Twelfth—All persons who at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed, are in military naval, or civil confinement, or custody, or under bonds of the civil, military or naval authorities or agents of the United States, as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offences of any kind either before or after conviction.
Thirteenth—All persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion, and the estimated value of whoso taxable property is over twenty thousand dollars.
Fourteenth—All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as prescribed in the President's Proclamation of December 8, A.D., 1863, or an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States since the dates of said proclamation, and who have not thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate—provided that special application may be made to the President for pardon by any person belonging to the excepted classes, and such clemency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States.
The Secretary of State will establish rules and regulations for administering and recording the said amnesty oath so as to insure its benefit to the people and guard the government against fraud.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington the Twenty-ninth day of May, in the year of Our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.
By the President: ANDREW JOHNSON. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Introduction
1. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, one vol. ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1954), p. 679.
2. Quotes from the second inaugural address are from Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), pp. 332–33.
3. Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 219.
4. “Gen. Grant and the President,” New York Times, September 23, 1864, p. 4. Also, Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 4 (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1956), p. 112. The text of both letters can be found in the appendix.
March 4, 1865, Saturday: A Sacred Effort
1. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 529.
2. Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), p. 251.
3. Ibid., p. 252.
4. Ibid.
5. “Additional Details of the Inauguration Ceremonies,” New York Daily Herald, March 5, 1865, p. 1.
6. New York World, March 6, 1865.
7. “From Washington: The Inauguration Ceremonies,” New York Times, March 6, 1865, p. 1.
8. Ibid.
9. Quotes from the second inaugural address are from Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), pp. 332–33.
The text of the entire speech can be found in the appendix.
10. “The President's Address,” New York Daily Herald, March 6, 1865, p. 5.
11. “From Washington: The Inauguration Ceremonies,” New York Times, March 6, 1865, p. 1.
12. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, one vol. ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1954), p. 663.
13. New York World, March 6, 1865.
14. Lincoln, Collected Works, vol. 4, p. 271.
15. Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Boston: DeWolfe & Fiske, 1892), p. 402.
16. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 568.
March 5, 1865, Sunday: A Welcome Relief
1. “Service at the Capitol,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), March 6, 1865, p. 3.
2. Dan Gilgoff, “Abraham Lincoln's Religious Uncertainty,” US News & World Report, February 12, 2009, https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/02/12/abraham-lincolns-religious-uncertainty.
3. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 382.
4. Lincoln, Collected Works, vol. 7, p. 542.
5. “Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln,” in John Hay, Addresses of John Hay (New York: Century Co., 1907), p. 337. The Bible quote is from Luke 10:37.
March 6, 1865, Monday: Inauguration Ball
1. “The Inaugural,” New York Times, March 6, 1865, p. 4.
2. New York World, March 6, 1865.
3. “The Inaugural,” Inquirer (Philadelphia), March 6, 1865, p. 4.
4. “Topics of the Day: Mr. Lincoln,” Spectator (London), March 25, 1865, p. 4.
5. Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (Buffalo, NY: Stansil and Lee, 1931), p. 155.
6. “News from Washington: The Grand Ball,” New York Times, March 7, 1865, p. 4.
7. “Lincoln's Patent,” Abraham Lincoln Online, 2018, http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/education/patent.htm.
Part of the application reads, “Be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, in the county of Sangamon, in the state of Illinois, have invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable buoyant air chambers with a steam boat or other vessel for the purpose of enabling their draught of water to be readily lessened to enable them to pass over bars, or through shallow water, without discharging their cargoes.”
8. William F. Richstein, The Stranger's Guide-Book to Washington City, and Everybody's Pocket Handy-Book (Washington, DC: W. F. Richstein, 1864), p. 25.
9. “News from Washington: The Grand Ball,” New York Times, March 7, 1865.
10. “The Inauguration Ball,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), March 7, 1865, p. 2.
11. Ibid.
12. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), p. 107.
March 7, 1865, Tuesday: Office Routine
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 338–39.
2. Ibid., pp. 339–42.
3. Ibid., p. 339.
4. Times (London), May 25, 1864, p. 8.
5. Lincoln, Collected Works, p. 339.
6. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Two Volumes in One (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1894), p. 592.
7. Ibid., pp. 592–93.
8. Ibid., p. 595–96.
March 8, 1865, Wednesday: Political Affairs
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 345.
2. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Two Volumes in One (New York: Charles L. Webster), p. 593.
3. Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 210.
March 9, 1865, Thursday: Communications with General Grant
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 346.
2. Ibid. p. 348.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 347.
5. Ibid., p. 348.
6. Details of the Battle of Kilpatrick's Drawers are from a conversation with an acquaintance who lives in the area.
March 10, 1865, Friday: Day of Rest
1. George R. Agassiz, ed., Meade's Headquarters, 1863–1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1922), pp. 324–25.
2. John Hay, “Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln,” in Addresses of John Hay (New York: Century Co., 1906), p. 339.
3. William Tecu
mseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vols. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, p. 297.
March 11 and 12, 1865, Saturday and Sunday: Life and Death Decisions
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 350.
2. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vols. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, p. 297.
March 13, 1865, Monday: Not Sick, Just Tired
1. “Illness of the President,” New York Herald, March 14, 1865, p. 4.
2. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vols. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, p. 297.
3. Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935), p. 544.
4. Clifford Dowdey, ed., The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), p. 914.
5. “Black Confederate Soldiers,” http://confederatelegion.com/Black_Confederate_Soldiers.html [site discontinued].
March 14, 1865, Tuesday: Cabinet Meeting
1. Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), p. 297.
2. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vols. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, p. 299.
3. Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 211.
