CAPTURE OF BLAKELY. They had not proceeded very far when they were assailed by a terrible storm of grape and canister. At this discharge the men wavered a little; but General Garrard seeing it, and knowing that his presence would encourage them, rode up to the right of his line and urged his men to go on. It was the hottest work of the day; for, fearing an attack on his right, the enemy had massed nearly two-thirds of his available force in Garrard's front. For one half-hour did our poor fellows feel their way through the almost inextricable obstructions, while in addition to the bursting of shells and the shower of bullets and canister, the very ground shook with the explosions of torpedoes. General Garrard was in the thickest of the fire, directing all the movements. Notwithstanding the awful storm of bullets, in just one hour all the obstructions were passed and our men jumped into the ditches and scrambled over the works. Colonel Rinneken's and General Gilbert's brigades turned the right of the fort and gained its entrance at the same time, capturing the rebel Brigadier-General Thomas and over a thousand men. No sooner was this point gained than a half-dozen flags might be seen all along the parapets, while the most deafening shouts rent the air, which went along the whole line. "During this time the whole line were actively participating. The centre bore its part bravely. The troops in the centre were composed of one brigade of Veatch's division under command of General Dennis, and two brigades of Andrews' division, respectively commanded by Colonels Spicely and Moore. No sooner had Garrard's division got well at work, than Andrews and Veatch, who were both in command, gave orders to their troops to join in the charge. The scene was less bloody in the centre, and the advance upon the fort less dangerous; but the rebels kept up a tremendous artillery fire, causing many a poor fellow to drop dead while manfully performing 611 his duty. Just as Andrews' division got within about forty yards of the fort, the rebels poured into it a withering fire from eight guns. The Eighty-third Ohio, and Ninety-seventh Illinois, which were in advance as skirmishers, pushed forward, and were on the point of reaching the ditch, when upward of a dozen torpedoes exploded under them, causing considerable confusion. During this confusion the enemy rained a perfect torrent of grape and canister into our ranks, but could not succeed in driving back our advance, which was almost immediately joined by the regular line. General Granger was present during the whole affair, and with his staff was upon a slight elevation about three-quarters of a mile from the works. General A. J. Smith was also upon the ground in a little open place between Andrews' and Garrard's divisions during the entire assault. The column on our right was composed of colored troops, and was commanded by General Hawkins. His brigade commanders were General Pile and Cols. Schofield and Drew. The moment the order was given for the negroes to charge they went at it with characteristic impetuosity. Colonel Drew was on the extreme right, and suffered terribly from the enemy's artillery. pretty well toward dark when the colored division got well at work. The ascent reminded me not a little of Overton Hill on the Nashville battle-field; and, as at that place, the colored division was pitted against Mississippi troops. But once did they show any sign of wavering; but General Hawkins sent word that they must move up and take the right of the work, as our troops had got possession of the remainder. On!" cries the brave white officers, and on went the colored troops, literally carrying every thing before them. o'clock the national flag was flung to the breeze from the ramparts, and Blakely and all it contained came into our possession. We came into possession of It was At 7 Blakely just about dark, after one of the most brilliantly successful assaults of the war. The whole line moved like clockwork. The movements of the left, under the command of General Garrard, were the finest and most systematic I have seen upon any battle-field. General Garrard has the credit of capturing two brigadier-generals, while Andrews' division got the third. The rebel gunboats, which we dreaded so much, did not participate, and the opinion prevails that they must have been disabled by the First Indiana Heavy Artillery the day before. We captured Generals Lyddell, Thomas and Cockerill, and Acting Brigadiers Barney and Leary, and 3,300 prisoners, 32 pieces of artillery, 4,000 stand of small arms, 16 battle flags, a vast amount of ammunition, etc., etc. The rebel loss in killed and wounded was about 500. Our loss in killed and wounded in front of Blakely will reach 1,000. men On Wednesday morning a number of the All day Monday the 10th instant, was spent in reconnoitering on land and in the bay. All the forts on the eastern shore were occupied, and about 4,000 prisoners sent to Fort Gaines. The Sixteenth Corps, General A. J. Smith, received four days' rations, and were under marching orders for the next morning, when they commenced moving up the eastern shore. General Granger's forces received orders to move down to the landing, while General Steele's forces took charge of the captured forts. We got over seventy pieces of artillery in all on the eastern shore, all of which were taken by assault. Some of our gunboats attempted to go up into the Blakely River, after removing over a hundred torpedoes, with a view of reconnoitering the vicinity of Mobile, but were stopped by a terrible fire from Batteries Huger and Tracy in the bay. They fired some some 200 shots at our fleet On the morning of the 13th, a portion during Monday and Tuesday, and of General Veatch's command went into on Tuesday night the garrison evacu- the city by the shell-road, and run up ated after spiking their guns, twelve in all. the Stars and Stripes on the Post Office GENERAL WILSON'S EXPEDITION. 