THE END
On December 6, 1864, Lincoln sent the last of his Annual Messages to
Congress. He treated as matter for oblivion the "impugning of motives
and heated controversy as to the proper means of advancing the Union
cause," which had played so large a part in the Presidential election
and the other elections of the autumn. For, as he said, "on the
distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their
instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people."
This was accurate as well as generous, for though many Democrats had
opposed the war, none had avowed that for the sake of peace he would
give up the Union. Passing then to the means by which the Union could
be made to prevail he wrote: "On careful consideration of all the
evidence accessible it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with
the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing
short of severance of the Union--precisely what we will not and cannot
give. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and
inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided
by victory. The abandonment of armed resistance to the national
authority on the part of the insurgents is the only indispensable
condition to ending the war on the part of the Government." To avoid a
possible misunderstanding he added that not a single person who was
free by the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation or of any Act of
Congress would be returned to slavery while he held the executive
authority. "If the people should by whatever mode or means make it an
executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be
their instrument to perform it." This last sentence was no meaningless
flourish; the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery could not be
passed for some time, and might conceivably be defeated; in the
meantime the Courts might possibly have declared any negro in the
Southern States a slave; Lincoln's words let it be seen that they would
have found themselves without an arm to enforce their decision. But in
fact there was no longer an issue with the South as to abolition.
Jefferson Davis had himself declared that slavery was gone, for most
slaves had now freed themselves, and that he for his part troubled very
little over that. There remained, then, no issue between North and
South except that between Independence and Union.
On the same day that he sent his annual message Lincoln gave himself a
characteristic pleasure by another communication which he sent to the
Senate. Old Roger Taney of the Dred Scott case had died in October;
the Senate was now requested to confirm the President's nomination of a
new Chief Justice to succeed him; and the President had nominated
Chase. Chase's reputation as a lawyer had seemed to fit him for the
position, but the well informed declared that, in spite of some
appearances on the platform for Lincoln he still kept "going around
peddling his griefs in private ears and sowing dissatisfaction against
Lincoln." So in spite of Lincoln's pregnant remark on this subject
that he "did not believe in keeping any man under," nobody supposed
that Lincoln would appoint him. Sumner and Congressman Alley of
Massachusetts had indeed gone to Lincoln to urge the appointment. "We
found, to our dismay," Alley relates, "that the President had heard of
the bitter criticisms of Mr. Chase upon himself and his Administration.
Mr. Lincoln urged many of Chase's defects, to discover, as we
afterwards learned, how his objection could be answered. We were both
discouraged and made up our minds that the President did not mean to
appoint Mr. Chase. It really seemed too much to expect of poor human
nature." One morning Alley again saw the President. "I have something
to tell you that will make you happy," said Lincoln. "I have just sent
Mr. Chase word that he is to be appointed Chief Justice, and you are
the first man I have told of it." Alley said something natural about
Lincoln's magnanimity, but was told in reply what the only real
difficulty had been. Lincoln from his "convictions of duty to the
Republican party and the country" had always meant to appoint Chase,
subject to one doubt which he had revolved in his mind till he had
settled it. This doubt was simply whether Chase, beset as he was by a
craving for the Presidency which he could never obtain, would ever
really turn his attention with a will to becoming the great Chief
Justice that Lincoln thought he could be. Lincoln's occasional
failures of tact had sometimes a noble side to them; he even thought
now of writing to Chase and telling him with simple seriousness where
he felt his temptation lay, and he with difficulty came to see that
this attempt at brotherly frankness would be misconstrued by a
suspicious and jealous man. Charles Sumner, Chase's advocate on this
occasion, was all this time the most weighty and the most pronounced of
those Radicals who were beginning to press for unrestricted negro
suffrage in the South and in general for a hard and inelastic scheme of
"reconstruction," which they would have imposed on the conquered South
without an attempt to conciliate the feeling of the vanquished or to
invite their co-operation in building up the new order. He was thus
the chief opponent of that more tentative, but as is now seen, more
liberal and more practical policy which lay very close to Lincoln's
heart; enough has been said of him to suggest too that this grave
person, bereft of any glimmering of fun, was in one sense no congenial
companion for Lincoln. But he was stainlessly unselfish and sincere,
and he was the politician above all others in Washington with whom
Lincoln most gladly and most successfully maintained easy social
intercourse. And, to please him in little ways, Lincoln would
disentangle his long frame from the "grotesque position of comfort"
into which he had twisted it in talk with some other friend, and would
assume in an instant a courtly demeanour when Sumner was about to enter
his room.
On January 31, 1865, the resolution earlier passed by the Senate for a
Constitutional Amendment to prohibit slavery was passed by the House of
Representatives, as Lincoln had eagerly desired, so that the requisite
voting of three quarters of the States in its favour could now begin.
Before that time the Confederate Congress had, on March 13, 1865,
closed its last, most anxious and distracted session by passing an Act
for the enlistment of negro volunteers, who were to become free on
enlistment. As a military measure it was belated and inoperative, but
nothing could more eloquently have marked the practical extinction of
slavery which the war had wrought than the consent of Southern
legislators to convert the remaining slaves into soldiers.
The military operations of 1865 had proceeded but a very little way
when the sense of what they portended was felt among the Southern
leaders in Richmond. The fall of that capital itself might be hastened
or be delayed; Lee's army if it escaped from Richmond might prolong
resistance for a shorter or for a longer time, but Sherman's march to
the sea, and the far harder achievements of the same kind which he was
now beginning, made the South feel, as he knew it would feel, that not
a port, not an arsenal, not a railway, not a corn district of the South
lay any longer beyond the striking range of the North. Congressmen and
public officials in Richmond knew that the people of the South now
longed for peace and that the authority of the Confederacy was gone.
They beset Jefferson Davis with demands that he should start
negotiations. But none of them had determined what price they would
pay for peace; and there was not among them any will that could really
withstand their President. In one point indeed Jefferson Davis did
wisely yield. On February 9, 1865, he consented to make Lee
General-in-Chief of all the Southern armies. This belated delegation
of larger authority to Lee had certain military results, but no
political result whatever. Lee could have been the dictator of the
Confederacy if he had chosen, and no one then or since would have
blamed him; but it was not in his mind to do anything but his duty as a
soldier. The best beloved and most memorable by far of all the men who
served that lost cause, he had done nothing to bring about secession at
the beginning, nor now did he do anything but conform to the wishes of
his political chief. As for that chief, Lincoln had interpreted Davis'
simple position quite rightly. Having once embraced the cause of
Southern independence and taken the oath as chief magistrate of an
independent Confederacy, he would not yield up that cause while there
was a man to obey his orders. Whether this attitude should be set
down, as it usually has been set down, to a diseased pride or to a very
real heroism on his part, he never faced the truth that the situation
was desperate and the spirit of his people daunted at last. But it is
probable that just like Lincoln he was ready that those who were in
haste to make peace should see what peace involved; and it is probable
too that, in his terrible position, he deluded himself with some vague
and vain hopes as to the attitude of the North. Lincoln on the other
hand would not enter into any proceedings in which the secession of the
South was treated otherwise than as a rebellion which must cease; but
this did not absolutely compel him to refuse every sort of informal
communication with influential men in the South, which might help them
to see where they stood and from which he too might learn something.
Old Mr. Francis Blair, the father of Lincoln's late Postmaster-General,
was the last of the honest peace-makers whom Lincoln had allowed to see
things for themselves by meeting Jefferson Davis. His visit took place
in January, 1865, and from his determination to be a go-between and the
curious and difficult position in which Lincoln and Davis both stood in
this respect an odd result arose. The Confederate Vice-President
Stephens, who had preached peace in the autumn without a quarrel with
Davis, and two other Southern leaders presented themselves at Grant's
headquarters with the pathetic misrepresentation that they were sent by
Davis on a mission which Lincoln had undertaken to receive. What they
could show was authority from Davis to negotiate with Lincoln on the
footing of the independence of the Confederacy, and a politely turned
intimation from Lincoln that he would at any time receive persons
informally sent to talk with a view to the surrender of the rebel
armies. Grant, however, was deeply impressed with the sincerity of
their desire for peace, and he entreated Lincoln to receive them.
