  suppressed  in- 
dignation to  a  defiant  self-assertion,  when  a 
detachment  of  rebel  cavalry  passing  along  the 
street  saluted  him  with  cheers  and  called  him 
out  for  a  speech,  after  the  usual  compliments 
to  soldiers,  he  "  expressed  his  own  determina- 
tion not  to  despair  of  the  Confederacy,  but  to 
remain  with  the  last  organized  band  upholding 
the  flag."  4  And  this  feeling  he  again  empha- 
sized during  his  stay  in  Charlotte  by  a  remark 
to  his  private  secretary,  "  I  cannot  feel  like  a 
beaten  man." 
The  stay  at  Charlotte  was  prolonged,  evi- 
dently to  wait  for  news  from  Johnston's  army. 
No  information  came  till  April  23,  when  Breck- 
inridge, Secretary  of  War,  arrived,  bringing 
the  memorandum  agreement  made  by  Sher- 
man and  Johnston  on  the  18th.5  The  memo- 
randum seems  to  have  been  discussed  at  a 
Cabinet  meeting  held  on  the  morning  of  the 
24th,  and  Mr.  Davis  yielded  to  the  advice  they 
all  gave  him  to  accept  and  ratify  the  agreement. 
He  wrote  a  letter  to  that  effect,6  but  almost  im- 
mediately received  further  information,  which 
Sherman  communicated  to  Johnston,  that  the 
Washington  authorities  had  rejected  the  terms 
and  agreement,  and  directed  Sherman  to  con- 
tinue his  military  operations,  and  that  Sherman 
had  given  notice  to  terminate  the  armistice. 
This  change,  coupled  with  the  news  of  the  assas- 
sination of  President  Lincoln,  which  the  party 
had  received  on  their  arrival  in  Charlotte,  stimu- 
lated the  hopes  of  the  rebel  President,  and  he 
sent  back  instructions  to  Johnston  to  disband 
his  infantry  and  retreat  southward  with  so 
much  of  his  cavalry  and  light  artillery  as  he 
could  bring  away.  Against  the  daily  evidence 
of  his  own  observation  and  the  steady  current 
of  advice  from  his  followers,  he  was  still  dream- 
ing of  some  romantic  or  miraculous  renewal 
of  his  chances  and  fortunes.  And  in  his  book, 
written  fifteen  years  afterward,  he  makes  no  at- 
tempt to  conceal  his  displeasure  that  General 
Johnston  refused  to  obey  his  desperate  and 
futile  orders. 
The  armistice  expired  on  the  26th,  and  the 
fugitive  Confederate  Government  once  more 
took  up  its  southward  flight.  At  starting,  the 
party  still  made  show  of  holding  together. 
There  were  the  President,  most  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Cabinet,  several  staff  officers,  and 
fragments  of  six  cavalry  brigades,  counting 
about  two  thousand,  which  had  escaped  in 
small  parties  from  Johnston's  surrender.  This 
was  enough  to  form  a  respectable  escort.  There 
was  still  talk  of  the  expedition  turning  west- 
ward and  making  its  way  across  the  Mississippi 
to  join  Kirby  Smith  and  Magruder.    But  the 
1  Burton  N.  Harrison  in  The  Century,  Novem- 
ber, 1883,  pp.  134,  137. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  133. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  136.  4  ibid. 
6  "Southern  Historical  Papers,"  Vol.  XII.,  pp. 
100,  102. 
6  Davis,  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment," Vol.  II.,  p.  688.
THE   CAPTURE   <>/•  JEFFERSON   DAVIS. 
meager  accounts  plainly  indicate  that  Davis's 
advisers  fed  his  hope  for  politeness'  sake,  or 
to  furnish  the  only  pastime  with  which  it  was 
possible  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  their  journey  ; 
for  as  they  proceeded  the  expedition  melted 
away  as  if  by  enchantment.  Davis  directed  his 
course  towards  Abbeville,  South  Carolina.  Mr. 
Mallory  records  that  though  they  had  met  no 
enemy, 
At  Abbeville  the  fragments  of  disorganized  cavalry 
commands,  which  had  thus  far  performed,  in  some 
respects,  an  escort's  duty,  were  found  to  be  reduced 
to  a  handful  of  men,  anxious  only  to  reach  their 
homes  as  early  as  practicable,  and  whose  services 
could  not  further  be  relied  on.  .  .  .  Almost  every 
cross-road  witnessed  the  separation  of  comrades  in 
arms,  who  had  long  shared  the  perils  and  privations 
of  aterrific  struggle,  now  seeking  their  several  homes 
to  resume  their  duties  as  peaceful  citizens.1 
The  members  of  the  Cabinet,  except  Reagan, 
also  soon  dropped  off  on  various  pretexts.  Ben- 
jamin decided  to  pursue  another  route,  Breck- 
inridge remained  behind  with  the  cavalry  at 
the  crossing  of  the  Savannah  River  and  never 
caught  up.  At  Washington,  Georgia,  a  little 
farther  on,  Mallory  halted  "  to  attend  to  the 
needs  of  his  family."  Davis  waited  a  whole 
day  at  Washington,  and  finding  that  neither 
troops  nor  leaders  appeared,  the  actual  situa- 
tion seems  at  last  to  have  dawned  upon  him. 
"  I  spoke  to  Captain  Campbell  of  Kentucky, 
commanding  my  escort,"  he  writes,  "  explained 
to  him  the  condition  of  affairs,  and  telling  him 
that  his  company  was  not  strong  enough  to 
fight,  and  too  large  to  pass  without  observa- 
tion, asked  him  to  inquire  if  there  were  ten  men 
who  would  volunteer  to  go  with  me  without 
question  wherever  I  should  choose."  2  With 
these,  two  officers,  three  members  of  his  per- 
sonal staff,  and  Postmaster-General  Reagan, 
he  pushed  ahead,  still  nursing  his  project  of 
crossing  the  Mississippi  River. 
Davis's  private  secretary  had  been  sent 
ahead  to  join  Mrs.  Davis  and  her  family 
party  at  Abbeville,  South  Carolina,  and  they 
continued  their  journey,  in  advance,  with  a 
comfortable  wagon  train.  After  passing  Wash- 
ington, in  Georgia,  rumors  of  pursuit  by  Fed- 
eral cavalry  increased,  and  a  more  ominous 
rumor  gained  circulation  that  a  gang  of  dis- 
banded Confederates  was  preparing  to  plunder 
the  train  under  the  idea  that  it  carried  a  portion 
of  the  official  treasure.  Apprehension  of  this 
latter  danger  induced  the  Confederate  Presi- 
dent to  hurry  forward  and  overtake  his  family, 
and  during  three  days  he  traveled  in  their 
company.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  dismal 
journey;   the  roads  were  bad,  heavy  storms 
1  Alfriend,  "  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,'*  p.  650. 
2  Davis,  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment," Vol.  II.,  p.  695. 
were  prevailing,  R{ 
of  capture   urei  tinually  iw  reusing,  and 
they   wer  petled    to    ^turt  at 
midnight  and  push  cm  through  driving  ran 
make  good  their  corn  ealed  9 
They  halted  abort  I 
noon  of  May  9,  t  .  the  pine 
woods  by  a  small  stream  in  the  neighbor 
of  [rwinville,  Irwin  ( lountj . 
of  southern  Georgi  .     Here  the  situation 
discussed,  and  it  I 
of  reaching  the  tr 
visionary.    The  determination  was  finalrj 
rived  at  to  proceed  to  tl 
and  by  means  of  a  small  sailing 
to  be  in  readiness,  end 
coast  by  sea.    It  i 
should  at  once  leave  his  family  and  push  ahead 
with  a  few  companion-.     I'  tins  that 
he  and  his  special  party  did  not  -tart  ahead 
at  nightfall,  as  had  been  arranged,  because  a 
rumor  reached  him  that  the  expected  maraud- 
ing party  would  probably  attack  the  camp 
that  night,  and  that  he  delayed  rture 
for  the  protection  of  the  women  and  chil- 
dren, still  intending,  however,  to  start  d 
the  night.  With  this  view,  his  own  and  other 
horses  remained  saddled  and  ready.  But  the 
camp  was  undisturbed,  and  fa*._ 
have  held  its  inmates  in  deep  slumber  until 
dawn  of  May  10.  when  by  a  complete  sur- 
prise a  troop  of  Federal  cavalry  suddenly 
captured  the  whole  party  and  camp.  There 
is  naturally  some  variance  in  the  accounts  of 
the  incident,  but  the  differences  are  in  the 
shades  of  coloring  rather  than  in  the  essential 
facts. 
Two  expeditions  had  been  sent  from  Macon 
by  General  James  H.  Wilson  in  pursuit  of 
ferson  Davis  and  his  party  —  the  one  to  scour 
the  left,  the  other  the  right  bank  of  the 
mulgee  River:  one,  under  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Henry  Hamden.  commanding  the   1st  Wis- 
consin Cavalry,  starting  on  the  6th.  and  the 
other,  under  Lieutenant-Colonel  B.  I).  Pritch- 
ard,  commanding  the  4th  Michigan 
starting  on  the  7th  of  May.    Foil*         _ 
ferent  routes,  these  two  officers  me:  at  the  vil- 
lage of  Abbeville.  Georgia,  in  the 
May  9.  where  they  compared  notes  and  de< 
to  continue  the  pursuit  by  different  r. 
the  chase  grew  hot,  smaller  detachmei 
each  party  spurred  on.  learned  the  1 
the  slumbering  camp,  and  posted  themseh 
readiness  to  attack  it  at  daylight,  but  remained 
unconscious  of  each  other's  proximity. 
The  fugitives'  camp  was  in  the  dense  pine 
woods  a  mile  and  a  half  north  of  Irwinville. 
Pritchard  had  reached  this  village  after  mid- 
night, obtained  information  about  :' 
and  procured  a  negro  boy  to  guide  him  :
;66 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Approaching  to  within  half  a  mile,  he  halted, 
both  to  wait  for  daylight  and  to  send  his  lieu- 
tenant, Purinton,  with  twenty-five  dismounted 
men  to  gain  the  rear  of  the  camp,  but  caution- 
ing him  that  a  part  of  Harnden's  command 
would  in  all  probability  approach  from  that 
direction,  and  that  he  must  avoid  a  conflict 
with  them.    (See  also  pages  586  and  595.) 
