Commissioners, with the following letter of instructions from
President Lincoln, dated January 31, 1865: "Honorable William
H. Seward, Secretary of State: You will proceed to Fortress
Monroe, Virginia, there to meet and informally confer with
Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, on the basis of my
letter to F. P. Blair, Esq., of January 18, 1865, a copy of
which you have. You will make known to them that three things
are indispensable, to wit:
1. The restoration of the national authority throughout all
the States.
2. No receding by the executive of the United States on the
slavery question from the position assumed thereon in the late
annual message to Congress, and in preceding documents.
3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war and
the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government.
You will inform them that all propositions of theirs, not
inconsistent with the above, will be considered and passed
upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will hear all they
may choose to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to
definitely consummate anything. Yours, etc., Abraham Lincoln."
Two days later, the President followed him, persuaded by a
telegram from General Grant to meet the Commissioners
personally. In a subsequent message to the Senate, Mr. Lincoln
reported the results of the conference as follows: "On the
morning of the 3d, the three gentlemen, Messrs. Stephens,
Hunter, and Campbell, came aboard of our steamer, and had an
interview with the Secretary of State and myself, of several
hours' duration. No question of preliminaries to the meeting
was then and there made or mentioned. No other person was
present; no papers were exchanged or produced; and it was, in
advance, agreed that the conversation was to be informal and
verbal merely.
{3547}
On our part the whole substance of the instructions to the
Secretary of State, hereinbefore recited, was stated and
insisted upon, and nothing was said inconsistent therewith;
while, by the other party, it was not said that in any event
or on any condition, they ever would consent to reunion; and
yet they equally omitted to declare that they never would so
consent. They seemed to desire a postponement of that
question, and the adoption of some other course first which,
as some of them seemed to argue, might or might not lead to
reunion; but which course, we thought, would amount to an
indefinite postponement. The conference ended without result."
_A. Lincoln,
Complete Works,
volume 2, pages 644-649._
ALSO IN:
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the Civil War,
volume 3, chapter 20._
_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
volume 10, chapter 6._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (February: South Carolina).
Evacuation of Charleston by the Confederates.
Federal occupation of the City.
While General Hardee, with 14,000 men, waited at Charleston
for the expected coming of General Sherman to attack that
city, the latter pursued a movement which made Charleston
untenable and shook it like a ripened apple into the hands of
General Gillmore, who was waiting at the gates. The
Confederates evacuated the city in haste and with reckless
disorder, and it was occupied by the Federal troops on the
morning of the 18th of February. The following is the report
of Colonel A. G. Bennett, who was the first to enter the city:
"On the morning of February the 18th I received information
that led me to believe the defences and lines guarding the
city of Charles·ton had been deserted by the enemy. I
immediately proceeded to Cummings Point, from whence I sent a
small boat in the direction of Fort Moultrie, which boat, when
40 yards east from Fort Sumter, was met by a boat from
Sullivan's Island, containing a full corps of band musicians
abandoned by the enemy. These con·firmed my belief of an
evacuation. I had no troops that could be available under two
hours, as, except in a few pontoon boats, there were no means
whatever of landing troops near the enemy's works or into the
city. I directed Major Hennessy to proceed to Fort Sumter and
there replace our flag. The flag was replaced over the
southeast angle of Fort Sumter at 9 o'clock A. M. I now pushed
for the city, stopping at Fort Ripley and Castle Pinckney,
from which works Rebel flags were hauled down and the American
flag substituted. … I landed at Mill's wharf, Charleston, at
10 o'clock A. M. where I learned that a part of the enemy's
troops yet remained in the city, while mounted patrols were
out in every direction applying the torch and driving the
inhabitants before them. I at once addressed to the Mayor of
the city [a communication demanding its surrender]. … My whole
force consisted of five officers and the armed crews of two
small boats, comprising in all 22 men. Both officers and men
volunteered to advance from the wharf into the city; but no
reenforcements being in sight, I did not deem it expedient to
move on. Public buildings, stores, warehouses, private
dwellings, shipping, etc., were burning and being fired by
armed Rebels, but with the force at my disposal it was
impossible to save the cotton and other property. While
awaiting the arrival of my troops at Mill's wharf, a number of
explosions took place. The Rebel commissary depot was blown
up, and with it is estimated that not less than 200 human
beings—most of whom were women and children—were blown to
atoms. These people were engaged in procuring food for
themselves and their families by permission from the Rebel
military authorities. … Observing a small boat sailing toward
the bay under a flag of truce, I put off to it, and received
from a member of the common council a letter [from the Mayor,
announcing the evacuation of the city by the Confederate
military authorities]. … The deputation sent to convey the
above letter represented to me that the city was in the hands
of either the Rebel soldiery or the mob. They entreated of me
in the name of humanity to interpose my military authority and
save the city from utter destruction. … Two companies of the
52d Pennsylvania regiment and about 30 men of the 3d Rhode
Island volunteer heavy artillery having landed, I proceeded
with them to the citadel. I here established my headquarters,
and sent small parties in all directions with instructions to
impress negroes wherever found, and to make them work the fire
apparatus, until all fires were extinguished."
_A. G. Bennett,
Report, February 24, 1865
(quoted in Tenney's Military and Naval History
of the Rebellion, chapter 49)._
At noon on the 14th of April, 1865, the fourth anniversary of
the lowering of the flag of the United States at Fort Sumter,
it was formally raised by General Anderson over the ruins of
the fort, with impressive ceremonies, in which many visitors
from the North took part. An address was delivered on the
occasion by the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865
(February-March: The Carolinas).
Sherman's march from Savannah to Goldsboro.
The burning of Columbia.
The Battle of Bentonsville.
"By the middle of January, a lodgment had been effected in
South Carolina [at Pocotaligo, on the railroad between
Savannah and Charleston], and Sherman had his whole army once
more in hand as a moving column. He had no idea of wasting
time on either Charleston or Augusta, but he determined to
play upon the fears of the rebels, and compel them to retain a
force to protect those places. … Accordingly he gave out with
some ostentation that he was moving upon either Charles·ton or
Augusta. Early in January the heavy winter rains set in,
rendering the roads almost impassable. … This flood delayed
the departure of the column for quite two weeks. … On the 1st
of February, the army designed for the active campaign from
Savannah northward was again 60,000 strong; and, as before,
was composed of two wings, the right under Howard and the left
under Slocum. Kilpatrick was once more chief of cavalry.
Sixty-eight guns accompanied the command. The wagons were
2,500 in number, and carried an ample supply of ammunition for
one great battle, forage for a week, and provisions for twenty
days. For fresh meat Sherman depended on beeves driven on the
hoof, and such cattle, hogs, and poultry as might be gathered
on the march. … Sherman … started on his northward march on
the 1st of February. On that day his right wing was south of
the Salkehatchie river, and his left still struggling in the
swamps of the Savannah, at Sister's Ferry. … The division
generals led their columns through the swamps, the water up to
their shoulders, crossed over to the pine land beyond, and
then, turning upon the rebels who had opposed the passage,
drove them off in utter disorder.
{3548}
All the roads northward had been held for weeks by Wheeler's
cavalry, and details of negro laborers had been compelled to
fell trees and burn bridges to impede the national march.
Sherman's pioneers, however, removed the trees, and the heads
of columns rebuilt the bridges before the rear could close up,
and the rebels retreated behind the Edisto river at
Branchville. … Sherman determined to waste no time on
Branchville, which the enemy could no longer hold, and turned
his columns directly north upon Columbia, where it was
supposed the rebels would concentrate. Attempts were made to
delay him at the crossings of the rivers; there were numerous
bridge-heads with earth or cotton parapets to carry, and
cypress swamps to cross; but nothing stayed his course. On the
13th, he learned that there was no enemy in Columbia except
Hampton's cavalry. Hardee, at Charleston, took it for granted
that Sherman was moving upon that place, and the rebels in
Augusta supposed that they were Sherman's object; so
Charleston and Augusta were protected, while Columbia was
abandoned to the care of the cavalry." With little or no
resistance, Sherman entered the capital of South Carolina on
the 17th of February. "Hampton had ordered all cotton, public
and private, to be moved into the streets and fired. Bales
were piled up everywhere, the rope and bagging cut, and the
tufts of cotton blown about by the wind, or lodged in the
trees and against the houses, presented the appearance of a
snow-storm. Some of these piles of cotton were burning in the
heart of the town. Sherman, meanwhile, had given orders to
destroy the arsenals and public property not needed by his
army, as well as railroad stations and machines, but to spare
all dwellings, colleges, schools, asylums, and 'harmless
private property'; and the fires lighted by Hampton were
partially subdued by the national soldiers. But before the
torch had been put to a single building by Sherman's order,
the smouldering fires set by Hampton were rekindled by the
wind and communicated to the buildings around. About dark the
flames began to spread, and were soon beyond the control of
the brigade on duty in the town. An entire division was now
brought in, but it was found impossible to check the
conflagration, which by midnight had become quite
unmanageable. It raged till about four A. M. on the 18th, when
the wind subsided, and the flames were got under control. …
Beauregard, meanwhile, and the rebel cavalry, had retreated
upon Charlotte, in North Carolina, due north from Columbia;
and on the 20th and 21st Sherman followed as far as Winnsboro.
… At Winnsboro, however, Sherman turned his principal columns
northeastward towards Goldsboro, still 200 miles away. Heavy
rains again impeded his movements … and it was not till the 3d
of March that the army arrived at Cheraw. At this point large
quantities of guns and ammunition were captured, brought from
Charleston under the supposition that here, at least, they
would be secure. Hardee had moved due north from Charleston by
his only remaining railroad, through Florence, but only
reached Cheraw in time to escape with his troops across the
Pedee river, just before Sherman arrived. … Having secured the
passage of the Pedee … Sherman had but little uneasiness about
the future. … On the 11th of March, Fayetteville was reached,
and Sherman had traversed the entire extent of South Carolina.
On the 12th, he sent a dispatch to Grant, the first since
leaving the Savannah. … On the 15th of March, the command
began its march for Goldsboro." The scattered Confederate
forces were now getting together and General Johnston had been
put in command of them. "Sherman estimated the entire rebel
force at 37,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry; but only Hardee,
with 10,000 infantry and one division of cavalry, was in the
immediate front." On the 15th Hardee was encountered at
Averysboro, where he attempted to check Sherman's advance
while Johnston concentrated in the rear. Some sharp fighting
occurred, in which Sherman lost 77 men killed and 477 wounded.
Hardee reported his loss at 500. In the morning he had
disappeared. "From Averysboro both wings turned eastward by
different roads, and on the night of the 18th of March the
army was within 27 miles of Goldsboro, and only five from
Bentonsville. The columns were now about ten miles apart." At
Bentonsville, on the 19th, Slocum's wing was attacked by
Johnston, who had marched his whole command with great
rapidity, hoping to "overwhelm Sherman's left flank before it
could be relieved by its co-operating column." But Slocum held
his ground that day against six distinct assaults, and the
next day Sherman brought his whole army into position. He did
not push the enemy, however, either on the 20th or on the
21st, being uncertain as to Johnston's strength. During the
night of the 21st the latter retreated. "The total national
loss was 191 killed, and 1,455 wounded and missing. Johnston
states his losses to have been 223 killed, 1,467 wounded, and
653 missing; but Sherman captured 1,621 prisoners. Sherman
admits that he committed an error in not overwhelming his
enemy. Few soldiers, however, are great enough to accuse
themselves of an error, and fewer still but might accuse
themselves of greater ones than can ever be laid at Sherman's
door. At daybreak on the 22d … the army moved to Goldsboro,
where Schofield had already arrived.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1865
(FEBRUARY-MARCH: NORTH CAROLINA).
… Thus was concluded one of the longest and most important
marches ever made by an organized army in civilized war."
_A. Badeau,
Military History of Ulysses S. Grant,
chapter 31 (volume 3)._
At Columbia, "I observed, as I passed along the street, that
many shops had been gutted, and that paper, rags, and litter
of all kinds lay scattered on the floors, in the open
doorways, and on the ground outside. I was told on good
authority that this had been done by the Confederate troops
before our arrival. It was a windy day, and a great deal of
loose cotton had been blown about and caught on the fences and
in the branches of the shade trees along the street. It has
been said that this had something to do with spreading the
fire which afterward took place. I think this very doubtful. …
I have never doubted that Columbia was deliberately set on
fire in more than a hundred places. No one ordered it, and no
one could stop it. The officers of high rank would have saved
the city if possible; but the army was deeply imbued with the
feeling that as South Carolina had begun the war she must
suffer a stern retribution."
_W. B. Hazen,
Narrative of Military Service,
chapters 23-25._
{3549}
"I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire,
but, on the contrary, claim that we saved what of Columbia
remains unconsumed."
_Sherman's Official Report
(Rebellion Record, volume 11)._
ALSO IN:
_S. M. Bowman and R. B. Irwin,
Sherman and his Campaigns,
chapters 26-29._
_H. W. Slocum and W. Hampton,
Sherman's March and The Battle of Bentonville
(Battles and Leaders, volume 4)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865
(February-March: North Carolina).