Lincoln therefore decided to overlook the false pretence under which
they came. He gave Grant strict orders not to delay his operations on
this account, but he came himself with Seward and met Davis' three
commissioners on a ship at Hampton Roads on February 3. He and
Stephens had in old days been Whig Congressmen together, and Lincoln
had once been moved to tears by a speech of Stephens. They met now as
friends. Lincoln lost no time in making his position clear. The
unhappy commissioners made every effort to lead him away from the plain
ground he had chosen. It is evident that they and possible that
Jefferson Davis had hoped that when face to face with them he would
change his mind, and possibly Blair's talk had served to encourage this
hope. They failed, but the conversation continued in a frank and
friendly manner. Lincoln told them very freely his personal opinions
as to how the North ought to treat the South when it did surrender, but
was careful to point out that he could make no promise or bargain,
except indeed this promise that so far as penalties for rebellion were
concerned the executive power, which lay in his sole hands, would be
liberally used. Slavery was discussed, and Seward told them of the
Constitutional Amendment which Congress had now submitted to the
people. One of the commissioners returning again to Lincoln's refusal
to negotiate with armed rebels, as he considered them, cited the
precedent of Charles I.'s conduct in this respect. "I do not profess,"
said Lincoln, "to be posted in history. On all such matters I turn you
over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about Charles I. is that he
lost his head in the end." Then he broke out into simple advice to
Stephens as to the action he could now pursue. He had to report to
Congress afterwards that the conference had had no result. He brought
home, however, a personal compliment which he valued. "I understand,
then," Stephens had said, "that you regard us as rebels, who are liable
to be hanged for treason." "That is so," said Lincoln. "Well," said
Stephens, "we supposed that would have to be your view. But, to tell
you the truth, we have none of us been much afraid of being hanged with
you as President." He brought home, besides the compliment, an idea of
a kind which, if he could have had his way with his friends, might have
been rich in good. He had discovered how hopeless the people of the
South were, and he considered whether a friendly pronouncement might
not lead them more readily to surrender. He deplored the suffering in
which the South might now lie plunged, and it was a fixed part of his
creed that slavery was the sin not of the South but of the nation. So
he spent the day after his return in drafting a joint resolution which
he hoped the two Houses of Congress might pass, and a Proclamation
which he would in that case issue. In these he proposed to offer to
the Southern States four hundred million dollars in United States
bonds, being, as he calculated the cost to the North of two hundred
days of war, to be allotted among those States in proportion to the
property in slaves which each had lost. One half of this sum was to be
paid at once if the war ended by April 1, and the other half upon the
final adoption of the Constitutional Amendment. It would have been a
happy thing if the work of restoring peace could have lain with a
statesman whose rare aberrations from the path of practical politics
were of this kind. Yet, considering the natural passions which even in
this least revengeful of civil wars could not quite be repressed, we
should be judging the Congress of that day by a higher standard than we
should apply in other countries if we regarded this proposal as one
that could have been hopefully submitted to them. Lincoln's illusions
were dispelled on the following day when he read what he had written to
his Cabinet, and found that even among his own ministers not one man
supported him. It would have been worse than useless to put forward
his proposals and to fail. "You are all opposed to me," he said sadly;
and he put his papers away. But the war had now so far progressed that
it is necessary to turn back to the point at which we left it at the
end of 1864.
Winter weather brought a brief pause to the operations of the armies.
Sherman at Savannah was preparing to begin his northward march, a
harder matter, owing to the rivers and marshes that lay in his way,
than his triumphal progress from Atlanta. Efforts were made to
concentrate all available forces against him at Augusta to his
north-west. Making feints against Augusta on the one side, and against
the city and port of Charleston on the other, he displayed the
marvellous engineering capacity of his army by an advance of
unlooked-for speed across the marshes to Columbia, due north of him,
which is the State capital of South Carolina. He reached it on
February 17, 1865. The intended concentration of the South at Augusta
was broken up. The retreating Confederates set fire to great stores of
cotton and the unfortunate city was burnt, a calamity for which the
South, by a natural but most unjust mistake, blamed Sherman. The
railway communications of Charleston were now certain to be severed; so
the Confederates were forced to evacuate it, and on February 18, 1865,
the North occupied the chief home of the misbegotten political ideals
of the South and of its real culture and chivalry.
Admiral Porter (for age and ill-health had come upon Farragut) was
ready at sea to co-operate with Sherman. Thomas' army in Tennessee had
not been allowed by Grant to go into winter quarters. A part of it
under Schofield was brought to Washington and there shipped for North
Carolina, where, ever since Burnside's successful expedition in 1862,
the Union Government had held the ports north of Wilmington.
Wilmington itself was the only port left to the South, and Richmond had
now come to depend largely on the precarious and costly supplies which
could still, notwithstanding the blockade, be run into that harbour.
At the end of December, Butler, acting in flagrant disobedience to
Grant, had achieved his crowning failure in a joint expedition with
Porter against Wilmington. But Porter was not discouraged, nor was
Grant, who from beginning to end of his career had worked well together
with the Navy. On February 8, Porter, this time supported by an
energetic general, Terry, effected a brilliant capture of Fort Fisher
at the mouth of Wilmington harbour. The port was closed to the South.
On the 22nd, the city itself fell to Schofield, and Sherman had now
this sea base at hand if he needed it.
Meanwhile Grant's entrenchments on the east of Richmond and Petersburg
were still extending southward, and Lee's defences had been stretched
till they covered nearly forty miles. Grant's lines now cut the
principal railway southward from the huge fortress, and he was able
effectually to interrupt communication by road to the southwest. There
could be little doubt that Richmond would fall soon, and the real
question was coming to be whether Lee and his army could escape from
Richmond and still carry on the war.
The appointment of Lee as General-in-Chief was not too late to bear one
consequence which may have prolonged the war a little. Joseph
Johnston, whose ability in a campaign of constant retirement before
overwhelming force had been respected and redoubted by Sherman, had
been discarded by Davis in the previous July. He was now put in
command of the forces which it was hoped to concentrate against
Sherman, with a view to holding up his northward advance and preventing
him from joining hands with Grant before Richmond. There were
altogether about 89,000 Confederate troops scattered in the Carolinas,
Georgia, and Florida, and there would be about the same number under
Sherman when Schofield in North Carolina could join him, but the number
which Johnston could now collect together seems never to have exceeded
33,000. It was Sherman's task by the rapidity of his movements to
prevent a very formidable concentration against him. Johnston on the
other hand must hinder if he could Sherman's junction with Schofield.
Just before that junction took place he narrowly missed dealing a
considerable blow to Sherman's army at the battle of Bentonville in the
heart of North Carolina, but had in the end to withdraw within an
entrenched position where Sherman would not attack him, but which upon
the arrival of Schofield he was forced to abandon. On March 23, 1865,
Sherman took possession of the town and railway junction of
Goldsborough between Raleigh and New Berne. From Savannah to
Goldsborough he had led his army 425 miles in fifty days, amid
disadvantages of ground and of weather which had called forth both
extraordinary endurance and mechanical skill on the part of his men.
