sprang from their couch of grass and leaves, and eagerly looked for the foe. He had disappeared, but there was no mistaking his trail. He was sweeping along in a northwest direction, probably aiming to gain another road which would conduct him to the Southside Railroad. He was soon overtaken, upon a plain surrounded by hills, from which there was no escape, and where his destruction was sure. Our forces came thundering on, planting their batteries upon the surrounding crests, ready to drown the rebel army in a deluge of blood. It is said that General Grant, conscious that this crisal hour was at hand, humanely shrinking from the thought of slaughtering so many men who had been dragged unwittingly into the rebellion, had sent word to General Lee that he was willing to grant him reasonable terms of capitulation. The answer he received induced him to send in response the following terms:

"I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regi mental commander sign a like parole for the men under their commands." The arms, artillery, and public property to be packed and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their parole, and the laws in force where they reside."

To this proposition General Lee immediately returned answer, in the following terms:

"I have received your letter of this date, containing the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th instant, they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect."

Our troops were just ready to open their annihilating fire when it was announced to both armies that Lee had surrendered. Our troops received the first tidings of the capitulation from the enthusiastic shouts which burst from the rank and file of the rebel troops. These deeply injured men, unfed, unpaid, haggard with famine and clothed in rags, weary of the war and utterly exhausted, who were gradually awaking to the fact that they had no personal interest in the war, and who had long since ceased to feel any animosity towards their antagonists in the Union ranks, seemed to be for the moment frantic with joy. The war was closed, the rebellion ended. There was to be no more fighting, and wounds, and death. Peacefully they could now return to their homes, to their wives, to their children. Cheer after cheer rose from the embattled host. The cheer was echoed back in shout after shout from the victors who surrounded them, and then both voices, that of friend and foe, blended in a joyful cry, which must have ascended almost like an anthem of praise to the ear of God. With the great mass of both

armies all animosity for the moment seemed to be forgotten. Tears and prayers, and shouting and embracings, and the long agony of four years of blood and woe, seemed to be lost in this one hour of returning peace. The troops, who in long lines in the rear were hurrying forward to the supposed scene of battle, heard the shout, and knew not what it meant. But it grew louder and louder, and came rolling down their ranks with thunder roar, as the electric tidings sped on their way. For miles and miles the mountains and the forests and the valleys rang with the shouts of this vast patriot army, which had now trampled out the spirit of rebellion, forever and forever.

The scene of the surrender was sublime. Major-General Chamberlain, one of the heroes of Gettysburg and Petersburg, and many another bloody fight, chanced to be with his division in the van. His troops were drawn up in a straight line a mile in length. A division of the rebel army was marched up and paraded directly in front of them, at a distance of but a few feet. All were as silent as the trees of the forest-not a word was uttered-not a bugle sounded-not a drum beat. The sublimity of the scene dimmed with tears eyes all unused to weep, and caused lips to tremble, which neither cannon's roar nor gushing blood could blanch with fear. The rebels stacked their arms, leaned against them their banners, and silently filed away. As they came up, General Chamberlain nobly called upon his men to present arms, and thus these heroic victims of a cruel rebellion, in their hour of humiliation and surrender, were received with military honors. One of the rebel generals had the grace to say, "This is magnanimity which we had not expected." And before his troops stacked their arms they returned the courteous salute. As this first division filed away, another came, and passed through the same affecting scene. And then another and another, till twenty-two thousand men had marched away unarmed to their camps. Not one word of reproach was uttered by the magnanimous victors. But twenty-two thousand surrendered. Lee's army had been three times that number; but thousands had been captured, large numbers killed and wounded, and thousands had thrown down their arms and had dispersed in all directions to seek their homes.

The rebel troops were starving. In their disastrous flight, their provisions had all disappeared. Our troops, in their eager pursuit, had been able to bring along but a scanty supply. But they divided their rations with their conquered foe, every man giving one-half of his dinner to the enemy he had so long been fighting, and then our troops went hungry for many hours, till fresh supplies could reach them.

No tongue can tell the joy with which the tidings of Lee's surrender was received throughout our land. Even the most unintelligent were conscious that it was the harbinger of peace throughout our whole country; that the integrity of the Union was secured for ages to come; that we had emerged from the conflict with an established nationality which would enable us henceforth to bid defiance to all foes within and all foes without: that our nation, emancipated from the curse of slavery and from all those bickerings and sectionalities which slavery engendered, had now entered upon a career which would make her beyond all controversy the great

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power-the leading empire upon the globe. The crushing out of this rebellion, it was well understood, placed us upon the solid, granite foundation of a pure Christian democracy, opening before us almost dazzling vistas of honor, prosperity, and greatness.