Occupation of Wilmington.
Battle of Kinston.
Junction with Sherman at Goldsboro.
On the 9th of February, General Schofield, transferred from
the west, arrived at Fort Fisher with Cox's division of the
Twenty-third Corps, and took command of the newly created
Department of North Carolina. Advancing on Wilmington, the
Confederates, under Hoke, retreating before him, he occupied
that city on the 22d. This accomplished, General Cox was sent
to Newberne to take command of forces ordered there, and to
open communication thence by railroad with Goldsboro,
preparatory to the arrival of General Sherman at that point.
In the prosecution of this undertaking, he fought the battle
of Kinston, March 10, repelling a fierce attack by Bragg with
the forces which were being collected against Sherman: "After
Bragg's retreat, Schofield steadily pressed the work of
rebuilding the railway. Kinston was occupied on March 14th."
On the 21st Schofield entered Goldsboro, "and there, in a
couple of days more, was reassembled the grand army under
Sherman, whose march from Savannah had been quite as
remarkable as the former one from Atlanta to the sea."
_J. D. Cox,
The March to the Sea
(Campaigns of the Civil War),
chapter 9._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (February-March: Virginia).
Sheridan's destroying march through Central Virginia.
Battle of Waynesborough.
"The last campaign against Lee may be said to have been
inaugurated when General Sheridan started with his cavalry
from Winchester, Virginia, on the 27th of February, 1865, with
a sort of carte blanche of destruction as to the enemy's
supply depots and communications. The general's instructions
looked to his crossing the James River above Richmond, and his
possible junction with the command of General Sherman
somewhere in North Carolina; but the swollen condition of the
James and the destruction of the bridges prevented his
crossing. … General Sheridan's command on this expedition
consisted of the first cavalry division, under Brevet
Major-General Wesley Merritt, and the third cavalry division,
under Brevet Major-General George A. Custer, to whose division
was added one brigade of the cavalry of the old army of West
Virginia, under Colonel Capehart. … They left Winchester on a
damp, disagreeable morning. … But the spirits of the bold
dragoons were not dampened, and they felt lively enough to
push on to Waynesborough to the camp of General Jubal Early,
late of the Confederacy, upon whom the brilliant Custer fell
with his division, and soon had his guns, and men, and
'materiel,' and would have had him but that he had sufficient
presence of mind to absent his person when he found how things
were going. This was General Early's last appearance in public
life. … Early's command at Waynesborough being now dispersed
or captured, … General Sheridan proceeded to occupy
Charlottesville. … Then on again toward Lynchburg and the
James River. … When it was found impossible to cross the James
River, attention was for a while directed to the demolition of
the James River and Kanawha Canal. … When the ingenious
destruction corps could devise no further damage here, the
command turned off to try its hand upon a railroad or two. All
the time the rains had descended—the flood-gates of the clouds
were up and the water kept pouring through. … Although nothing
short of a flotilla seemed likely to ride out the storm, the
cavalry rode on hopefully, and came safely to harbor at the
White House, on the Pamunkey, where supplies were furnished
them, and where the March winds blew them dry again. …
Immediately upon his arrival at this depot, General Sheridan
reported to General Grant, at City Point, for orders."
_With General Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign;
by a Staff Officer,
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_G. E. Pond,
The Shenandoah Valley in 1864,
chapter 14._
_A. Badeau,
Military History of Ulysses S. Grant,
chapter 31 (volume 3)._
_P. H. Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs,
volume 2, chapter 4._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (March).
Emancipation of the families of colored soldiers.
"The President in his annual message, December, 1863, had
estimated the colored soldiers in the service at 'nearly
100,000.' They were mostly from the border States, and the
slaves of loyal masters. While they were fighting the battles
of the country, their masters, who were generally opposed to
their enlistment, could sell into perpetual slavery their
wives and children. To deter slaves from enlisting, or to
punish them when they did enlist, slave-masters made
merchandise of the wives and children of colored soldiers, and
often sold them into a harsher bondage. To put an end to a
practice so cruel, unjust, injurious, and dishonorable to the
country, Mr. Wilson introduced into the Senate on the 8th of
January [1864], in his bill to promote enlistments, a
provision declaring that when any man or boy of African
descent, owing service or labor in any State, under its laws,
should be mustered into the military or naval service of the
United States, he, and his mother, wife, and children, should
be forever free." The bill was warmly debated and its
supporters did not succeed in bringing it to a vote during
that session of Congress. At the next session, on the 13th of
December, 1864, Mr. Wilson introduced a joint resolution "to
make free the wives and children of persons who had been, or
might be, mustered into the service of the United States."
This passed the Sen·ate a few days later, by a vote of 27 to
10; was passed by the House on the 22d of February, 1865, and
signed by the President on the 3d of March.
_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,
volume 3, chapter 30._
{3550}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (March).
President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
"The days of the Confederacy were evidently numbered. Only the
last blow remained to be struck. Then Lincoln's second
inauguration came [March 4, 1865], and with it his second
inaugural address. Lincoln's famous 'Gettysburg speech has
been much and justly admired. But far greater, as well as far
more characteristic, was that inaugural in which he poured out
the whole devotion and tenderness of his great soul. It had
all the solemnity of a father's last admonition and blessing
to his children before he lay down to die. … No American
President had ever spoken words like these to the American
people. America never had a President who found such words in
the depth of his heart."
_C. Schurz,
Abraham Lincoln: an Essay,
pages 103-104._
The following is the text of the Inaugural Address:
"Fellow-countrymen: At this second appear·ing 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 attention and engrosses the energies
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 colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized 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 anticipated
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 250
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn
with the sword, as was said 3,000 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."
_A. Lincoln,
Complete Works,
volume 2, pages 656-657._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (March-April: Virginia).
The Flanking of Lee's lines.
Battle of Five Forks.
Final assault at Petersburg and Confederate retreat.
"One of the most anxious periods of my experience during the
rebellion," wrote General Grant, "was the last few weeks
before Petersburg. I felt that the situation of the
Confederate army was such that they would try to make an
escape at the earliest practicable moment, and I was afraid,
every morning, that I would awake from my sleep to hear that
Lee had gone, and that nothing was left but a picket line. … I
was naturally very impatient for the time to come when I could
commence the spring campaign, which I thoroughly believed
would close the war. … Sherman was anxious that I should wait
where I was until he could come up, and make a sure thing of
it; but I had determined to move as soon as the roads and
weather would admit of my doing so. I had been tied down
somewhat in the matter of fixing any time at my pleasure for
starting, until Sheridan, who was on his way from the
Shenandoah Valley to join me, should arrive, as both his
presence and that of his cavalry were necessary to the
execution of the plans which I had in mind. However,
[Sheridan] having arrived at White House on the 19th of March,
I was enabled to make my plans. … It is now known that early
in the month of March Mr. Davis and General Lee had a
consultation about the situation of affairs in and about
Richmond and Petersburg, and they both agreed that these
places were no longer tenable for them, and that they must get
away as soon as possible. They, too, were waiting for dry
roads, or a condition of the roads which would make it
possible to move. General Lee, in aid of his plan of escape,
and to secure a wider opening to enable them to reach the
Danville road with greater security than he would have in the
way the two armies were situated, determined upon an assault
upon the right of our lines around Petersburg." The assault
was made by General Gordon early in the morning of March 25th,
and Fort Stedman, with three contiguous batteries, were taken
by surprise. The captured fort and batteries were soon
recovered, however, and the Confederate troops who entered
them were made prisoners.
{3551}
"This effort of Lee's cost him about 4,000 men, and resulted
in their killing, wounding and capturing about 2,000 of ours.
… The day that Gordon was making dispositions for this attack
(24th of March) I issued my orders for the movement to
commence on the 29th. Ord, with three divisions of infantry
and Mackenzie's cavalry, was to move in advance on the night
of the 27th, from the north side of the James River, and take
his place on our extreme left, 30 miles away. … Ord was at his
place promptly. Humphreys and Warren were then on our extreme
left with the 2d and 5th corps. They were directed on the
arrival of Ord, and on his getting into position in their
places, to cross Hatcher's Run and extend out west toward Five
Forks, the object being to get into a position from which we
could strike the South Side Railroad and ultimately the
Danville Railroad. There was considerable fighting in taking
up these new positions for the 2d and 5th corps, in which the
Army of the James had also to participate somewhat, and the
losses were quite severe. This was what was known as the
battle of White Oak Road. … The 29th of March came, and
fortunately, there having been a few days free from rain, the
surface of the ground was dry, giving indications that the
time had come when we could move. On that day I moved out with
all the army available after leaving sufficient force to hold
the line about Petersburg. It soon set in raining again,
however, and in a very short time the roads became practically
impassable for teams, and almost so for cavalry. … It became
necessary … to build corduroy roads every foot of the way as
we advanced, to move our artillery upon, The army had become
so accustomed to this kind of work, and were so well prepared
for it, that it was done very rapidly. The next day, March
30th, we had made sufficient progress to the south-west to
warrant me in starting Sheridan with his cavalry over by
Dinwiddie with instructions to then come up by the road
leading north-west to Five Forks, thus menacing the right of
Lee's line, … The column moving detached from the army still
in the trenches was, excluding the cavalry, very small. The
forces in the trenches were themselves extending to the left
flank. Warren was on the extreme left when the extension
began, but Humphreys was marched around later and thrown into
line between him and Five Forks. My hope was that Sheridan
would be able to carry Five Forks, get on the enemy's right
flank and rear, and force them to weaken their centre to
protect their right, so that an assault in the centre might be
successfully made. General Wright's corps had been designated
to make this assault, which I intended to order as soon as
information reached me of Sheridan's success. … Sheridan moved
back to Dinwiddie Court-House on the night of the 30th, and
then took a road leading northwest to Five Forks. He had only
his cavalry with him. Soon encountering the rebel cavalry he
met with a very stout resistance. He gradually drove them back
however until in the neighborhood of Five Forks. Here he had
to encounter other troops, besides those he had been
contending with, and was forced to give way. In this condition
of affairs he notified me of what had taken place and stated
that he was falling back toward Dinwiddie gradually and
slowly, and asked me to send Wright's corps to his assistance.
I replied to him that it was impossible to send Wright's corps
… and that I would send Warren. Accordingly orders were sent
to Warren to move at once that night (the 31st) to Dinwiddie
Court-House and put himself in communication with Sheridan as
soon as possible, and report to him. He was very slow in
moving, some of his troops not starting until after 5 o'clock
next morning. … Warren reported to Sheridan about 11 o'clock
on the 1st, but the whole of his troops were not up so as to
be much engaged until late in the afternoon. … Sheridan
succeeded by the middle of the afternoon or a little later in
advancing up to the point from which to make his designed
assault upon Five Forks itself. He was very impatient to make
the assault and have it all over before night, because the
ground he occupied would be untenable for him in bivouac
during the night. … It was at this junction of affairs that
Sheridan wanted to get Crawford's division in hand, and he
also wanted Warren. He sent staff officer after staff officer
in search of Warren, directing that general to report to him,
but they were unable to find him. At all events Sheridan was
unable to get that officer to him. Finally he went himself. He
issued an order relieving Warren and assigning Griffin to the
command of the 5th corps. The troops were then brought up and
the assault successfully made. … It was dusk when our troops
under Sheridan went over the parapets of the enemy. The two
armies were mingled together there for a time in such manner
that it was almost a question which one was going to demand
the surrender of the other. Soon, however, the enemy broke and
ran in every direction; some 6,000 prisoners, besides
artillery and small-arms in large quantities, falling into our
hands. … Pursuit continued until about 9 o'clock at night,
when Sheridan halted his troops, and knowing the importance to
him of the part of the enemy's line which had been captured,
returned. … This was the condition which affairs were in on
the night of the 1st of April. I then issued orders for an
assault by Wright and Parke at 4 o'clock on the morning of the
2d." The assault was successfully made, and the outer works of
Petersburg were soon in the hands of the National troops.
Early in the morning of the 3d the enemy evacuated Petersburg
and Grant and Meade took possession of the city. The following
day they were visited there by President Lincoln, who had been
at City Point for a week, or more, watching the course of
events.
_U. S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs,
chapters 63-65 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_P. H. Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs,
volume 2, chapters 5-6._
_A. A. Humphreys,
The Virginia Campaign of 1864 and 1865,
chapters 12-13._
_H. Porter,
Five Forks and the Pursuit of Lee
(Battles and Leaders, volume 4)._
_R. de Trobriand,
Four years with the Army of the Potomac,
chapter 34._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April 11).
President Lincoln's last public address.
His view of Reconstruction in Louisiana.
On the evening of the 11th of April, a great multitude of
people gathered about the White House, to convey their
congratulations to the President and to signify their joy at
the sure prospect of peace. Mr. Lincoln came out and spoke to
them, expressing first his participation in their gladness,
and then turning to discuss briefly the criticism which had
opened upon his policy of reconstruction, as practically
illustrated in Louisiana.