He lay now 140 miles south of Petersburg by the railway. The port of
New Berne to the east of him on the estuary of the Neuse gave him a
sure base of supplies, and would enable him quickly to move his army by
sea to Petersburg and Richmond if Grant should so decide. The
direction in which Johnston would now fall back lay inland up the Neuse
Valley, also along a railway, towards Greensborough, some 150 miles
south-west of Petersburg; Greensborough was connected by another
railway with Petersburg and Richmond, and along this line Lee might
attempt to retire and join him.
All this time whatever designs Lee had of leaving Richmond were
suspended because the roads in that weather were too bad for his
transport; and, while of necessity he waited, his possible openings
narrowed. Philip Sheridan had now received the coveted rank of
Major-General, which McClellan had resigned on the day on which he was
defeated for the Presidency. The North delighted to find in his
achievements the dashing quality which appeals to civilian imagination,
and Grant now had in him, as well as in Sherman, a lieutenant who would
faithfully make his chief's purposes his own, and who would execute
them with independent decision. The cold, in which his horses
suffered, had driven Sheridan into winter quarters, but on February 27
he was able to start up the Shenandoah Valley again with 10,000
cavalry. Most of the Confederate cavalry under Early had now been
dispersed, mainly for want of forage in the desolated valley; the rest
were now dispersed by Sheridan, and the greater part of Early's small
force of infantry with all his artillery were captured. There was a
garrison in Lynchburg, 80 or 90 miles west of Richmond, which though
strong enough to prevent Sheridan's cavalry from capturing that place
was not otherwise of account; but there was no Confederate force in the
field except Johnston's men near enough to co-operate with Lee; only
some small and distant armies, hundreds of miles away with the railway
communication between them and the East destroyed. Sheridan now broke
up the railway and canal communication on the north-west side of
Richmond. He was to have gone on south and eventually joined Sherman
if he could; but, finding himself stopped for the time by floods in the
upper valley of the James, he rode past the north of Richmond, and on
March 19 joined Grant, to put his cavalry and brains at his service
when Grant judged that the moment for his final effort had come.
On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln took office for the second time as
President of the United. States. There was one new and striking
feature in the simple ceremonial, the presence of a battalion of negro
troops in his escort. This time, though he would say no sanguine word,
it cannot have been a long continuance of war that filled his thoughts,
but the scarcely less difficult though far happier task of restoring
the fabric of peaceful society in the conquered South. His
difficulties were now likely to come from the North no less than the
South. Tentative proposals which he had once or twice made suggest the
spirit in which he would have felt his way along this new path. In the
Inaugural address which he now delivered that spirit is none the less
perceptible because he spoke of the past. The little speech at
Gettysburg, with its singular perfection of form, and the "Second
Inaugural" are the chief outstanding examples of his peculiar
oratorical power. The comparative rank of his oratory need not be
discussed, for at any rate it was individual and unlike that of most
other great speakers in history, though perhaps more like that of some
great speeches in drama.
But there is a point of some moment in which the Second Inaugural does
invite a comment, and a comment which should be quite explicit.
Probably no other speech of a modern statesman uses so unreservedly the
language of intense religious feeling. The occasion made it natural;
neither the thought nor the words are in any way conventional; no
sensible reader now could entertain a suspicion that the orator spoke
to the heart of the people but did not speak from his own heart. But
an old Illinois attorney, who thought he knew the real Lincoln behind
the President, might have wondered whether the real Lincoln spoke here.
For Lincoln's religion, like everything else in his character, became,
when he was famous, a stock subject of discussion among his old
associates. Many said "he was a Christian but did not know it." Some
hinted, with an air of great sagacity, that "so far from his being a
Christian or a religious man, the less said about it the better." In
early manhood he broke away for ever from the scheme of Christian
theology which was probably more or less common to the very various
Churches which surrounded him. He had avowed this sweeping denial with
a freedom which pained some friends, perhaps rather by its rashness
than by its impiety, and he was apt to regard the procedure of
theologians as a blasphemous twisting of the words of Christ. He
rejected that belief in miracles and in the literally inspired accuracy
of the Bible narrative which was no doubt held as fundamental by all
these Churches. He rejected no less any attempt to substitute for this
foundation the belief in any priestly authority or in the authority of
any formal and earthly society called the Church. With this total
independence of the expressed creeds of his neighbours he still went
and took his boys to Presbyterian public worship--their mother was an
Episcopalian and his own parents had been Baptists. He loved the Bible
and knew it intimately--he is said also by the way to have stored in
his memory a large number of hymns. In the year before his death he
wrote to Speed: "I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take
all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith
and you will live and die a better man." It was not so much the Old
Testament as the New Testament and what he called "the true spirit of
Christ" that he loved especially, and took with all possible
seriousness as the rule of life. His theology, in the narrower sense,
may be said to have been limited to an intense belief in a vast and
over-ruling Providence--the lighter forms of superstitious feelings
which he is known to have had in common with most frontiersmen were
apparently of no importance in his life. And this Providence, darkly
spoken of, was certainly conceived by him as intimately and kindly
related to his own life. In his Presidential candidature, when he
owned to some one that the opposition of clergymen hurt him deeply, he
is said to have confessed to being no Christian and to have continued,
"I know that there is a God and that He hates injustice and slavery. I
see the storm coming and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a
place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am
nothing, but truth is everything; I know I am right because I know that
liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have
told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ
and reason say the same, and they will find it so." When old
acquaintances said that he had no religion they based their opinion on
such remarks as that the God, of whom he had just been speaking
solemnly, was "not a person." It would be unprofitable to enquire what
he, and many others, meant by this expression, but, later at any rate,
this "impersonal" power was one with which he could hold commune. His
robust intellect, impatient of unproved assertion, was unlikely to rest
in the common assumption that things dimly seen may be treated as not
being there. So humorous a man was also unlikely to be too conceited
to say his prayers. At any rate he said them; said them intently;
valued the fact that others prayed for him and for the nation; and, as
in official Proclamations (concerning days of national religious
observance) he could wield, like no other modern writer, the language
of the Prayer Book, so he would speak of prayer without the smallest
embarrassment in talk with a general or a statesman. It is possible
that this was a development of later years. Lincoln did not, like most
of us, arrest his growth. To Mrs. Lincoln it seemed that with the
death of their child, Willie, a change came over his whole religious
outlook. It well might; and since that grief, which came while his
troubles were beginning, much else had come to Lincoln; and now through
four years of unsurpassed trial his capacity had steadily grown, and
his delicate fairness, his pitifulness, his patience, his modesty had
grown therewith. Here is one of the few speeches ever delivered by a
great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a
tragedian telling his story would have devised for him. This man had
stood alone in the dark. He had done justice; he had loved mercy; he
had walked humbly with his God. The reader to whom religious utterance
makes little appeal will not suppose that his imaginative words stand
for no real experience. The reader whose piety knows no questions will
not be pained to think that this man had professed no faith.
He said, "Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearance to take the oath
of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended
address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in
detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at
the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have
been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great
contest which still absorbs the energies and engrosses the attention of
the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our
arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the
public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and
encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in
regard to it is ventured.
"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts
were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all
sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war,
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without
war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than
let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let
it perish. And the war came.
"One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not
distributed generally over the Union, but localised in the Southern
part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.
All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To
strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for
which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the
Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial
enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or
the duration which it has already attained. Neither expected that the
cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict
itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result
less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to
the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem
strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be
answered--that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has
His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must
needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense
cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those
offenses, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which,
having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove,
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe
due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living
God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we
pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.'
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do
all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all nations."
Lincoln's own commentary may follow upon his speech:
"March 15, 1865. Dear Mr. Weed,--Every one likes a little compliment.
Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and on the recent
inaugural address. I expect the latter to wear as well as--perhaps
better than--anything I have produced; but I believe it is not
immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there
has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To
deny it however in this case is to deny that there is a God governing
the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as
whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, I
thought others might afford for me to tell it.
