White House tradition dictated that at receptions the president choose a woman to lead the promenade with him. “The custom is an absurd one,” Mary Lincoln insisted. “On such occasions our guests recognize the position of the President as first of all; consequently, he takes the lead in everything; well, now, if they recognize his position they should also recognize mine. I am his wife, and should lead with him. And yet he offers his arm to any other lady in the room, making her first with him and placing me second. The custom is an absurd one, and I mean to abolish it. The dignity I owe to my position, as Mrs. President, demands that I should not hesitate any longer to act.”262
As her conduct at City Point indicated, Mary Lincoln had few compunctions about berating her husband in the presence of others. Oregon Senator George H. Williams recalled riding in a carriage with the president and First Lady and “being treated the entire ride with upbraiding and a tirade from Mrs. Lincoln,” throughout which Lincoln sat “with tired, worn, patient face, saying not a word.”263 On February 22, 1864, while attending a fair to benefit the Christian Commission, Lincoln was surprised by the crowd’s demand for a speech. According to General Richard J. Oglesby, who had prevailed upon him to attend the meeting only by promising that he would not have to speak, Lincoln reluctantly delivered a few remarks. Afterward, while the First Couple and Oglesby awaited their carriage, Mrs. Lincoln said to her husband: “That was the worst speech I ever listened to in my life. How any man could get up and deliver such remarks to an audience is more than I can understand. I wanted the earth to sink and let me go through.” The president made no reply. He, his wife, and the general rode back to the White House in silence.264
How often an enraged, jealous Mary Lincoln attacked her husband is impossible to say, but Mrs. Keckly reported that when “in one of her wayward impulsive moods, she was apt to say and do things that wounded him deeply,” and she “often wounded him in unguarded moments.”265 Mrs. Lincoln herself acknowledged that during their courtship, “I doubtless trespassed, many times & oft, upon his great tenderness & amiability of character.” That pattern continued throughout the marriage.266
On the way back to City Point from the review, Lincoln’s spirits seemed to recover, evidently lifted by the magnificent appearance of the Army of the James. He had spent several hours reviewing the soldiers, who cheered him enthusiastically. Colonel Theodore Lyman of General Meade’s staff reported that as Lincoln “rode down the ranks, plucking off his hat gracefully by the hinder part of the brim, the troops cheered quite loudly.” The colonel unflatteringly described his commander-in-chief as “the ugliest man I ever put my eyes on,” with “an expression of plebeian vulgarity in his face that is offensive (you recognize the recounter of coarse stories).” But, Lyman added, the president had “the look of sense and wonderful shrewdness, while the heavy eyelids give him a mark almost of genius,” and all in all, he seemed like “a very honest and kindly man” with “no trace of low passions in his face.” In sum, “he is such a mixture of all sorts, as only America brings forth” and “is as much like a highly intellectual and benevolent Satyr as anything I can think of.” Lyman was “well content to have him at the head of affairs.”267 The next morning Captain Barnes as usual reported to the River Queen, where Lincoln received him cordially and told him that Mrs. Lincoln was unwell. The two men then visited the headquarters of Grant, who sat rather silent while Lincoln and Admiral Porter discussed news from the front.
After lunch, Robert Todd Lincoln visited the Bat and invited Barnes to join the First Family’s excursion to the Point of Rocks on the Appomattox River. The captain accepted and returned with Robert to the River Queen, where Lincoln received him with customary warmth. Mrs. Lincoln, however, made it clear that she found Barnes’s presence offensive, so he did not accompany the presidential party on its stroll through the woods.