613 and Custom House. General Granger figure. General Granger figure. Our navy sustains the loss of arrived a short time after, and General two monitors and five other vessels. Canby and staff arrived in the city a We have captured one of the most imshort time after noon. No unpleasant portant seaboard cities in the South, demonstrations were made either by the killed and wounded about 1,500 of the citizens of Mobile or by our soldiers, enemy, killed 1 brigadier-general, capupon the occupation of the haughty city. tured, 6,000 prisoners, 17 forts, over All the public buildings and stores were 200 pieces of artillery, a vast amount closed, and the private residences looked of cotton, ordnance and subsistence like houses of mourning. Four newspa- stores, and put the remainder to flight, pers immediately suspended publication with a strong hope of surrounding it on -the Register, Tribune, News, and one all sides." other. The interior of the city is not injured in the least, and the large warehouses on the wharves, most of which are filled with "Confederate government" freight and stores, are unharmed. Although many threats to burn the city were made, not a house, nor a bale of cotton, nor a pound of subsistence, nor a particle of war material were burnt or destroyed. Numbers of dwellings and cottages on the Shiny Hill and Whistler roads were destroyed some time ago, and many beautiful villas and farms met the same fate in order to strengthen the rebel forts west of the city, where it was supposed we would make the attack. All conditions of people are in extreme want, the poorer classes of which immediately besieged our soldiers for something to eat. The forts on the west of the city are the strongest works in the South. There are three lines of forts, the interior of which has a ditch twelve feet deep and forty feet wide. The forts in and around Mobile, and upon the water batteries, mount 150 guns. The captures in Mobile are large-said to be $2,000,000 worth of ammunition and commissary stores, 140 pieces of artillery (some of it spiked), a large amount of cotton, and 1,200 prisoners, counting in the sick, stragglers and deserters. The campaign, on the whole, has been a grand success. From the time our army left Dauphin Island up to the present, our entire loss in killed and wounded barely reaches 2,000 men-I think 1,800 is the correct J The An outline of the march of the cavalry expedition of General Wilson, supplied by a member of his staff, completes the narrative of this decisive campaign in Alabama. "General Wilson and his command left Chickasaw, Ala., on the 22d March. At Ebenezer Church, near Plantersville, a short and sharp engagement occurred with Forrest's cavalry. which resulted in the complete discomfiture of the rebels, and the capture of 300 prisoners. A column was then sent to Tuscaloosa, where a large amount of rebel government property was destroyed. On the 2d of April, Selma was taken by assault, with 2,700 prisoners. There our forces found thirty-two guns in the fortifications of the city, and seventy-five others in the arsenal. arsenal, which was one of the largest and most important in the confederacy, was destroyed, together with several rolling-mills, magazines, powder-works, a naval foundry and other public property. After a delay of eight days, our forces left Selma, crossing the Alabama River on a pontoon bridge, 850 feet in length, and marched against Montgomery, which was captured without opposition on the 12th. Here they discovered that the rebels had destroyed an immense quantity of cotton, the estimates varying from 30,000 to 90,000 bales, five steamers, about seventy cars and one locomotive. All the bridges between Selma and Montgomery, a distance of about fifty miles, were thoroughly destroyed. The rebel property ral Tyler, killed. Here fifteen locomotives, 200 cars, and two large factories were destroyed, as well as immense quantities of quartermaster's and commissary's stores. The destruction of every kind of public property was thorough and complete. Macon surrendered to our forces on the 20th without opposition. Generals Howell Cobb, G. W. Smith, Robertson, McCall and Mercer there fell into our hands. The total captures made by our forces in the course of this astonishing sweep through Alabama and Western Georgia are: 32 guns in position, and 200 in arsenals, nearly 200,000 bales of cotton (destroyed), nearly 400 cars, 34 locomotives, besides an immense amount of miscellaneous military stores; while, as before stated, our losses in all the engagements are less than 350 men. In every respect the expedition was a success, and demonstrative-if further proof of the fact were needed—of the utter hollowness of the confederacy." left behind was of little value, and our captured, and their commander, Geneforces captured but five guns. Several rolling-mills and foundries were destroyed. From Montgomery the expedition marched on Columbus, Ga., distant