"Truly yours,
"A. LINCOLN."
On March 20, 1865, a period of bright sunshine seems to have begun in
Lincoln's life. Robert Lincoln had some time before finished his
course at Harvard, and his father had written to Grant modestly asking
him if he could suggest the way, accordant with discipline and good
example, in which the young man could best see something of military
life. Grant immediately had him on to his staff, with a commission as
captain, and now Grant invited Lincoln to come to his headquarters for
a holiday visit. There was much in it besides holiday, for Grant was
rapidly maturing his plans for the great event and wanted Lincoln near.
Moreover Sheridan had just arrived, and while Lincoln was there Sherman
came from Goldsborough with Admiral Porter for consultation as to
Sherman's next move. Peremptory as he was in any necessary political
instructions, Lincoln was now happy to say nothing of military matters,
beyond expressing his earnest desire that the final overmastering of
the Confederate armies should be accomplished with the least further
bloodshed possible, and indulging the curiosity that any other guest
might have shown. A letter home to Mrs. Lincoln betrays the interest
with which he heard heavy firing quite near, which seemed to him a
great battle, but did not excite those who knew. Then there were rides
in the country with Grant's staff. Lincoln in his tall hat and frock
coat was a marked and curious figure on a horse. He had once, by the
way, insisted on riding with Butler, catechising him with remorseless
chaff on engineering matters and forbidding his chief engineer to
prompt him, along six miles of cheering Northern troops within easy
sight and shot of the Confederate soldiers to whom his hat and coat
identified him. But, however odd a figure, he impressed Grant's
officers as a good and bold horseman. Then, after Sherman's arrival,
there evidently was no end of talk. Sherman was at first amused by the
President's anxiety as to whether his army was quite safe without him
at Goldsborough; but that keen-witted soldier soon received, as he has
said, an impression both of goodness and of greatness such as no other
man ever gave him.
What especially remained on Sherman's and on Porter's mind was the
recollection of Lincoln's over-powering desire for mercy and for
conciliation with the conquered. Indeed Sherman blundered later in the
terms he first accepted from Johnston; for he did not see that
Lincoln's clemency for Southern leaders and desire for the welfare of
the South included no mercy at all for the political principle of the
Confederacy. Grant was not exposed to any such mistake, for a week or
two before Lee had made overtures to him for some sort of conference
and Lincoln had instantly forbidden him to confer with Lee for any
purpose but that of his unconditional surrender. What, apart from the
reconstruction of Southern life and institutions, was in part weighing
with Lincoln was the question of punishments for rebellion. By Act of
Congress the holders of high political and military office in the South
were liable as traitors, and there was now talk of hanging in the
North. Later events showed that a very different sentiment would make
itself heard when the victory came; but Lincoln was much concerned. To
some one who spoke to him of this matter he exclaimed, "What have I to
do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries
unto me? Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel?"
There can be no doubt that the prerogative of mercy would have been
vigorously used in his hands, but he did not wish for a conflict on
this matter at all; and Grant was taught, in a parable about a teetotal
Irishman who forgave being served with liquor unbeknownst to himself,
that zeal in capturing Jefferson Davis and his colleagues was not
expected of him.
While Lincoln was at Grant's headquarters at City Point, Lee, hoping to
recover the use of the roads to the south-west, endeavoured to cause a
diversion of the besiegers' strength by a sortie on his east front. It
failed and gave the besiegers a further point of vantage. On April 1
Sheridan was sent far round the south of Lee's lines, and in a battle
at a point called Five Forks established himself in possession of the
railway running due west from Petersburg. The defences were weakest on
this side, and to prevent the entrance of the enemy there Lee was bound
to withdraw troops from other quarters. On the two following days
Grant's army delivered assaults at several points on the east side of
the Petersburg defences, penetrating the outer lines and pushing on
against the inner fortifications of the town. On Sunday, April 2,
Jefferson Davis received in church word from Lee to make instant
preparation for departure, as Petersburg could not be held beyond that
night and Richmond must fall immediately. That night the Confederate
Government left the capital, and Lee's evacuation of the fortress began
the next day. Lincoln was sent for. He came by sea, and to the
astonishment and alarm of the naval officers made his way at once to
Richmond with entirely insufficient escort. There he strolled about,
hand in hand with his little son Tad, greeted by exultant negroes, and
stared at by angry or curious Confederates, while he visited the former
prison of the Northern prisoners and other places of more pleasant
attraction without receiving any annoyance from the inhabitants. He
had an interesting talk with Campbell, formerly a Supreme Court judge,
and a few weeks back one of Davis' commissioners at Hampton Roads.
Campbell obtained permission to convene a meeting of the members of the
Virginia Legislature with a view to speedier surrender by Lee's army.
But the permission was revoked, for he somewhat clumsily mistook its
terms, and, moreover, the object in view had meantime been accomplished.
Jefferson Davis was then making his way with his ministers to
Johnston's army. When they arrived he and they held council with
Johnston and Beauregard. He would issue a Proclamation which would
raise him many soldiers and he would "whip them yet." No one answered
him. At last he asked the opinion of Johnston, who bluntly undeceived
him as to facts, and told him that further resistance would be a crime,
and got his permission to treat with Sherman, while the fallen
Confederate President escaped further south.
Lee's object was to make his way along the north side of the Appomattox
River, which flows east through Petersburg to the James estuary, and at
a certain point strike southwards towards Johnston's army. He fought
for his escape with all his old daring and skill, while hardly less
vigorous and skilful efforts were made not only to pursue, but to
surround him. Grant in his pursuit sent letters of courteous entreaty
that he would surrender and spare further slaughter. Northern cavalry
got ahead of Lee, tearing up the railway lines he had hoped to use and
blocking possible mountain passes; and his supply trains were being cut
off. After a long running fight and one last fierce battle on April 6,
at a place called Sailor's Creek, Lee found himself on April 9 at
Appomattox Court House, some seventy miles west of Petersburg,
surrounded beyond hope of escape. On that day he and Grant with their
staffs met in a neighbouring farmhouse. Those present recalled
afterwards the contrast of the stately Lee and the plain, ill-dressed
Grant arriving mud-splashed in his haste. Lee greeted Meade as an old
acquaintance and remarked how grey he had grown with years. Meade
gracefully replied that Lee and not age was responsible for that.
Grant had started "quite jubilant" on the news that Lee was ready to
surrender, but in presence of "the downfall of a foe who had fought so
long and valiantly" he fell into sadness. Pleasant "talk of old army
times" followed, and he had almost forgotten, as he declares, the
business in hand, when Lee asked him on what terms he would accept
surrender. Grant sat down and wrote, not knowing when he began what he
should go on to write. As he wrote he thought of the handsome sword
Lee carried. Instantly he added to his terms permission for every
Southern officer to keep his sword and his horse. Lee read the paper
and when he came to that point was visibly moved. He gauged his man,
and he ventured to ask something more. He thought, he said, Grant
might not know that the Confederate cavalry troopers owned their own
horses. Grant said they would be badly wanted on the farms and added a
further concession accordingly. "This will have the best possible
effect on the men," said Lee. "It will do much towards conciliating
our people." Grant included also in his written terms words of general
pardon to Confederate officers for their treason. This was an
inadvertent breach, perhaps, of Lincoln's orders, but it was one which
met with no objection. Lee retired into civil life and devoted himself
thereafter to his neighbours' service as head of a college in
Virginia--much respected, very free with alms to old soldiers and not
much caring whether they had fought for the South or for the North.
Grant did not wait to set foot in the capital which he had conquered,
but, the main business being over, posted off with all haste to see his
son settled in at school.