That night General Sherman arrived from North Carolina, where his 80,000-man army was being resupplied. Over the next two days he along with Admiral Porter and Grant conferred with Lincoln aboard the River Queen. The president initially appeared worn out to Sherman, who recalled that as the discussion progressed, “he warmed up and looked more like himself.” The ship’s after-cabin had no tables or maps. “We merely sat at our ease in such chairs as happened to be there,” Sherman wrote three years later.268
As the president listened anxiously, Grant explained how Sheridan’s men would soon swing around Lee’s flank and sever his supply lines. Grant’s only concern was that before Sheridan could do so, Lee might abandon Petersburg and Richmond and try to connect with Joseph E. Johnston. If the Confederates made such a move, they would be pursued hotly. The president took great interest in this scenario. Grant assured him he could prevent Lee’s breakout, for Sheridan’s cavalry were just then moving on the Confederates’ communications. Sherman remarked that even if the Army of Northern Virginia did break out, he could fend off both Johnston and Lee until Grant caught up and placed the Confederates in a fatal vise. When Lincoln expressed fear that in Sherman’s absence Johnston might escape southward by rail, the general replied: “I have him where he cannot move without breaking up his army, which, once disbanded, can never again be got together.”
In response to the president’s questions about the march from Georgia to North Carolina, Sherman regaled him with amusing tales of his troops, known informally as “bummers.” The president, Sherman wrote, “laughed at my former troubles with the Sanitary Commission and Christian Commission and told an apt illustration of the confusion their super philanthropy had sometimes occasioned.” According to Sherman, Lincoln’s “face brightened wonderfully” in “lively conversation,” and he became “the very impersonation of good-humor and fellowship.” But if the conversation flagged, his face “assumed a sad, and sorrowful expression.” The president exclaimed more than once: “Must more blood be shed! Cannot this last bloody battle be avoided!” The generals observed that it was up to the Confederates.269
Shortly after the second discussion ended around noon on March 28, Lincoln encountered a journalist who had just arrived from a sojourn in Savannah and Charleston. “How do the people like being back in the Union again?” the president asked. “I think some of them are reconciled to it,” came the reply, “if we may draw conclusions from the action of one planter, who, while I was there, came down the Savannah River with his whole family—wife, children, negro woman and her children, of whom he was father—and with his crop of cotton, which he was anxious to sell at the highest price.” Lincoln’s eyes twinkled as he remarked laughingly: “I see; patriarchal times once more; Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael, all in one boat! I reckon they’ll accept the situation now that they can sell their cotton at a price never dreamed of before the war.”270
Sherman returned to North Carolina that afternoon, and the following day Grant left City Point to launch his final offensive. Before departing for the front, the commanding general bade farewell to Lincoln. While doing so, he told him of the clever but impractical advice he regularly received. “The last plan proposed was to supply our men with bayonets just a foot longer than those of the enemy, and then charge them. When they met, our bayonets would go clear through the enemy, while theirs would not reach far enough to touch our men, and the war would be ended.”
Lincoln with a chuckle replied: “Well, there is a good deal of terror in cold steel. I had a chance to test it once myself. When I was a young man, I was walking along a back street in Louisville one night about twelve o’clock, when a very tough-looking citizen sprang out of an alleyway, reached up to the back of his neck, pulled out a bowie-knife that seemed to my stimulated imagination about three feet long, and planted himself square across my path. For two or three minutes he flourished his weapon in front of my face, appearing to try to see just how near he could come to cutting my nose off without quite doing it. He could see in the moonlight that I was taking a good deal of interest in the proceeding, and finally he yelled out, as he steadied the knife clos
e to my throat: ‘Stranger, kin you lend me five dollars on that?’ I never reached in my pocket and got out money so fast in all my life. I handed him a bank-note, and said: ‘There’s ten, neighbor; now put up your scythe.’ ”
As they strolled to the depot, Lincoln appeared to Horace Porter “more serious than at any other time since he had visited headquarters. The lines in his face seemed deeper, and the rings under his eyes were of a darker hue. It was plain that the weight of responsibility was oppressing him.” He cordially shook hands with Grant and his staff and “said in a voice broken by an emotion he could ill conceal: ‘Good-by, gentlemen. God bless you all! Remember, your success is my success.’ ”271
