358 “You may make a soldier”: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Safety Matches,” The Independent, Sept. 21, 1865, 4.
359 “No slave will be accepted”: OR, ser. 4, vol. 3, March 23, 1865, 1161.
359 “Assert the right”: Charleston Mercury, Nov. 12, 1864.
359 “call on each State”: OR, ser. 4, vol. 3, 1161.
360 the South’s “peculiar institution”: The question of why the Confederacy lost and what contributed to its military defeat has received much attention; see, e.g., McCurry, Confederate Reckoning, 293, 420n.
361 One Southern cavalry officer: See Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: The Organized War to Victory: 1864–5, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), 284.
361 “Secession was burned out”: Thomas Morris Chester, Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front, ed. R. J. M. Blackett (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 297.
362 Union troops riding: The descriptions are based on Brevet Brigadier General Edward H. Ripley, “The Occupation of Richmond,” in Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion, ed. A. Noel Blakeman, vol. 3 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), 475–80, and Chester, Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent, 289–94.
362 “was filled with furniture”: Charles Carleton Coffin, The Boys of ’61: or, Four Years of Fighting (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1881), 508.
362 “There is no sound”: George Alfred Townsend, Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad during the War (New York: Blelock & Co., 1866), 336–37.
362 “Glory to God”: Coffin, The Boys of ’61, 508.
362 Still, one Federal officer: Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, vol. 2, 471.
363 “I know I am free”: Quoted in Chester, Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent, 297.
363 Later, the new military governor: George F. Shepley, “Incidents of the Capture of Richmond,” The Atlantic Monthly 46 (July 1880), 28.
363 “The Confederate rear”: James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1895), 614. The description of Longstreet comes from Frederick C. Newhall, With Sheridan in the Final Campaign against Lee, ed. Eric J. Wittenberg (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 117.
363 “My God”: Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 615.
363 “to shift from myself”: OR, ser. 1, vol. 46, pt. 1, April 7, 1865, 56.
364 “Not yet”: Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 619.
364 “There is nothing left”: John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904), 438.
365 “A stranger, unacquainted”: Ibid., 457.
365 “This will have the best”: This quote and the account of the meeting are taken from Horace Porter, “Grant’s Last Campaign,” Century Magazine 35 (November 1887), 148–50.
365 “The war is over”: Quoted in Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 468.
365 “When our idolized leader”: Randolph H. McKim, A Soldier’s Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1910), 288.
366 The news of his surrender: See Stephen R. Mallory, “Last Days of the Confederate Government”: McClure’s 26 (December 1900), 107; see also Chester, Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent, 299.
366 “walked empty-handed”: Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 631.
CHAPTER 16: THE SIMPLE, FIERCE DEED
368 A few miles: For the episode, see OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, 657–58.
369 Quantrill and his boys: For this account, I’ve drawn extensively on William Elsey Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1910), 465–82.
369 “The heaviest blow”: Quoted in Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 90.
369 “appalling crime”: OR, ser. 1, vol. 46, pt. 3, April 16, 1865, 787.
369 “the more violently ‘Secesh’ ”: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl’s Diary, ed. Warrington Dawson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 437–38.
371 “He would have flashes, passages”: Horace Traubel, ed., With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. 4 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), 485.
372 “I was led on”: Quoted in Louis J. Weichmann, A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865, ed. Floyd E. Risvold (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), 431.
372 “My hopes are gone”: Quoted in Benjamin Perley Poore, ed., The Conspiracy Trial for the Murder of the President, vol. 1 (Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co., 1865), 376.
372 “That means nigger citizenship”: Quoted in William Hanchett, Lincoln Murder Conspiracies (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 37.
373 “those shooting-irons ready”: Quoted in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial for the Murder of the President, 123.
374 “Tell my mother”: Quoted in Edward Steers, Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005), 204.
374 “Ours is a government”: Howard K. Beale, ed., The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–66 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933), 483.
375 “It is not simply”: Quoted in Giraud Chester, Embattled Maiden: The Life of Anna Dickinson (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951), 84.
376 George Templeton Strong heard: George Templeton Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 3, ed. Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (New York: Macmilllan, 1952), 596.
376 “The news of the capture”: “The Capture of Jeff. Davis,” The New York Times, May 16, 1865, 1.
377 Nearly forty: “Arrest of the Surratt Family,” The New York Times, April 18, 1865, 1.
379 “as a point of evidence”: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, in Collected Novels, ed. Millicent Bell (New York: Library of America, 1983), 612.
380 “gnat-brained, cowardly”: John McElroy, Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons (Toledo, Ohio: D. R. Locke, 1879), 143.