At  daybreak  [writes  Captain  Lawton  of  Pritchard's 
force]  the  order  was  passed  in  a  whisper  to  make 
ready  to  enter  the  camp.  The  men  were  alive  to 
the  work.  Mounting  their  horses,  the  column 
moved  at  a  walk  until  the  tents  came  in  sight,  and 
then,  at  the  word,  dashed  in.  The  camp  was  found 
pitched  on  both  sides  of  the  road.  On  the  left  hand, 
as  we  entered,  were  wagons,  horses,  tents,  and 
men  ;  on  the  right  were  two  wall-tents,  fronting 
from  the  road.  All  was  quiet  in  the  camp.  We  en- 
countered no  guards  ;  if  there  were  any  out,  they 
must  have  been  asleep.1 
Just  at  this  instant,  however,  firing  was  heard 
back  of  the  camp,  where  Purinton  had  been 
sent.  This  created  instant  confusion,  and 
Pritchard  with  most  of  his  force  rushed  for- 
ward through  the  camp  to  resist  a  supposed 
Confederate  attack.  It  turned  out  that,  de- 
spite the  precautions  taken,  the  detachment  of 
Pritchard's  men  under  Purinton  (the  4th  Michi- 
gan) had  met  a  detachment  of  Harnden's  men 
(the  1  st  Wisconsin),  and  in  the  darkness  they 
had  mistaken  and  fired  on  each  other,  causing 
two  deaths  and  wounding  a  number. 
The  rush  of  the  cavalry  and  the  firing  of 
course  aroused  the  sleepers,  and  as  they 
emerged  from  their  tents  there  was  a  moment  of 
confusion  during  which  only  one  or  two  Fed- 
eral soldiers  remained  in  the  camp.  One  of 
these  had  secured  Davis's  horse,2  which  had 
stood  saddled  since  the  previous  evening,  and 
which  a  colored  servant  had  just  brought  to 
1  G.  W.  Lawton  in  "The  Atlantic,"  September, 
1865,  p.  344. 
2  Ibid. 
3  Davis,  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment," pp.  701,  702. 
It  is  but  just  to  give  the  following  narrative  of  Cap- 
tain G.  W.  Lawton  of  the  4th  Michigan  Cavalry.  It 
was  printed  in  "The  Atlantic  Monthly"  for  Septem- 
ber, 1865,  and  the  reader  may  profitably  compare  it 
with  Jefferson  Davis's  own  narrative  which  is  quoted 
in  the  text. 
"  Andrew  Bee,  a  private  of  Company  L,  went  to  the 
entrance  of  Davis's  tent,  and  was  met  by  Mrs.  Davis, 
'  bareheaded  and  barefoot,'  as  he  describes  her,  who, 
putting  her  hand  on  his  arm,  said  : 
"'Please  don't  go  in  there  till  my  daughter  gets 
herself  dressed.' 
"  Andrew  thereupon  drew  back,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes a  young  lady  (Miss  Howell)  and  another  person, 
bent  over  as  with  age,  wearing  a  lady's  '  waterproof,' 
gathered  at  the  waist,  with  a  shawl  drawn  over  the 
head,  and  carrying  a  tin  pail,  appear,  and  ask  to  go  to 
'  the  run  '  for  water.    Mrs.  Davis  also  appears,  and  says : 
"  '  For  God's  sake,  let  my  old  mother  go  to  get  some 
water  !  ' 
"  Xo  objections  being  made,  they  passed  out.    13ut 
his  tent.  Of  what  ensued,  we  give  Mr.  Davis's 
own  account : 
1  stepped  out  of  my  wife's  tent  and  saw  some 
horsemen,  whom  I  immediately  recognized  as  cav- 
alry, deploying  around  the  encampment.  I  turned 
back  and  told  my  wife  these  were  not  the  expected 
marauders,  but  regular  troopers.  She  implored  me 
to  leave  her  at  once.  I  hesitated,  from  unwilling- 
ness to  do  so,  and  lost  a  few  precious  moments  be- 
fore yielding  to  her  importunity.  My  horse  and 
arms  were  near  the  road  on  which  1  expected  to 
leave,  and  down  which  the  cavalry  approached  ;  it 
was,  therefore,  impracticable  to  reach  them.  1  was 
compelled  to  start  in  the  opposite  direction.  As  it 
was  quite  dark  in  the  tent,  I  picked  up  what  was 
supposed  to  be  my  "raglan,"  a  waterproof  light 
overcoat,  without  sleeves  ;  it  was  subsequently  found" 
to  be  my  wife's,  so  very  like  my  own  as  to  be  mis- 
taken for  it ;  as  I  started,  my  wife  thoughtfully  threw 
over  my  head  and  shoulders  a  shawl.  I  had  gone 
perhaps  fifteen  or  twenty  yards  when  a  trooper  gal- 
loped up  and  ordered  me  to  halt  and  surrender,  to 
which  1  gave  a  defiant  answer,  and  dropping  the 
shawl  and  raglan  from  my  shoulders  advanced 
towards  him  ;  he  leveled  his  carbine  at  me,  but  I 
expected,  if  he  fired,  he  would  miss  me,  and  my 
intention  was  in  that  event  to  put  my  hand  under 
his  foot,  tumble  him  off  on  the  other  side,  spring 
into  his  saddle  and  attempt  to  escape.  My  wife,  who 
had  been  watching,  when  she  saw  the  soldier  aim 
his  carbine  at  me,  ran  forward  and  threw  her  arms 
around  me.  Success  depended  on  instantaneous  ac- 
tion, and  recognizing  that  the  opportunity  had  been 
lost  I  turned  back,  and,  the  morning  being  damp 
and  chilly,  passed  to  a  fire  beyond  the  tent.3 
Colonel  Pritchard  relates  in  his  official  re- 
port : 
Upon  returning  to  camp  I  was  accosted  by  Davis 
from  among  the  prisoners,  who  asked  if  1  was  the 
officer  in  command,  and  upon  my  answering  him 
that  I  was,  and  asking  him  whom  I  was  to  call  him, 
he  replied  that  I  might  call  him  what  or  whoever  I 
sharp  eyes  were  upon  the  singular-looking  '  old 
mother.'  Suddenly,  Corporal  Munger  of  Company  C, 
and  others,  at  the  same  instant,  discovered  that  the 
'  old  mother  '  was  wearing  very  heavy  boots  for  an 
aged  female,  and  the  corporal  exclaimed  : 
" '  That  is  not  a  woman !  Don't  you  see  the  boots  ?  ' 
and  spurring  his  horse  forward  and  cocking  his  car- 
bine, compelled  the  withdrawal  of  the  shawl,  and  dis- 
closed Jeff.  Davis. 
"  As  if  stung  by  this  discovery  of  his  unmanliness, 
Jeff,  struck  an  attitude,  and  cried  out : 
"  '  Is  there  a  man  among  you  ?  If  there  is,  let  me 
see  him  !  ' 
"  '  Yes,'  said  the  corporal,  '  I  am  one ;  and  if  you 
stir,  I  will  blow  your  brains  out !  ' 
" '  I  know  my  fate,'  said  Davis,  '  and  might  as  well 
die  here.' 
"  But  his  wife  threw  her  arms  around  his  neck,  and 
kept  herself  between  him  and  the  threatening  corporal. 
"No  harm,  however,  was  done  him,  and  he  was 
generally  kindly  spoken  to  :  he  was  only  stripped  of 
his  female  attire. 
"  As  a  man,  he  was  dressed  in  a  complete  suit  of 
gray,  a  light  felt  hat,  and  high  cavalry  boots,  with  a 
gray  beard  of  about  six  weeks'  growth  covering  his 
face.
THE   END    OF  REIIELIJON. 
pleased.  When  I  replied  to  him  that  I  would  call  him 
Davis,  and  after  a  moment's  hesitation  he  said  that 
was  his  name,  he  suddenly  drew  himself  up  in 
true  royal  dignity  and  exclaimed,  "  I  suppose  that 
you  consider  it  bravery  to  charge  a  train  of  defense- 
less women  and  children,  but  it  is  theft,  it  is  van- 
dalism !"l 
That  the  correctness  of  the  report  may  not 
be  questioned,  we  add  the  corroborating  state- 
ment of  Postmaster-General  Reagan,  the  sole 
member  of  the  rebel  Cabinet  remaining  with 
the  party : 
Colonel  Pritchard  did  not  come  up  for  some  time 
after  Mr.  Davis  was  made  a  prisoner.  When  he  rode 
up  there  was  a  crowd,  chiefly  of  Federal  soldiers, 
around  Mr.  Davis.  He  was  standing,  and  dressed  in 
the  suit  he  habitually  wore.  He  turned  towards 
Colonel  Pritchard  and  asked,  "Who  commands 
these  troops?"  Colonel  Pritchard  replied,  without 
hesitation,  that  he  did.  Mr.  Davis  said  to  him, 
"  You  command  a  set  of  thieves  and  robbers.  They 
rob  women  and  children."  Colonel  Pritchard  then 
said,  u  Mr.  Davis,  you  should  remember  that  you 
are  a  prisoner."  And  Mr.  Davis  replied:  "J  am 
fully  conscious  of  that.  It  would  be  bad  enough  to 
be  the  prisoner  of  soldiers  and  gentlemen.  I  am  still 
lawful  game,  and  would  rather  be  dead  than  be  your 
prisoner."2 
Colonel  Pritchard's  official  report  gives  the 
following  list  of  the  persons  who  fell  into  his 
hands : 
I  ascertained  that  we  had  captured  Jefferson  Davis 
and  family  (a  wife  and  four  children)  ;  John  H.  Rea- 
gan, his  Postmaster-General ;  Colonels  Harrison  and 
Lubbock,  A.  D.  C.  to  Davis;  Burton  N.  Harrison, 
his  private  secretary  ;  Major  Maurin  and  Captain 
Moody,  Lieutenant  Hathaway;  Jeff.  D.  Howell,  mid- 
shipman in  the  rebel  navy,  and  twelve  private 
soldiers;  Miss  Maggie  Howell,  sister  of  Mrs.  Davis  ; 
two  waiting  maids,  one  white  and  one  black,  and 
several  other  servants.  We  also  captured  five  wagons, 
three  ambulances,  about  fifteen  horses,  and  from 
twenty-five  to  thirty  mules.  The  train  was  mostly 
loaded  with  commissary  stores  and  private  baggage 
of  the  party. 