March 15, 1865, Wednesday: Evening at Grover's Theatre
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 356. Thurlow Weed, who was also the editor of the Albany Evening Journal, predicted that Lincoln would never be reelected in 1864.
2. “The German Opera,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), March 16, 1865, p. 2.
3. “Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln,” in John Hay, Addresses of John Hay (New York: Century Co., 1907), p. 332.
4. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 570.
5. The information concerning John Wilkes Booth's meeting at Gautier's Restaurant is based on three main sources: The Lincoln Assassination Suspect file, at the National Archives; Samuel B. Arnold, Memoirs of a Lincoln Conspirator (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1996); and Michael W. Kauffman, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and Lincoln Conspiracies (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 476–82.
March 16, 1865, Thursday: Tad
1. Margarita Spalding Gerry, comp. and ed., Through Five Administrations: Reminiscences of Colonel William H. Crook, Body-Guard to President Lincoln (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1910), p. 23.
2. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vols. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, pp. 300–301.
3. Ibid., pp. 302–303.
March 17, 1865, Friday: The President Thinks Ahead
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 359.
2. Ibid., pp. 360–61.
3. Ibid., pp. 361–62.
4. Ibid., p. 362.
March 18 and 19, 1865, Saturday and Sunday: Executive Decisions
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 364.
2. Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), p. 260.
3. Lincoln, Collected Works, p. 365.
4. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vol. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, p. 303.
5. Ibid., pp. 304–306.
6. Ibid., pp. 306–307.
7. Ibid., p. 314.
8. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Two Volumes in One (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1894), p. 595.
9. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey, 1984), p. 402.
10. Welles, Diary, p. 261.
March 20, 1865, Monday: City Point
1. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey, 1984), p. 402.
2. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 367.
3. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Two Volumes in One (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1894), p. 596.
March 21, 1865, Tuesday: Lincoln Decides to Take a Trip
1. John S. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington to Richmond in 1865: I. The President Sees a Fight and a Review,” Appleton's Magazine 9, no. 5 (May 1907): 518.
2. “At Old Fort Stevens: The Stars and Stripes Raised Over an Historic Spot,” Washington Times, June 15, 1900, p. 3.
3. Ibid.
4. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 369.
5. Ibid., p. 223.
6. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey, 1984), p. 402.
7. “German Opera,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), March 22, 1865, p. 2.
March 22, 1865, Wednesday: A Flattering Letter
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 371.
2. Ibid., pp. 371–72.
3. Garnet Wolseley, “A Month's Visit to the Confederate Headquarters,” in The American Civil War: An English View: The Writings of Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, ed. James A. Rawley (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002), p. 48.
4. Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), p. 173.
5. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, two vols. in one ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1984), vol. 2, p. 323.
6. Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 213.
March 23, 1865, Thursday: Heading for City Point
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 372.
2. John S. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington to Richmond in 1865: I. The President Sees a Fight and a Review,” Appleton's Magazine 9, no. 5 (May 1907): 521.
3. “News from Washington,” New York Herald, March 24, 1865, p. 1.
4. Lincoln, Collected Works, p. 373.
5. Margarita Spalding Gerry, comp. and ed., Through Five Administrations: Reminiscences of Colonel William H. Crook, Body-Guard to President Lincoln (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1910), p. 40.
March 24, 1865, Friday: Arrival
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 373.
2. Ibid.
3. John S. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington to Richmond in 1865: I. The President Sees a Fight and a Review,” Appleton's Magazine 9, no. 5 (May 1907): 521.
4. Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1975), p. 142.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Adam Badeau, Grant in Peace: From Appomattox to Mount McGregor: A Personal Memoir (Hartford, CT: S. S. Scranton, 1887), p. 362. Also in Dent Grant, Personal Memoirs, p. 145.
March 25, 1865, Saturday: Visiting a Battlefield
1. Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 373.
2. Ibid., p. 374.
3. John S. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington to Richmond in 1865: I. The President Sees a Fight and a Review,” Appleton's Magazine
9, no. 5 (May 1907): 521.
4. Lincoln, Collected Works, p. 373.
5. Jesse Grant Cramer, ed., Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, 1857–78 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912), p. 106.
6. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Two Volumes in One (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1894), p. 597.
7. Ibid.
8. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey, 1984), p. 406.
9. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington,” p. 521.
10. Ibid.
11. Margarita Spalding Gerry, comp. and ed., Through Five Administrations: Reminiscences of Colonel William H. Crook, Body-Guard to President Lincoln (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1910), p. 42.
12. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington,” pp. 521–22.
13. Gerry, comp. and ed., Through Five Administrations, p. 43.
14. Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 406.
15. Ibid., p. 407.
16. Ibid., pp. 407–408.
17. Ibid., p. 408.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid. p. 409.
20. Lincoln, Collected Works, p. 374.
March 26, 1865, Sunday: The Presidentress
1. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (Secaucus, NJ: Blue and Grey, 1984), pp. 409–10. General John G. Parke sent this telegram: “The enemy attacked my front this morning at about 4.30 with three divisions under command of General [John B.] Gordon. By a sudden rush they seized the line…to the right of Fort Stedman, wheeled, and…took possession of the fort…. Our troops on either flank stood firm…the enemy were driven out of the fort, with the loss of a number of prisoners, estimated at about 1,600….” Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 374.
2. Ibid.
3. Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 412.
4. Ibid.
5. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Two Volumes in One (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1894), p. 599.
6. Ibid., p. 600.
7. Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 413.
8. John S. Barnes, “With Lincoln from Washington to Richmond in 1865: I. The President Sees a Fight and a Review,” Appleton's Magazine 9, no. 5 (May 1907): 522.
9. Ibid., pp. 522–23.
10. Ibid., p. 523.
The Last Weeks of Abraham Lincoln Page 31