380 Wirz presented himself: For a discussion of Wirz and the conditions at Andersonville, I have drawn on Robert Scott Davis, ed., Ghosts and Shadows of Andersonville: Essays on the Secret Social Histories of America’s Deadliest Prison (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2006); Ovid Futch, History of Andersonville Prison (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968); William B. Hesseltine, Civil War Prisons (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1962); William Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); U.S. Congress, “Trial of Henry Wirz. Letter,” 40th Congress, 2nd Session, 1867–1868, Executive Document no. 23.
380 “It is hard on our men”: OR, ser. II, vol. 7, August 18, 1864, 607.
380 “We ought not”: OR, ser. II, vol. 7, August 19, 1864, 614–15.
381 “a man of iron will”: “The Rebel Assassins,” The New York Times, Aug. 22, 1865.
381 “accomplished by the rebel authorities”: Quoted in Elizabeth D. Leonard, Lincoln’s Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 180.
381 Wirz was then: See Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1881), 497–500.
382 “Talk about liberty”: Quoted in Morgan Peoples, “ ‘The Scapegoat of Andersonville’: Union Execution of Confederate Captain Henry Wirz,” North Louisiana Historical Association Journal 11 (Fall 1980), 13.
382 The buildings were lit: See Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century Co., 1895), 253.
383 “The whole subject”: Gideon Welles, The Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 98.
383 “Liberty has been won”: Quoted in Eric Foner, The F
iery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 335.
383 “we should have slavery”: Quoted in ibid., 320.
383 “the most liberal views”: “Admiral Porter’s Account of the Interview with Mr. Lincoln,” in William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, ed. Charles Royster (New York: Library of America, 1990), 814.
383 “they would be at once”: Ibid., 813.
383 It was an astonishing event: This point is emphasized in Foner, The Fiery Trial, 331.
384 “dignified, urbane”: Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 3, 509.
384 “It was a remarkable illustration”: Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time, 274.
384 “clearly”: “The President and the Rebel Chiefs,” Harper’s Weekly (May 6, 1865), 274.
384 “We have faith”: George W. Julian, Political Recollections, 1840–1872 (Chicago: Janson, McClurg and Co., 1884), 257.
384 “would prove a godsend”: Ibid., 255.
386 “The glittering muskets”: Sherman, Memoirs of William T. Sherman, 865.
386 When a young girl: See William S. McFeely, Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 11.
386 Clover Hooper: See Marian Hooper Adams, The Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, ed. Ward Thoron (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1936), 5–8.
387 All the noise spooked: Ivory G. Kimball, Recollections from a Busy Life, 1843–1911 (Washington, D.C.: Carnahan Press, 1912), 87.
387 “crowded with colored people”: Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, ed. Mary Drake McFeely and William S. McFeely (New York: Library of America, 1990), 769.
387 Instead, there were black laborers: See Adams, The Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 8.
387 “All felt this”: Welles, The Diary of Gideon Welles, vol. 2, 310.
387 “It was a strange feeling”: Adams, The Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 7.
388 “The martyred heroes”: Bret Harte, “A Second Review of the Grand Army,” in Poets of the Civil War, ed. J. D. McClatchy (New York: Library of America, 2005), 175.
388 “Did I ever think”: Quoted in Allan Nevins, The War for the Union, vol. 4 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 359.
CHAPTER 17: BUT HALF ACCOMPLISHED
391 “not very profound”: Whitelaw Reid, After the War: A Southern Tour (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1866), 80.
392 “what ladies would call”: Ibid.
392 “rank secesh women”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, Jan. 28, 1865, MS 431, box 6, folder 32, Yale.
393 “former promises which I”: Impeachment Investigation: Testimony Taken before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the Investigation of Charges against Andrew Johnson, 39th Congress, 2nd Session, and 40th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1867), 116. For a persuasive account of the circumstances that attest to the truth of Saxton’s account, see the superb Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 328–330.
394 “every colored man”: Quoted in William S. McFeely, Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 50.
394 “possessory”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, Jan. 15, 1865, Yale.
394 Not so General Howard: See Howard C. Westwood, “Sherman Marched—and Proclaimed ‘Land for the Landless,’ ” South Carolina Historical Magazine 85 (January 1984), 43.
395 “born in petticoats”: John Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), 24–25.
395 “a man of pure purposes”: “The Bureau Afloat,” The Independent, December 7, 1865, 5.
395 “too much Northern management”: McFeely, Yankee Stepfather, 60.
396 “This is a country”: Quoted in Eric McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 184.
397 “They are doing all”: Quoted in William A. Dobak, Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army, Center of Military History, 2011), 464.
398 “The whites seem wholly”: Sidney Andrews, “Three Months among the Reconstructionists,” The Atlantic Monthly 17 (February 1866), 244.
398 “We heard that a negro”: Emmala Reed, A Faithful Heart: The Journals of Emmala Reed, 1865 and 1866, ed. Robert T. Oliver (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 114.
398 “have the whole black population”: Testimony of General Rufus Saxton, in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, at the First Session, of the 39th Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1866), 219.