The  details  of  the  return  march  are  un- 
necessary ;  there  is  no  allegation  that  the  pris- 
oners were  ill  treated.  They  arrived  at  Macon 
on  May  13,  both  captors  and  prisoners  hav- 
ing on  the  way  first  learned  of  the  offer  of  a 
reward  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  for 
Davis's  apprehension  on  the  charge  of  having 
been  an  accomplice  in  the  assassination  of 
President  Lincoln.  In  due  time  Davis  was  im- 
prisoned in  Fort  Monroe.  These  pages  do  not 
afford  room  to  narrate  his  captivity  of  about 
"  He  said  he  thought  our  Government  was  too  mag- 
nanimous to  hunt  women  and  children  that  way. 
"  When  Colonel  Pritchard  told  him  that  he  would  do 
the  best  he  could  for  his  comfort,  he  answered: 
"  '  I  ask  no  favors  of  you. ' 
"  To  which  surly  reply  the  colonel  courteously  re- 
sponded by  assuring  him  of  kind  treatment. 
two  years,  his  arraignment  at  Richmond  before 
the  United  Suites  Circuit  Court  for  the  Di 
of  Virginia  for  the  crime  of  treason,  and  his  lib- 
eration on  bail,  Horace  Greeley  having  volun- 
teered to  become  his  principal  bondsman. 
On  the  3d  of  December,  1868,  a  motion 
made  to  quash  the  indictment  on  the  ground 
that  the  penalties  and  disabilities  denounced 
against  and  inflicted  on  him  for  his  all 
offense,  by  the  third  section  of  the  fourteenth 
article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  State-. 
were  a  bar  to  any  proceedings  upon  such  in- 
dictment. The  court,  consisting  of  Chief-Jus- 
tice Chase  and  Judge  Underwood,  considered 
the  motion,  and  two  days  later  announced  that 
they  disagreed  in  opinion,  and  certified  the 
question  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  Though  not  announced,  it  was  under- 
stood that  the  Chief-Justice  held  the  affirma- 
tive and  Judge  Underwood  the  negative  on 
the  question.  Three  weeks  from  that  day 
President  Johnson  bestowed  upon  Mr.  Davis 
and  those  who  had  been  his  followers  a  liberal 
and  fraternal  Christmas  gift.  On  the  25th  of 
December,  1868,  he  issued  a  proclamation 
supplementing  the  various  prior  proclamations 
of  amnesty,  which  declared  "  unconditionally 
and  without  reservation,  to  all  and  to  even- 
person  who  directly  or  indirectly  participated 
in  the  late  insurrection  or  rebellion,  a  full  par- 
don and  amnesty  for  the  offense  of  treason 
against  the  United  States,  or  of  adhering  to 
their  enemies  during  the  late  civil  war,  with 
restoration  of  all  rights,  privileges,  and  immu- 
nities under  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  which 
have  been  made  in  pursuance  thereof."  The 
Government  of  course  took  no  further  action 
in  the  suit;  and  at  a  subsequent  term  of  the 
Circuit  Court  the  indictment  was  dismissed  on 
motion  of  Mr.  Davis's  counsel.  The  ex- Pres- 
ident of  the  Confederate  States  was  thus  re- 
lieved from  all  penalties  for  his  rebellion  except 
the  disability  to  hold  office  imposed  by  the 
third  section  of  the  XI  Vth  Amendment,  which 
Congress  has  hitherto  refused  to  remove. 
THE    END    OF    REBELLION. 
In  the  early  years  of  the  war,  after  every 
considerable  success  of  the  national  arms,  the 
newspapers  were  in  the  habit  of  announcing 
that  "  the  back  of  the  rebellion  was  broken." 
But  at  last  the  time  came  when  the  phrase  was 
true ;  after  Appomattox,  the  rebellion  fell  to 
pieces  all  at  once.    Lee  surrendered  less  than 
"Arrangements  were  forthwith  made  to  return  to 
Macon.    .    .    . 
"The  members  of  Davis's  start"  submitted  with  a 
better  grace  than  he  to  the  capture  and  march,  and 
were  generally  quite  communicative." 
1  Pritchard  to  Stanton,  May  25,  1865. 
2  J.  H.  Reagan  in  "Annals  of  the  War,"  p.  155.
ABRAHAM  LIXCOLN. 
one-sixth  of  the  Confederates  in  arms  on  the 
9th  of  April;  the  armies  that  still  remained  to 
them,  though  inconsiderable  when  compared 
with  the  mighty  host  under  the  national  colors, 
vet  infinitely  larger  than  any  Washington 
commanded,  and  were  capable  of  strenu- 
e  and  oi  incalculable  mischief. 
g  minds  on  both  sides  thought  the  war 
might  be  indefinitely  prolonged.  We  have  seen 
that  J  eflferson  1  )a  vis.  after  Richmond  fell,  issued 
his  swelling  manifesto,  saying  the  Confederates 
had  "now  entered  upon  a  new  phase  of  the 
struggle,"  and  that  he  would  "  never  consent  to 
abandon  to  the  enemy  one  foot  of  the  soil  of 
any  of  the  States  of  the  Confederacy."  General 
Sherman,  so  late  as  the  25th  of  April,  said,  "  I 
now  apprehend  that  the  rebel  armies  will  dis- 
perse ;  and  instead  of  dealing  with  six  or  seven 
States,  we  will  have  to  deal  with  numberless 
bands  of  desperadoes."  Neither  side  compre- 
hended fully  the  intense  weariness  of  war  that 
had  taken  possession  of  the  South  ;  and  peace 
came  more  swiftly  and  completely  than  any 
one  had  ever  dared  to  hope. 
The  march  of  Sherman  from  Atlanta  to  the 
sea  and  his  northward  progress  through  the 
Carolinas  had  predisposed  the  great  interior 
region  to  make  an  end  of  strife,  a  tendency 
which  was  greatly  promoted  by  Wilson's  ener- 
getic and  masterly  raid.  The  rough  usage 
received  by  Taylor  and  by  Forrest  at  his 
hands,  and  the  blow  their  dignity  suffered  in 
the  capture  of  their  fugitive  President,  made 
their  surrender  more  practicable.  An  officer 
of  Taylor's  staff  came  to  Canby's  headquarters 
on  the  19th  of  April  to  make  arrangements 
for  the  surrender  of  all  the  Confederate  forces 
east  of  the  Mississippi  not  already  paroled  by 
Sherman  and  by  Wilson  —  embracing  some 
42.000  men.  On  the  4th  of  May  the  terms 
were  agreed  upon  and  signed  at  the  village  of 
Citronelle  in  Alabama.  General  Taylor  gives 
a  picturesque  incident  of  Ins  meeting  with 
General  Canby.  The  Union  officers  invited 
the  Confederates  to  a  luncheon,  and  while  the 
latter  were  enjoying  a  menu  to  which  they 
had  long  been  unaccustomed,  the  military  band 
in  attendance  began  playing  "  Hail,  Colum- 
bia." Canby  —  with  a  courtesy,  Taylor  says, 
equal  to   anything   recorded   by   Froissart  — 
ed  himself,  and  walked  to  the  door;  the 
music  ceased  for  a  moment,  and  then  the  air 
of  ••  Dixie  "  was  heard.  The  Confederates, 
not  to  be  left  in  arrears  of  good-breeding,  then 
demanded  the  national  air,  and  the  flag  of  the 
reunited  country  was  toasted  by  both  sides. 
The  terms  agreed  upon  were  those  accorded 
by  Grant  to  Lee  with  slight  changes  of  detail, 
the  United  States  Government  furnishing 
transportation  and  subsistence  on  the  way 
home  to  the  men  lately  engaged  in  the  effort 
to  destroy  it.  The  Confederates  willingly  tes- 
tify to  the  cordial  generosity  with  which  they 
were  treated.  "  Public  property,"  says  Gen- 
eral Taylor,  "  was  turned  over  and  receipted 
for,  and  this  as  orderly  and  quickly  as  in  time 
of  peace  between  officers  of  the  same  service." 
At  the  same  time  and  place  the  Confederate 
Commodore  Farrand  surrendered  to  Admiral 
Thatcher  all  the  naval  forces  of  the  Confed- 
eracy in  the  neighborhood  of  Mobile  —  a 
dozen  vessels  and  some  hundreds  of  officers. 
General  Kirby  Smith  commanded  all  the 
insurgent  forces  west  of  the  Mississippi.  On 
him  the  desperate  hopes  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his 
flying  Cabinet  were  fixed,  after  the  successive 
surrenders  of  Lee  and  Johnston  had  left  them 
no  prospect  in  the  east.  They  imagined  they 
could  move  westward,  gathering  up  stragglers 
as  they  fled,  and,  crossing  the  river,  could  join 
Smith's  forces,  and  "  form  an  army,  which  in 
that  portion  of  the  country,  abounding  in  sup- 
plies and  deficient  in  rivers  and  railroads,  could 
have  continued  the  war.  .  .  ."  "To  this  hope," 
adds  Mr.  Davis,  "  I  persistently  clung."  Smith, 
on  the  21st  of  April,  called  upon  his  soldiers 
to  continue  the  fight. 
You  possess  the  means  of  long  resisting  inva- 
sion. You  have  hopes  of  succor  from  abroad.  .  .  . 
The  great  resources  of  this  department,  its  vast  ex- 
tent, the  numbers,  the  discipline,  and  the  efficiency 
of  the  army,  will  secure  to  our  country  terms  that  a 
proud  people  can  with  honor  accept,  and  may,  un- 
der the  providence  of  God,  be  the  means  of  check- 
ing the  triumph  of  our  enemy  and  securing  the  final 
success  of  our  cause. 
The  attitude  of  Smith  seemed  so  threatening 
that  Sheridan  was  sent  from  Washington  to 
bring  him  to  reason.  But  he  did  not  long  hold 
his  position  of  solitary  defiance.  One  more 
useless  skirmish  took  place  near  Brazos,  and 
then  Smith  followed  the  example  of  Taylor, 
and  surrendered  his  entire  force,  some  18,000, 
to  General  Canby  on  the  26th  of  May.  The 
same  generous  terms  were  accorded  him  that 
had  been  given  to  Taylor — the  Government 
fed  his  troops  and  carried  them  to  their  homes. 
Meanwhile,  General  Wilson  had  been  pa- 
roling many  thousands  of  prisoners,  who  wan- 
dered in  straggling  parties  within  the  limits  of 
his  command.  One  hundred  and  seventy-five 
thousand  men  in  all  were  surrendered  by  the 
different  Confederate  commanders,  and  there 
were,  in  addition  to  these,  about  ninety-nine 
thousand  prisoners  in  national  custody  during 
the  year;  one-third  of  these  were  exchanged 
and  two-thirds  released.  This  was  done  as 
rapidly  as  possible,  by  successive  orders  of  the 
War  Department,  beginning  on  the  9th  of  May 
and  continuing  through  the  summer. 