{3552}
He spoke of his message and proclamation of December, 1863
(quoted above); of the approval given to them by every member
of his cabinet; of the entire silence at the time of all who
had become critics and objectors since action under the plan
had been taken in Louisiana. He then went on as follows: "When
the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached
New Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident that
the people, with his military cooperation, would reconstruct
substantially on that plan. I wrote to him and some of them to
try it. They tried it, and the result is known. Such has been
my only agency in getting up the Louisiana government. As to
sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. But as bad
promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a
bad promise, and break it whenever I shall be convinced that
keeping it is adverse to the public interest; but I have not
yet been so convinced. I have been shown a letter on this
subject, supposed to be an able one, in which the writer
expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely
fixed on the question whether the seceded States, so called,
are in the Union or out of it. It would perhaps add
astonishment to his regret were he to learn that since I have
found professed Union men endeavoring to make that question, I
have purposely forborne any public expression upon it. As
appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a
practically material one, and that any discussion of it, while
it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect
other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As
yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad as
the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at all—a
merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded
States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation
with the Union, and that the sole object of the government,
civil and military, in regard to those States is to again get
them into that proper practical relation. I believe that it is
not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without
deciding or even considering whether these States have ever
been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely
at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever
been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to
restoring the proper practical relations between these States
and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his
own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States
from without into the Union, or only gave them proper
assistance, they never having been out of it. The amount of
constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana
government rests, would be more satisfactory to all if it
contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only
about 12,000, as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some
that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I
would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very
intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.
Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government,
as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is,
will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it,
or to reject and disperse it? Can Louisiana be brought into
proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining
or by discarding her new State government? Some 12,000 voters
in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn
allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political
power of the State, held elections, organized a State
government, adopted a free-State constitution, giving the
benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and
empowering the legislature to confer the elective franchise
upon the colored man. Their legislature has already voted to
ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed by
Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to
perpetual freedom in the State—committed to the very things,
and nearly all the things, the nation wants—and they ask the
nation's recognition and its assistance to make good their
committal. Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the
white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help
you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say: This cup of
liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips we
will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering
the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined
when, where, and how. If this course, discouraging and
paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency to bring
Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, I
have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary,
we recognize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, the
converse of all this is made true. We encourage the hearts and
nerve the arms of the 12,000 to adhere to their work, and
argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed
it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The
colored man, too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired
with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant
that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it
sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward it than by
running backward over them? 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. Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject
one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national
Constitution. To meet this proposition it has been argued that
no more than three-fourths of those States which have not
attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the
amendment. I do not commit myself against this further than to
say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure
to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by
three-fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and
unquestionable. I repeat the question: Can Louisiana be
brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner
by sustaining or by discarding her new State government? What
has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other
States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State,
and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State,
and withal so new and unprecedented 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. Lincoln,
Complete Works,
volume 2, pages 673-675._
{3553}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April: Virginia).
The abandonment of Richmond and retreat of Lee.
Battle of Sailor's Creek.
Surrender at Appomattox Court House.
"The success of the Federal army in breaking the lines of
Petersburg had rendered the retreat of the Confederate force
imperative. An effort to hold Richmond with every line of
communication with the South broken or in imminent danger
would have been madness. But by abandoning his works and
concentrating his army, which still amounted to about 30,000
men, General Lee might retire to some natural stronghold in
the interior, where the defensible features of the country
would enable him to oppose Grant's formidable host until he
could rally strength to strike an effective blow. This course
was at once decided upon, and early on the morning of the 2d
of April, Lee sent a despatch to the Government authorities at
Richmond informing them of the disastrous situation of affairs
and of the necessity of his evacuating Petersburg that night.
Orders were also sent to the forces north of the James to move
at once and join him, while all the preparations necessary for
the evacuation of Richmond, both as the seat of government and
as a military post, were expeditiously made. There was,
indeed, no time to be lost. … By midnight the evacuation was
completed. … As the troops moved noiselessly onward in the
darkness that just precedes the dawn, a bright light like a
broad flash of lightning illumined the heavens for an instant;
then followed a tremendous explosion. 'The magazine at Fort
Drewry is blown up,' ran in whispers through the ranks, and
again silence reigned. Once more the sky was overspread by a
lurid light, but not so fleeting as before. It was now the
conflagration of Richmond that lighted the night-march of the
soldiers, and many a stout heart was wrung with anguish at the
fate of the city and its defenceless inhabitants. The burning
of public property of little value had given rise to a
destructive fire that laid in ashes nearly one-third of the
devoted city. … The retreat of Lee's army did not long remain
unknown to the Federals. The explosion of the magazine at Fort
Drewry and the conflagration of Richmond apprised them of the
fact, and they lost no time in taking possession of the
abandoned works and entering the defenceless cities. On the
morning of the 3d of April the mayor of Richmond surrendered
the city to the Federal commander in its vicinity, and General
Weitzel took immediate possession. He at once proceeded to
enforce order and took measures to arrest the conflagration,
while with great humanity he endeavored to relieve the
distressed citizens. … As soon as Grant became aware of Lee's
line of retreat he pushed forward his whole available force,
numbering 70,000 or 80,000 men, in order to intercept him on
the line of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. Sheridan's
cavalry formed the van of the pursuing column, and was closely
followed by the artillery and infantry. Lee pressed on as
rapidly as possible to Amelia Court-house, where he had
ordered supplies to be deposited for the use of his troops on
their arrival. … The hope of finding a supply of food at this
point, which had done much to buoy up the spirits of the men,
was destined to be cruelly dispelled. Through an unfortunate
error or misapprehension of orders the provision-train had
been taken on to Richmond without unloading its stores at
Amelia Court-house. … It was a terrible blow alike to the men
and to their general. … The only chance remaining to the Army
of Northern Virginia was to reach the hill-country without
delay. Yet here it was detained by the error of a railroad
official, while the precious minutes and hours moved
remorselessly by. … Yet no murmur came from the lips of the
men to the ear of their commander, and on the evening of that
unfortunate day [April 5th] they resumed their weary march in
silence and composure. Some small amount of food had been
brought in by the foragers, greatly inadequate for the wants
of the soldiers, yet aiding them to somewhat alleviate the
pangs of hunger. A handful of corn was now a feast to the
weary veterans as they trudged onward through the April night.
… Sheridan's cavalry was already upon the flank of the
Confederate army, and the infantry was following with all
speed. … During the forenoon of [the 6th] the pursuing columns
thickened and frequent skirmishes delayed the march. These
delays enabled the Federals to accumulate in such force that
it became necessary for Lee to halt his advance in order to
arrest their attack till his column could close up, and the
trains and such artillery as was not needed for action could
reach a point of safety. This object was accomplished early in
the afternoon. Ewell's, the rearmost corps in the army, closed
upon those in front at a position on Sailor's Creek, a small
tributary of the Appomattox River. … His corps was surrounded
by the pursuing columns and captured with but little
opposition. About the same time the divisions of Anderson,
Pickett, and Bushrod Johnson were almost broken up, about
10,000 men in all being captured. The remainder of the army
continued its retreat during the night of the 6th, and reached
Farmville early on the morning of the 7th, where the troops
obtained two days' rations, the first regular supplies they
had received during the retreat. At Farmville a short halt was
made to allow the men to rest and cook their provisions. The
effective portion of the Army of Northern Virginia did not now
exceed 10,000 men. This great reduction had been caused by the
disaster of the previous day at Sailor's Creek, by desertions
on the retreat, and by an exhaustion which obliged many to
leave the ranks. Those who still remained by their colors were
veterans whose courage never failed, and who were yet ready to
face any odds. The heads of the Federal columns beginning to
appear about eleven o'clock, the Confederates resumed their
retreat." On the afternoon of the 7th, Lee received a note
from Grant calling upon him to surrender, and replied to it,
asking what terms would be offered. Further notes were
exchanged between the two commanders the following day, while
the retreat continued. Lee hoped to reach Appomattox Court
House and secure supplies that were there, which might enable
him to "push on to the Staunton River and maintain himself
behind that stream until a junction could be made with
Johnston." But when, in the afternoon of April 8th, he reached
the neighborhood of Appomattox Court House, "he was met by the
intelligence of the capture of the stores placed for his army
at the station two miles beyond.
{3554}
Notwithstanding this overwhelming news, he determined to make
one more effort to force himself through the Federal toils
that encompassed him." This attempt was made at three o'clock
on the morning of the 9th of April, General Gordon leading the
attack, which failed. Lee then yielded to his fate, and sent a
flag of truce, asking for an interview with Grant to arrange
terms of surrender. "Grant had not yet come up, and while
waiting for his arrival General Lee seated himself upon some
rails which Colonel Talcott of the Engineers had fixed at the
foot of an apple tree for his convenience. This tree was half
a mile distant from the point where the meeting of Lee and
Grant took place, yet wide-spread currency has been given to
the story that the surrender took place under its shade, and
'apple-tree' jewelry has been profusely distributed from the
orchard in which it grew. About 11 o'clock General Lee,
accompanied only by Colonel Marshall of his staff, proceeded
to the village to meet General Grant, who had now arrived. The
meeting between the two renowned generals took place at the
house of a Mr. McLean at Appomattox Court-house, to which
mansion, after exchanging courteous salutations, they repaired
to settle the terms on which the surrender of the Army of
Northern Virginia should be concluded. … The written
instrument of surrender covered the following points:
Duplicate rolls of all the officers and men were to be made,
and the officers to sign paroles for themselves and their men,
all agreeing not to bear arms against the United States unless
regularly exchanged. The arms, artillery, and public property
were to be turned over to an officer appointed to receive
them, the officers retaining their side-arms and private
horses and baggage. In addition to this, General Grant
permitted every man of the Confederate army who claimed to own
a horse or mule to retain it for farming purposes, General Lee
remarking that this would have a happy effect. … After
completion of these measures General Lee remarked that his men
were badly in need of food, that they had been living for
several days on parched corn exclusively, and requested
rations and forage for 25,000 men. These rations were granted
out of the car-loads of Confederate provisions which had been
stopped by the Federal cavalry. … Three days after the
surrender the Army of Northern Virginia had dispersed in every
direction, and three weeks later the veterans of a hundred
battles had changed the musket and the sword for the
implements of husbandry. … Thousands of soldiers were set
adrift on the world without a penny in their pockets to enable
them to reach their homes. Yet none of the scenes of riot that
often follow the disbanding of armies marked their course."
_A. L. Long,
Memoirs of Robert E. Lee,
chapter 21._
"General Grant's behavior at Appomattox was marked by a desire
to spare the feelings of his great opponent. There was no
theatrical display; his troops were not paraded with bands
playing and banners flying, before whose lines the
Confederates must march and stack arms. He did not demand
Lee's sword, as is customary, but actually apologized to him
for not having his own, saying it had been left behind in the
wagon; promptly stopped salutes from being fired to mark the
event, and the terms granted were liberal and generous. 'No
man could have behaved better than General Grant did under the
circumstances,' said Lee to a friend in Richmond. 'He did not
touch my sword; the usual custom is for the sword to be
received when tendered, and then handed back, but he did not
touch mine,' Neither did the Union chief enter the Southern
lines to show himself or to parade his victory, or go to
Richmond or Petersburg to exult over a fallen people, but
mounted his horse and with his staff started for Washington.
Washington, at Yorktown, was not as considerate and thoughtful
of the feelings of Cornwallis or his men. Charges were now
withdrawn from the guns, flags furled, and the Army of the
Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia turned their backs
upon each other for the first time In four long, bloody
years,"
_F. Lee,
General Lee,
chapter 15._
ALSO IN:
_U. S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs,
chapter 65-67._
_H. Porter,
The Surrender at Appomattox Court House
(Battles and Leaders, volume 4)._
_A. Badeau,
Military History of Ulysses S. Grant,
chapter 33-34 (volume 3)._
_J. W. Keifer,
The Battle of Sailor's Creek
(Sketches of War History,
Ohio Commandery L. L. of the United States, volume 3)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April: Virginia).
President Lincoln at Richmond.
The assembling and dispersing of "the gentlemen who have
acted as the Legislature of Virginia."
Virtual Proclamations of the end of the war.
"President Lincoln had been at City Point and vicinity for
several days before the fall of Richmond, in constant
communication with the General-in-chief, at the front,
receiving dispatches from him and transmitting them instantly
to the Secretary of War, whence they were diffused over the
country, by the telegraph. On the day after Richmond was
evacuated, he went up to that city in Admiral Porter's
flag-ship, the Malvern, Captain Ralph Chandler, with the
Sangamon, several tugs, and 30 small boats, with about 300
men, had already cleared the channel of the river of
torpedoes, and made the navigation comparatively safe. When
near Rocketts, the President and the Admiral left the Malvern,
and proceeded to the city in the commander's gig. With its
crew, armed with carbines, they landed and walked to Weitzel's
quarters, in the late residence of Davis, cheered on the way
by the huzzas and grateful ejaculations of a vast concourse of
emancipated slaves, who had been told that the tall man was
their Liberator. They crowded around him so thickly, in their
eagerness to see him, and to grasp his hand, that a the of
soldiers were needed to clear the way, After a brief rest at
Weitzel's, the President rode rapidly through the principal
streets of Richmond, in an open carriage, and, at near sunset,
departed for City Point. Two days afterward, the President
went to Richmond again, accompanied by his wife, the
Vice-President, and several Senators, when he was called upon
by leading Confederates, several of them members of the rebel
Virginia Legislature, whose chief business was to endeavor to
arrange a compromise whereby the equivalent for submission
should be the security to the Virginia insurgents, as far as
possible, of their political power and worldly possessions.