a little less than ninety miles. This city was captured by an assaulting column under General Upton, on the night of the 16th. Here 1,200 prisoners and fifty-three guns fell into our hands. The quantity of cotton captured and destroyed was immense, the number of bales being estimated at not less than 100,000. Besides this, our forces destroyed great quantities of military stores, an arsenal, a pistol factory, a sword factory, an accoutrement factory, three military and naval foundries, a rolling-mill, thirteen locomotives, about 100 cars, and several depots and machine-shops. A gunboat, mounting six 7-inch rifled guns, was captured here. While this work of destruction was in progress, La Grange's brigade made a detour to West Point, where the rebel works were taken by assault. The entire garrison, numbering over 300, were CHAPTER CXIV. THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON. APRIL, 1865. THE fall of Richmond and surrender of Lee's army to General Grant, the long-expected events which were justly calculated to herald the immediate termination of the war, were received with rejoicings, indeed, by the people of the North, but with a calmness and sobriety befitting the serious nature of the protracted conflict. The war had been undertaken by the Government reluctantly at the outset as a necessary and inevitable measure of self-defence for the maintenance of the Union and the preservation of the liberties of the country; it had been maintained steadily and vigorously under the honorable influences of a sense of duty and patriotism and though its pressure upon life and property was most severe and it had cost unprecedented sacrifices, it had been conducted upon the whole with remarkable moderation and with a absence of personal animosity and bitterness of feeling. No misconduct of the foe, who scrupled at no excesses of hostility, in foreign intrigue, in desper rare LINCOLN ON THE SURRENDER OF LEE. ate acts of piracy, in reckless invasions of the frontier as at St. Albans, in massacres of a captured garrison as at Fort Pillow, in the mining of the Libby Prison at Richmond, and in the habitual ill treatment of prisoners that were there and in Georgia and elsewhere,-none of these and other offences against humanity, beyond the authority of war itself, could shake the settled equanimity and, under the circumstances of the case, the moral grandeur of the North. This was shown in a marked degree in the character and actions of its Chief Executive, its representative man, chosen originally for his virtues and discretion; and when these qualities had been fully tested through four years of extraordinary trial, putting them every day to the proof, again reëlected with a national consciousness of his worth which recalled the similar confidence placed under equal responsibilities in the merits of Washington. Abraham Lincoln in his calmness and forbearance, the plain sense of duty, the generosity and magnanimity of his nature, fairly represented the nation in the conduct of its great struggle for life and liberty. As the revolution which separated this country from Great Britain is honored in history by the character of Washington; so will the completion of the work, in its regeneration forced upon it by the Rebellion, be sanctified in the memory of Lincoln. "The triumph of the cause, the burden of which he had sustained so prudently and faithfully, brought to him no vulgar gratification but, if possible, an increased sense of duty and responsibility. This was shown in his conduct on his return to Washington with the news of the assured fall of the Confederacy. General Lee surrendered his army to Gen. Grant on the 9th of April; on the 10th, President Lincoln was waited upon at the Executive mansion by a body of citizens, who came to congratulate him and listen to some expressions of his feelings on 615 the great victory. With a sense of the importance of the occasion he deferred his remarks to the next evening, when the company again assembled, and he thus addressed them in words to be for ever memorable as his last speech to the people and the nation. expoun Thoughts of the past, and of the victories of the day, it will be observed, little affected his mind in comparison with the interests of the future. He was already turning his attention profoundly, and with his accustomed insight and sagacity, to the pressing problem of reconstruction, and in this, as in all his previous acts and deliberations, he was working his way outwardly into light from the heart of the subject. This consummate method of his intellectual faculties was never more strikingly displayed than in this, their last exercise. He proposed nothing experimental or rash, or authoritative beyond the truthful "logic of events" of which he was the patriotic and disinterested der, as of some divine oracle. "We meet this evening," said he, "not in sorrow but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburgh and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hopes of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their honors must not be parcelled out with others. I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the good news to you. But no part of the honor for plan or execution is mine. To General Grant, his skillful officers and brave men, all belongs, the gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part. By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national autho |