There was to have been a grand review of the troops on the 23d, but on that day occurred a desperate battle for the possession of Fort Steadman. The Rebels having once taken it, they were driven out of it with heavy losses, and Mr. Lincoln visited the scene of the combat. The enthusiasm with which he was everywhere received by the soldiers enabled him to say, "This is better than a review."

held

General Sherman arrived and attended a council of on the 28th, at which were also present Mr. Lincoln and Generals Grant, Sheridan, Meade, and Ord. He then shortly rejoined his army, and the results of the consultation followed with terrific rapidity. The operations under Grant began in a few hours after the adjournment of the council. There was some sharp fighting on the next day, Wednesday. Thursday was so stormy as somewhat to interfere with activity, but through Friday, Saturday, and Sunday there was a continuous succession of bloody engagements along the entire front. Mr. Lincoln remained at City Point, receiving reports of the progress-making and sending frequent dispatches to the people. On Sunday he was able to announce "the triumphant success of our armies, after three days of hard fighting, in which both sides displayed unsurpassed valor."

The results were indeed a triumphant success, for the army under Lee had lost one half of its effective men. Twelve thousand of them were prisoners in the hands of the victors, with fifty pieces of artillery. There was no longer any possibility of holding Richmond. There had not been any, in reality, for a long time, and the most obstinate courage was compelled to admit it now. The evacuation was made by the Rebel authorities, civil and military, at once and in haste. What remained of the Rebel fleet in the James River was blown up before the departure, and as little was left of other war-material as the time and opportunity given for destruction or removal permitted.

The Union troops nearest the city were those under General

Weitzel, lying on the north side of the James River. On the morning of Monday, April 3, the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry was sent out by General Weitzel to reconnoiter. They quickly discovered and reported the flight of the enemy, and the city was entered and occupied by a quarter past eight o'clock. The wearied, half-starved people received the Union troops with demonstrations of joy. They had had a good deal more than enough of Secession and its consequences.

As soon as possible after receiving the news of the evacuation of Richmond, and on the same day, Mr. Lincoln made a visit to the captured city. General Grant was pushing on after Lee with all the forces he could move, and Sherman was hurrying up from the South. There remained no imaginable loophole for the escape of the last Rebel army, and the war was practically over.

Mr. Lincoln was carried by a war-steamer to a point about a mile below Richmond, and the rest of the way in one of the steamer's boats. Senator Sumner was with him; also little Tad; and the sailors who rowed the boat went ashore too, as a kind of a suggestion of a body-guard. He did not need any. On foot, almost alone, with a dignity of simplicity which became him wonderfully well, he passed on from street to street. It was something like a dream: and yet all the wild dreams of the Confederate leaders had forever vanished in their enforced abandonment of that town. He was at once recognized by some of the colored people, and the news of his presence spread like wildfire. They thronged around him with all the extravagant expressions of joy and devotion of which their excitement made them capable. General Weitzel's men had to come and serve as a police force to clear the streets. Men and women wept and danced and shouted and praised God.

The President took his hat off, reverently, and bowed; but he could not speak, for the tears were pouring down his cheeks. The Liberator had come suddenly among the people whose bonds he had broken and to whom he had opened a hope of

free manhood and womanhood in the days that were to be. It was an hour worth living and dying for, and it was given him to see it. He returned to City Point that night, but paid the city another visit two days later with Mrs. Lincoln and Tad, accompanied by Vice-President Johnson and others. Some of the more prominent citizens came to see him, at that time, to discuss the future of the State of Virginia. Among these was Judge Campbell, whom the President had met in the peace conference in Hampton Roads. This gentleman desired him to authorize the assembling of the State Legislature, that by distinct State action the troops of Virginia might be withdrawn from Lee's army and the present condition of affairs accepted. The death of the Rebellion hardly required the verdict of such a local "coroner's jury" as was thus asked for, and the President refused to issue any proclamation in the premises. He afterwards, however, wrote to General Weitzel from City Point, instructing him to permit the assembling of the legislature. He told him to show the note to Judge Campbell, but not to have it made public. The surrender of the army under Lee rendered needless any withdrawal of the Virginia troops, but, much to Mr. Lincoln's disgust, Judge Campbell made public not only the private conversation but also the contents of the note to the general. It was made to appear as an indication of the President's purposes and policy, and it unduly affected the terms made by General Sherman with General Johnston, in the surrender of the part of the Rebel army commanded by the latter. This made some trouble for General Sherman and stirred Mr. Lincoln to a more than ordinary expression of feeling.

Here and there a few remnants of Confederate forces were still in arms, but nowhere was there anything properly to be described as an army. Such as they were, the remnants rapidly surrendered or disbanded, and even the guerilla bands gave it up.

Orders were speedily issued from the War Department for

the cessation of enlistments and for stopping the operation of the draft, with other orders looking to the reduction and eventual disbandment of the armies.

Military restrictions upon trade and commerce between the warring sections were removed as fast as was consistent with local requirements. The whole nation awoke to the glad certainty that Peace had come, and that it had come to stay, and that it had so come as to be worth the having. It had come by the forcible and complete restoration of the authority of the United States over every part and parcel of its territory and population. It had come without treaty, or condition, or compromise. All questions of future citizenship, whether of rebels recently in arms or of black men recently in bondage, were left in the unfettered control of Congress and the President. There were such questions, truly, and they presented momentous problems for statesmen to consider, but the manner of the closing of the war stripped all such problems of artificial complications and left them in shape and condition for swift and sure solution. Mr. Lincoln's views upon the subject of universal suffrage were already well known, and he took specific opportunities for leaving them on record. His desire and hope was that the colored men should become citizens in all respects, without even covert reference to the tint of their skins. He did not remain long enough to see his wishes gratified, but there was no doubt in his mind as to the policy to be pursued by the government. He well knew that the processes required for making good citizens, of even white material, demanded time and opportunity and patient wisdom for the production of tolerable results, and he believed that the requirements of the enfranchised race were measurably the same. They too would need both time and opportunity and patience and intelligent help. The supervision of all that work was to be put into other hands than his, and already he had done what he could.

CHAPTER LVI.

PEACE.

A Rejoicing People-Vanity and Revenge conspire to Commit MurderThe Assassination-The Mourning of a Mighty Multitude-Voices from Distant Lands-The Teachings of a Great Life.

THE idea, at times the dread, of Mr. Lincoln's possible assassination had floated vaguely in the minds of his friends from the very hour of his election. It was again and again suggested to him in many ways, but he invariably refused to give it a

serious consideration.

Threats were so freely made, as the war went on, and those around him were so reasonably alarmed, that he was almost compelled to justify with argument his utter indifference. Men would need motives, he thought and said, for the doing of such a deed. "If they kill me, the next man will be just as bad for them; and in a country like this, where our habits are simple, and must be, assassination is always possible, and will come if they are determined upon it."

He came and went, attended or unattended, as the case might be, with careless freedom, not giving the matter any further consideration.

With the collapse of the rebellion and the return of peace, it seemed as if all supposable rational motive for assailing the President's life had vanished, and with it all peril of his assassination.

No words can paint the joy of the nation over the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army. The bells in all the steeples rang like mad; the cannon boomed; the people met in the churches to praise God; men who did not know