{3555}
The President was assured by Judge Campbell a member of the
Confederate 'Government' (who, for two years, had been
satisfied, he said, that success was impossible), that the
so-called Virginia Legislature, if allowed to reassemble, with
the Governor, would work for the reconstruction of the Union,
their first step being the withdrawal of the Virginia troops
from the field, on condition that the confiscation of property
in Virginia should not be allowed. Anxious to end the war
without further bloodshed, if possible, and satisfied that the
withdrawal of the Virginia troops—in other words, nearly all
of Lee's army—would accomplish it, he left with General
Weitzel, on his departure from Richmond [April 6], authority
to allow 'the gentlemen who have acted as the Legislature of
Virginia, in support of the rebellion, to assemble at Richmond
and take measures to withdraw the Virginia troops and other
support from resistance to the General Government.' A
safeguard was given. The fugitives returned, with the
Governor, but instead of performing in good faith what had
been promised in their name, they began legislating generally,
as if they were the legal representatives of the people of
Virginia. So soon as notice of this perfidy was given to the
President after his return to Washington, he directed Weitzel
to revoke the safeguard, and allow 'the gentlemen who had
acted as the Legislature of Virginia' to return to private
life. The surrender of Lee had, meanwhile, made the
contemplated action unnecessary. The President was blamed by
the loyal people for allowing these men to assemble with
acknowledged powers; and the Confederates abused him for
dissolving the assembly. The President returned to Washington
City on the day of Lee's surrender, where he was the recipient
of a multitude of congratulations because of the dawn of
peace. On the 11th he issued proclamations, one declaring the
closing, until further notice, of certain ports in the
Southern States, whereof the blockade had been raised by their
capture, respectively; and the other, demanding, henceforth,
for our vessels in foreign ports, on penalty of retaliation,
those privileges and immunities which had hitherto been denied
them on the plea of according equal belligerent rights to the
Republic and its internal enemies. … On the following day an
order was issued from the War Department, which had been
approved by General Grant, putting an end to all drafting and
recruiting for the National army, and the purchase of
munitions of war and supplies; and declaring that the number
of general and staff officers would be speedily reduced, and
all military restrictions on trade and commerce be removed
forthwith. This virtual proclamation of the end of the war
went over the land on the anniversary of the evacuation of
Fort Sumter [April 14], while General Anderson was replacing
the old flag over the ruins of that fortress."
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the Civil War,
volume 3, chapter 21._
ALSO IN:
_H. J. Raymond,
Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln,
chapter 20._
_C. C. Coffin,
Late Scenes in Richmond
(Atlantic Monthly, June, 1865)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April 14th).
The Assassination of President Lincoln.
"From the very beginning of his Presidency, Mr. Lincoln had
been constantly subject to the threats of his enemies and the
warnings of his friends. … Although he freely discussed with
the officials about him the possibilities of danger, he always
considered them remote, as is the habit of men
constitutionally brave, and positively refused to torment
himself with precautions for his own safety. He would sum the
matter up by saying that both friends and strangers must have
daily access to him in all manner of ways and places; his life
was therefore in reach of anyone, sane or mad, who was ready
to murder and be hanged for it; that he could not possibly
guard against all danger unless he were to shut himself up in
an iron box, in which condition he could scarcely perform the
duties of a President; by the hand of a murderer he could die
only once; to go continually in fear would be to die over and
over. He therefore went in and out before the people, always
unarmed, generally unattended. … Four years of threats and
boastings, of alarms that were unfounded, and of plots that
came to nothing thus passed away; but precisely at the time
when the triumph of the nation over the long insurrection
seemed assured, and a feeling of peace and security was
diffused over the country, one of the conspiracies, not
seemingly more important than the many abortive ones, ripened
in the sudden heat of hatred and despair. A little band of
malignant secessionists, consisting of John Wilkes Booth, an
actor, of a family of famous players, Lewis Powell, alias
Payne, a disbanded rebel soldier from Florida, George
Atzerodt, formerly a coach maker, but more recently a spy and
blockade runner of the Potomac, David E. Herold, a young
druggist's clerk, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin,
Maryland secessionists and Confederate soldiers, and John H.
Surratt, had their ordinary rendezvous at the house of Mrs.
Mary E. Surratt, the widowed mother of the last named,
formerly a woman of some property in Maryland, but reduced by
reverses to keeping a small boarding-house in Washington.
Booth was the leader of the little coterie. He was a young man
of twenty-six. … He was a fanatical secessionist; had assisted
at the capture and execution of John Brown, and had imbibed at
Richmond and other Southern cities where he had played, a
furious spirit of partisanship against Lincoln and the Union
party. After the reelection of Mr. Lincoln, which rang the
knell of the insurrection, Booth, like many of the
secessionists North and South, was stung to the quick by
disappointment. He visited Canada, consorted with the rebel
emissaries there, and at last—whether or not at their
instigation cannot certainly be said—conceived a scheme to
capture the President and take him to Richmond. He spent a
great part of the autumn and winter inducing a small number of
loose fish of secession sympathies to join him in this
fantastic enterprise. … There are indications in the evidence
given on the trial of the conspirators that they suffered some
great disappointment in their schemes in the latter part of
March, and a letter from Arnold to Booth, dated March 27,
showed that some of them had grown timid of the consequences
of their contemplated enterprise and were ready to give it up.
He advised Booth, before going further, 'to go and see how it
will be taken in R---d.' But timid as they might be by nature,
the whole group was so completely under the ascendency of
Booth that they did not dare disobey him when in his presence;
and after the surrender of Lee, in an access of malice and rage
which was akin to madness, he called them together and
assigned each his part in the new crime, the purpose of which
had arisen suddenly in his mind out of the ruins of the
abandoned abduction scheme.
{3556}
This plan was as brief and simple as it was horrible. Powell,
alias Payne, the stalwart, brutal, simple-minded boy from
Florida, was to murder Seward; Atzerodt, the comic villain of
the drama, was assigned to remove Andrew Johnson; Booth
reserved for himself the most difficult and most conspicuous
role of the tragedy; it was Herold's duty to attend him as a
page and aid in his escape. Minor parts were assigned to stage
carpenters and other hangers-on, who probably did not
understand what it all meant. Herold, Atzerodt, and Surratt
had previously deposited at a tavern at Surrattsville,
Maryland, owned by Mrs. Surratt, but kept by a man named
Lloyd, a quantity of ropes, carbines, ammunition, and whisky,
which were to be used in the abduction scheme. On the 11th of
April Mrs. Surratt, being at the tavern, told Lloyd to have
the shooting irons in readiness, and on Friday, the 14th,
again visited the place and told him they would probably be
called for that night. The preparations for the final blow
were made with feverish haste; it was only about noon of the
14th that Booth learned the President was to go to Ford's
Theater that night. It has always been a matter of surprise in
Europe that he should have been at a place of amusement on
Good Friday; but the day was not kept sacred in America,
except by the members of certain churches. It was not,
throughout the country, a day of religious observance. The
President was fond of the theater; it was one of his few means
of recreation. It was natural enough that, on this day of
profound national thanksgiving, he should take advantage of a
few hours' relaxation to see a comedy. Besides, the town was
thronged with soldiers and officers, all eager to see him; it
was represented to him that appearing occasionally in public
would gratify many people whom he could not otherwise meet. …
From the moment Booth ascertained the President's intention to
attend the theater in the evening his every action was alert
and energetic. He and his confederates, Herold, Surratt and
Atzerodt, were seen on horseback in every part of the city. He
had a hurried conference with Mrs. Surratt before she started
for Lloyd's tavern. … Booth was perfectly at home in Ford's
Theater, where he was greatly liked by all the employees,
without other reason than the sufficient one of his youth and
good looks. Either by himself or with the aid of his friends
he arranged his whole plan of attack and escape during the
afternoon. He counted upon address and audacity to gain access
to the small passage behind the President's box; once there,
he guarded against interference by an arrangement of a wooden
bar to be fastened by a simple mortice in the angle of the
wall and the door by which he entered, so that the door could
not be opened from without. He even provided for the
contingency of not gaining entrance to the box by boring a
hole in its door, through which he might either observe the
occupants or take aim and shoot. He hired at a livery stable a
small, fleet horse, which he showed with pride during the day
to barkeepers and loafers among his friends. The moon rose
that night at ten o'clock A few minutes before that hour he
called one of the underlings of the theater to the back door
and left him there holding his horse. He then went to a saloon
near by, took a drink of brandy, and, entering the theater,
passed rapidly through the crowd in rear of the dress circle
and made his way to the passage leading to the President's
box. He showed a card to a servant in attendance and was
allowed to pass in. He entered noiselessly, and, turning,
fastened the door with the bar he had previously made ready,
without disturbing any of the occupants of the box, between
whom and himself there yet remained the slight partition and
the door through which he had bored the hole. … Holding a
pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, he opened the box
door, put the pistol to the President's head, and fired;
dropping the weapon, he took the knife in his right hand, and
when Major Rathbone sprang to seize him he struck savagely at
him. Major Rathbone received the blow on his left arm,
suffering a wide and deep wound. Booth, rushing forward, then
placed his left hand on the railing of the box and vaulted
lightly over to the stage. It was a high leap, but nothing to
such a trained athlete. … He would have got safely away but
for his spur catching in the folds of the Union flag with
which the front of the box was draped. He fell on the stage,
the torn flag trailing on his spur, but instantly rose as if
he had received no hurt, though in fact the fall had broken
his leg; he turned to the audience, brandishing his dripping
knife, and shouting the State motto of Virginia, 'Sic Semper
Tyrannis,' and fled rapidly across the stage and out of sight.
Major Rathbone had shouted, 'Stop him!' The cry went out, 'He
has shot the President.' From the audience, at first stupid
with surprise, and afterwards wild with excitement and horror,
two or three men jumped upon the stage in pursuit of the
flying assassin; but he ran through the familiar passages,
leaped upon his horse, which was in waiting in the alley
behind, rewarded with a kick and a curse the call-boy who had
held him, and rode rapidly away in the light of the just risen
moon. The President scarcely moved; his head drooped forward
slightly, his eyes closed. … It was afterward ascertained that
a large derringer bullet had entered the back of the head on
the left side, and, passing through the brain, had lodged just
behind the left eye. By direction of Rathbone and Crawford,
the President was carried to a house across the street and
laid upon a bed in a small room at the rear of the hall, on
the ground floor. … The President had been shot a few minutes
past ten. The wound would have brought instant death to most
men, but his vital tenacity was extraordinary. … At twenty-two
minutes after seven he died. Stanton broke the silence by
saying, 'Now he belongs to the ages.'" At the same hour in
which the President was murdered, an attempt was made by one
of Booth's fellow conspirators to kill the Secretary of State.
Mr. Seward had been thrown from his carriage a few days before
and was prostrated by the serious injuries received.
Pretending to bring a prescription from his physician, the
assassin, Payne, made his way into the sick-room of the
Secretary and stabbed him three times, but not fatally, in the
neck and cheek. Two sons, Frederick and Augustus Seward, were
seriously wounded in defending their father, and a
soldier-nurse who was present struggled bravely with the
assassin, though weaponless, and was stabbed repeatedly.
{3557}
Payne escaped for the time, but was caught a few days later.
Booth made his way to Port Tobacco, and thence across the
Potomac, into Virginia, assisted and concealed by numerous
sympathizers. He eluded his pursuers until the 25th of April,
when he was hunted down by a party of soldiers, while sleeping
in a barn, below Fredericksburg, and, refusing to surrender,
was shot. "The surviving conspirators, with the exception of
John H. Surratt, were tried by a military commission sitting
in Washington in the months of May and June. … Mrs. Surratt,
Payne, Herold, and Atzerodt were hanged on the 7th of July;
Mudd, Arnold, and O'Laughlin were imprisoned for life at the
Tortugas, though the term was afterwards shortened; and
Spangler, the scene shifter at the theater, was sentenced to
six years in jail. John H. Surratt escaped to Canada," and
thence to England. "He wandered over Europe, enlisted in the
Papal Zouaves, deserted and fled to Egypt, where he was
detected and brought back to Washington in 1867. His trial
lasted two months and ended in a disagreement of the jury."
_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
volume 10. chapters 14-15._
ALSO IN:
_H. J. Raymond,
Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln,
chapter 21._
_J. G. Holland,
Life of Lincoln,
chapter 30._
_B. P. Poore,
Reminiscences,
volume 2, chapter 15._
_B. Pittman,
Report of the Trial of the Conspirators.