Lincoln remained at City Point till April 8, when he started back by
steamer. Those who were with him on the two days' voyage told
afterwards of the happy talk, as of a quiet family party rejoicing in
the return of peace. Somebody said that Jefferson Davis really ought
to be hanged. The reply came in the quotation that he might almost
have expected, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." On the second day,
Sunday, the President read to them parts of "Macbeth." Sumner, who was
one of them, recalled that he read twice over the lines,
"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."
On the Tuesday, April 11, a triumphant crowd came to the White House to
greet Lincoln. He made them a speech, carefully prepared in substance
rather than in form, dealing with the question of reconstruction in the
South, with special reference to what was already in progress in
Louisiana. The precise points of controversy that arose in this regard
hardly matter now. Lincoln disclaimed any wish to insist pedantically
upon any detailed plan of his; but he declared his wish equally to keep
clear of any merely pedantic points of controversy with any in the
South who were loyally striving to revive State Government with
acceptance of the Union and without slavery; and he urged that genuine
though small beginnings should be encouraged. He regretted that in
Louisiana his wish for the enfranchisement of educated negroes and of
negro soldiers had not been followed; but as the freedom of the negroes
was unreservedly accepted, as provision was made for them in the public
schools, and the new State constitution allowed the Legislature to
enfranchise them, there was clear gain. "Concede that the new
government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to
the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by
smashing it. What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to
other States. So new and unprecedented," he ended, "is the whole case
that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to
details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would
surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be
inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my
duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am
considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will
be proper." A full generation has had cause to lament that that
announcement was never to be made.
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, with solemn religious service the Union
flag was hoisted again on Fort Sumter by General Anderson, its old
defender. On that morning there was a Cabinet Council in Washington.
Seward was absent, in bed with an injury from a carriage accident.
Grant was there a little anxious to get news from Sherman. Lincoln was
in a happy mood. He had earlier that morning enjoyed greatly a talk
with Robert Lincoln about the young man's new experience of soldiering.
He now told Grant and the Cabinet that good news was coming from
Sherman. He knew it, he said, for last night he had dreamed a dream,
which had come to him several times before. In this dream, whenever it
came, he was sailing in a ship of a peculiar build, indescribable but
always the same, and being borne on it with great speed towards a dark
and undefined shore. He had always dreamed this before victory. He
dreamed it before Antietam, before Murfreesborough, before Gettysburg,
before Vicksburg. Grant observed bluntly that Murfreesborough had not
been a victory, or of any consequence anyway. Lincoln persisted on
this topic undeterred. After some lesser business they discussed the
reconstruction of the South. Lincoln rejoiced that Congress had
adjourned and the "disturbing element" in it could not hinder the work.
Before it met again, "if we are wise and discreet we shall re-animate
the States and get their governments in successful operation, with
order prevailing and the Union re-established." Lastly, there was talk
of the treatment of rebels and of the demand that had been heard for
"persecution" and "bloody work." "No one need expect me," said
Lincoln, "to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the
worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let
down the bars, scare them off." "Shoo," he added, throwing up his
large hands like a man scaring sheep. "We must extinguish our
resentments if we expect harmony and union. There is too much of the
desire on the part of some 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 is too little respect for their rights. I do
not sympathise in these feelings." Such was the tenor of his last
recorded utterance on public affairs.
In the afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln drove together and he talked to
her with keen pleasure of the life they would live when the Presidency
was over. That night Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln went to the theatre, for the
day was not observed as in England. The Grants were to have been with
them, but changed their minds and left Washington that day, so a young
officer, Major Rathbone, and the lady engaged to him, both of them
thereafter ill-fated, came instead. The theatre was crowded; many
officers returned from the war were there and eager to see Lincoln.
The play was "Our American Cousin," a play in which the part of Lord
Dundreary was afterwards developed and made famous. Some time after 10
o'clock, at a point in the play which it is said no person present
could afterwards remember, a shot was heard in the theatre and Abraham
Lincoln fell forward upon the front of the box unconscious and dying.
A wild-looking man, who had entered the box unobserved and had done his
work, was seen to strike with a knife at Major Rathbone, who tried to
seize him. Then he jumped from the box to the stage; he caught a spur
in the drapery and fell, breaking the small bone of his leg. He rose,
shouted "Sic semper tyrannis," the motto of Virginia, disappeared
behind the scenes, mounted a horse that was in waiting at the stage
door, and rode away.
This was John Wilkes Booth, brother of a famous actor then playing
"Hamlet" in Boston. He was an actor too, and an athletic and daring
youth. In him that peculiarly ferocious political passion which
occasionally showed itself among Southerners was further inflamed by
brandy and by that ranting mode of thought which the stage develops in
some few. He was the leader of a conspiracy which aimed at compassing
the deaths of others besides Lincoln. Andrew Johnson, the
Vice-President, was to die. So was Seward. That same night one of the
conspirators, a gigantic boy of feeble mind, gained entrance to
Seward's house and wounded three people, including Seward himself, who
was lying already injured in bed and received four or five wounds.
Neither he nor the others died. The weak-minded or mad boy, another
man, whose offense consisted in having been asked to kill Johnson and
refused to do so, and another alleged conspirator, a woman, were hanged
after a court-martial whose proceedings did credit neither to the new
President nor to others concerned. Booth himself, after many
adventures, was shot in a barn in which he stood at bay and which had
been set on fire by the soldiers pursuing him. During his flight he is
said to have felt much aggrieved that men did not praise him as they
had praised Brutus and Cassius.
There were then in the South many broken and many permanently
embittered men, indeed the temper which would be glad at Lincoln's
death could be found here and there and notably among the partisans of
the South in Washington. But, if it be wondered what measure of
sympathy there was for Booth's dark deed, an answer lies in the fact
that the murder of Lincoln would at no time have been difficult for a
brave man. Fair blows were now as powerless as foul to arrest the end.
On the very morning when Lincoln and Grant at the Cabinet had been
telling of their hopes and fears for Sherman, Sherman himself at
Raleigh in North Carolina had received and answered a letter from
Johnston opening negotiations for a peaceful surrender. Three days
later he was starting by rail for Greensborough when word came to him
from the telegraph operator that an important message was upon the
wire. He went to the telegraph box and heard it. Then he swore the
telegraph operator to secrecy, for he feared that some provocation
might lead to terrible disorders in Raleigh, if his army, flushed with
triumph, were to learn, before his return in peace, the news that for
many days after hushed their accustomed songs and shouts and cheering
into a silence which was long remembered. He went off to meet Johnston
and requested to be with him alone in a farmhouse near. There he told
him of the murder of Lincoln. "The perspiration came out in large
drops on Johnston's forehead," says Sherman, who watched him closely.
He exclaimed that it was a disgrace to the age. Then he asked to know
whether Sherman attributed the crime to the Confederate authorities.
Sherman could assure him that no one dreamed of such a suspicion
against men like him and General Lee; but he added that he was not so
sure of "Jefferson Davis and men of that stripe." Then followed some
delay, through a mistake of Sherman's which the authorities in
Washington reversed, but in a few days all was settled and the whole of
the forces under Johnston's command laid down their arms. Twenty years
later, as an old man and infirm, their leader left his Southern home to
be present at Sherman's funeral, where he caught a chill from which he
died soon after. Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, near the
borders of Florida. He was, not without plausible grounds but quite
unjustly, suspected in regard to the murder, and he suffered
imprisonment for some time till President Andrew Johnson released him
when the evidence against him had been seen to be worthless. He lived
many years in Mississippi and wrote memoirs, in which may be found the
fullest legal argument for the great Secession, his own view of his
quarrels with Joseph Johnston, and much besides. Amongst other things
he tells how when they heard the news of Lincoln's murder some troops
cheered, but he was truly sorry for the reason that Andrew Johnson was
more hostile to the cause than Lincoln. It is disappointing to think,
of one who played a memorable part in history with much determination,
that in this reminiscence he sized his stature as a man fairly
accurately. After several other surrenders of Southern towns and small
scattered forces, the Confederate General Kirby Smith, in Texas,
surrendered to General Canby, Banks' successor, on May 26, and after
four years and forty-four days armed resistance to the Union was at an
end.