The  first  object  of  the  Government  was  to 
stop  the  waste  of  war.    Recruiting  ceased  im-
THE   END    ()/>'  R/'/UUJJON. 
mediately  after  Lee's  surrender ;  the  purchase 
of  arms  and  supplies  was  curtailed,  and  meas- 
ures were  taken  to  reduce  as  promptly  as  pos- 
sible the  vast  military  establishment.  It  had 
grown  during  the  last  few  months  to  porten- 
tous dimensions.  The  impression  that  a  great 
and  final  victory  was  near  at  hand,  the  stim- 
ulus of  the  national  hope,  the  prospect  of  a 
brief  and  prosperous  campaign,  had  brought 
the  army  up  to  the  magnificent  complement 
of  a  million  men.1  The  reduction  of  this  vast 
armament,  the  retrenchment  of  the  enormous 
expenses  incident  to  it,  were  immediately  un- 
dertaken with  a  method  and  despatch  which 
were  the  result  of  four  years'  thorough  and 
practical  training,  and  which  would  have  been 
impossible  under  any  other  circumstances. 
Every  chief  of  bureau  was  ordered  on  the  28th 
of  April  to  proceed  at  once  to  the  reduction 
of  expenses  in  his  department  to  a  peace  foot- 
ing, and  this  before  Taylor  or  Smith  had  sur- 
rendered and  while  Jefferson  Davis  was  still 
at  large.  The  transportation  department  gave 
up  the  railroads  of  the  South  to  their  owners, 
mainly  in  better  condition  than  that  in  which 
they  had  been  received.  They  began  without 
delay  to  sell  the  immense  accumulation  of 
draught  animals;  eight  million  dollars  were 
realized  from  that  source  within  the  year.  The 
other  departments  also  disposed  of  their  surplus 
stores.  The  stupendous  difference  which  the 
close  of  the  war  at  once  caused  in  the  finances 
of  the  country  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that 
the  appropriations  for  the  army  in  the  fiscal 
year  succeeding  the  war  were  $33,814,461 
as  against  $516,240,131  for  the  preceding  year. 
The  army  of  a  million  men  was  brought  down, 
with  incredible  ease  and  celerity,  to  one  of 
twenty-five  thousand. 
Before  the  great  army  melted  away  into  the 
greater  body  of  the  Republic  the  soldiers  en- 
joyed one  final  triumph,  a  march  through  the 
capital,  undisturbed  by  death  or  danger,  under 
the  eyes  of  their  highest  commanders,  military 
and  civilian,  and  the  representatives  of  the 
people  whose  nationality  they  had  saved.  The 
Army  of  the  Potomac  and  the  army  of  Sher- 
man —  such  corps  of  them  as  were  stationed 
within  reach,  waiting  their  discharge  —  were 
ordered  to  pass  in  review  before  General  Grant 
and  President  Johnson,  in  front  of  the  Execu- 
tive Mansion,  on  the  23d  and  24th  of  May. 
Those  who  witnessed  this  solemn  yet  joyous 
pageant  will  never  forget  it,  and  will  pray  that 
their  children  may  never  witness  anything  like 
it.  For  two  whole  days  this  formidable  host, 
eight  times  the  number  of  the  entire  peace  es- 
1  May  1,  1865,  the  aggregate  was  1,000,516.  [John- 
son, Message,  Dec.  4,  1865.  Appendix,  "Globe," 
p.  4.] 
2  His  corps  was  reviewed  on  the  7th  of  June. 
Vol.  XXXIX.— 79. 
tablishment,  marched  the  long  stretch  of  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  Starting  from  the  shadow  of 
the  dome  of  the  Capitol,  and  filling  that  wide 
thorough f.i re  to  Georgetown  with  their  serried 
mass,  moving  with  the  easy,  yet  rapi' 
veterans  in  cadence  step.  On  a  platform  in  front 
of  the  White  House  stood  the  President  and 
all  the  first  officers  of  the  state,  the  judg< 
the  highest  court,  the  most  eminent 
and  admirals  of  the  army  and  the  n 
weather,  on  both  days,  was  the  finest  a  Wash- 
ington May  could  afford;  the  trees  of  Lafay- 
ette Square  were  leafing  out  in  their  stl 
and  delicate  verdure. 
The  Army  of  the  Potomac,  which  for  four 
years  had  been  the  living  bulwark  of  the  1 
tal,  was  rightly  given  the  precedence.  Meade 
himself  rode  at  the  head  of  his  column,  then 
came  the  cavalry  headed  by  Merritt — for 
Sheridan  had  already  started  for  his  new  com- 
mand in  the  Southwest.  Custer,  commanding 
the  Third  Division,  had  an  opportune 
displaying  his  splendid  horsemanship,  as  his 
charger,  excited  beyond  control  by  the  pomp 
and  martial  music,  bolted  near  the  Treasury, 
and  dashed  with  the  speed  of  the  wind  pa.^t 
the  reviewing  stand,  but  was  soon  mastered 
by  the  young  general,  who  was  greeted  with 
stormy  applause  as  he  rode  gravely  by  the 
second  time,  covered  with  garlands  of  flowers, 
the  gifts  of  friends  on  the  pavement.  The 
same  graceful  guerdon  was  given  all  the  lead- 
ing commanders;  even  subalterns  and  hun- 
dreds of  private  soldiers  marched  decked  with 
these  fragrant  offerings.  The  three  infantry 
corps,  the  Ninth,  under  Parke,  the  Fifth,  under 
Griffin, —  though  Warren  was  on  the  stand, 
hailed  with  tumultuous  cheers  by  his  soldiers. — 
and  the  Second,  under  Humphreys,  moved 
swiftly  forward.  Wright,  with  the  Sixth, 
too  far  away  to  join  in  the  day's  parade.2  The 
memory  of  hundreds  of  hard-fought  battles,  of 
saddening  defeats  and  glorious  victories,  of 
the  dead  and  maimed  comrades  who  had 
fallen  forever  out  of  the  thinned  ranks. 
present  to  every  one  who  saw  the  veteran  di- 
visions marching  by  under  the  charge  ot  gen- 
erals who  had  served  with  them  in  every 
vicissitude  of  battle  and  siege  —  trained  officers 
like  Crook  and  Ayres,  and  young  and  bril- 
liant soldiers  who  had  risen  like  rockets  from 
among  the  volunteers,  such  as  Barlow  and 
Miles.  E verv  brigade  had  its  days  oi  immortal 
prowess  to  boast,  every  tattered  guidon  had 
its  history. 
On  the  24th  Sherman's  army  marched  in 
review.  The  general  rode  in  person  at  the 
head  of  his  troops,  and  was  received  by  the 
dense  multitude  that  thronged  the  avenue  with 
a  tumult  of  rapturous  plaudits,  which  might 
have  assured  him  of  the  peculiar  place  he  was
57° 
ABRAHAM    LIXCOLX 
to  hold  thereafter  in  the  hearts  of  his  fellow- 
ens.  His  horse  and  he  were  Loaded  with 
Bowers  ;  and  his  principal  commanders  were 
not  neglected.  Howard  had  just  been  ap- 
pointed chief  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  and 
therefore  Logan  commanded  the  right  wing  of 
\rmv  of  the  Tennessee,  the  place  he  had 
ed  for.  and,  his  friends  insist,  deserved, 
when  McPherson  fell:  Hazen  had  succeeded 
to  the  Fifteenth  Corps,  and  Frank  Blair,  a 
chivalrous  and  martial  figure,  rode  at  the  head 
of  the  Seventeenth.  Slocum  led  the  left  wing, 
—  the  Army  of  Georgia, —  consisting  of  the 
Qtieth  Corps  under  Mower,  and  the  Four- 
h  under  J.  C.  Davis.  The  armies  of  Meade 
and  Sherman  were  not  exclusively  from  the 
1  ist  and  West  respectively;  for  Sherman  had 
the  contingent  which  Hooker  and  Howard 
had  brought  to  Chattanooga  from  the  East; 
and  there  were  regiments  from  as  far  west  as 
Wisconsin  and  Minnesota  in  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  But  Sherman's  troops  were  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  Western  men,  and  they 
were  scanned  with  keen  and  hospitable  inter- 
est by  the  vast  crowd  of  spectators,  who  were 
mainly  from  the  East.  There  was  little  to 
choose  between  the  two  armies  :  a  trifle  more 
of  neatness  and  discipline,  perhaps,  among  the 
veterans  of  Meade;  a  slight  preponderance 
in  physique  and  in  swinging  vigor  of  march 
among  the  Westerners;  but  the  trivial  differ- 
ences were  lost  in  the  immense  and  evident 
likeness,  as  of  brothers  in  one  family.  There 
was  a  touch  of  the  grotesque  in  the  march  of 
Sherman's  legions  which  was  absent  from  the 
well-ordered  corps  of  Meade.  A  small  squad 
of  bummers  followed  each  brigade,  in  their 
characteristic  garb  and  accessories;  small  don- 
keys loaded  with  queer  spoils;  goats  and 
game-cocks,  regimental  pets,  sitting  gravely 
on  the  backs  of  mules ;  and  pickaninnies,  the 
adopted  children  of  companies,  showed  their 
black  faces  between  the  ranks,  their  eyes  and 
teeth  gleaming  with  delight. 
Asa  mere  spectacle,  this  march  of  the  might- 
iest host  the  continent  had  ever  seen  gathered 
together  was  grand  and  imposing,  but  it  was 
not  as  a  spectacle  alone  that  it  affected  the 
>lder  most  deeply.  It  was  not  a  mere  holi- 
day parade  ;  it  was  an  army  of  citizens  on  their 
way  home  after  a  long  and  terrible  war.  Their 
clothes  were  worn  with  toilsome  marches  and 
ed  with  bullets ;  their  banners  had  been 
torn  with  shot  and  shell  and  lashed  in  the 
winds  of  a  thousand  battles;  the  very  drums 
and  fifes  that  player)  the  ruffles  as  each  battalion 
passed  the  President  had  called  out  the  troops 
to  numberless  night  alarms,  had  sounded  the 
onset  at  Vicksburg  and  Antietam,  had  inspired 
the  wasted  valor  of  Kenesaw  and  Fredericks- 
burg, had  throbbed  with  the  electric  pulse  of 
victory  at  Chattanooga  and  Five  Forks.  The 
whole  country  claimed  these  heroes  as  a  part 
of  themselves,  an  infinite  gratification  forever  to 
the  national  self-love ;  and  the  thoughtful  diplo- 
matists who  looked  on  the  scene  from  the  re- 
viewing stand  could  not  help  seeing  that  there 
was  a  conservative  force  in  an  intelligent  democ- 
racy which  the  world  had  never  before  known. 