Trial of John H. Surratt._
_T. M. Harris,
Assassination of Lincoln: a History._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April 15th).
Succession of Andrew Johnson, Vice President, to the Presidency.
"On the day after the assassination, Mr. Johnson, having been
apprised of the event, took the oath of office, at his rooms,
in the presence of the Cabinet, and of several members of
Congress, and was thus quietly inducted into the high position
so summarily vacated by the martyred President. In the few
remarks made on the occasion, as to 'an indication of any
policy which may be pursued,' he said it 'must be left for
development as the administration progresses'; and his own
past course in connection with the Rebellion 'must be regarded
as a guaranty for the future.' To several delegations which
waited upon him he was, however, more explicit. … 'I know it
is easy, gentlemen [he said to a delegation from New
Hampshire], for any one who is so disposed to acquire a
reputation for clemency and mercy. But the public good
imperatively requires a just discrimination in the exercise of
these qualities. … The American people must be taught to know
and understand that treason is a crime. … It must not be
regarded as a mere difference of political opinion. It must
not be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion, to be overlooked
and forgiven.' … It is not surprising, therefore, with
utterances like these, in such seeming harmony with his
antecedents as a Southern Unionist,—antecedents which had
secured his nomination and election to the
Vice-Presidency,—that many were disposed to regard his
advancement to the Presidency at that particular juncture as
but another evidence of Providential favor, if not of Divine
interposition, by which the nation was to be saved from what
many feared might prove Mr. Lincoln's ill-timed leniency and
misplaced confidence. … Such gratulations, however, were of
short continuance. Whatever the cause or design, the new
President soon revealed the change that had taken place and
the purpose to adopt and pursue a policy the exact reverse of
what, with such prompt and unequivocal words, he had
indicated."
_H. Wilson,
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,
volume 3, chapter 43._
"Johnson was inaugurated at 11 o'clock on the morning of the
15th, and was at once surrounded by radical and conservative
politicians, who were alike anxious about the situation. I
spent most of the afternoon in a political caucus, held for
the purpose of considering the necessity for a new Cabinet and
a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln;
and while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feeling was
nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the
Presidency would prove a godsend to the country. Aside from
Mr. Lincoln's known policy of tenderness to the Rebels, which
now so jarred upon the feelings of the hour, his well-known
views on the subject of reconstruction were as distasteful as
possible to radical Republicans. … On the following day, in
pursuance of a previous engagement, the Committee on the
Conduct of the War met the President at his quarters in the
Treasury Department. He received us with decided cordiality,
and Mr. Wade said to him: 'Johnson we have faith in you. By
the gods, there will be no trouble now in running the
government!'"
_G. W. Julian,
Political Recollections,
chapter 11._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April 26th).
General Johnston's surrender.
On the 11th of April, at Smithfield, North Carolina, General
Sherman had news of the surrender of Lee. Entering Raleigh on
the 13th, he received, next day, a communication from the
Confederate General Johnston proposing a truce "to permit the
civil authorities to enter into the needful arrangements to
terminate the existing war." In reply he invited a conference
with Johnston, which occurred on the 17th—the day on which
news of the assassination of President Lincoln was received.
"Sherman said frankly that he could not recognize the
Confederate civil authority as having any existence, and could
neither receive nor transmit to Washington any proposition
coming from them. He expressed his ardent desire for an end to
devastation, and offered Johnston the same terms offered by
Grant to Lee. Johnston replied that he would not be justified
in such a capitulation, but suggested that they might arrange
the terms of a permanent peace. The suggestion pleased General
Sherman; the prospect of ending the war without the shedding
of another drop of blood was so tempting to him that he did
not sufficiently consider the limits of his authority in the
matter." The result was that, on the 18th, Sherman and
Johnston signed a memorandum of agreement which provided for
the disbanding of all the Confederate armies, the recognition
of the State governments of the several States lately forming
the rebel Confederacy, the complete restoration of their old
status in the Union, and complete amnesty to all concerned in
the rebellion. This was forwarded to Washington, and, of
course, it was disapproved, but with an unnecessary
publication of sharp censure of General Sherman, and with
expressions that seemed to imply distrust of the loyalty of
his motives. General Grant was ordered to proceed to General
Sherman's headquarters and to direct further operations.
{3558}
He executed this mission with great delicacy, and his presence
with Sherman was hardly known. The latter held a second
conference with Johnston on the 26th, and there General
Johnston made the surrender of his army on the same terms that
had been granted to Lee.
_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
volume 10, chapter 12._
ALSO IN:
_W. T. Sherman,
Memoirs,
chapter 23 (volume 2)._
_J. W. Draper,
History of the American Civil War,
chapter 92 (volume 3)._
_J. E. Johnston,
Narrative of Military Operations,
chapter 12._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (April-May).
The end of the Rebellion.
Fall of Mobile.
Stoneman's Raid.
Wilson's Raid.
Capture of Jefferson Davis.
The final surrenders.
After the surrender of Johnson, "there were still a few
expeditions out in the South that could not be communicated
with, and had to be left to act according to the judgment of
their respective commanders. … The three expeditions which I
had tried so hard to get off from the commands of Thomas and
Canby did finally get off: one under Canby himself, against
Mobile, late in March; that under Stoneman from East Tennessee
on the 20th; and the one under Wilson, starting from Eastport,
Mississippi, on the 22d of March. They were all eminently
successful, but without any good result. Indeed much valuable
property was destroyed and many lives lost at a time when we
would have liked to spare them. … Stoneman entered North
Carolina and then pushed north to strike the Virginia and
Tennessee Railroad. He got upon that road, destroyed its
bridges at different places and rendered the road useless to
the enemy up to within a few miles of Lynchburg. His approach
caused the evacuation of that city about the time we were at
Appomattox, and was the cause of a commotion we heard of
there. He then pushed south, and was operating in the rear of
Johnston's army about the time the negotiations were going on
between Sherman and Johnston for the latter's surrender. In
this raid Stoneman captured and destroyed a large amount of
stores, while 14 guns and nearly 2,000 prisoners were the
trophies of his success. Canby appeared before Mobile on the
27th of March. The city of Mobile was protected by two forts,
besides other intrenchments—Spanish Fort, on the east side of
the bay, and Fort Blakely, north of the city. These forts were
invested. On the night of the 8th of April, the National
troops having carried the enemy's works at one point, Spanish
Fort was evacuated; and on the 9th, the very day of Lee's
surrender, Blakely was carried by assault, with a considerable
loss to us. On the 11th the city was evacuated. … Wilson moved
out [from Eastport, Mississippi] with full 12,000 men, well
equipped and well armed. He was an energetic officer and
accomplished his work rapidly. Forrest was in his front, but
with neither his old-time army nor his old-time prestige. … He
had a few thousand regular cavalry left, but not enough to
even retard materially the progress of Wilson's cavalry. Selma
fell on the 2d of April. … Tuscaloosa, Montgomery and West
Point fell in quick succession. These were all important
points to the enemy by reason of their railroad connections,
as depots of supplies, and because of their manufactories of
war material. … Macon surrendered on the 21st of April. Here
news was received of the negotiations for the surrender of
Johnston's army. Wilson belonged to the military division
commanded by Sherman, and of course was bound by his terms.
This stopped all fighting. General Richard Taylor had now
become the senior Confederate officer still at liberty east of
the Mississippi River, and on the 4th of May he surrendered
everything within the limits of this extensive command.
General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the trans-Mississippi
department on the 26th of May, leaving no other Confederate
army at liberty to continue the war. Wilson's raid resulted in
the capture of the fugitive president of the defunct
confederacy before he got out of the country. This occurred at
Irwinville, Georgia, on the 11th of May. For myself, and I
believe Mr. Lincoln shared the feeling, I would have been very
glad to have seen Mr. Davis succeed in escaping, but for one
reason: I feared that, if not captured, he might get into the
trans-Mississippi region and there set up a more contracted
confederacy. … Much was said at the time about the garb Mr.
Davis was wearing when he was captured. [Mr. Davis, in his own
narrative, and Captain G. W. Lawton, of the 4th Michigan
Cavalry, which made the capture, agree in stating that the
fugitive chief of the Confederacy wore when taken a lady's
'waterproof,' with a shawl over his head and shoulders. Mr.
Davis says that he picked up his wife's waterproof in mistake
for his own when he ran from the tent in which he was
surprised, while camping, and that his wife threw the shawl
over him. Captain Lawton asserts that he carried a tin-pail,
that he affected to be bent with age, and that when he stepped
out Mrs. Davis asked the soldiers at the tent entrance to let
her 'old mother' go to the run for water.] I cannot settle
this question from personal knowledge of the facts; but I have
been under the belief, from information given to me by General
Wilson shortly after the event, that when Mr. Davis learned
that he was surrounded by our cavalry he was in his tent
dressed in a gentleman's dressing gown. Naturally enough, Mr.
Davis wanted to escape, and would not reflect much how this
should be accomplished provided it might be done successfully.
… Every one supposed he would be tried for treason if
captured, and that he would be executed. Had he succeeded in
making his escape in any disguise it would have been adjudged
a good thing afterwards by his admirers."
_U. S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs,
chapter 69 (volume 2)._
"Davis was taken, via Savannah and the ocean, to Fortress
Monroe; where he was long closely and rigorously imprisoned,
while his family were returned by water to Savannah and there
set at liberty. Secretary Reagan—the only person of
consequence captured with Davis—was taken to Boston, and
confined, with Vice-President Stephens (captured about this
time also in Georgia), in Fort Warren; but each was liberated
on parole a few months thereafter."
_H. Greeley,
The American Conflict,
volume 2, chapter 35._
ALSO IN:
_Major-General Wilson,
How Jefferson Davis was overtaken._
_J. H. Reagan,
Flight and Capture of Jefferson Davis
(in Annals of the War by leading Participants)._
_G. W. Lawton,
"Running at the Heads"
(Atlantic Monthly, September, 1865)._
_J. Davis,
Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,
chapter 54 (volume 2)._
_C. C. Andrews,
History of the Campaign of Mobile._
{3559}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (May).
Feeling of surrendered Confederate officers.
After the surrender of Johnston, General Jacob D. Cox was put
in command of the military district within which the surrender
occurred, and had charge of the arrangements made for paroling
and disbanding the Confederate forces. In a paper prepared for
the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion
of the United States, General Cox has given an interesting
report of conversations which he had in that connection with
General Johnston and General Hardee. Talking with General
Hardee of the war, the latter was asked "what had been his own
expectation as to the result, and when had he himself
recognized the hopelessness of the contest. 'I confess,' said
he, laughing, 'that I was one of the hot Southerners who
shared the notion that one man of the South could whip three
Yankees; but the first year of the war pretty effectually
knocked that nonsense out of us, and, to tell the truth, ever
since that time we military men have generally seen that it
was only a question how long it would take to wear our army
out and destroy it. We have seen that there was no real hope
of success, except by some extraordinary accident of fortune,
and we have also seen that the politicians would never give up
till the army was gone. So we have fought with the knowledge
that we were to be sacrificed with the result we see to-day,
and none of us could tell who would live to see it. We have
continued to do our best, however, and have meant to fight as
if we were sure of success.' … Johnston was very warm in his
recognition of the soldierly qualities and the wonderful
energy and persistence of our army and the ability of Sherman.
Referring to his own plans, he said he had hoped to have had
time enough to have collected a larger force to oppose
Sherman, and to give it a more complete and efficient
organization. The Confederate government had reckoned upon the
almost impassable character of the rivers and swamps to give a
respite till spring—at least they hoped for this. 'Indeed,'
said he, with a smile, 'Hardee here,' giving a friendly nod of
his head toward his subordinate, 'reported the Salkehatchie
Swamps as absolutely impassable; but when I heard that Sherman
had not only started, but was marching through those very
swamps at the rate of thirteen miles a day, making corduroy
road every foot of the way, I made up my mind there had been
no such army since the days of Julius Cæsar.' Hardee
laughingly admitted his mistaken report from Charleston, but
justified it by saying that all precedent was against such a
march, and that he would still have believed it impossible if
he had not seen it done."
_J. D. Cox,
The Surrender of Johnston's Army
(Sketches of War History, Ohio Commandery,
Loyal Legion, United States,
volume 2, page 249-256)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (May).
Statistics of the Civil War.
"In a statistical exhibit of deaths in the Union army,
compiled (1885), under the direction of Adjutant-General Drum,
by Joseph W. Kirkley, the causes of death are given as
follows:
Killed in action, 4,142 officers, 62,916 men;
died of wounds received in action, 2,223 officers, 40,789 men,
of which number 99 officers and 1,973 men were prisoners of war;
died of disease, 2,795 officers and 221,791 men, of which
83 officers and 24,783 men were prisoners;
accidental deaths (except drowned), 142 officers and 3,972 men,
of which 2 officers and 5 men were prisoners;
drowned, 106 officers and 4,838 men,
of which 1 officer and 6 men were prisoners;
murdered, 37 officers and 483 men;
killed after capture, 14 officers and 90 men;
committed suicide, 26 officers and 365 men;
executed by United States military authorities, 267 men;
executed by the enemy, 4 officers and 60 men;
died from sunstroke, 5 officers and 308 men, of which 20
men were prisoners;
other known causes, 62 officers and 1,972 men,
of which 7 officers and 312 men were prisoners;
causes not stated, 28 officers and 12,093 men,
of which 9 officers and 2,030 men were prisoners.