On the night of Good Friday, Abraham Lincoln had been carried still
unconscious to a house near the theatre. His sons and other friends
were summoned. He never regained consciousness. "A look of
unspeakable peace," say his secretaries who were there, "came over his
worn features." At 7.22 on the morning of April 15, Stanton, watching
him more closely than the rest, told them what had passed in the words,
"Now he belongs to the ages."
The mourning of a nation, voiced to later times by some of the best
lines of more than one of its poets, and deeper and more prevailing for
the lack of comprehension which some had shown him before, followed his
body in its slow progress--stopping at Baltimore, where once his life
had been threatened, for the homage of vast crowds; stopping at New
York, where among the huge assembly old General Scott came to bid him
affectionate farewell; stopping at other cities for the tribute of
reverent multitudes--to Springfield, his home of so many years, where,
on May 4, 1865, it was laid to rest. After the burial service the
"Second Inaugural" was read over his grave, nor could better words than
his own have been chosen to honour one who "with malice toward none,
with charity toward all, with firmness in the right as God gave him to
see the right, had striven on to finish the work that he was in." In
England, apart from more formal tokens of a late-learnt regard and an
unfeigned regret, Punch embodied in verse of rare felicity the manly
contrition of its editor for ignorant derision in past years; and Queen
Victoria symbolised best of all, and most acceptably to Americans, the
feeling of her people when she wrote to Mrs. Lincoln "as a widow to a
widow." Nor, though the transactions in which he bore his part were
but little understood in this country till they were half forgotten,
has tradition ever failed to give him, by just instinct, his rank with
the greatest of our race.
Many great deeds had been done in the war. The greatest was the
keeping of the North together in an enterprise so arduous, and an
enterprise for objects so confusedly related as the Union and freedom.
Abraham Lincoln did this; nobody else could have done it; to do it he
bore on his sole shoulders such a weight of care and pain as few other
men have borne. When it was over it seemed to the people that he had
all along been thinking their real thoughts for them; but they knew
that this was because he had fearlessly thought for himself. He had
been able to save the nation, partly because he saw that unity was not
to be sought by the way of base concession. He had been able to free
the slaves, partly because he would not hasten to this object at the
sacrifice of what he thought a larger purpose. This most unrelenting
enemy to the project of the Confederacy was the one man who had quite
purged his heart and mind from hatred or even anger towards his
fellow-countrymen of the South. That fact came to be seen in the South
too, and generations in America are likely to remember it when all
other features of his statecraft have grown indistinct. A thousand
reminiscences ludicrous or pathetic, passing into myth but enshrining
hard fact, will prove to them that this great feature of his policy was
a matter of more than policy. They will remember it as adding a
peculiar lustre to the renovation of their national existence; as no
small part of the glory, surpassing that of former wars, which has
become the common heritage of North and South. For perhaps not many
conquerors, and certainly few successful statesmen, have escaped the
tendency of power to harden or at least to narrow their human
sympathies; but in this man a natural wealth of tender compassion
became richer and more tender while in the stress of deadly conflict he
developed an astounding strength.
Beyond his own country some of us recall his name as the greatest among
those associated with the cause of popular government. He would have
liked this tribute, and the element of truth in it is plain enough, yet
it demands one final consideration. He accepted the institutions to
which he was born, and he enjoyed them. His own intense experience of
the weakness of democracy did not sour him, nor would any similar
experience of later times have been likely to do so. Yet if he
reflected much on forms of government it was with a dominant interest
in something beyond them. For he was a citizen of that far country
where there is neither aristocrat nor democrat. No political theory
stands out from his words or actions; but they show a most unusual
sense of the possible dignity of common men and common things. His
humour rioted in comparisons between potent personages and Jim Jett's
brother or old Judge Brown's drunken coachman, for the reason for which
the rarely jesting Wordsworth found a hero in the "Leech-Gatherer" or
in Nelson and a villain in Napoleon or in Peter Bell. He could use and
respect and pardon and overrule his far more accomplished ministers
because he stood up to them with no more fear or cringing, with no more
dislike or envy or disrespect than he had felt when he stood up long
before to Jack Armstrong. He faced the difficulties and terrors of his
high office with that same mind with which he had paid his way as a
poor man or navigated a boat in rapids or in floods. If he had a
theory of democracy it was contained in this condensed note which he
wrote, perhaps as an autograph, a year or two before his Presidency:
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses
my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the
difference, is no democracy.--A. LINCOLN."
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
A complete bibliography of books dealing specially with Lincoln, and of
books throwing important light upon his life or upon the history of the
American Civil War, cannot be attempted here. The author aims only at
mentioning the books which have been of greatest use to him and a few
others to which reference ought obviously to be made.
The chief authorities for the life of Lincoln are:--
"Abraham Lincoln: A History," by John G. Nicolay and John Hay (his
private secretaries), in ten volumes: The Century Company, New York,
and T. Fisher Unwin, London; "The Works of Abraham Lincoln" (_i. e._,
speeches, letters, and State papers), in eight volumes: G. Putnam's
Sons, London and New York; and, for his early life, "The Life of
Abraham Lincoln," by Herndon and Weik: Appleton, London and New York.
There are numerous short biographies of Lincoln, but among these it is
not invidious to mention as the best (expressing as it does the mature
judgment of the highest authority) "A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln,"
by John G. Nicolay: The Century Company, New York.
The author may be allowed to refer, moreover, to the interest aroused
in him as a boy by "Abraham Lincoln," by C. G. Leland, in the "New
Plutarch Series": Marcus Ward & Co., London; and to the light he has
much later derived from "Abraham Lincoln," by John T. Morse, Junior:
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A.
Among studies of Lincoln, containing a wealth of illustrative stories,
a very high place is due to "The True Abraham Lincoln," by William
Eleroy Curtis: The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London.
For the history of America at the period concerned the reader may be
most confidently referred to a work, which by plentiful extracts and
citations enables its writer's judgment to be checked, without
detracting from the interest and power of his narrative, namely,
"History of the United States, 1850-1877," by James Ford Rhodes, in
seven volumes: The Macmillan Company, London and New York.
Among the shorter complete histories of the United States are: "The
United States: an Outline of Political History," by Goldwin Smith: The
Macmillan Company, London and New York; the article "United States of
America" (section "History") in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (see
also the many excellent articles on American biography in the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica"); "The Cambridge Modern History: Vol. VII.,
United States of America": Cambridge University Press, and The
Macmillan Company, New York.
Two volumes of special interest in regard to the early days of the
United States, in some ways complementary to each other in their
different points of view, are: "Alexander Hamilton," by F. G. Oliver:
Constable & Co., and "Historical Essays," by John Fitch.
Almost every point in regard to American institutions and political
practice is fully treated in "The American Commonwealth," by Viscount
Bryce, O.M., two volumes: The Macmillan Company, London and New York.
For the attitude of the British Government during the war the
conclusive authority is the correspondence to be found in "The Life of
Lord John Russell," by Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B., two volumes:
Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York; and light on the attitude
of the English people is thrown by "The Life of John Bright," by G. M.
Trevelyan: Constable, London, and Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston,
U.S.A.
With respect to the military history of the Civil War the author is
specially indebted to "The Civil War in the United States," by W.
Birkbeck Wood and Major J. E. Edmonds, R.E., with an introduction by
Spenser Wilkinson: Methuen & Co., London, and Putnam, New York, which
is the only concise and complete history of the war written with full
knowledge of all recent works bearing on the subject. Mr. Nicolay's
chapters in the "Cambridge Modern History" give a very lucid narrative
of the war.