For the next few days Lincoln spent much of his time in the telegraph office, reading and sending messages. He also toured hospitals. “Time hung wearily with the President,” an officer recalled, “and as he walked through the hospitals or rode amid the tents, his rueful countenance bore sad evidence of the anxiety and anguish that possessed him.”272 Sometimes he took excursions with Admiral Porter on the river and carriage rides around the countryside. He carried a detailed map of the area showing the location of all the forces and often explained to Porter how he would act if he were the commander in charge. One day they visited a deserted fort overlooking the Union army’s works. After Porter described the difficulties the troops had in constructing it under enemy fire and the hardships they endured throughout the harsh winter, Lincoln remarked: “The country can never repay these men for what they have suffered and endured.”273
On April 1, when journalist Sylvanus Cadwallader handed him Confederate battle flags captured earlier that day by Sheridan’s men at the decisive engagement of Five Forks, Lincoln joyfully exclaimed: “Here is something material—something I can see, feel, and understand. This means victory. This is victory.” With the aid of Cadwallader he updated maps into which he had stuck red-headed and black-headed pins indicating the position of both armies.274
The following day, Union forces broke through the Confederate lines, forcing Lee to abandon Petersburg. A jubilant Lincoln telegraphed Grant: “Allow me to tender to you, and all with you, the nation[’]s grateful thanks for this additional, and magnificent success.”275 On April 3, at the general’s invitation, Lincoln hastened to inspect the fallen city. En route, his train halted as thousands of Rebel prisoners crossed the tracks. They were mostly conscript youngsters in rags and lacking blankets, shoes, and headgear. Their appearance moved the president to exclaim: “Poor boys! poor boys! If they only knew what we are trying to do for them they would not have fought us, and they would not look as they do.”276
Upon arrival, Lincoln, along with his son Tad and Admiral Porter, quickly rode down the largely deserted streets to Grant’s headquarters. The president’s face radiated joy as he grabbed the general’s hand, which he shook for a long while as he poured from his overflowing heart profound thanks and congratulations. It was one of the happiest moments of his life. “The scene was singularly affecting, and one never to be forgotten,” recalled one of Grant’s aides.
Lincoln said: “Do you know, general, I had a sort of sneaking idea all along that you intended to do something like this; but I thought some time ago that you would so maneuver as to have Sherman come up and be near enough to cooperate with you.”
“Yes,” replied Grant, “I thought at one time that Sherman’s army might advance far enough to be in supporting distance of the Eastern armies when the spring campaign against Lee opened; but I had a feeling that it would be better to let Lee’s old antagonists give his army the final blow, and finish up the job. If the Western troops were even to put in an appearance against Lee’s army, it might give some of our politicians a chance to stir up sectional feeling in claiming everything for the troops from their own section of the country. The Western armies have been very successful in their campaigns, and it is due to the Eastern armies to let them vanquish their old enemy single-handed.”277
Lincoln then discussed postwar political arrangements, emphasizing as he had done with Sherman that he wished the Rebels to be treated leniently. After about an hour and a half, Grant returned to the front.
On his way back to the train station, Lincoln passed by numerous houses demolished by artillery fire. He paused before the remains of a mansion, which had been struck over 100 times, and shook his head. Blacks and soldiers had broken into warehouses and were helping themselves to the abundant tobacco. The president and Admiral Porter each strapped a bale onto their horses’ backs. As they rode along, troops greeted Lincoln jocularly, shouting out, “How are you, Abe?” and “Hello, Abe!”278 Upon returning to City Point, Lincoln was refreshed and energized, happily convinced that the war would soon end.
That evening aboard the Malvern, the president asked Admiral Porter: “Can’t the navy do something at this particular moment to make history?”
“Not much,” replied Porter; “the navy is doing its best just now holding in utter uselessness the rebel navy, consisting of four heavy ironclads. If those should get down to City Point they would commit great havoc. … In consequence, we filled up the river with stones so that no vessels can pass either way. It enables us to ‘hold the fort’ with a very small force, but quite sufficient to prevent any one from removing the obstructions. Therefore the rebels’ ironclads are useless to them.”
“But can’t we make a noise?” asked Lincoln; “that would be refreshing.”
Porter obligingly had several ships fire broadsides rapidly for an hour, lighting up the night sky. Lincoln acknowledged “that the noise was a very respectable one.”
Suddenly a distant huge explosion caused the Malvern to rock, prompting Lincoln to leap up and exclaim: “I hope to Heaven one of them has not blown up!”
Porter assured him that no Union vessels had been harmed but rather that the Confederates were destroying their ironclads.