Total 9,584 officers, and 349,944 men,
of which 219 officers and 29,279 men were prisoners.
Grand aggregate, 359,528;
aggregate deaths among prisoners, 29,498.
Since 1885 the Adjutant-General has received evidence of the
death in Southern prisons of 694 men not previously accounted
for, which increases the number of deaths among prisoners to
30,192, and makes a grand aggregate of 360,222." Total number
of men furnished to the United States Army and Navy during the
War from the several States and Territories, 2,778,304; of
which number, 2,494,592 were white troops, 101,207 were
sailors and marines, and 178,975 were colored troops. "The
work of mustering out volunteers began April 29th and up to
August 7th 640,806 troops had been discharged; on September
14th the number had reached 741,107, and on November 15th
800,963. On November 22d, 1865, the Secretary of War reported
that Confederate troops surrendered and were released on
parole" to the number of 174,223. Official returns show the
whole number of men enrolled (present and absent) in the
active armies of the Confederacy, as follows:
January 1, 1862, 318,011;
January 1, 1863, 465,584;
January 1, 1864, 472,781;
January 1, 1865, 439,675.
"Very few, if any, of the local land forces, and none of the
naval are included in the tabular exhibit. If we take the
472,000 men in service at the beginning of 1864, and add
thereto at least 250,000 deaths occurring prior to that date,
it gives over 700,000. The discharges for disability and other
causes and the desertions would probably increase the number
(inclusive of the militia and naval forces) to over 1,000,000.
Northern writers have assumed that the Confederate losses
equalled the Union losses; no data exist for a reasonably
accurate estimate."
_Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,
volume 4, pages 767-768._
"In the four years of their service the armies of the Union,
counting every form of conflict, great and small, had been in
2,265 engagements with the Confederate troops. From the time
when active hostilities began until the last gun of the war
was fired, a fight of some kind—a raid, a skirmish, or a
pitched battle—occurred at some point on our widely extended
front nearly eleven times per week upon an average. Counting
only those engagements in which the Union loss in killed,
wounded, and missing exceeded 100, the total number was
330,—averaging one every four and a half days. From the
northernmost point of contact to the southernmost, the
distance by any practicable line of communication was more
than 2,000 miles. From East to West the extremes were 1,500
miles apart.
{3560}
During the first year of hostilities—one of preparation on
both sides—the battles were … 35 in number, of which the most
serious was the Union defeat at Bull Run. In 1862 the war had
greatly 'increased in magnitude and intensity, as is shown by
the 84 engagements between the armies. The net result of the
year's operations was highly favorable to the Rebellion. In
1863 the battles were 110 in number—among them some of the
most significant and important victories for the Union. In
1864 there were 73 engagements, and in the winter and early
spring of 1865 there were 28. In fact, 1864-65 was one
continuous campaign. … Not only in life but in treasure the
cost of the war was enormous. In addition to the large
revenues of the Government which had been currently absorbed,
the public debt at the close of the struggle was
$2,808,549,437.55. The incidental losses were innumerable in
kind, incalculable in amount. Mention is made here only of the
actual expenditure of money—estimated by the standard of gold.
The outlay was indeed principally made in paper, but the faith
of the United States was given for redemption in coin—a faith
which has never been tarnished, and which in this instance has
been signally vindicated by the steady determination of the
people. Never, in the same space of time, has there been a
National expenditure so great. … For the three years of the
rebellion, after the first year, our War Department alone
expended $603,314,411.82. $690,391,048.66, and $1,030,690,400
respectively. … At the outbreak of hostilities the Government
discovered that it had no Navy at command. The Secretary, Mr.
Welles, found upon entering his office but a single ship in a
Northern port fitted to engage in aggressive operations. … By
the end of the year 1863 the Government had 600 vessels of war
which were increased to 700 before the rebellion was subdued.
Of the total number at least 75 were ironclad."
_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, chapter 2,
and volume 1, chapter 25._
"Eleven Confederate cruisers figured in the 'Alabama claims'
settlement between the United States and Great Britain. They
were the Alabama, Shenandoah, Florida, Tallahassee, Georgia,
Chickamauga, Nashville, Retribution, Sumter, Sallie and
Boston. The actual losses inflicted by the Alabama
($6,547,609) were only about $60,000 greater than those
charged to the Shenandoah. The sum total of the claims filed
against the eleven cruisers for ships and cargoes was
$17,900,633, all but about $4,000,000 being caused by the
Alabama and Shenandoah. … In the 'Case of the United States' …
it is stated that while in 1860 two-thirds of the commerce of
New York was carried on in American bottoms, in 1863
three-fourths was carried on in foreign bottoms. The transfer
of American vessels to the British flag to avoid capture is
stated thus:
In 1861, vessels 126, tonnage 71,673;
in 1862, vessels 135, tonnage 64,578;
in 1863, vessels 348, tonnage 252,579;
in 1864, vessels 106, tonnage 92,052.
… The cruisers built or purchased in England for the
Confederate navy, were the Florida, Alabama, Shenandoah and
Rappahannock. The latter never made a cruise, and the others
were procured for the government by James D. Bulloch, naval
agent. … He also had constructed in France the armored ram
Stonewall."
_J. T. Scharf,
History of the Confederate States Navy,
chapter 26._
See ALABAMA CLAIMS.
"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 expensive, 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 disasters on the Peninsula in 1862, over
80,000 troops were enlisted, organized, armed, equipped, and
sent into the field in less than a month. Sixty thousand
troops have repeatedly gone to the field within four weeks;
and 90,000 infantry were sent to the armies from the five
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin within
twenty days.'"
_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
volume 10, chapter 17._
See also, PRISONS AND PRISON-PENS, CONFEDERATE.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (May-July).
President Johnson's measures of Reconstruction
in the Insurrectionary States.
"On the 10th of May the President [Andrew Johnson] issued a
proclamation declaring substantially that actual hostilities
had ceased, and that 'armed resistance to the authority of the
Government in the insurrectionary States may be regarded at an
end.' This great fact being officially recognized, the
President found himself face to face with the momentous duty
of bringing the eleven States of the Confederacy into active
and harmonious relations with the Government of the Union. …
An extra session of Congress seemed specially desirable at the
time, and had one been summoned by the President, many of the
troubles which subsequently resulted might have been averted.
… Declining to seek the advice of Congress, in the
embarrassments of his position, President Johnson necessarily
subjected himself to the counsel and influence of his
Cabinet," in which he had made no changes since President
Lincoln's death. Among the members of the cabinet, the one who
succeeded in obtaining ascendancy was Mr. Seward, who had
rapidly recovered from his injuries and resumed the direction
of the Department of State. Mr. Seward "was firmly persuaded
that the wisest plan of reconstruction was the one which would
be speediest; that for the sake of impressing the world with
the strength and the marvelous power of self-government, with
its Law, its Order, its Peace, we should at the earliest
possible moment have every State restored to its normal
relations with the Union. He did not believe that guarantee of
any kind beyond an oath of renewed loyalty was needful. He was
willing to place implicit faith in the coercive power of
self-interest operating upon the men lately in rebellion. … By
his arguments and by his eloquence Mr. Seward completely
captivated the President. He effectually persuaded him that a
policy of anger and hate and vengeance could lead only to evil
results. … The President was gradually influenced by Mr.
Seward's arguments, though their whole tenor was against his
strongest predilections and against his pronounced and public
committals to a policy directly the reverse. … Mr. Seward's
influence was supplemented and enhanced by the timely and
artful interposition of clever men from the South. … He
[President Johnson] was not especially open to flattery, but
it was noticed that words of commendation from his native
section seemed peculiarly pleasing to him. …
{3561}
On the 29th of May … two decisive steps were taken in the work
of reconstruction. Both steps proceeded on the theory that
every act needful for the rehabilitation of the seceded States
could be accomplished by the Executive Department of the
Government. … The first of these important acts of
reconstruction, upon the expediency of which the President and
Mr. Seward had agreed, was the issuing of a Proclamation of
Amnesty and Pardon to 'all persons who have directly or
indirectly participated in the existing Rebellion,' upon the
condition that such persons should take and subscribe an
oath—to be registered for permanent preservation—solemnly
declaring that henceforth they would 'faithfully support,
protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States and
the union of the States thereunder;' and that they would also
'abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations
which have been made during the existing Rebellion, with
reference to the emancipation of slaves.' … The general
declaration of amnesty was somewhat narrowed in its scope by
the enumeration, at the end of the proclamation, of certain
classes which were excepted from its benefit." Of the thirteen
classes thus excepted, the first six were nearly identical
with those excepted in President Lincoln's proclamation of
December 8, 1863.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-JULY).
The classes added were: "Seventh, 'All persons who have been,
or are, absentees from the United States for the purpose of
aiding the Rebellion.' … Eighth, 'All officers in the rebel
service who had been educated at the United-States Military or
Naval Academy.' … Ninth, 'All men who held the pretended
offices of governors of States in insurrection against the
United States.' … Tenth, 'All persons who left their homes
within the jurisdiction and protection of the United States,
and passed beyond the Federal military lines into the
pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the
Rebellion.' … Eleventh, 'All persons who have been engaged in
the destruction of the commerce of the United States upon the
high seas … and upon the lakes and rivers that separate the
British Provinces from the United States.' … Twelfth, 'All
persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain amnesty and
pardon, are in military, naval, or civil confinement, as
prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind
either before or after conviction.' … Thirteenth, 'All
participants in the Rebellion, the estimated value of whose
taxable property is over $20,000.' … Full pardon was granted,
without further act on their part, to all who had taken the
oath prescribed in President Lincoln's proclamation of
December 8, 1863, and who had thenceforward kept and
maintained the same inviolate. … A circular from Mr. Seward
accompanied the proclamation, directing that the oath might
'be taken and subscribed before any commissioned officer,
civil, military, or naval, in the service of the United
States, or before any civil or military officer of a loyal
State or Territory, who, by the laws thereof, may be qualified
to administer oaths.' Everyone who took the oath was entitled
to a certified copy of it, … and a duplicate, properly
vouched, was forwarded to the State Department. … With these
details complete, a second step of great moment was taken by
the Government on the same day (May 29). A proclamation was
issued appointing William W. Holden provisional governor of
the State of North Carolina. … The proclamation made it the
duty of Governor Holden, 'at the earliest practicable period,
to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary
and proper for assembling a convention—composed of delegates
who are loyal to the United States and no others—for the
purpose of altering or amending the Constitution thereof, and
with authority to exercise, within the limit of said State,
all the powers necessary and proper to enable the loyal people
of the State of North Carolina to restore said State to its
constitutional relations to the Federal Government.' … It was
specially provided in the proclamation that in 'choosing
delegates to any State Convention no person shall be qualified
as an elector or eligible as a member unless he shall have
previously taken the prescribed oath of allegiance, and unless
he shall also possess the qualifications of a voter as defined
under the Constitution and Laws of North Carolina as they
existed on the 20th of May, 1861, immediately prior to the
so-called ordinance of secession.' Mr. Lincoln had in mind, as
was shown by his letter to Governor Hahn of Louisiana, to try
the experiment of negro suffrage, beginning with those who had
served in the Union Army, and who could read and write; but
President Johnson's plan confined the suffrage to white men,
by prescribing the same qualifications as were required in
North Carolina before the war. … A fortnight later, on the
13th of June, a proclamation was issued for the reconstruction
of the civil government of Mississippi, and William L. Sharkey
was appointed provisional governor. Four days later, on the
17th of June, a similar proclamation was issued for Georgia
with James Johnson for provisional governor, and for Texas
with Andrew J. Hamilton for provisional governor. On the 21st
of the same month Lewis E. Parsons was appointed provisional
governor of Alabama, and on the 30th Benjamin F. Perry was
appointed provisional governor of South Carolina. On the 13th
of July the list was completed by the appointment of William
Marvin as provisional governor of Florida. The precise text of
the North Carolina proclamation, 'mutatis mutandis,' was
repeated in each one of those relating to these six States. …
For the reconstruction of the other four States of the
Confederacy different provisions were made." In Virginia, the
so-called "Pierpont government"—see VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861
(JUNE-NOVEMBER)—"the shell of which had been preserved after
West Virginia's separate existence had been recognized by the
National Government, with its temporary capital at Alexandria,
was accepted by President Johnson's Administration as the
legitimate Government of Virginia. All its archives, property,
and effects, as was afterwards said by Thaddeus Stevens, were
taken to Richmond in an ambulance. … A course not dissimilar
to that adopted in Virginia was followed in Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Tennessee. In all of them the so-called
'ten-per-cent' governments established under Mr. Lincoln's
authority were now recognized. … The whole scheme of
reconstruction, as originated by Mr. Seward and adopted by the
President, was in operation by the middle of July, three
months after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln.