398 “The Government is now”: “Has the South Any Statesmen Still Living?,” New-York Tribune, November 24, 1865, 4.
399 “There are large numbers”: Testimony of General Rufus Saxton, in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 220.
399 “It was Plymouth colony”: Quoted in Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction, 331.
400 “I should break faith”: Impeachment Investigation, 116.
400 had raised more than $300,000: See Rufus Saxton to O. O. Howard, Aug. 15, 1865, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, South Carolina, vol. 9, National Archives.
400 “have conspired together”: Quoted in Martin L. Abbott, “The Freedmen’s Bureau in South Carolina,” PhD diss., Emory University, 1954, 17–18.
400 “only care to make”: Laura M. Towne, The Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea-Islands of South Carolina, 1862–1884, ed. Rufus Sargent (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1912), 171.
401 “Yankees and negroes”: Quoted in Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction, 347.
401 “We are in no sense”: Reid, After the War, 357.
401 “break the sad news”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, October 18–19 and 24, 1865.
401 “the negroes in public speeches”: Quoted in McFeely, Yankee Stepfather, 124.
402 “The negro believes”: Testimony of General Rufus Saxton, in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 219.
403 “this unnecessary and unnatural”: “The Freedmen’s Bureau and the Freedmen,” DeBow’s Review (May 1866), 551.
403 In December 1865: General Rufus Saxton, “Annual Report,” December 6, 1865, Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands, box 732, National Archives.
403 “sink to perdition”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, November 20, 1865, Yale.
403 “Here is the proof”: CG, 39th Congress, 1st Session, Dec. 1, 1865, 257.
403 “would not touch”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, Jan. 15, 1866, Yale.
403 “O that we had”: Ibid., Dec. 9, 1865.
403 “loss of rank”: Rufus Saxton, “Autobiography,” typescript, MS 43, Yale.
403 “It is a triumph”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, Jan. 9, 1866, Yale.
404 Ultimately, freedmen holding titles: See the indispensable Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1867 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 163.
404 “All subsequent attempts”: “The Educational Work of General Rufus Saxton among the Freedmen of the South,” Report of the Commissioner of Education, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902), 423.
404 “because he delivered”: “Gen. Saxton’s Removal,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 1866, 2.
404 “a rough character”: O. O. Howard, The Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, vol. 2 (New York: Baker and Taylor Co., 1907), 296.
404 “If the Freedman Bureau”: Quoted in Foner, Reconstruction, 169.
405 “The result of Gen. Saxton’s”: “South Carolina,” The New York Times, May 25, 1866, 5.
405 “that, in their own words”: Testimony of General Rufus Saxton, in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 217.
406 “After earning a dollar”: “The South Victorious,” New York Daily Tribune, Oct. 26, 1865, 8.
<
br /> 406 The French correspondent: See Georges Clemenceau, American Reconstruction, ed. Fernand Baldensberger, trans. Margaret MacVeigh (New York: Dial Press, 1928), 61.
409 “If, as long as”: Message of the President of the United States: Communicating in compliance with, a resolution, of the Senate. Of the 12th instant, information in relation to the States of the Union lately in rebellion, accompanied by a report of Carl Schurz on the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; also a report of Lieutenant General Grant, on the same subject, 39th Congress, 1st Session, no. 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1865), 39.
409 “Centuries of slavery”: Ibid., 32.
409 “A voter is a man”: Ibid., 43.
410 “I did think”: Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interview, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Champaign: University of Illinois, 1998), 315.
410 “A disastrous eclipse”: Diary of S. Willard Saxton, Jan. 15, 1866, Yale.
CHAPTER 18: AMPHITHEATRUM JOHNSONIANUM
412 “political agitators”: Quoted in Philip H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs of Philip H. Sheridan, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888), 235.
413 “several negroes lying dead”: Quoted in Report of the Select Committee in the New Orleans Riots (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1867), 16.
413 “I’ll shoot down”: Quoted in ibid., 196–97.
413 “It seemed ridiculous”: Quoted in ibid., 7.
414 “God damn you”: Quoted in ibid.
414 “I have seen death”: Quoted in the important volume George Rable, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 58.
414 “It is ‘Memphis’ ”: See, e.g., “Great Riot . . . the Fearful Scenes of Memphis Re-Enacted,” The New York Times, July 31, 1866, 1.
415 “some of the colored people”: Quoted in Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1859–1865, ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York: Library of America, 1989), 579.
415 After the war: See Wallace P. Reed, “Last Forlorn Hope of the Confederacy,” Southern Historical Society Papers 30 (1902), 117–21.
415 President Johnson had issued: For a fine summary of the political conditions in postbellum New Orleans, see Scott P. Marler, “ ‘A Monument of Commercial Isolation’: Merchants and the Economic Decline of Post–Civil War New Orleans,” Journal of Urban History 36 (March 2010), 507–27.
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