The passages of this speech, quoted above, as we must pre sume correctly, from the columns of a New York paper, ob tained a most important significance in view of the tragical death of Mr. Lincoln, on the 14th day of April, and the succession of Mr. Johnson to the office of President of the United States, and that of dictator of the programme of subjugation consequent upon the war. But these events lie beyond the period and purpose of our narrative of the war, and we make only this brief and passing reference to them.

CHAPTER XXVI.

What the Confederates anticipated on the fall of Richmond.-Two opinions.-Prophetic words of the Richmond Examiner.-Disintegration of Lee's army.-The line of his retreat.-Grant's pursuit. -Sheridan captures prisoners, guns, and wagons.-Sheridan's dispatch.-Change in the movements of both armies.-The situation at Appomattox Court-house.--How Lee was surrounded.-SURRENDER OF THR ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. A frightful demoralization of the army.-More than two-thirds of the men deserted.--Pickett's division.-Reasons to suppose that Generai Lee had predetermined a surrender on moving from Richmond and Petersburg. Straggling of his soldiers.-Official correspondence concerning the surrender.-Interview between General Lee and General Grant at McLean's house.--How General Lee looked.-Grant's generous conduct.-Scenes between the lines of the two armies. An informal conference of officers.-How the news of surrender was received in the Yankee army. -How received at Washington.--Secretary Stanton's dispatch.-President Lincoln's speech.-" Dixie" in Washington.-General Lee's farewell address to his army.-His return to Richmond.--Effect of Lee's surrender. -General Johnston's department.--MOVEMENTS In the Southwest.--Fall of MoBILE.—Wilson's cavalry expedition through Alabama and Georgia.-SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON'S ARMY.--Sherman's "basis of negotiations" repudiated at Washington. The policy of the Northern Government anmasked.-Sherman's reply.-SURRENDER OF TAYLOR'S ARMY.-SURRENDER OF KIRBY'S SMITH'S ARMY.-" War meetings" in Texas.-Want of public resolution.-The last act of the war.-A sudden peace, and what it implied.

FOR a long time there had been two opinions in the Confed eracy, as to the effect the fall of Richmond would have upon the war. Many intelligent persons considered that Richmond was not a vital point in the Confederacy; and now that it had been evacuated, there were not a few persons who still indulged the hope of the supremacy of the Southern arms and the dream of independence. There were found sanguine persons in Richmond the day after the evacuation, who pleased themselves with the imagination that that event was only about to date a new era in the Confederate defence; that the Government would re-establish itself, perhaps, in Georgia, and with advantages and under auspices it had never had before; that it might reopen Georgia and the Carolinas, and thus place itself nearer its resources of subsistence, and have the control of a territory practically much larger than that in the Richmond jurisdiction. But these hopeful and ingenious persons wholly failed to take

Into account the moral effect of the loss of the Confederate capital, and to calculate the easy transition in such circumstances from despondency to despair.

Several weeks before the catastrophe the Richmond Examiner had used the following almost prophetic language' "The evacuation of Richmond would be the loss of all respect and authority towards the Confederate Government, the disin tegration of the army, and the abandonment of the scheme of an independent Southern Confederation. Each contestant in the war has made Richmond the central object of all its plans and all its exertions. It has become the symbol of the Confederacy. Its loss would be material ruin to the cause, and, in a moral point of view, absolutely destructive, crushing the heart and extinguishing the last hope of the country. Our armies would lose the incentive inspired by a great and worthy object of defence. Our military policy would be totally at sea; we should be without a hope or an object; without civil or military organization; without a treasury or a commissariat? without the means of keeping alive a wholesome and active public sentiment; without any of the appliances for supporting a cause depending upon a popular faith and enthusiasm; with out the emblems or the semblance of nationality."

These sad but intelligent anticipations were now to be vividly realized. The disintegration of Lee's army commenced with its withdrawal from the Richmond and Petersburg lines.