{3562}
Every step taken was watched with the deepest solicitude by
the loyal people. The rapid and thorough change in the
President's position was clearly discerned and fully
appreciated. His course of procedure was dividing the
Republican party, and already encouraging the hopes of those
in the North who had been the steady opponents of Mr.
Lincoln's war policy, and of those in the South who had sought
for four years to destroy the Great Republic."
_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, chapters 3-4._
ALSO IN:
_S. S. Cox,
Three Decades of Federal Legislation,
chapters 18-20._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (July-December).
Reports of Carl Schurz and General Grant on the condition
of affairs in the lately rebellious States.
In the summer of 1865 the Honorable Carl Schurz was
commissioned by President Johnson to visit the Southern States
and investigate the condition of affairs in them. Mr. Schurz,
on returning from this mission, made a report of the result of
his observations and inquiries, and the conclusions to which
they led him, which was transmitted to the Senate, by the
President, on the 18th of December. The views thus submitted
were summarized at the close of the report, as follows: "I may
sum up all I have said in a few words. If nothing were
necessary but to restore the machinery of government in the
States lately in rebellion in point of form, the movements
made to that end by the people of the south might be
considered satisfactory. But if it is required that the
southern people should also accommodate themselves to the
results of the war in point of spirit, those movements fall
far short of what must be insisted upon. The loyalty of the
masses and most of the leaders of the southern people consists
in submission to necessity. There is, except in individual
instances, an entire absence of that national spirit which
forms the basis of true loyalty and patriotism. The
emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as
chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But
although the freedman is no longer considered the property of
the individual master, he is considered the slave of society,
and all independent State legislation will share the tendency
to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery passed by
the conventions under the pressure of circumstances will not
be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of
servitude. Practical attempts on the part of the southern
people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freeman may
result in bloody collisions, and will certainly plunge
southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchical
confusion. Such evils can be prevented only by continuing the
control of the national government in the States lately in
rebellion until free labor is fully developed and firmly
established, and the advantages and blessings of the new order
of things have disclosed themselves. This desirable result
will be hastened by a firm declaration on the part of the
government, that national control in the south will not cease
until such results are secured. Only in this way can that
security be established in the south which will render
numerous immigration possible, and such immigration would
materially aid a favorable development of things. The solution
of the problem would be very much facilitated by enabling all
the loyal and free-labor elements in the south to exercise a
healthy influence upon legislation. It will hardly be possible
to secure the freedman against oppressive class legislation
and private persecution, unless he be endowed with a certain
measure of political power. As to the future peace and harmony
of the Union, it is of the highest importance that the people
lately in rebellion be not permitted to build up another
'peculiar institution' whose spirit is in conflict with the
fundamental principles of our political system; for as long as
they cherish interests peculiar to them in preference to those
they have in common with the rest of the American people,
their loyalty to the Union will always be uncertain. I desire
not to be understood as saying that there are no well-meaning
men among those who were compromised in the rebellion. There
are many, but neither their number nor their influence is
strong enough to control the manifest tendency of the popular
spirit. There are great reasons for hope that a determined
policy on the part of the national government will produce
innumerable and valuable conversions. This consideration
counsels lenity as to persons, such as is demanded by the
humane and enlightened spirit of our times, and vigor and
firmness in the carrying out of principles, such as is
demanded by the national sense of justice and the exigencies
of our situation." With the report of Mr. Schurz, the
President transmitted to the Senate, at the same time, a
letter written by General Grant after making a hurried tour of
inspection in some of the Southern States, during the last
week of November and early in December. General Grant wrote:
"Four years of war, during which law was executed only at the
point of the bayonet throughout the States in rebellion, have
left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that
ready obedience to civil authority the American people have
generally been in the habit of yielding. This would render the
presence of small garrisons throughout those States necessary
until such time as labor returns to its proper channel, and
civil authority is fully established. I did not meet anyone,
either those holding places under the government or citizens
of the southern States, who think it practicable to withdraw
the military from the south at present. The white and the
black mutually require the protection of the general
government. There is such universal acquiescence in the
authority of the general government throughout the portions of
country visited by me, that the mere presence of a military
force, without regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain
order. The good of the country, and economy, require that the
force kept in the interior, where there are many freedmen,
(elsewhere in the southern States than at forts upon the
seacoast no force is necessary,) should all be white troops.
The reasons for this are obvious without mentioning many of
them. The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes
labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a
resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White
troops generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small
number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored
troops must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves.
It is not the thinking men who would use violence towards any
class of troops sent among them by the general government, but
the ignorant in some places might; and the late slave seems to
be imbued with the idea that the property of his late master
should, by right, belong to him, or at least should have no
protection from the colored soldier.
{3563}
There is danger of collisions being brought on by such causes.
My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of
the southern States are anxious to return to self-government,
within the Union, as soon as possible; that whilst
reconstructing they want and require protection from the
government; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what
they think is required by the government, not humiliating to
them as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed out
they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that
there cannot be a greater commingling, at this time, between
the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those
intrusted with the lawmaking power. … In some instances, I am
sorry to say, the freedman's mind does not seem to be
disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live
without care or provision for the future. The effect of the
belief in division of lands is idleness and accumulation in
camps, towns, and cities. In such cases I think it will be
found that vice and disease will tend to the extermination or
great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected
that the opinions held by men at the south for years can be
changed in a day, and therefore the freedmen require, for a
few years, not only laws to protect them, but the fostering
care of those who will give them good counsel, and on whom
they rely."
_39th Congress, 1st Session,
Senate Ex. Doc. no. 2, pages 45-46, 106-107._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (December).
The end of Slavery.
Proclamation of the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (JANUARY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866.
The creation of the Freedmen's Bureau.
On the last day of the 38th Congress, March 3, 1865, an Act
was passed to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen
and refugees. It was among the last Acts approved by Mr.
Lincoln, and was designed as a protection to the freedmen of
the South and to the class of white men known as "refugees,"—
driven from their homes on account of their loyalty to the
Union. The Act provided that the Bureau should have
"supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the
control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from
rebel States, or from any district of country within the
territory embraced in the operations of the army, under such
rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the head of the
bureau and approved by the President. The said bureau shall be
under the management and control of a commissioner, to be
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate. … The Secretary of War may direct such issues
of provisions, clothing, and fuel as he may deem needful for
the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute
and suffering refugees and freedmen, and their wives and
children, under such rules and regulations as he may direct. …
The President may, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, appoint an assistant commissioner for each of the
States declared to be in insurrection, not exceeding ten. …
Any military officer may be detailed and assigned to duty
under this act without increase of pay or allowances. … The
commissioner, under the direction of the President, shall have
authority to set apart for the use of loyal refugees and
freedmen such tracts of land, within the insurrectionary
States, as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United
States shall have acquired title by confiscation, or sale, or
otherwise. And to every male citizen, whether refugee or
freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than
40 acres of such land, and the person to whom it is so
assigned shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the
land for the term of three years, at an annual rent not
exceeding 6 per centum upon the value of said land as it was
appraised by the State authorities in the year 1860. … At the
end of said term, or at any time during said term, the
occupants of any parcels so assigned may purchase the land and
receive such title thereto as the United States can convey. …
On the 20th of May, 1865, Major-General O. O. Howard was
appointed Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. He gave great
attention to the subject of education; and after planting
schools for the freedmen throughout a great portion of the
South, in 1870—five years after the work was begun—he made a
report. It was full of interest. In five years there were
4,239 schools established, 9,307 teachers employed, and
247,333 pupils instructed. In 1868 the average attendance was
89,396; but in 1870 it was 91,398, or 79¾ per-cent. of the
total number enrolled. The emancipated people sustained 1,324
schools themselves, and owned 592 school buildings. The
Freedmen's Bureau furnished 654 buildings for school
purposes."
_G. W. Williams,
History of the Negro Race in America,
part 8, chapters 21-22 (volume 2)._
As the original act, "by experience, had proved somewhat
inadequate for the ends in view, Congress, in the early part
of February, 1866, submitted an act amendatory … for executive
approval. Its main features consisted in the reservation of
three millions of acres of public land in the South from the
operation of the homestead and pre-emption laws for occupation
by former slaves at a rental to be approved by designated
authorities, an extension of the former means of relief in the
way of food and clothing, and the punishment, by tribunals
composed of the agents and officials of the bureau, of all
persons who should violate the rights under this act of its
designated beneficiaries. … The President, chafing under the
non-admission to their representation in Congress of the
Southern States which under his policy had been restored,
vetoed the bill February 19 on various grounds, among the more
important of which, and the only ones of particular import,
were that the measure violated constitutional guarantees in
that no person by our organic code should be deprived of life,
liberty or property without due process of law, and that
taxation should never be imposed without representation. …
February 21st the bill was again put upon its passage, but not
obtaining a two-thirds vote in the Senate, consequently failed
to become a law. … The third Freedmen's Bureau bill, of July,
1866, was another attempt to amend the original law of March
3, 1865, as to juridical measures for the enforcement thereof,
and to perfect the distribution of the abandoned and
confiscated lands of the South among the blacks. It was much
milder in form than the one vetoed in February of the same
year, as it did not make violations of the proposed law a
criminal offence.
{3564}
It proposed to give jurisdiction of such violations, however,
to military tribunals, made up of the agents and officers of
the bureau, until the Southern States had been restored to
their representation in Congress. … July 16, 1866, the
President vetoed the bill as a matter of course. He could have
pursued no other action without self-contradiction. Congress,
moreover, could not have reasonably expected a different
result. It framed the bill not with an eye for executive
approval, but with regard to its ability to pass it over the
disapproval of that official, which it did on the same day the
veto message was received, thereby making it a law of the
land."
_O. Skinner,
The Issues of American Politics,
part 2, chapter 2._
"The law made the agents of this Bureau guardians of freedmen,
with power to make their contracts, settle their disputes with
employers, and care for them generally. The position of Bureau
agent was one of power, of responsibility, capable of being
used beneficently, and sometimes, no doubt, it was; but these
officials were subjected to great temptation. … Nearly every
one of these agents who remained South after reconstruction
was a candidate for office; and many actually became
Governors, Judges, Legislators, Congressmen, Postmasters,
Revenue officers, etc."
_H. A. Herbert,
Why the Solid South?
chapter 1._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (December-April).
The Reconstruction question in Congress.
The Joint Committee of Fifteen.
The shaping of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The "independent measures of the Executive for reconstruction
were far from giving satisfaction to the Republican party.
Within a few days after the meeting of Congress, in December,
1865, Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, asked leave to introduce a
joint resolution which provided that a committee of fifteen
members should be appointed—nine of whom were to be members of
the House and six to be members of the Senate—for the purpose
of inquiring into the condition of the states which had formed
the so-called Confederate States of America. This committee
was to report whether these states or any of them were
entitled to be represented in either house of Congress. Leave
was given to report at any time, by bill or otherwise, and
until such should be made and finally acted upon by Congress,
no member was to be received into either house from any of
those states. All papers relating to this representation in
Congress were to be referred to this committee without debate.
This resolution was adopted in the House by a vote of—yeas
133, nays 36." In the Senate it received amendments which made
it a concurrent, instead of a joint resolution, and which
struck out the clause relating to the non-admittance of
members from the States in question pending the committee's
report, and also that which required a reference of papers to
the committee without debate.
_S. S. Cox,
Three Decades of Federal Legislation,
chapter 18._
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction was constituted by the
appointment (December 14), on the part of the House, of
Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburn, Justin S. Morrill, Henry
Grider, John A. Bingham, Roscoe Conkling, George S. Boutwell,
Henry T. Blow, and Andrew J. Rogers; and by the appointment
(December 21), on the part of the Senate, of William Pitt
Fessenden, James W. Grimes, Ira Harris, Jacob M. Howard,.
Reverdy Johnson, and George H. Williams. The most serious
question connected with the problem of reconstruction was that
arising from the great increase of representation in Congress,
and consequent augmentation of political weight and power,
that must necessarily accrue to the lately rebellious States
from the emancipation of their slaves. To this question the
Committee gave their attention first. By an original provision
of the Constitution, representation is based on the whole
number of free persons in each State and three-fifths of all
other persons. "When all become free, representation for all
necessarily follows. As a consequence the inevitable effect of
the rebellion would be to increase the political power of the
insurrectionary States, whenever they should be allowed to
resume their positions as States of the Union. As
representation is by the Constitution based upon population,
your committee [said their report, when made, on the 8th of
June, 1866] did not think it advisable to recommend a change
of that basis. … It appeared to your committee that the rights
of these persons by whom the basis of representation had been
thus increased should be recognized by the general government.