With  all  the  shouting  and  the  laughter  and 
the  joy  of  this  unprecedented  ceremony  there 
was  one  sad  and  dominant  thought  which 
could  not  be  driven  from  the  minds  of  those 
who  saw  it— that  of  the  men  who  were  ab- 
sent, and  who  had,  nevertheless,  richly  earned 
the  right  to  be  there.  The  soldiers,  in  their 
shrunken  companies,  wrere  conscious  of  the 
ever-present  memories  of  the  brave  comrades 
who  had  fallen  by  the  way ;  and  in  the  whole 
army  there  was  the  passionate  and  unavail- 
ing regret  that  their  wise,  gentle,  and  power- 
ful friend,  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  gone  forever 
from  the  house  by  the  avenue,  where  their  loyal 
votes,  supporting  their  loyal  bayonets,  had  con- 
tributed so  much  to  place  him. 
The  world  has  had  many  lessons  to  learn 
from  this  great  war  :  the  naval  fight  in  Hamp- 
ton Roads  opened  a  new  era  in  maritime  war- 
fare ;  the  marches  of  Sherman  disturbed  all 
previous  axioms  of  logistics ;  the  system  of  in- 
stantaneous intrenchments,  adopted  by  the 
soldiers  of  both  sides  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
war,  changed  the  whole  character  of  modern 
field  tactics.  But  the  greatest  of  all  the  lessons 
afforded  to  humanity  by  the  Titanic  struggle 
in  which  the  American  Republic  saved  its  life 
is  the  manner  in  which  its  armies  were  levied, 
and,  when  the  occasion  for  their  employment 
was  over,  were  dismissed.  Though  there  were 
periods  when  recruiting  was  slow  and  expen- 
sive, yet  there  were  others,  when  some  crying 
necessity  for  troops  was  apparent,  that  showed 
almost  incredible  speed  and  efficiency  in  the 
supply  of  men.  Mr.  Stanton,  in  his  report  for 
1865,  says : 
After  the  disaster  on  the  Peninsula,  in  1862,  over 
80,000  troops  were  enlisted,  organized,  armed, 
equipped,  and  sent  to  the  field  in  less  than  a  month. 
Sixty  thousand  troops  have  repeatedly  gone  to  thefield 
within  four  weeks;  and  90, 000  infantry  were  once  sent 
to  the  armies  from  the  five  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Wisconsin  within  twenty  days. 
This  certainly  shows  a  wealth  of  resources 
nothing  less  than  imperial,  and  a  power  of  com- 
manding the  physical  and  moral  forces  of  the 
nation  which  has  rarely  been  paralleled.  Even 
more  important,  by  way  of  instruction  and 
example,  was  the  lesson  given  the  nations  by 
the  quick  and  noiseless  dispersion  of  the  enor- 
mous host  when  the  war  was  done.  The  best 
friends  of  the  Republic  in  Europe  feared  for 
it  in  this  crisis,  and  those  who  disbelieved  in
LINCOLN'S  FAME. 
57' 
the  conservative  power  of  democracy  were 
loud  in  their  prophecies  of  the  trouble  which 
would  arise  on  the  attempt  to  disband  the 
army.  A  million  men,  with  arms  in  their  hands, 
flushed  with  intoxicating  victory,  led  by  offi- 
cers schooled  in  battle,  loved  and  trusted — 
were  they  not  ready  for  any  adventure  ?  Was 
it  reasonable  to  believe  that  they  would  con- 
sent to  disband  and  go  to  work  again  at  the 
bidding  of  a  few  men  in  black  coats  at  Wash- 
ington ?  Especially  after  Lincoln  was  dead, 
could  the  tailor  from  Tennessee  direct  these 
myriads  of  warriors  to  lay  down  their  arms 
and  melt  away  into  the  everyday  life  of  citi- 
zens ?  In  America  there  was  no  anxiety  on 
this  score  among  the  friends  of  the  Union. 
Without  giving  the  subject  a  thought  they 
knew  there  was  no  danger.  The  war  had  been 
made  to  execute  the  laws  and  to  save  the  na- 
tional existence,  and  when  those  objects  were 
attained  there  was  no  thought  among  the  sol- 
diers, from  the  general  to  the  humblest  file- 
closer,  but  to  wait  for  the  expected  orders  from 
the  civil  authorities  for  their  disbandment. 
The  orders  came  as  a  mere  matter  of  course, 
and  were  executed  with  a  thoroughness  and 
rapidity  which  then  seemed  also  a  matter  of 
course,  but  which  will  appear  more  and  more 
wonderful  to  succeeding  generations.  The 
muster-out  began  on  the  29th  of  April,  before 
Lincoln  was  borne  to  his  grave,  before  Davis 
was  caught,  before  the  rebels  of  the  Trans- 
Mississippi  had  ceased  uttering  their  boasts  of 
eternal  defiance.  First  the  new  recruits,  next 
the  veterans  whose  terms  were  nearly  expired, 
next  those  expensive  corps  the  cavalry  and 
artillery,  and  so  on  in  regular  order.  Sher- 
man's laurel-crowned  army  was  the  first  to 
complete  its  muster-out,  and  the  heroic  Army 
of  the  Potomac  was  not  far  behind  it.  These 
veterans  of  hundreds  of  battlefields  were  soon 
found  mingled  in  all  the  pursuits  of  civic  ac- 
tivity. By  the  7th  of  August  641,000  troops 
had  become  citizens ;  by  the  middle  of  Novem- 
ber over  800,000  had  been  mustered  out  — 
without  a  fancy  in  any  mind  that  there  was 
anything  else  to  do. 
The  Navy  Department  had  not  waited  for 
the  return  of  peace  to  begin  the  reduction  of 
expenses.  As  soon  as  Fort  Fisher  fell  the  re- 
trenchment began,  and  before  Grant  started 
on  his  last  campaign  considerable  progress  had 
been  made  in  that  direction.  The  1st  of  May 
the  squadrons  were  reduced  one-half,  and  in 
July  but  thirty  steamers  comprised  the  entire 
blockading  squadron  on  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Gulf.  The  Potomac  and  Mississippi  flotillas 
were  wholly  discontinued  in  another  month. 
When  Mr.  Welles  made  his  annual  report  in 
December  he  could  say :  "  There  were  in  the 
several  blockading  squadrons  in  January  last, 
exclusive  of  other  duty,  471  v<  and  2;;^ 
guns.    There  arc  now  but  29  vessels  remaining 
on  the  coast,  carrying  210  guns,  exclusn 
howitzers."    Superfluous  vessels  were  sold  by 
hundreds  and  the  money  covered  into  I 
ury  ;  thousands  of  the  officers  and  sailor.-,  who 
had  patriotically  left  the  merchant  servi' 
fight  under  the  national  flag  went  back  to  the 
pursuits  of  peace. 
For  the  purposes  of  pacification  and  the 
reestablishment  of  the  national  authority  the 
country  was  divided  into  five  grand  divisions  — 
that  of  the  Atlantic,  commanded  by  Meade; 
the  Mississippi,  by  Sherman ;  the  Gulf,  by 
Sheridan;  the  Tennessee,  by  Thomas;  and  the 
Pacific,  by  Halleck.  These  again  were  subdi- 
vided into  nineteen  departments,  and  we  print 
here  the  names  of  the  generals  commanding 
them  for  the  last  time,  as  a  roll  of  the  men  who 
survived  the  war,  most  favored  by  fortune  and 
their  own  merits :  Hooker,  Hancock,  Augur, 
Ord,  Stoneman,  Palmer  (J.  M.),  Pope,  Terry, 
Schofield,  Sickles,  Steedman,  Foster  (J.  G.), 
Wood  (T.  J.),  Wood  (C.  R.),  Ganby,  Wright, 
Reynolds,  Steele,  McDowell.  The  success  or 
failure  of  these  soldiers  in  administering  the 
trusts  confided  to  them,  their  relations  to  the 
people  among  whom  they  were  stationed,  and 
to  the  President  who  succeeded  to  the  vacant 
chair  of  Lincoln,  form  no  part  of  the  story  we 
have  attempted  to  tell. 
On  the  1 3th  of  June  the  President  proclaimed 
the  insurrection  at  an  end  in  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee ;  it  was  not  until  the  second  day  of  April, 
1866,  that  he  proclaimed  a  state  of  peace  as 
existing  in  the  rest  of  the  United  States,  and 
then  he  excepted  the  State  of  Texas ;  on  the 
20th  of  August,  in  the  same  year,  he  made  his 
final  proclamation,  announcing  the  reestab- 
lishment of  the  national  authority  in  Texas, 
and  thereupon  he  concluded,  "  I  do  further 
proclaim  that  the  said  insurrection  is  at  an  end, 
and  that  peace,  order,  tranquillity,  and  civil  au- 
thority now  exist  in  and  throughout  the  whole 
of  the  United  States  of  America." 
L^XOLNS     FAME. 
The  death  of  Lincoln  awoke  all  over  the 
world  a  quick  and  deep  emotion  of  grief  and 
admiration.  If  he  had  died  in  the  days  of  doubt 
and  gloom  which  preceded  his  reelection,  he 
would  have  been  sincerely  mourned  and  praised 
by  the  friends  of  the  L'nion,  but  its  enemies 
would  have  curtly  dismissed  him  as  one  of  the 
necessary  and  misguided  victims  of  sectional 
hate.  They  would  have  used  his  death  to  jus- 
tify their  malevolent  forebodings,  to  point  the 
moral  of  new  lectures  on  the  instability  of 
democracies.  But  as  he  had  fallen  in  the 
moment  of  a  stupendous  victory,   the  halo
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
radiant   success  enveloped  his  memory 
dazzled  the  eyes  even  of  his  most  hostile 
critics.  That  portion  of  the  press  of  England 
and  the  Continent  which  had  persistently  vili- 
fied him  now  joined  in  the  universal  chorus 
of  elegiac  praise.1  Cabinets  and  courts  which 
had  been  cold  or  unfriendly  sent  their  mes- 
-  of  condolence.  The  French  govern- 
ment, spurred  on  by  their  Liberal  opponents, 
took  prompt  measures  to  express  their  admi- 
D  for  his  character  and  their  horror  at 
king-off.  In  the  Senate  and  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  the  imperialists  and  the  repub- 
licans vied  with  each  other  in  utterances  of 
grief  and  oi  praise;  the  Emperor  and  the  Em- 
sent  their  personal  condolences  to  Mrs. 
