The Last Weeks of Abraham Lincoln

by David Alan Johnson

  President Lincoln did not know anything about Grant's letter to Lee, or about Lee's reply. The president would be making a return visit to Petersburg that day, and was more than preoccupied with the trip. Mary Lincoln had not seen Petersburg; she had been in Washington when the president made his first visit to the city, and she wanted to visit it before returning to Washington. The president decided to accompany her and her party. Mrs. Lincoln's group would include Tad, Senator Charles Sumner, Elizabeth Keckley, and the Marquis de Chambrun. They would travel by train from City Point, and were on their way by noon.

  Julia Grant had not been invited to join the Lincolns on their journey, and was offended by the exclusion. “I saw very little of the presidential party now,” she wrote, “as Mrs. Lincoln had a good deal of company and seemed to have forgotten us.”16 “I felt this deeply and could not understand it,” she said many years later. One possible explanation for Mrs. Grant's exclusion from the president's party was Mary Lincoln's embarrassment—she was still suffering from humiliation over her behavior regarding Mrs. Ord at the end of March. Even though the incident had taken place almost two weeks earlier, the president's wife was probably still too ashamed to face Julia Grant.

  The train ride to Petersburg was ordinary and uneventful—entirely too ordinary and uneventful to suit the Marquis de Chambrun. Even though President Lincoln was the focal point of the journey—“we grouped ourselves around him”—the marquis pointed out that the president rode “in an ordinary day-car” along with a few unidentified officers and “several Negro waiters” from the River Queen.17 This struck the marquis as not only unusual but also improper. In France, such a high-ranking government official would have his own private carriage, which would have been elegantly and lavishly decorated and would have been reserved for himself and members of his family. But President Lincoln rode in an ordinary, plebian “day-coach,” which he deigned to share with officers and Negro waiters—the marquis referred to these passengers as “intruders.” Instead of elegance, Lincoln apparently preferred plainness and simplicity, which the marquis found impossible to fathom.

  This fondness for straightforwardness was one of the reasons behind President Lincoln's admiration for General Grant, who preferred to wear a private's simple blouse instead of a general's gold braid and was totally unconcerned with his own appearance. The president shared Grant's fondness for informality and lack of pretention.

  President Lincoln had seen Petersburg before; it had not changed since his first visit. Marquis de Chambrun remarked that the city “looks less desolate than Richmond,” and also that the president was “well received” by the local residents.18 Lincoln received word that former US congressman Roger A. Pryor was in Petersburg. Roger Pryor had been a brigadier general in the Confederate army until he resigned his commission, and he was now living in the city. The president made an attempt to visit Pryor at his house; he had arranged for a parole when Pryor had been arrested for suspected espionage at the end of 1864. But Pryor's wife, Sarah, refused to allow Lincoln to see her husband—her reason was that General Lee was still in the field and, as such, her husband could not meet with the head of the opposing army. This was another indication for Lincoln that reunifying North and South was going to be a long and difficult undertaking.

  Elizabeth Keckley had gone off on her own when she arrived at Petersburg. She had lived there when she was still a slave, and wanted to revisit some of the places she had known when she was young. But her brief stay only brought back “painful memories.”19 She had no desire to stay more than a few hours. “I was not sorry to turn my back again upon the city,” she later wrote with a note of finality.

  The president, Mrs. Lincoln, and the rest of their party returned to City Point by train later in the day. The Lincolns spent the evening aboard the River Queen, where they were visited by two congressmen, Elihu B. Washburne of Illinois and James G. Blaine of Maine. Both were on their way to see General Grant at Farmville, where they hoped to get their own perspectives on the war and how it was being fought. Congressman Washburne represented Grant's home district of Galena, Illinois, and was also an old friend of the general.

  The get together with the Lincolns was friendly and affable; everybody enjoyed themselves and seemed to have a good time talking and telling stories. “Mr. Lincoln was in perfect health and excellent spirits,” Congressman Washburne wrote.20 He regaled his friends with tales of his visit to Richmond, “which had all the quaintness and originality for which he was distinguished,” and kept up a constant stream of anecdotes. Before his guests left, Lincoln asked Congressman Washburne if he would take a letter to his son Robert, who was a member of General Grant's staff. The congressman personally collected the letter from the president on the following morning. “He was erect and buoyant, and it seemed to me I had never seen him look so great and grand.” The time he was spending away from Washington, combined with the encouraging news from the war, was obviously having a beneficial effect on his health and morale.

  It had not been a good day for Robert E. Lee. He was still doing his best to get to Danville and, if all went well, from Danville to General Joseph Johnston's army in North Carolina. But because the enemy was in possession of most of the railway lines in the vicinity, General Lee decided that it would be best to go to Danville by a longer, more indirect route. His plan was to meet a supply train filled with rations at Appomattox Station, give his men their first meal in five days, and keep moving westward.