Among works of special interest bearing on the war, though not much
concerning the subject of this book, it is only necessary to mention
"'Stonewall' Jackson," by Colonel Henderson, C.B., two volumes:
Longmans, London and New York; "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War"
(a book of monographs by several authors, many of them actors in the
war), four volumes: T. Fisher Unwin, London, and Century Company, New
York, and "Story of the Civil War," by J. C. Ropes: Putnam, London and
New York.
It may be added that a life of General Robert E. Lee had been
projected, as a companion volume to this in the same series, by
Brigadier-General Frederick Maurice, C.B., and it is to be hoped that,
though suspended by the present war, this book may still be written.
Existing biographies of Lee are disappointing. It has been (especially
in view of this intended book on Lee) outside the scope of this volume
to present the history of the Civil War with special reference to the
Southern actors in it, but "Memoirs of Jefferson Davis" must be here
referred to as in some sense an authoritative, though not a very
attractive or interesting, exposition of the views of Southern
statesmen at the time.
An interesting sidelight on the war may be found in "Life with the
Confederate Army," by Watson, being the experiences of a Scotchman who
for a time served under the Confederacy.
In regard to slavery and to Southern society before the war the author
has made much use of "Our Slave States," by Frederick Law Olmsted; Dix
and Edwards, New York, 1856, and other works of the same author. Mr.
Olmsted was a Northerner, but his very full observations can be checked
by the numerous quotations on the same subject collected by Mr. Rhodes
in his history.
For the history of the South since the war and the present position of
the negroes, see the chapters on this subject in Bryce's "American
Commonwealth," second or any later edition, two volumes: Macmillan,
London and New York.
Mr. Owen Wister's novel, "Lady Baltimore": Macmillan, London and New
York, embraces a most interesting study of the survivals of the old
Southern society at the present time and of the present relations
between it and the North.
The treatment of the negroes freed during the war is the main subject
of "Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen," by John Eaton and E. O. Mason:
Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, a book to which the author
is also indebted for other interesting matter.
The personal memoirs, and especially the autobiographies dealing with
the Civil War, are very numerous, and the author therefore would only
wish to mention those which seem to him of altogether unusual interest.
"Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant": Century Company, New York,
is a book of very high order (Sherman's memoirs: Appleton, New York,
and his correspondence with his brother: Scribner, New York, have also
been quoted in these pages).
Great interest both in regard to Lincoln personally and to the history
of the United States after his death attaches to "Reminiscences," by
Carl Schurz, three volumes (Vol. I. being concerned with Germany in
1848): John Murray, London, and Doubleday Page, New York, and to "The
Life of John Hay," by W. R. Thayer, two volumes: Constable & Co.,
London, and Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A.
The author has derived much light from "Specimen Days, and Collect," by
Walt Whitman: Wilson and McCormick, Glasgow, and McKay, U.S.A.
He may be allowed, in conclusion, to mention the encouragement given to
him in beginning his work by the late Mr. Henry James, O.M., whose
vivid and enthusiastic judgment of Lincoln he had the privilege of
receiving.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Some events in History of United Some events in English and
States. General History.
1759. Capture of Quebec. 1759. Capture of Quebec.
1757-60. Ministry of Chatham
(William Pitt).
1760. _Contrat Social_ published.
1764-76. Great inventions in
spinning industries.
1765. Stamp Act passed. 1765. Watt's steam engine.
1776. Declaration of 1776. Publication of "Wealth of
Independence Nations."
1778. Death of Chatham.
1782. Rodney's victory.
1783. American Independence
recognised.
1787. Constitution framed.
North West Territory ceded
by States to Congress and
slavery excluded from it.
1789. Constitution comes into 1789. Meeting of States General.
force.
1793. Eli Whitney invents cotton 1793. England at war with French
gin. Republic.
1794. Slave Trade abolished by
French Convention.
1799. Death of Washington.
1802. Peace of Amiens.
1803. Louisiana purchase. 1803. England at war with
Napoleon.
1804. Death of Hamilton.
1805. Trafalgar.
1806. The American Fulton's
steam-boat on Seine.
1807. Fulton's steam-boat on 1807. Slave Trade abolished by
Hudson. Great Britain.
1808. Slave Trade abolished by 1808. Battle of Vimiera.
U. S. A. Convention of Cintra.
Wordsworth's literary
activity about at its
culmination.
1809. Abraham Lincoln born. 1809. Darwin, Tennyson, and
Gladstone born.
1812-1814. War with Great
Britain.
1815. Waterloo.
1820. Missouri Compromise.
1823. Monroe doctrine declared.
1825. First railway opened in
England.
1826. Death of Jefferson. 1826. Independence of Mexico and
Spanish Colonies in South
America recognised by
Canning.
1827. Navarino.
1828. Commencement of
"nullification" movement.
Election of Jackson.
1829. Catholic emancipation.
1830. Hayne-Webster debate.
1831. Garrison publishes first 1831. Mazzini founds Young
number of _Liberator_. Italy.
Lincoln starts life in New
Salem.
First railway opened in
America.
1832. First Reform Bill.
1833. Slavery abolished in
British Colonies.
1834. Lincoln elected to Illinois
legislature
1836-40. Great Boer Trek.
1837. End of Jackson's second 1837. Queen Victoria's accession.
presidency. First steam-boat from
England to America.
1838. First telegraph line in
England.
1839. Lord Durham's report on
Canada.
1841. First telegraph in America.
1842. Lincoln leaves Illinois
legislature, and (Nov.)
is married.
1844. "Martin Chuzzlewit"
published.
1845. Annexation of Texas.
1846. Boundary of Oregon and 1846. Boundary of Oregon and
British Columbia settled British Columbia settled
with Great Britain. with U. S. A.
1846-7. Mexican War. 1846-7. Irish famine.
1847-8. Lincoln in Congress.
1848. Gold discovery in 1848. Revolution in France and
California. in many parts of Europe.
1850. Clay's compromise adopted. 1850. Constitution Act for
Death of Calham. Australian colonies.
1852. Deaths of Clay and Webster. 1852. Constitution Act for New
Zealand.
1854. Missouri Compromise 1854-5. Gold rush to Australia.
repealed.
Republican Party formed. Crimean War.
1854-6. Abolition of slavery in
various Portuguese
Dominions.
1856. Defeat of Frémont by
Buchanan.
1857. Dred Scott case. 1857-8. Indian Mutiny.
1858. Kansas. Lincoln-Douglas
debate.
1859. John Brown's raid. 1859. Publication of "Origin of
Species."
1859-60. Kingdom of Italy formed.
1860. Nov. Lincoln elected 1860. Slavery abolished in Dutch
President. East Indies.
Dec. Secession carried in
South Carolina.
1861. Feb. 4. Southern 1861. Emancipation of Russian
Confederacy formed. serfs.
Mar. 4. Lincoln inaugurated.
Ap. 12-14. Bombardment
of Fort Sumter.
Ap. War begins. Further
secessions.
July. First Battle of Bull
Run.
Dec. Claim of Great Britain
as to Trent accepted.
1862. Ap.-Aug. McClellan in 1862. _Alabama_ escapes from the
Peninsula. Mersey (July).
Ap. Shiloh.
May. Jackson in Shenandoah
Valley.
Aug.-Oct. Confederates in
Kentucky.
Aug. Second Battle of Bull
Run.
Sept. Antietam. Proclamation
of emancipation.
Nov. McClellan removed.
Dec. Fredericksburg.
Murfreesborough.
1863. Mar. 1. Conscription Act. 1863. Revolution in Poland.
Maximilian proclaimed Emperor
of Mexico.
May. Chancellorsville.