Lincoln.  In  England  there  was  perhaps  a  tri- 
tle  of  self-consciousness  at  the  bottom  of  the 
official  expressions  of  sympathy.  The  Foreign 
Office  searched  the  records  for  precedents,  find- 
ing nothing  which  suited  the  occasion  since 
the  assassination  of  Henry  IV.  The  sterling 
English  character  could  not,  so  gracefully  as 
the  courtiers  of  Napoleon  III.,  bend  to  praise 
one  who  had  been  treated  almost  as  an  enemy 
so  long.  When  Sir  George  Grey  opened 
his  dignified  and  pathetic  speech  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  by  saying  that  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  England  sympathized  with  the  North, 
he  was  greeted  with  loud  protestations  and 
denials  on  the  part  of  those  who  favored  the 
Confederacy.  But  his  references  to  Lincoln's 
virtues  were  cordially  received,  and  when  he 
said  that  the  Queen  had  written  to  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln with  her  own  hand,  "as  a  widow  to  a 
widow,"  the  House  broke  out  in  loud  cheer- 
ing. Mr.  Disraeli  spoke  on  behalf  of  the  Con- 
servatives with  his  usual  dexterity  and  with  a 
touch  of  factitious  feeling. 
There  is  [he  said]  in  the  character  of  the  vic- 
tim, and  even  in  the  accessories  of  his  last  moments, 
something  so  homely  and  innocent,  that  it  takes  the 
question,  as  it  were,  out  of  all  the  pomp  of  history 
and  the  ceremonial  of  diplomacy  ;  it  touches  the 
heart  of  nations  and  appeals  to  the  domestic  senti- 
ment of  mankind. 
In  the  House  of  Lords  the  matter  was  treated 
with  characteristic  reticence.    The  speech  of 
1  One  of  the  finest  poems  on  the  occasion  of  his  death 
was  that  in  which  the  London  "  Punch  "  made  its  manly 
recantation  of  the  slanders  with  which  it  had  pursued 
him  for  four  years  : 
Beside  this  corpse  that  bears  for  winding-sheet 
Stars  and  Stripes  he  lived  to  rear  anew, 
tweeu  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 
Say,  scurrile  jester,  is  there  room  for  you? 
.';  had  lived  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 
To  lame  my  pencil,  and  confute  my  pen; 
To  make  me  own  this  hind  of  princes  peer, 
This  rail-splitter  a  true-born  king  of  men. 
Lord  Russell  was  full  of  that  rugged  truthful- 
ness, that  unbending  integrity  of  spirit,  which 
appeared  at  the  time  to  disguise  his  real  friend- 
liness to  America,  and  which  was  only  the 
natural  expression  of  a  mind  extraordinarily  up- 
right, and  English  to  the  verge  of  caricature. 
Lord  Derby  followed  him  in  a  speech  of  curi- 
ous elegance,  the  object  of  which  was  rather  to 
launch  a  polished  shaft  against  his  opponents 
than  to  show  honor  to  the  dead  President; 
and  the  address  proposed  by  the  Government 
was  voted.  While  these  reserved  and  careful 
public  proceedings  were  going  on,  the  heart 
of  England  was  expressing  its  sympathy  with 
the  kindred  beyond  sea  by  its  thousand  organs 
of  utterance  in  the  press,  the  resolutions  of 
municipal  bodies,  the  pulpit,  and  the  platform. 
In  Germany  the  same  manifestations  were 
seen  of  official  expressions  of  sympathy  from 
royalty  and  its  ministers,  and  of  heartfelt  affec- 
tion and  grief  from  the  people  and  their  rep- 
resentatives. Otto  von  Bismarck,  then  at  the 
beginning  of  his  illustrious  career,  gave  utter- 
ance to  the  courteous  regrets  of  the  King  of 
Prussia  ;  the  eloquent  deputy,  William  Loewe, 
from  his  place  in  the  House,  made  a  brief  and 
touching  speech. 
The  man  [he  said]  who  accomplished  such  great 
deeds  from  the  simple  desire  conscientiously  to  per- 
form his  duty,  the  man  who  never  wished  to  be 
more  nor  less  than  the  most  faithful  servant  of  his 
people,  will  find  his  own  glorious  place  in  the 
pages  of  history.  In  the  deepest  reverence  I  bow 
my  head  before  this  modest  greatness,  and  I  think  it 
is  especially  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  our  own  nation, 
with  its  deep  inner  life  and  admiration  of  self-sac- 
rificing devotion  and  effort  after  the  ideal,  to  pay 
the  tribute  of  veneration  to  such  greatness,  exalted 
as  it  is  by  simplicity  and  modesty. 
Two  hundred  and  fifty  members  of  the  Cham- 
ber signed  an  address  to  the  American  min- 
ister in  Berlin,  full  of  the  cordial  sympathy  and 
admiration  felt,  not  only  for  the  dead  President, 
but  for  the  national  cause,  by  the  people  of 
Germany. 
You  are  aware  [they  said]  that  Germany  has 
looked  with  pride  and  joy  on  the  thousands  of  her 
sons  who  in  this  struggle  have  placed  themselves 
so  resolutely  on  the  side  of  law  and  right.  You  have 
seen  with  what  pleasure  the  victories  of  the  Union 
have  been  hailed,  and  how  confident  the  faith  in 
the  final  triumph  of  the  great  cause  and  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Union  in  all  its  greatness  has  ever  been, 
even  in  the  midst  of  calamity. 
Workingmen's  clubs,  artisans'  unions,  sent 
numberless  addresses,  not  merely  expressive 
of  sympathy,  but  conveying  singularly  just  ap- 
preciations of  the  character  and  career  of  Lin- 
coln. His  death  seemed  to  have  marked  a  step 
in  the  education  of  the  people  everywhere.
LINCOLN'S  FAME. 
In  fact  it  was  among  the  common  people  of 
the  entire  civilized  world  that  the  most  genu- 
ine and  spontaneous  manifestations  of  sorrow 
and  appreciation  were  produced,  and  to  this 
fact  we  attribute  the  sudden  and  solid  foun- 
dation of  Lincoln's  fame.  It  requires  years, 
perhaps  centuries,  to  build  the  structure  of  a 
reputation  which  rests  upon  the  opinion  of 
those  distinguished  for  learning  or  intelligence; 
the  progress  of  opinion  from  the  few  to  the 
many  is  slow  and  painful.  But  in  the  case  of 
Lincoln  the  many  imposed  their  opinion  all  at 
once ;  he  was  canonized,  as  he  lay  on  his  bier, 
by  the  irresistible  decree  of  countless  millions. 
The  greater  part  of  the  aristocracy  of  Eng- 
land thought  little  of  him,  but  the  burst  of 
grief  from  the  English  people  silenced  in  an 
instant  every  discordant  voice.  It  would  have 
been  as  imprudent  to  speak  slightingly  of  him 
in  London  as  it  was  in  New  York.  Especially 
among  the  Dissenters  was  honor  and  reverence 
shown  to  his  name.  The  humbler  people  in- 
stinctively felt  that  their  order  had  lost  its 
wisest  champion. 
Not  only  among  those  of  Saxon  blood  was 
this  outburst  of  emotion  seen.  In  France  a 
national  manifestation  took  place  which  the 
government  disliked,  but  did  not  think  it  wise 
to  suppress.  The  students  of  Paris  marched 
in  a  body  to  the  American  Legation  to  ex- 
press their  sympathy.  A  two-cent  subscription 
was  started  to  strike  a  massive  gold  medal ; 
the  money  was  soon  raised,  but  the  committee 
was  forced  to  have  the  work  done  in  Switzer- 
land. A  committee  of  French  Liberals  brought 
the  medal  to  the  American  minister,  to  be 
sent  to  Mrs.  Lincoln.  "  Tell  her,"  said  Eugene 
Pelletan,  "  the  heart  of  France  is  in  that  little 
box."  The  inscription  had  a  double  sense ; 
while  honoring  the  dead  Republican,  it  struck 
at  the  Empire.  "  Lincoln  —  the  Honest  Man ; 
abolished  slavery,  reestablished  the  Union  : 
Saved  the  Republic,  without  veiling  the  statue 
of  Liberty."  Everywhere  on  the  Continent 
the  same  swift  apotheosis  of  the  people's  hero 
was  seen.  An  Austrian  deputy  said  to  the 
writer,  "Among  my  people  his  memory  has 
already  assumed  superhuman  proportions ;  he 
has  become  a  myth,  a  type  of  ideal  democ- 
racy." Almost  before  the  earth  closed  over 
him  he  began  to  be  the  subject  of  fable. 
The  Freemasons  of  Europe  generally  regard 
him  as  one  of  them  —  his  portrait  in  Masonic 
garb  is  often  displayed ;  yet  he  was  not  one 
of  that  brotherhood.  The  Spiritualists  claim 
him  as  their  most  illustrious  adept,  but  he  was 
not  a  Spiritualist ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  sect  in 
the  Western  world,  from  the  Calvinist  to  the 
atheist,  but  affects  to  believe  he  was  of  their 
opinion. 
A  collection  of  the  expressions  of  sympa- 
thy and  condolence  whirl)  I  Washing- 
ton from  foreign  governments,  as/ 
and  public  bodies  of  all  sorts  was  made  by 
the  State  Department,  and  afterwards  pub- 
lished by  order  of  Congress.  It  form 
(juarto  of  a  thousand  pages,  and  embraces  the 
utterances  of  grief  and  regret  from  every  coun- 
try under  the  sun,  in  almost  every  language 
spoken  by  man. 
But  admired  and  venerated  as  he  was  in 
Europe,  he  was  best  understood  and  a] 
ciated  at  home.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  in 
his  case,  as  in  that  of  all  heroic  person 
who  occupy  a  great  place  in  history,  a  certain 
element  of  legend  mingles  with  his  righteous 
fame.  He  was  a  man,  in  fact,  especially  liable 
to  legend.  We  have  been  told  by  farmers  in 
central  Illinois  that  the  brown  thrush  did  not 
sing  for  a  year  after  he  died.  He  was  gentle 
and  merciful,  and  therefore  he  seems  in  a  cer- 
tain class  of  annals  to  have  passed  all  his 
in  soothing  misfortune  and  pardoning  crime. 