“Well,” Lincoln remarked, “our noise has done some good; that’s a cheap way of getting rid of ironclads. I am certain Richmond is being evacuated, and that Lee has surrendered, or those fellows would not blow up their ironclads.” Shortly thereafter three more such explosions announced the destruction of the remaining ironclads. To clear the river, Porter ordered the immediate removal of all obstructions. By the morning that task had been accomplished, and boats began sweeping the James for mines.279
Visiting Richmond
April 4 was the most remarkable day of Lincoln’s presidency. Learning that Union troops were entering Richmond, he exclaimed: “Thank God that I have lived to see this! It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years, and now the nightmare is gone. I want to see Richmond.”280 At 9 A.M., he and Tad, along with his bodyguard (army Captain Charles B. Penrose), naval Captain A. H. Adams, and Lieutenant W. W. Clemens of the Signal Corps, set sail for the Virginia capital aboard the River Queen, escorted by the Bat, the Malvern, and the Columbus, which carried the presidential cavalry escort and carriage. The captain of the River Queen, fearful that his vessel might strike a mine, had Lincoln ride on the upper deck, where he was less likely to be injured in such an eventuality.
The flotilla soon shrank. The Bat was unable to pass the first line of remaining obstructions at Aikens’s Landing and was left behind. At the second such line, by Drewry’s Bluff, the River Queen and the Malvern were grounded as they approached an imposing array of mines, sunken vessels, and rock-filled crates. Lincoln, Porter, Penrose, Clemmens, and Tad transferred to the admiral’s elaborate barge, propelled by twelve stalwart oarsmen. Lincoln wryly told Porter, “this brings to my mind a fellow who once came to me to ask for an appointment as minister abroad. Finding he could not get that, he came down to some more modest position. Finally he asked to be made a tide-waiter. When he saw he could not get that, he asked me for an old pair of trousers. But it is well to be humble.”281
As the party tried to pass the U.S.S. Perry, which was stuck fast, Lincoln and the others nearly lost their lives. The barge headed toward
a stretch of deep water between the Perry and the shore, but it was not wide enough for the oarsmen to row through. So it was decided to try to approach the passage rapidly and glide by the ship. As it moved forward, the barge unexpectedly encountered a strong current that sent her directly under the steamer’s giant paddle wheel. At that moment, the ship’s engineer began to turn the wheel, inadvertently threatening to kill everyone in the barge. Lincoln and Porter hallooed, impelling the captain to rush to the engine room and stop the wheel in the nick of time, for one more rotation would have smashed the barge. As they forged ahead, Lincoln seemed exceptionally happy, though he looked askance at the ugly mines that had been hauled to the riverbanks.
After proceeding another 7 miles, the party arrived at Richmond, landing near the notorious Libby Prison. No reception committee greeted them, even though General Godfrey Weitzel, whose black troops were among the first to enter the city, had been alerted. The presidential party arrived earlier than expected.
As Lincoln and his companions stepped ashore, the journalist Charles C. Coffin pointed them out to some nearby blacks, who shouted “Hallelujah!” and “Glory! Glory! Glory!” Dozens of them raced to the landing, yelling and screaming “Hurrah! hurrah! President Linkum hab come!” Hearing the commotion, more blacks—men, women, and children—poured into the streets, crying “Bress de Lord! Bress de Lord!” One woman with tears in her eyes exclaimed, “I thank you, dear Jesus, that I behold President Linkum!” Poor whites also flocked to see the eminent visitor. Coffin informed readers of the Boston Journal that “no written page or illuminated canvas can give the reality of the event—the enthusiastic bearing of the people—the blacks and poor whites who have suffered untold horrors during the war, their demonstrations of pleasure, the shouting, dancing, the thanksgiving to God, the mention of the name of Jesus—as if President Lincoln were next to the son of God in their affections—the jubilant cries, the countenances beaming with unspeakable joy, the tossing up of caps, the swinging of arms of a motley crowd—some in rags, some bare-foot, some wearing pants of Union blue, and coats of Confederate gray, ragamuffins in dress, through the hardships of war, but yet of stately bearing.”282
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