Jackson killed.
July. Gettysburg, Vicksburg.
New York riots.
Sept. Chickamauga.
Nov. Gettysburg speech.
Chattanooga.
1864. May. Beginning of Grant's 1864. Prussia and Austria invade
and Sherman's great Denmark.
campaigns.
1864. June. Cold Harbour.
Baltimore Convention.
July. Early's raid reaches
Washington.
Aug. Mobile. Chicago
Convention.
Sept. Sherman at Atlanta.
Sheridan in Shenandoah
Valley.
Nov. Lincoln re-elected
President.
Dec. Nashville. Sherman
at Savannah.
1865. Jan. Congress passes 13th
Amendment.
Feb. Further progress of
Sherman and Sheridan.
Mar. 4. Second inauguration
of Lincoln.
Ap. 2-9. Richmond falls,
and Lee surrenders.
Ap. 14-15. Lincoln
assassinated and dies.
Dec. 13. Amendment
ratified.
1866. Atlantic cable 1866. Atlantic cable successfully
successfully laid. laid.
War between Austria and
Prussia.
1867. British North America Act.
Slave children emancipated
in Brazil.
Fall and execution of
Maximilian in Mexico.
1868. Rise of acute disorder in 1868. Mikado resumes
"reconstructed" South. government in Japan.
1870. Amendment securing negro 1870. Papal infallibility.
suffrage. Franco-German War.
1872. _Alabama_ arbitration with 1872. _Alabama_ arbitration with
Great Britain. U. S. A.
Responsible Government in
Cape Colony.
1876. Admitted failure of
Reconstruction. Election
of Hayes.
1877. Federal troops withdrawn
from South.
1878. Slavery abolished in Cuba
(last of Spanish Colonies).
INDEX
Abolition and Abolitionists: Early movement dies down, 36-9; rise of
later movement, 50-2; persecuted, 51, 76; Lincoln's attitude, 76, 101,
116, 126-7, 151; their position in view of civil war, 172. _See_
Slavery and Garrison.
Adams, Charles Francis: 236, 262, 264, 328.
Adams, John: 37, 236.
Adams, John Quincy: 47, 51, 115, 314, 388.
Aesop: 10.
_Alabama_, the: 224, 251, 264.
Alabama State: 175, 199, 212, 361, 388.
Alamo, the: 91.
Alexander II. of Russia: 256.
Alleghany (or Appalachian) Mountains: 26, 225, 244; distinct character
of people in them, 56, 198.
Alley: 429.
Alton: 76.
Amendment of Constitution: how carried, 24; suggested amendment to
conciliate South, 192; Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery, 335-7,
431, 433; Fifteenth Amendment requiring negro suffrage, 334-5.
America, United States of, and American: Diverse character of Colonies,
resemblances to and differences from England, 16-20; first attempt at
Union, 20; independence and making of Constitution, 21-3; features of
Constitution, 23-5; expansion, 26-8; Union Government brought into
effect, 28-30, 41; rise of national tradition, 30-5; compromise on main
cause of disunion, slavery, 35-40; parties and tendencies in the first
half of nineteenth century, 40-52; triumph of Union sentiment, 45-6;
growth of separate interest and sentiment in South, 43-5, 52-9;
intellectual development and foundations of American patriotism, 59-61;
further compromise on slavery, 96-101; political cleavage of North and
South becomes definite, 109-12; "a house divided against itself,"
143-7; for further developments, _see_ North and South; _see also_
Lincoln; Lincoln's position as to enforcement of union, 143-4; common
heritage of America from Civil War, 455.
American Party, or Know-Nothings: 112, 117-8.
American Policy (so-called): 42-8.
Anderson, Major: 189-90, 208, 212-3, 449.
Appalachians. _See_ Alleghany Mountains.
Appomattox River and Court House: 447.
Arbitration: 263-4.
Argyll, Duke of: 176, 260.
Arizona: 96.
Arkansas River: 28, 351.
Arkansas State: 199, 229, 244, 351.
Armstrong, Jack and Hannah: 64, 108.
Army: comparison of Northern and Southern men, 216; and their officers,
216-7, 220, 223-4, 350; system of recruiting, 221-3, 363-74;
discipline, 220, 248, 282, 420-1; size of regular army, 228. _See
also_ Conscription, Voluntary Service and Militia.
Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union: 20, 175.
Atlanta: 226-7, 394-5, 396, 424.
Augusta: 435.
Baker: 90.
Baltimore: 205, 239-42, 453; Conventions there, 159-60, 410-1.
Banks, N. P., General: 296, 354-5, 389.
Bates, Attorney-General: 166, 201-2, 264, 320, 405.
Battles (sieges, campaigns, etc., separately entered): Antietam, 306-7,
313, 324-5, 450; Bentonville, 437; Bull Run, first battle, 245-9; Bull
Run, second battle, 305, 313; Cedar Creek, 396; Champion's Hill, 355;
Chancellorsville, 311-13; Chattanooga, 360; Chickamauga, 360; Cold
Harbour, 393, 410; Five Forks, 446; Fort Donelson, 281; Four Oaks, 295;
Franklin, 396; Fredericksburg, 309, 313; Gettysburg, 357. 450; Kenesaw
Mountain, 394; Manassas (two battles), _see_ Bull Run; Mill Springs,
280; Mobile, 395; Murfreesborough, 343, 450; Nashville, 396; New
Orleans, 283; Perryville, 342; Sailor's Creek, 447; Seven Days'
Battles, 298; Seven Pines, _see_ Four Oaks; Shiloh, 282-3;
Spottsylvania, 392; Wilderness, 392.
Bazaine, Marshal: 388.
Bell, John: 159.
Bentham, Jeremy: 32.
Berry: 66-7.
Bible: 10, 132, 439-40.
Bismarck: 424.
Black: 185.
Black Hawk: 65.
Blackstone's Commentaries: 67.
Blair, Francis, senr.: 432-3.
Blair, Montgomery: 202, 208, 245, 405, 410.
Blockade: 224, 226, 251-2, 436.
Booth, John Wilkes: 451.
Border States: 171, 228-9, 243-5, 270, 318-9, 333-4.
Boston: 47, 51, 59-60, 172-3.
Boswell, James: 102.
Bragg, General: 340-3, 352, 359-60, 387-8.
Breckinridge, John C.: 159.
Bright, John: 127, 236, 260.
British Columbia: 28, 110.
Brooks, Phillips: 60.
Brooks, Preston: 138-9.
Brown, John: 126, 150-5, 197, 397.
Brown, Judge: 85.
Buchanan, James: 113, 138, 140, 141, 177, 184-90, 206, 208, 231.
Buell, Don Carlos, General; 274, 276-82, 339-44, 369.
Bummers: 397.
Burlingame: 139.
Barns, Robert: 103, 105.
Burnside, Ambrose, General: 307, 309, 359-60, 382, 393, 435.
Burr, Aaron: 29.
Butler, Benjamin, General: 268, 283, 392-3, 409, 436, 444.
Butterfield: 95.
Calhoun, John: 68.
Calhoun, John Caldwell: his character and influence, 42-5: his doctrine
of "nullification" and secession, 45-6; his death, 100; further
references, 97, 113, 175, 182.
California: 28, 91-3, 96-9.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: 59.
Cameron, Simon: 166-7, 201-3, 242, 271.
Campbell, Justice: 210, 446.
Canada: 176, 211, 383.
Carolina. _See_ North Carolina and South Carolina.
Cass, General: 65, 94, 96, 172, 186.
Castlereagh: 377.
Cecil, Lord R. _See_ Salisbury.
Central America: 145.
Charming, Rev. William Eleroy: 51.
Charles I.: 433.
Charleston: 43, 251-3, 387, 435. _And see_ Fort Sumter.