He  had  more  than  his  share  of  the  shrewd  na- 
tive humor,  and  therefore  the  loose  jest  books 
of  two  centuries  have  been  ransacked  for  anec- 
dotes to  be  attributed  to  him.  He  was  a  great 
and  powerful  lover  of  mankind,  especially  of 
those  not  favored  by  fortune.  One  night  he 
had  a  dream,  which  he  repeated  the  next  morn- 
ing to  the  writer  of  these  lines,  which  quaintly 
illustrates  his  unpretending  and  kindly  democ- 
racy. He  wras  in  some  great  assembly  ;  the 
people  made  a  lane  to  let  him  pass.  "  He  is  a 
common-looking  fellow,"  some  one  said.  Lin- 
coln in  his  dream  turned  to  his  critic  and  re- 
plied, in  his  Quaker  phrase,  "  Friend,  the  Lord 
prefers  common-looking  people :  that  is  why 
he  made  so  many  of  them."  He  that  abases 
himself  shall  be  exalted.  Because  Lincoln  kept 
himself  in  such  constant  sympathy  with  the 
common  people,  whom  he  respected  too  highly 
to  flatter  or  mislead,  he  was  rewarded  by  a  rev- 
erence and  a  love  hardly  ever  given  to  a  human 
being.  Among  the  humble  working  people  of 
the  South  whom  he  had  made  free  this  venera- 
tion and  affection  easily  passed  into  the  super- 
natural. At  a  religious  meeting  among  the 
negroes  of  the  Sea  Islands  a  young  man  ex- 
pressed the  wish  that  he  might  see  Lincoln. 
A  gray-headed  negro  rebuked  the  rash  aspira- 
tion :  "  No  man  see  Linkum.  Linkum  walk 
as  Jesus  walk  —  no  man  see  Linkum.''1  But 
leaving  aside  these  fables,  which  are  a  natural 
enough  expression  of  a  "popular  awe  and  love. 
it  seems  to  us  no  calmer  nor  more  just  estimate 
of  Lincoln's  relation  to  his  time  has  ever  been 
made — nor  perhaps  ever  will  be  —  than  that 
uttered  by  one  of  the  wisest  and  most  Amer- 
1  Mr.  Hay  had  this  story  from  Captain  E.  W. 
Hooper  immediately  after  it  happened.  It  has  been 
told  with  many  variations.
574 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
ican  of  thinkers.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  a  few 
days  after  the  assassination.  We  cannot  for- 
bear quoting  a  few  words  oi  this  remarkable 
discourse,  which  shows  how  Lincoln  seemed 
to  the  greatest  of  his  contemporaries. 
A  plain  man  of  the  people,  an  extraordinary  for- 
tune attended  him.  Lord  Bacon  says,  "  Manifest 
virtues  procure  reputation  ;  occult  ones  fortune." 
.  .  .  His  occupying  the  chair  of  state  was  a  tri- 
umph of  the  good  sense  of  mankind  and  of  the 
public  conscience.  ...  He  grew  according  to 
the  need  ;  his  mind  mastered  the  problem  of  the 
day  ;  and  as  the  problem  grew,  so  did  his  compre- 
hension o\  it.  Rarely  was  a  man  so  fitted  to  the 
event.  ...  It  cannot  be  said  that  there  is  any 
exaggeration  of  his  worth.  If  ever  a  man  was  fairly 
tested,  he  was.  There  was  no  lack  of  resistance, 
nor  of  slander,  nor  of  ridicule.  .  .  .  Then  what  an 
occasion  was  the  whirlwind  of  the  war  !  Here  was 
no  place  for  holiday  magistrate,  nor  fair-weather 
sailor ;  the  new  pilot  was  hurried  to  the  helm  in  a 
tornado.  In  four  years  — four  years  of  battle-days  — 
his  endurance,  his  fertility  of  resources,  his  mag- 
nanimity,  were  sorely  tried  and  never  found  want- 
ing. There  by  his  courage,  his  justice,  his  even 
temper,  his  fertile  counsel,  his  humanity,  he  stood 
a  heroic  figure  in  the  center  of  a  heroic  epoch.  He 
is  the  true  history  of  the  American  people  in  his 
time;  the  true  representative  of  this  continent  — 
father  of  his  country,  the  pulse  of  twenty  millions 
throbbing  in  his  heart,  the  thought  of  their  minds 
articulated  by  his  tongue. 
The  quick  instinct  by  which  the  world 
recognized  him,  even  at  the  moment  of  his 
death,  as  one  of  its  greatest  men,  was  not  de- 
ceived. It  has  been  confirmed  by  the  sober 
thought  of  a  quarter  of  a  century.  The  Avriters 
of  each  nation  compare  him  with  their  first 
popular  hero.  The  French  find  points  of  resem- 
blance in  him  to  Henry  IV. ;  the  Dutch  liken 
him  to  William  of  Orange ;  the  cruel  stroke  of 
murder  and  treason  by  which  all  three  perished 
in  the  height  of  their  power  naturally  suggests 
the  comparison,  which  is  strangely  justified  in 
both  cases,  though  the  two  princes  were  so 
widely  different  in  character.  Lincoln  had  the 
wit,  the  bonhomie,  the  keen,  practical  insight 
into  affairs  of  the  Bearnais ;  and  the  tyran- 
nous moral  sense,  the  wide  comprehension,  the 
heroic  patience  of  the  Dutch  patriot,  whose 
motto  might  have  served  equally  well  for  the 
American  President  —  Scevis  tranquillus  in 
undis.  European  historians  speak  of  him  in 
words  reserved  for  the  most  illustrious  names. 
Merle  d'Aubigne  says,  "  The  name  of  Lincoln 
will  remain  one  of  the  greatest  that  history  has 
to  inscribe  on  its  annals."  Henri  Martin  pre- 
dicts nothing  less  than  a  universal  apotheosis : 
':  This  man  will  stand  out  in  the  traditions  of 
his  country  and  the  world  as  an  incarnation  of 
the  people,  and  of  modern  democracy  itself." 
1  "  Battles  and  Leaders,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  405. 
2  H.  \V.  Grady. 
In  this  country,  where  millions  still  live  who 
were  his  contemporaries,  and  thousands  who 
knew  him  personally,  where  the  envies  and 
jealousies  which  dog  the  footsteps  of  success 
still  linger  in  the  hearts  of  a  few,  where  jour- 
nals still  exist  that  loaded  his  name  for  four 
years  with  daily  calumny,  and  wTriters  of  me- 
moirs vainly  try  to  make  themselves  impor- 
tant by  belittling  him,  his  fame  has  become  as 
universal  as  the  air,  as  deeply  rooted  as  the 
hills.  The  faint  discords  are  not  heard  in  the 
wide  chorus  that  hails  him  second  to  none  and 
equaled  by  Washington  alone.  The  eulogies 
of  him  form  a  special  literature.  Preachers, 
poets,  soldiers,  and  statesmen  employ  the  same 
phrases  of  unconditional  love  and  reverence. 
Men  speaking  with  the  authority  of  fame  use 
unqualified  superlatives.  Lowell,  in  an  im- 
mortal ode,  calls  him  "  New  birth  of  our  new 
soil,  the  first  American."  General  Sherman 
says,  "  Of  all  the  men  I  ever  met,  he  seemed  to 
possess  more  of  the  elements  of  greatness,  com- 
bined with  goodness,  than  any  other."  He  is 
spoken  of,  with  scarcely  less  of  enthusiasm,  by 
the  more  generous  and  liberal  spirits  among 
those  who  revolted  against  his  election  and  were 
vanquished  by  his  power.  General  Longstreet 1 
calls  him  "  the  greatest  man  of  rebellion  times, 
the  one  matchless  among  forty  millions  for  the 
peculiar  difficulties  of  the  period."  An  eminent 
Southern  orator,2  referring  to  our  mixed  North- 
ern and  Southern  ancestry,  says : 
From  the  union  of  those  colonists,  from  the 
straightening  of  their  purposes  and  the  crossing  of 
their  blood,  slow  perfecting  through  a  century,  came 
he  who  stands  as  the  first  typical  American,  the  first 
who  comprehended  within  himself  all  the  strength 
and  gentleness,  all  the  majesty  and  grace  of  this 
republic — Abraham  Lincoln. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  the  basis  of 
this  sudden  and  world-wide  fame,  nor  rash  to 
predict  its  indefinite  duration.  There  are  two 
classes  of  men  whose  names  are  more  endur- 
ing than  any  monument — the  great  writers, 
and  the  men  of  great  achievement ;  the  found- 
ers of  states,  the  conquerors.  Lincoln  has  the 
singular  fortune  to  belong  to  both  these  cate- 
gories; upon  these  broad  and  stable  founda- 
tions his  renown  is  securely  built.  Nothing 
would  have  more  amazed  him  while  he  lived 
than  to  hear  himself  called  a  man  of  letters ; 
but  this  age  has  produced  few  greater  writers. 
We  are  only  recording  here  the  judgment  of 
his  peers.  Emerson  ranks  him  with  ^sop  and 
Pilpay  in  his  lighter  moods,  and  says  : 
The  weight  and  penetration  of  many  passages 
in  his  letters,  messages,  and  speeches,  hidden  now  by 
the  very  closeness  of  their  application  to  the  mo- 
ment, are  destined  to  a  wide  fame.  What  pregnant 
definitions,  what  unerring  common  sense,  what 
foresight,  and  on  great  occasions  what  lofty,  and
LINCOLN'S  FAME. 
57S 
more  than  national,  what  human  tone !  His  brief 
speech  at  Gettysburg1  will  not  easily  be  surpassed  by 
words  on  any  recorded  occasion.2 
His  style  extorted  the  high  praise  of  French 
Academicians;  Montalembcrt-'  commended  it 
as  a  model  for  the  imitation  of  princes.  Many 
of  his  phrases  form  part  of  the  common  speech 
of  mankind.  It  is  true  that  in  his  writings  the 
range  of  subjects  is  not  great ;  he  is  concerned 
chiefly  with  the  political  problems  of  the  time, 
and  the  moral  considerations  involved  in  them. 
But  the  range  of  treatment  is  remarkably  wide  ; 
it  runs  from  the  wit,  the  gay  humor,  the  florid 
eloquence  of  his  stump  speeches  to  the  mar- 
velous sententiousness  and  brevity  of  the  let- 
ter to  Greeley  and  the  address  at  Gettysburg, 
and  the  sustained  and  lofty  grandeur  of  the 
Second  Inaugural. 