In his last telegram to Richmond from Petersburg, Sunday evening, the 2d of April, General Lee stated that some time. during the night he would fall back behind the Appomattoxthat is, to the north bank of that stream, to prevent being flanked. The Appomattox rises in Appomattox County, eighty miles west of Petersburg, flows northeast to Matoax Station, on the Danville Railroad, twenty-seven miles from Richmond, and thence southeast to City Point. When Lee sent his telegram above alluded to, his troops were holding a semicircular line south of the river, and including Petersburg; his left rest ing on the Appomattox, his right on the Southside Railroad, some fifteen miles west of the town. The Yankee armies were pressing his whole line, Sheridan being on his extreme right. During Sunday night he got across the Appomattox, and com

menced to push up the north bank of that stream. The Yankee forces were hurried up the Southside Railroad to Burkes ville Junction to cut him off. Sheridan made direct pursuit, with the double object of harassing the rear of the retreating columns, and cutting off such troops as were retreating from Richmond and attempting to join Lee.

Grant was possessed of the interior or shorter lines to Burkesville. He might thus hope to cut off Lee's retreat from Danville or from Lynchburg. Indeed, there appeared but one way for Lee to escape-namely, a tremendous run up the bank of the Appomattox, to reach the Southside Railroad at Farmville, destroying the bridges in his rear. Even this chance Sheridan was sanguine of cutting off.

On the 5th of April, Sheridan made an important capture of prisoners, guns, and wagons. It appears that Lee's army was moving as rapidly west as his limited transportation and the demoralized condition of his troops would permit, on the road between Amelia Court-house and Jetersville. The Yankee cavalry having gained possession of the Danville Railroad some time previous, were not long in discovering his whereabouts. Sheridan immediately sent Davies' brigade around on his left flank; and although they were repulsed and driven back upon the infantry, it was not until they had taken several hundred prisoners, five guns, and a number of wagons.

On the evening of the 5th of April, a portion of the advance of Grant's army was at Burkesville Station (the junction of the Southside and Danville railroads). Sheridan, with the main body of his cavalry, at three P. M. of that day, was at Jetersville, on the Danville road, a station forty-three miles from Richmond. Lee, at the same date, with the remnants of his army, was at Amelia Court-house, a point thirty-six miles from Richmond, and seven miles north of Sheridan's advance.

In this situation Sheridan telegraphed to Grant: "I feel confident of capturing the entire Army of Northern Virginia, if we exert ourselves. I see no escape for Lee."

On the 6th, at daylight, General Meade, with the Second, Fifth, and Sixth corps, was at Burkesville Station, Lee being near Amelia Court-house; the Yankee forces were south and west of him. Sheridan's advance was at Jetersville; and, as it moved towards Amelia Court-house, its left stretched well ou

towards Painesville, a point about ten miles northwest of Amelia Court-house, and directly on the line of Lee's retreat towards the Appomattox.

It seemed as if Sheridan's position at Jetersville, with his left across the line of Lee's westward march to the Appomattox, would compel Lee to stand still. Hence the enemy's movement towards the Appomattox was given up, and the men were faced about and moved northeast, towards Amelia Court-house, expecting to fight Lee there. Lee, however, was already on his way from the court-house towards the river; and when this became known, the direction of the enemy's movement was changed once more.

On the evening of the 6th, two divisions of the Sixth Army Corps came up with Lee's retreating columns at the intersection of the Burkesville Station road with the road upon which they were moving. Some desultory fighting ensued. Sheridan telegraphed: "If the thing is pressed, I think Lee will surrender." He claimed already to have captured Generals Ewell, Kershaw, Button, Corse, De Bare, and Custis Lee, several thousand prisoners, fourteen pieces of artillery, with caisBons, and a large number of wagons.

The position into which the remnant of Lee's army had now been forced was one from which it was impossible to extricate it without a battle, which it was no longer capable of fighting. His army lay massed a short distance west of Appomattox Court-house; his last avenue of escape towards Danville, on the southwest, was gone; he was completely hemmed in. Meade was in his rear on the east, and on his right flank north of Appomattox Court-house; Sheridan had headed him off completely, by getting between him and Lynchburg; General Ord was on the south of the court-house, near the railroad; the Yankee troops were in the most enthusiastic spirits, and what remained of the Army of Northern Virginia was plainly doomed.

SURRENDER OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.

The line of Lee's retreat afforded ample evidence of the ex cessive, frightful demoralization of his army. It was strewn