  Grant's army was still on the south side of the Appomattox River; the Army of Northern Virginia occupied the north side. The river in between was deep enough and wide enough to keep the Union army at bay, to stop it from making a crossing. This should allow General Lee's men enough time to catch their breath and put some distance between themselves and Grant's pursuing army. Two bridges connected the north bank and the south bank, but General Lee ordered both of them to be destroyed. Grant's engineers might build a pontoon bridge across the Appomattox, but the time spent in building a bridge would allow the Confederates to keep moving toward Danville without interference from the Union army.

  During the afternoon of April 7, General Lee received word that enemy troops had crossed the Appomattox in force, and were now on the north side of the river. Only one of the two bridges across the river had been destroyed, which allowed an entire Federal division to cross over to the north bank. An attempt to recapture the bridge had been beaten back.

  When he received the report, General Lee lost control of himself and indulged in a monumental temper tantrum. He was fully aware that the escape of his army was now in jeopardy because one of his officers had failed to carry out orders, and he could also see that this failure might turn out to be fatal. After regaining his composure, the general ordered artillery to be brought up in case the enemy mounted an attack.

  Sometime after receiving this report, a messenger rode up with General Grant's letter asking him to surrender. General James Longstreet was sitting next to Lee when the letter was delivered. Lee read the note and handed it over to Longstreet without saying anything. The general read the letter and handed it back to Lee with a two-word response: “Not yet.”21

  The president had been at City Point since March 24, which was just over two weeks. He had hoped to stay in Virginia until General Lee surrendered his army, but even though General Grant was closing in on Lee and the end was now only a matter of days away, it was time for President Lincoln to return to Washington.

  The visit had certainly helped to raise his spirits, although the telegrams from generals Grant and Sherman were probably just as responsible for his improved morale as the change in scenery. Since his arrival at City Point, Petersburg had been evacuated, Richmond had been captured, and both Grant and Sheridan had kept Lincoln informed that Lee's army was on the brink of surrender. It has been an exciting time for him. Four years of war were finally coming to an end. He had been in the war zone and had conferred with his general-in-chief while the fighting was building to a
climax. But there was work to do at the White House that needed his attention and could not be left to another time. The president made plans to return to Washington later in the day.

  Before he went back to Washington, though, President Lincoln wanted to pay a visit to the wounded soldiers at Depot Field Hospital, which was about a mile and a half southwest of City Point. The hospital was made up of several hundred tents, along with about one hundred wooden barracks, and treated thousands of patients within its wards. At about noon, the president, Senator Charles Sumner, Mary Lincoln, and the Marquis de Chambrun were driven to the sprawling hospital grounds, where they were met by the senior surgeon in charge. The surgeon escorted the presidential party to the nearest ward and the president began visiting the patients.

  “We passed before all the wounded and amputated,” the Marquis de Chambrun noted. “Almost all the wounded soldiers asked the President how the fight was progressing and inquired as to the political outlook, then smiled happily when told: ‘Success all along the line.’”1 Mary Lincoln did not stay with her husband throughout his visit to the hospital, but Chambrun and Senator Sumner remained nearby while the president was making his tour. Lincoln's greetings and consoling words were much appreciated by all the soldiers in the wards—and Lincoln visited many soldiers and shook a great many hands that afternoon. Senator Sumner seemed to be absolutely amazed that the president had taken the time to shake so many hands, although he seemed to be more moved than surprised by what President Lincoln had done.

  The president's stay at Depot Field Hospital lasted until late afternoon. But the day's activities were not over yet. After leaving the hospital, President Lincoln and his party were driven to what the Marquis de Chambrun described as “headquarters.” Headquarters was situated “on the far side of the town in a fine suburban mansion.”2 While Lincoln was busy conferring with “the generals commanding the garrison,” Chambrun and the others visited the mansion and its abandoned gardens. The marquis was much impressed by the estate, and commented on how beautifully the grounds were laid out. But his escort brushed off the compliment, and dismissed the mansion's former owners with one hard comment: “These people were traitors.” Residents of the South were not the only people who had hostile thoughts about the coming reunification.

  The president was scheduled to depart City Point for Washington before the evening was over, but first he had to attend a reception aboard the River Queen. Enduring the rigors of a formal reception, and all the handshaking that went with it, was not something that the president anticipated with any pleasure. The afternoon at the hospital had already taken its toll; Lincoln was tired and needed a rest. Back on board the River Queen, he told his wife, “Mother, I have shaken so many hands today that my arms ache tonight. I almost wish that I could go to bed now.”3

  It was a nice party, at least according to most of those who were present. Julia Grant had not been invited; neither had Commander John S. Barnes. Commander Barnes was on board the River Queen, under orders from Admiral Porter, but he did not set eyes on Mary Lincoln. “Mrs. Lincoln was indisposed and I did not meet her,” he said.4 Nobody knew if the president's wife was not feeling well, or if she was still annoyed with Commander Barnes.