The  more  his  writings  are  studied  in  con- 
nection with  the  important  transactions  of  his 
age  the  higher  will  his  reputation  stand  in  the 
opinion  of  the  lettered  class.  But  the  men  of 
study  and  research  are  never  numerous ;  and 
it  is  principally  as  a  man  of  action  that  the 
world  at  large  will  regard  him.  It  is  the  story 
of  his  objective  life  that  will  forever  touch  and 
hold  the  heart  of  mankind.  His  birthright  was 
privation  and  ignorance — not  peculiar  to  his 
family,  but  the  universal  environment  of  his 
place  and  time ;  he  burst  through  those  en- 
chaining conditions  by  the  force  of  native  gen- 
ius and  will ;  vice  had  no  temptation  for  him ; 
his  course  was  as  naturally  upward  as  the  sky- 
lark's; he  won,  against  all  conceivable  obsta- 
cles, a  high  place  in  an  exacting  profession  and 
an  honorable  position  in  public  and  private 
life;  he  became  tli*    :• 
of  a  party  founded  on  an  uprising  of  the  na- 
tional  (.on  .<  Ience  again  rong,  and 
thus  came  to  the  awful  respOE  sibi 
in  a  time  of  terror  and  gloom.    11     m   |  them 
with   incomparable  Strength  and  virtue.    ' 
ing  for  nothing  but  the  public  good,  fr<:<;  from 
envy  or  jealous  fears,  he  surrounded  him 
with  the  leading  men  of  his  party,  his  most  for- 
midable rivals  in  public  esteem,  and  through 
four  years  of  stupendous  difficulties  he  was 
head  and  shoulders  above  them  all  in  the  vital 
qualities  of  wisdom,  foresight,  knowledg 
men,  and  thorough  comprehension  of  measure.^. 
Personally  opposed,  as  the  radicals  claim,  by 
more  than  half  of  his  own  party  in  ' 
and  bitterly  denounced  and  maligned  by  bis 
open  adversaries,  he  yet  bore  himself  with  such 
extraordinary  discretion  and  skill,  that  he  ob- 
tained for  the  Government  all  the  legislation 
it  required,  and  so  impressed  himself  upon  the 
national  mind  that  without  personal  effort  or 
solicitation  he  became  the  only  possible  can- 
didate of  his  party  for  reelection,  and  was 
chosen  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote  of  the 
Electoral  Colleges.  His  qualities  would  have 
rendered  his  administration  illustrious  even  in 
time  of  peace ;  but  when  we  consider  that  in 
addition  to  the  ordinary  work  of  the  executive 
office  he  was  forced  to  assume  the  duties  of 
commander-in-chief  of  the  national  forces  en- 
gaged in  the  most  complex  and  difficult  war 
of  modern  times,  the  greatness  of  spirit  as  well 
as  the  intellectual  strength  he  evinced  in  that 
capacity  is  nothing  short  of  prodigious.  After 
times  will  wonder,  not  at"  the  few  and  unim- 
1  The  text  of  the  address,  as  slightly  revised  by  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  is  as  follows,  and  is  taken  from  the  auto- 
graphic copy  made  for  the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Fair 
in  Baltimore  in  1864: 
"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  lib- 
erty, and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are 
created  equal.  Now,  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil 
war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  con- 
ceived and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met 
on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to 
dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place 
for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation 
might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we 
should  do  this.  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot 
dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this 
ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled 
here,  have  consecrated  it,  far  above  our  poor  power  to 
?dd  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note  nor  long 
remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget 
what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to 
be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  "which  they 
who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced. 
It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great 
task  remaining  before  us  ;  that  from  these  honored 
dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for 
which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion  ; 
that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not 
have  died  in  vain ;  that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall 
have  a  new  birth  of  freedom ;  and  that  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for   the  people,  shall  not 
perish  from  the  earth.'' — Editor. 
2  It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  this  speech  was 
not  appreciated  at  the  time  of  its  delivery ;  we  there- 
fore add  the  testimony  of  another  high  authority  to 
that  of  Emerson.  On  the  day  after  the  dedication 
Edward  Everett  wrote  to  the  President :  "  Permit  me 
...  to  express  my  great  admiration  of  the  thoughts 
expressed  by  you  with  such  eloquent  simplicity  and 
appropriateness  at  the  consecration  of  the  cemetery. 
I  should  be  glad  if  I  could  flatter  myself  that  I  came 
as  near  to  the  central  idea  of  the  occasion,  in  two 
hours,  as  you  did  in  two  minutes."  Mr.  Lincoln  re- 
plied :  "Your  kind  note  of  to-day  is  received.  In 
our  respective  parts  yesterday,  you  could  not  have 
been  excused  to  make  a  short  address,  nor  I  a  long 
one.     I  am  pleased  to  know  that  in  your  judgment 
.the  little  I  did  say  was  not  entirely  a  failure.    Of  course 
I  knew  that    Mr.   Everett   would  not    fail ;  and   yet 
while  the  whole  discourse  was  eminently  satisfac 
and  will  be  of  great  value,  there  were  passages  in  it 
which  transcended  my  expectations.     The  point  made 
against  the  theory  of  the  General  Government  being 
only  an  agency,  whose  principals  are  the  S 
new  to  me,  and,  as  I  think,  is  one  of  the  best  argu- 
ments   for  the  national  supremacy.     The   tribute  to 
our  noble  women  for  their  angel  ministering  to  the  suf- 
fering soldiers  surpasses  in  its  way,  as  io  the  SB 
of  it,  whatever  has  gone  before.''   [Unpublished  MS.  ] 
3  "  La  Victoire  du  Xord,"  p.  133,
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
portant  mistakes  he  may  have  committed,  but 
at  the  intuitive  knowledge  of  his  business  that 
he  displayed  We  would  not  presume  to  ex- 
press a  personal  opinion  in  this  matter.  We 
use  the  testimony  only  oi  the  most  authorita- 
tive names.  General  W.  T.  Sherman  has  re- 
peatedly expressed  the  admiration  and  surprise 
with  which  he  has  read  Mr.  Lincoln's  corre- 
spondence with  his  generals,  and  his  opinion  of 
the  remarkable  correctness  of  his  military  views. 
General  W.  F.  Smith  says: 
I  have  long  held  to  the  opinion  that  at  the  close 
of  the  w.u  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  superior  of  his  gen- 
erals in  his  comprehension  o\  the  effect  of  strategic 
ements  and  the  proper  method  of  following  up 
victories  to  their  legitimate  conclusions. l 
General  J.  H.  Wilson  holds  the  same  opin- 
ion: and  Colonel  Robert  N.  Scott,  in  whose 
lamented  death  the  army  lost  one  of  its  most 
his  and  best-trained  intellects,  frequently 
called  Mr.  Lincoln  k*  the  ablest  strategist  of  the 
To  these  qualifications  of  high  literary  ex- 
cellence, and  easy  practical  mastery  of  affairs 
of  transcendent  importance,  we  must  add,  as 
an  explanation  of  his  immediate  and  world- 
wide fame,  his  possession  of  certain  moral 
qualities  rarely  combined,  in  such  high  degree, 
in  one  individual.  His  heart  was  so  tender 
that  he  would  dismount  from  hL  norse  in  a 
forest  to  replace  in  their  nest  young  birds 
which  had  fallen  by  the  roadside ;  he  could 
not  sleep  at  night  if  he  knew  that  a  soldier- 
vas  under  sentence  of  death ;  he  could 
not,  even  at  the  bidding  of  duty  or  policy, 
refuse  the  prayer  of  age  or  helplessness  in 
distress.  Children  instinctively  loved  him ; 
they  never  found  his  rugged  features  ugly ; 
his  sympathies  were  quick  and  seemingly  un- 
limited. He  was  absolutely  without  prejudice 
of  class  or  condition.  Frederick  Douglass  says 
he  was  the  only  man  of  distinction  he  ever 
met  who  never  reminded  him  by  word  or  man- 
ner of  his  color;  he  was  as  just  and  gener- 
ous to  the  rich  and  well  born  as  to  the  poor 
1  '-Lincoln  Memorial  Album,"  p.  555. 
and  humble  —  a  thing  rare  among  politicians. 
He  was  tolerant  even  of  evil :  though  no  man 
can  ever  have  lived  with  a  loftier  scorn  of 
meanness  and  selfishness,  he  yet  recognized 
their  existence  and  counted  with  them.  He 
said  one  day,  with  a  flash  of  cynical  wisdom 
worthy  of  La  Rochefoucauld,  that  honest 
statesmanship  was  the  employment  of  individ- 
ual meannesses  for  the  public  good.  He  never 
asked  perfection  of  any  one  ;  he  did  not  even 
insist  for  others  upon  the  high  standards  he 
set  up  for  himself.  At  a  time  before  the  word 
was  invented  he  was  the  first  of  opportunists. 
With  the  fire  of  a  reformer  and  a  martyr  in 
his  heart  he  yet  proceeded  by  the  ways  of 
cautious  and  practical  statecraft.  He  always 
worked  with  things  as  they  were,  while  never 
relinquishing  the  desire  and  effort  to  make 
them  better.  To  a  hope  which  saw  the  Delec- 
table Mountains  of  absolute  justice  and  peace 
in  the  future,  to  a  faith  that  God  in  his  own 
time  would  give  to  all  men  the  things  conven- 
ient to  them,  he  added  a  charity  which  em- 
braced in  its  deep  bosom  all  the  good  and 
the  bad,  all  the  virtues  and  the  infirmities 
of  men,  and  a  patience  like  that  of  nature, 
which  in  its  vast  and  fruitful  activity  knows 
neither  haste  nor  rest. 
A  character  like  this  is  among  the  precious 
heirlooms  of  the  Republic ;  and  by  a  special 
good  fortune  every  part  of  the  country  has  an 
equal  claim  and  pride  in  it.  Lincoln's  blood 
came  from  the  veins  of  New  England  emi- 
grants, of  Middle  State  Quakers,  of  Virginia 
planters,  of  Kentucky  pioneers ;  he  himself 
was  one  of  the  men  who  grew  up  with  the 
earliest  growth  of  the  Great  West.  Every 
jewel  of  his  mind  or  his  conduct  sheds  radi- 
ance on  each  portion  of  the  nation.  The  mar- 
velous symmetry  and  balance  of  his  intellect 
and  character  may  have  owed  something  to 
this  varied  environment  of  his  race,  and  they 
may  fitly  typify  the  variety  and  solidity  of  the 
Republic.  It  may  not  be  unreasonable  to  hope 
that  his  name  and  his  renown  may  be  forever 
a  bond  of  union  to  the  country  which  he  loved 
with  an  affection  so  impartial,  and  served — in 
life  and  in  death  —  with  such  entire  devotion. 
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