… It did not seem just or proper that all the political
advantages derived from their becoming free should be confined
to their former masters, who had fought against the Union, and
withheld from themselves, who had always been loyal. … Doubts
were entertained whether Congress had power, even under the
amended Constitution, to prescribe the qualifications of
voters in a State, or could act directly on the subject. It
was doubtful, in the opinion of your committee, whether the
States would consent to surrender a power they had always
exercised, and to which they were attached. As the best if not
the only method of surmounting the difficulty, and as
eminently just and proper in itself, your committee came to
the conclusion that political power should be possessed in all
the States exactly in proportion as the right of suffrage
should be granted, without distinction of color or race. This
it was thought would leave the whole question with the people
of each State, holding out to all the advantage of increased
political power as an inducement to allow all to participate
in its exercise." To this conclusion the committee arrived as
early as the 22d of January, when they made a preliminary
report, recommending an amendment to the constitution to the
effect that "Representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several States which may be included
within this Union according to their respective numbers,
counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding
Indians not taxed: Provided, That whenever the elective
franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account
of race or color, all persons of such race or color shall be
excluded from the basis of representation." Grave objections
were found to the proposed exclusion of the colored race as a
whole from the basis of representation, in case the suffrage
should be denied to any part of it. It was shown, moreover,
that disfranchisement might be practically accomplished on
other grounds than that of race or color and the intended
effect of the constitutional provision evaded.
{3665}
Hence the proposition of the Committee failed in the Senate
(March 9, 1866), though adopted by the House (January 31). On
the 20th of February, the Committee on Reconstruction reported
a concurrent resolution, "That in order to close agitation
upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of
the Government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty which is
agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which
have been declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or
Representative shall be admitted into either branch of
Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have
declared such State entitled to such representation." The
House adopted this important concurrent resolution the same
evening. In the Senate it was debated until the 2d of March,
when it was passed by a vote of 29 to 18. On the 30th of April
the Reconstruction Committee reported a joint resolution
embodying a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution,
designed to protect the rights of the freedmen of the South,
as citizens of the United States, and to fix the basis of
representation in Congress, as well as to settle other
questions arising out of the Rebellion. As adopted by Congress
in June, and subsequently ratified by the legislatures of the
necessary number of States this became what appears as the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (JUNE).
"This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied
by two bills, one of which provided that when any State lately
in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its
Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and
qualified, should be admitted as members of Congress. The
other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late
Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of
the United States."
_W. H. Barnes,
History of the 39th Congress,
chapters 3, and 13-19._
ALSO IN:
_Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction,
39th Congress, 1st session.
H. R. Report, number. 30._
_A. R. Conkling,
Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling,
chapter 14._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866.
The Fenian movement and invasion of Canada.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867;
and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (February).
The French warned out of Mexico.
See MEXICO: A. D.1861-1867.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (April).
The passage of the first Civil Rights Bill
over the President's veto.
"Immediately on the reassembling of Congress after the
holidays, January 5, 1866, Mr. Trumbull [in the Senate], in
pursuance of previous notice, introduced a bill 'to protect
all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and
furnish the means of their vindication.' This bill, having
been read twice, was referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary." A few days later the bill was reported back from
the Committee, and it came up for discussion on the 29th of
January. On the 1st of February it passed the Senate and went
to the House. In that body it was reported from the Judiciary
Committee on the 1st of March, and debate upon the measure
began. It passed the House, with some amendments, March 13th,
by a vote of 111 to 38. The amendments of the House were
agreed to by the Senate, and it went to the President, who
returned it with an elaborate veto message on the 27th of
March. In the Senate, on the 6th of April, by 33 ayes to 15
nays, and in the House three days later, by 122 affirmative
votes to 41 in the negative, the bill was passed
notwithstanding the veto, and became law. As enacted, the
Civil Rights Bill declared "that all persons born in the
United States and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding
Indians not taxed, are … citizens of the United States; and
such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any
previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime, … shall have the same right in
every State and Territory of the United States to make and
enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to
inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and
personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws
and proceedings for the security of person and property as is
enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like
punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law,
statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary
notwithstanding." Section 2 of the act provided penalties for
its violation. The remaining sections gave to the district and
circuit courts of the United States cognizance of all crimes
and offenses committed against the provisions of the act;
extended the jurisdiction of those courts and enlarged and
defined the powers and duties of the district attorneys,
marshals, deputy marshals and commissioners of the United
States, to that end; made it lawful for the President "to
employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United
States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent
the violation and enforce the due execution of this act;" and,
finally, provided that "upon all questions of law arising in
any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may
be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States."
W_. H. Barnes,
History of the 39th Congress,
chapters 9-11._
ALSO IN:
_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,
volume 3, chapter 48._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (June).
Congressional adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The joint resolution, embodying the important amendment to the
Federal Constitution which became, when ratified, the
Fourteenth Amendment, reported to Congress on the 30th of
April, 1866, by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction was
passed by the House of Representatives on the 10th of May, and
by the Senate on the 8th of June, with amendments which the
House concurred in on the 13th of June.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-APRIL).
Having no constitutional power to veto the resolution,
President Johnson sent a message to Congress on the 22d
expressing his disapproval of it. The proposed constitutional
amendment as it passed both Houses of Congress, and as it
became part of the constitution of the United States by
subsequent ratification of the States, is as follows:
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens
of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
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Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the
several States according to their respective numbers, counting
the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for President and Vice President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and
judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants
of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of
the United States, or in any way abridged, except for
participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion
which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in
Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold
any office, civil or military, under the United States, or
under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a
member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or
as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or
judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of
the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of
each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United
States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for
payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing
insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But
neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay
any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or
rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss
or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations
and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
_W. H. Barnes,
History of the 39th Congress,
chapters 17-18._
ALSO IN:
_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, chapter 9._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (July).
Restoration of Tennessee to her
"former, proper, practical relation to the Union."
See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1865-1866.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (July).
The New Orleans Riot.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1867 (October-March).
The Reconstruction issue before the people.
Congress sustained by the North.
President Johnson and the South.
Rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Southern States.
In the elections of 1866 the canvass turned upon the issue
between Congress and the President concerning Reconstruction,
and the popular verdict was overwhelmingly adverse to the
Presidential policy, while a new Congress was elected far more
Radical in disposition than its predecessor. Every Northern
State was swept by the Republicans, with heavily increased
majorities. Even those "which had been tenaciously Democratic
gave way under the popular pressure. … The aggregate majority
for the Republicans and against the Administration in the
Northern States was about 390,000 votes. In the South the
elections were as significant as in the North, but in the
opposite direction. Wherever Republican or Union tickets were
put forward for State or local offices in the Confederate
States, they were defeated by prodigious majorities. Arkansas
gave a Democratic majority of over 9,000, Texas over 40,000,
and North Carolina 25,000. The border slave States were
divided. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky gave strong
majorities for the Democrats, while West Virginia and Missouri
were carried by the Republicans. The unhappy indication of the
whole result was that President Johnson's policy had inspired
the South with a determination not to submit to the legitimate
results of the war, but to make a new fight and, if possible,
regain at the ballot-box the power they had lost by war. The
result of the whole election was to give to the Republicans
143 representatives in Congress and to the Democrats but 49."
But when Congress assembled, in December, the President was
found to be inflexibly determined to pursue the line of policy
which he had marked out. In his message he reiterated his
views "with entire disregard of the popular result which had
so significantly condemned him. … The President's position …
excited derision and contempt in the North, but it led to
mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States
which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of
representation, were fully aware, as was well stated by a
leading Republican, that the key to unlock the door had been
placed in their own hands. They knew that the political
canvass in the North had proceeded upon the basis, and upon
the practical assurance (given through the press, and more
authoritatively in political platforms), that whenever any
other Confederate State should follow the example of
Tennessee, it should at once be treated as Tennessee had been
treated. Yet, when this position had been confirmed by the
elections in all the loyal States, and was, by the special
warrant of popular power, made the basis of future admission,
these ten States, voting upon the Fourteenth Amendment at
different dates through the winter of 1866-67, contemptuously
rejected it. In the Virginia Legislature only one vote could
be found for the Amendment. In the North-Carolina Legislature
only 11 votes out of 148 were in favor of the Amendment. In
the South-Carolina Legislature there was only one vote for the
Amendment. In Georgia only two votes out of 169 in the
Legislature were in the affirmative. Florida unanimously
rejected the Amendment. Out of 106 votes in the Alabama
Legislature only ten could be found in favor of it.
Mississippi and Louisiana both rejected it unanimously. Texas,
out of her entire Legislature, gave only five votes for it,
and the Arkansas Legislature, which had really taken its
action in the preceding October, gave only three votes for the
Amendment. … It was naturally inferred and was subsequently
proved, that the Southern States would not have dared to take
this hostile attitude except with the encouragement and the
unqualified support of the President."
_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, chapter 10-11._
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"No factor in those elections [of 1866] proved more potential
than the rejection by Southern Legislatures of the pending
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The clauses on which its acceptance or rejection turned in
these assemblies were: Section II., which apportioned
Representatives in Congress upon the basis of the voting
population; and Section II!., which provided that no person
should hold office under the United States who, having taken
an oath as a Federal or state officer to support the
Constitution, had subsequently engaged in the war against the
Union. It was claimed by the friends of the Amendment to be
especially unfair that the South should have representation
for its freedmen and not give them the ballot. The right,
however, of a state to have representation for all its free
inhabitants, whether voters or not, was secured by the
Constitution, and that instrument even allowed three-fifths
representation for slaves. New York, Ohio, and other states
denied the ballot to free negroes; some states excluded by
property qualification and others by educational tests, yet
all enjoyed representation for all their peoples. The reply to
this was that the Constitution ought to be amended because the
South would now have, if negroes were denied the ballot, a
larger proportion of non-voters than the North. Southern
people were slow to see that this was good reason for change
in the Constitution, especially as they believed they were
already entitled to representation, and conceived that they
ought to have a voice in proposing as well as in the
ratification of amendments. Five of the restored states had
already ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and such
ratification had been counted valid. If they were states, they
were certainly entitled to representation. So they claimed. It
was perhaps imprudent for Southern people at that time to
undertake to chop logic with their conquerors, or indeed to
claim any rights at all. … The insuperable objection, however,
to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was to be
found in the clause which required the people of the late
Confederate States to disfranchise their own leaders, to brand
with dishonor those who had led them in peace and in war."
_H. A. Herbert,
Why the Solid South?
(Noted Men on the Solid South)
pages 15-16._
In a letter addressed, November 25, 1866, to General Richard
Taylor, lately of the Confederate army, and brother-in-law of
Jefferson Davis, General Grant wrote: "I have talked with
several members of Congress who are classed with the Radicals;
Schenck and Bidwell for instance. They express the most
generous views as to what would be done if the Constitutional
amendments proposed by Congress were adopted by the Southern
States. What was done in the case of Tennessee was an earnest
of what would be done in all cases. Even the disqualification
to hold office imposed on certain classes by one article of
the amendment would, no doubt, be removed at once, except it
might be in the cases of the very highest offenders, such, for
instance, as those who went abroad to aid in the Rebellion,
those who left seats in Congress, etc. All or very nearly all
would soon be restored, and so far as security to property and
liberty is concerned, all would be restored at once. I would
like exceedingly to see one Southern State, excluded State,
ratify the amendments to enable us to see the exact course
that would be pursued. I believe it would much modify the
demands that may be made if there is delay." "But the
President's endeavors did not cease. … He used all the
authority of his office to dissuade the Southerners from
accepting the amendment which the entire North had ratified. …
He converted good feeling and good will on both sides into
discord, and precipitated disasters almost equal to those from
which the State had barely escaped. … This view of Johnson's
conduct was thenceforth steadily maintained by Grant."
_A. Badeau,
Grant in Peace,
chapter 5._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1867 (December-March).
The Tenure-of-Office Bill.
"Against the early decision of the founders of the Government,
… against the repeatedly expressed judgment of ex-President
Madison, against the equally emphatic judgment of Chief
Justice Marshall, and above all, against the unbroken practice
of the Government for 78 years, the Republican leaders now
determined to deprive the President of the power of removing
Federal officers. Many were induced to join in the movement
under the belief that it was important to test the true
meaning of the Constitution in the premises, and that this
could be most effectively done by directly restraining by law
the power which had been so long conceded to the Executive
Department. To that end Mr. Williams of Oregon, on the first
Monday of December, 1866, introduced a bill 'to regulate the
tenure of civil offices.'"
_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, page 270._
"After grave consideration and protracted discussion in both
houses of Congress, the [Tenure-of-Office bill] was passed
near the close of the session. On the 2d of March [1867] the
bill encountered the veto of the President, who saw in the
measure serious interference with the ability of the Executive
to keep his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States. The bill was immediately
passed over the veto without debate. The act thus passed
provides that officers appointed by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate shall hold their offices until their
successors are in like manner appointed and qualified. Members
of the Cabinet hold their offices during the term of the
President by whom they are appointed, and for one month
thereafter, subject to removal by consent of the Senate."
_W. H. Barnes,
History of the 39th Congress,
page 560._
Soon after the inauguration of President Grant, in 1868, the
Tenure-of-Office act was so far modified as to practically
release the President from the restraint which it put upon his
power of removal.
_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, chapter 18, and Appendix B._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1869.
Organization of the Bureau of Education.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1869.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871.
The Ku-Klux Klan of the Southern States and its outrages.