  Elizabeth Keckley was there, and seemed to be enjoying the party and the entire scene. “As the twilight shadows deepened the lamps were lighted and the boat was brilliantly illuminated,” she wrote. To her, the River Queen looked like “an enchanted floating palace.”5

  A military band played for the guests during the reception. The president asked the band play La Marseillaise, which was a selection he liked and had requested for his own enjoyment. After hearing it played once, Lincoln asked the musicians to perform it a second time. The encore was apparently for the benefit of the Marquis de Chambrun. The president turned toward Chambrun and said, with a touch of dry humor, “You have to come over to America to hear it”—at the time, Napoleon III had banned La Marseillaise as the French national anthem, calling it too revolutionary.6

  Afterward, the president asked the marquis if he had ever heard “the rebel song Dixie.” Chambrun confessed that he had not, and Lincoln asked “the surprised musicians” to play it. “That tune is now Federal property,” President Lincoln explained, “and it good to show the rebels that, with us in power, they will be free to hear it again.” This was another instance of the president's intended policy toward “the rebels”—he did not even propose to ban Dixie, the Confederate national anthem.7

  The reception began to wind down around ten o'clock. Officers came by to shake hands with the president and to say goodbye before going ashore. When someone asked Lincoln to make a speech, he replied that he was too tired just then. But, he told everyone present, he would be making a speech on Tuesday, after he returned to Washington.

  Commander John S. Barnes remained on board the River Queen, expressly to look after President Lincoln. On Admiral Porter's instructions, Commander Barnes assigned two officers, along with a detachment of enlisted men, to guard “the president's person day and night.”8 As an added precaution, the crew of the River Queen had their identity papers and personnel records examined. “Mr. Lincoln's safety” was very much on Admiral Porter's mind, whether it was because he had heard rumors of an assassination attempt against the president, or if it was just a matter of concern because he considered the security of the president to be the Navy's responsibility. According to Commander Barnes, Admiral Porter “now became full of concern lest come mishap should occur during Mr. Lincoln's trip back to Washington, for which he or the Navy might be held responsible.”

  At about eleven o'clock, the River Queen's lights and party decorations were taken down, and the boat began steaming down the James River toward Chesapeake Bay. She was accompanied by the USS Bat. Admiral Porter would like to have had the president's boat escorted by a few additional gunboats and other armed warships, but the Queen was too fast to allow for this possibility. The president wanted to return to Washington as quickly as the River Queen's boilers would allow, which eliminated the possibility of being convoyed by slower and more heavily armed escorts. No other ship except the Bat could even hope to keep pace with the River Queen.

  After the excitement of the day's activities, President Lincoln was in a quiet and thoughtful mood. “Mr. Lincoln stood a long while gazing at the hills,” the Marquis de Chambrun observed.9 The area had been a battleground throughout much of the war but the same ground, “so animated a few days before,” was now “dark and silent.” The president stayed out on deck “absorbed in thought” while the River Queen made its way downriver.

  In the country west of Sayler's Creek, Colonel Elisha Hunt Rhodes was also in a thoughtful mood. His thoughts mainly concerned the ending of the war. “I have fifty men less than when I left Petersburg on the 2nd,” he wrote.10 “Some are dead, and some are wounded. God help them and bring us peace.” Colonel Rhodes was also thinking about General Robert E. Lee, and about when he might surrender: “Still on, on, with cannon booming in our front, showing that Lee is not far away and perhaps may be at bay.”

  General Grant was also focusing on General Lee's army, which, in the general's estimation, was “rapidly crumbling.”11 Soldiers who had enlisted from that particular section of Virginia, he noted, “were continually dropping out of the ranks and going to their homes.” General Grant came across a Confederate colonel who introduced himself as the proprietor of the hotel where Grant had spent the previous night. The colonel reported that he was the only man in his regiment who had not deserted. Since he was now all alone, he decided to drop out along with everybody else. Now he wanted to surrender and did not exactly know what to do. Grant advised him to stay where he was “and he would not be molested.” Grant's reaction to the Confederate colonel's story was typically straightforward: “That was one regiment which had been eliminated from Lee's force by the crumbling process.”

  Colonel Horace Porter's account of this incident is a bit more sarcastic than General Grant's. Colo
nel Porter described the hotel proprietor as “a rather hungry-looking gentleman in gray, wearing the uniform of a colonel,” who decided to “stop off” at home to look after his property after his regiment had crumbled to pieces.12 “It is safe to say that his hotel had never before had so many guests in it,” Colonel Porter remarked, “nor at such reduced rates.” He went on to say that “His story was significant as indicating the disintegrating process which was going on in the ranks of the enemy.” The colonel's regiment may have crumbled away, but at least he still had his hotel.

  General Grant's intentions were to cross the Appomattox River to the north bank and then move westward with the units that were trying to make contact with Lee's rear guard. The troops were moving “with alacrity” and without any straggling. “They began to see the end of what they had been fighting four years for,” Grant explained. “Nothing seemed to fatigue them.”13

  Before setting out from Farmville, General Grant sent another letter to General Lee regarding the Army of Northern Virginia's surrender:

  APRIL 8, 1865.

  General R. E. LEE,

  Commanding C. S. Army:

  GENERAL: Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of same date, asking the condition on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply I would say that, peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, viz, that the men and officers surrender shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged. I will meet you, or will designate officers to meet any officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.

  Very respectfully, your obedient servant,