TRAGEDY AT WASHINGTON.-ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.-THE CONSPIRACY.-THE SPIRIT OF SLAVERY AND REBELLION.-EFFECT ON THE NATION.-SUSPENSION OF HOSTILI TIES BETWEEN SHERMAN AND JOHNSTON.-TERMS OF AGREEMENT.-THEIR REJECTION BY THE GOVERNMENT.-SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON.-FLIGHT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.-PURSUIT AND CAPTURE.-DISPERSION OF REBEL TROOPS.-DISBANDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY AND NAVY.-RECONSTRUCTION.

In the midst of these unparalleled triumphs, and while all the bells of the land were ringing with joy, a calamity fell upon us which overwhelmed the country in consternation and woe. On Friday evening, April 14th, President Lincoln attended Ford's Theatre, in Washington. He was sitting quietly in his box, listening to the drama, when a man entered the door of the lobby leading to the box, closing the door behind him. Drawing near to the President, he drew from his pocket a small pistol, and shot him in the back of the head. As the President fell senseless and mortally wounded, and the shriek of his wife, who was seated at his side, pierced every ear, the assassin leaped from the box, a perpendicular height of nine feet, and as he rushed across the stage bareheaded, brandished a dagger, exclaiming, "Sic semper tyrannis," and disappeared behind the side-scenes. There was a moment of silent consternation. Then ensued a scene of confusion which it is in vain to attempt to describe.

The dying President was taken into a house near by, and placed upon a bed. What a scene did that room present! The chief of a mighty nation lay there senseless, drenched in blood, his brains oozing from his wound. Sumner and Farwell and Colfax and Stanton and many others were there, pallid with grief and consternation. The surgeon, General Barnes, solemnly examined the wound. There was silence as of the grave. The life or death of the nation seemed dependent on the result. General Barnes looked up sadly and said, "The wound is mortal.”

"Oh no! general, no! no!" cried out Secretary Stanton, and, sinking into a chair, he covered his face, and wept like a child. Senator Sumner tenderly holds the hand of the unconscious martyr. Though all unused to weep, he sobs as though his great heart would break. In his anguish his head falls upon the blood-stained pillow, and his black locks blend with those of the dying victim, which care and toil had rendered gray, and which blood had crimsoned. What a scene! Sumner, who had lingered through months of agony, having himself been stricken down by the

bludgeon of slavery, now sobbing and fainting in anguish over the prostrate form of his friend, whom slavery has slain. This vile rebellion, after deluging the land in blood, has culminated in a crime which appalls all nations.

Noble Abraham, true descendant of the Father of the Faithful, honest in every trust, humble as a child, tender-hearted as a woman, who could not bear to injure even his most envenomed foes, who in the hour of triumph was saddened lest the feelings of his adversaries should be wounded by their defeat, with "charity for all, malice towards none," endowed with "common-sense" intelligence never surpassed, and with powers of intellect which enabled him to grapple with the most gigantic opponents in debate, developing abilities as a statesman, which won the gratitude of his country and the admiration of the world, and with graces of amiability which drew to him all generous hearts; dies by the bullet of the assassin!

There was a wide-spread conspiracy for the death of all the leading officers of the Government and of the army. The President, VicePresident Johnson, Secretary Seward, Secretary Stanton, and others were marked for assassination. One of the assassins, at the moment the President was struck down, crept stealthily to the chamber of the Secretary of State, and plunged his dagger again and again into the neck of his helpless victim. The son of the Secretary and an attendant rushed to the rescue. Both were severely wounded by the desperate assassin, as with blooddripping dagger he cut his way by them and escaped. The other men marked for death providentially escaped. The murderer of the Presi dent proved to be a play-actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth. For many days he eluded the vigilance of the police, and was finally shot in the endeavor to capture him. The assassin who sought the life of Secretary Seward proved to be a young man from Florida, by the name of Lewis Payne Powell. To the joy of the nation, Secretary Seward recovered. Through all the embarrassments of the war he had conducted our foreign diplomatic relations with skill which the more it is studied shines with increasing lustre. His assassin, with three accomplices, was taken and hung. Others who were aiders in the crime were imprisoned.

In this atrocious act, the Nation saw but the development of the same spirit which the demon of slavery, treason, and rebellion had exhibited from the beginning. Since the first gun was fired at Sumter, the rebellion has rioted over the carnage which has filled hundreds of thousands of graves with the gory bodies of our sons. It has uttered no voice of sympathy, as the wail of the widow and the orphan has been wafted over the land. It has plunged the bayonet into the bosoms of our soldiers, lying wounded and bleeding after the battle. It has cut off the limbs of our loved ones, boiled them to loosen the flesh, and from the bones carved trinkets for its women; and with barbarity which would disgrace Comanche Indians, made drinking-cups of the skulls of patriot martyrs. The rebellion, in wide-spread conspiracy, has endeavored to wrap in midnight conflagration hotels crowded with women and children, and to envelop in fiery billows a city containing a million of inhabitants. With deliber