A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln Part 30

This battle of Five Forks should have ended the war. Lee's right was routed; his line had been stretched westward until it broke; there was no longer any hope of saving Richmond, or even of materially delaying its fall. But Lee apparently thought that even the gain of a day was of value to the Richmond government, and what was left of his Army of Northern Virginia was still so perfect in discipline that it answered with unabated spirit every demand made upon it. Grant, who feared Lee might get away from Petersburg and overwhelm Sheridan on the White Oak road, directed that an a.s.sault be made all along the line at four o'clock on the morning of the second. His officers responded with enthusiasm; and Lee, far from dreaming of attacking any one after the stunning blow he had received the day before, made what hasty preparations he could to resist them.

It is painful to record the hard fighting which followed. Wright, in his a.s.sault in front of Forts Fisher and Walsh, lost eleven hundred men in fifteen minutes of murderous conflict that made them his own; and other commands fared scarcely better, Union and Confederate troops alike displaying a gallantry distressing to contemplate when one reflects that, the war being already decided, all this heroic blood was shed in vain. The Confederates, from the Appomattox to the Weldon road, fell slowly back to their inner line of works; and Lee, watching the formidable advance before which his weakened troops gave way, sent a message to Richmond announcing his purpose of concentrating on the Danville road, and made preparations for the evacuation which was now the only resort left him.

Some Confederate writers express surprise that General Grant did not attack and destroy Lee's army on April 2; but this is a view, after the fact, easy to express. The troops on the Union left had been on foot for eighteen hours, had fought an important battle, marched and countermarched many miles, and were now confronted by Longstreet's fresh corps behind formidable works, while the att.i.tude of the force under Gordon on the south side of the town was such as to require the close attention of Parke. Grant, antic.i.p.ating an early retirement of Lee from his citadel, wisely resolved to avoid the waste and bloodshed of an immediate a.s.sault on the inner lines of Petersburg. He ordered Sheridan to get upon Lee's line of retreat; sent Humphreys to strengthen him; then, directing a general bombardment for five o'clock next morning, and an a.s.sault at six, gave himself and his soldiers a little of the rest they had so richly earned and so seriously needed.

He had telegraphed during the day to President Lincoln, who was still at City Point, the news as it developed from hour to hour. Prisoners he regarded as so much net gain: he was weary of slaughter, and wanted the war ended with as little bloodshed as possible; and it was with delight that he summed up on Sunday afternoon: "The whole captures since the army started out gunning will not amount to less than twelve thousand men, and probably fifty pieces of artillery."

Lee bent all his energies to saving his army and leading it out of its untenable position on the James to a point from which he could effect a junction with Johnston in North Carolina. The place selected for this purpose was Burkeville, at the crossing of the South Side and Danville roads, fifty miles southwest from Richmond, whence a short distance would bring him to Danville, where the desired junction could be made.

Even yet he was able to cradle himself in the illusion that it was only a campaign that had failed, and that he might continue the war indefinitely in another field. At nightfall all his preparations were completed, and dismounting at the mouth of the road leading to Amelia Court House, the first point of rendezvous, where he had directed supplies to be sent, he watched his troops file noiselessly by in the darkness. By three o'clock the town was abandoned; at half-past four it was formally surrendered. Meade, reporting the news to Grant, received orders to march his army immediately up the Appomattox; and divining Lee's intentions, Grant also sent word to Sheridan to push with all speed to the Danville road.

Thus flight and pursuit began almost at the same moment. The swift-footed Army of Northern Virginia was racing for its life, and Grant, inspired with more than his habitual tenacity and energy, not only pressed his enemy in the rear, but hung upon his flank, and strained every nerve to get in his front. He did not even allow himself the pleasure of entering Richmond, which surrendered to Weitzel early on the morning of the third.

All that day Lee pushed forward toward Amelia Court House. There was little fighting except among the cavalry. A terrible disappointment awaited Lee on his arrival at Amelia Court House on the fourth. He had ordered supplies to be forwarded there, but his half-starved troops found no food awaiting them, and nearly twenty-four hours were lost in collecting subsistence for men and horses. When he started again on the night of the fifth, the whole pursuing force was south and stretching out to the west of him. Burkeville was in Grant's possession; the way to Danville was barred; the supply of provisions to the south cut off. He was compelled to change his route to the west, and started for Lynchburg, which he was destined never to reach.

It had been the intention to attack Lee at Amelia Court House on the morning of April 6, but learning of his turn to the west, Meade, who was immediately in pursuit, quickly faced his army about and followed. A running fight ensued for fourteen miles, the enemy, with remarkable quickness and dexterity, halting and partly intrenching themselves from time to time, and the national forces driving them out of every position; the Union cavalry, meanwhile, hara.s.sing the moving left flank of the Confederates, and working havoc on the trains. They also caused a grievous loss to history by burning Lee's headquarters baggage, with all its wealth of returns and reports. At Sailor's Creek, a rivulet running north into the Appomattox, Ewell's corps was brought to bay, and important fighting occurred; the day's loss to Lee, there and elsewhere, amounting to eight thousand in all, with several of his generals among the prisoners. This day's work was of incalculable value to the national arms. Sheridan's unerring eye appreciated the full importance of it, his hasty report ending with the words: "If the thing is pressed, I think that Lee will surrender." Grant sent the despatch to President Lincoln, who instantly replied:

"Let the thing be pressed."

In fact, after nightfall of the sixth, Lee's army could only flutter like a wounded bird with one wing shattered. There was no longer any possibility of escape; but Lee found it hard to relinquish the illusion of years, and as soon as night came down he again began his weary march westward. A slight success on the next day once more raised his hopes; but his optimism was not shared by his subordinates, and a number of his princ.i.p.al officers, selecting General Pendleton as their spokesman, made known to him on the seventh their belief that further resistance was useless, and advised surrender. Lee told them that they had yet too many men to think of laying down their arms, but in answer to a courteous summons from Grant sent that same day, inquired what terms he would be willing to offer. Without waiting for a reply, he again put his men in motion, and during all of the eighth the chase and pursuit continued through a part of Virginia green with spring, and until then unvisited by hostile armies.

Sheridan, by unheard-of exertions, at last accomplished the important task of placing himself squarely on Lee's line of retreat. About sunset of the eighth, his advance captured Appomattox Station and four trains of provisions. Shortly after, a reconnaissance revealed the fact that Lee's entire army was coming up the road. Though he had nothing but cavalry, Sheridan resolved to hold the inestimable advantage he had gained, and sent a request to Grant to hurry up the required infantry support; saying that if it reached him that night, they "might perhaps finish the job in the morning." He added, with singular prescience, referring to the negotiations which had been opened: "I do not think Lee means to surrender until compelled to do so."

This was strictly true. When Grant replied to Lee's question about terms, saying that the only condition he insisted upon was that the officers and men surrendered should be disqualified from taking up arms again until properly exchanged, Lee disclaimed any intention to surrender his army, but proposed to meet Grant to discuss the restoration of peace. It appears from his own report that even on the night of the eighth he had no intention of giving up the fight. He expected to find only cavalry before him next morning, and thought his remnant of infantry could break through while he himself was amusing Grant with platonic discussions in the rear. But on arriving at the rendezvous he had suggested, he received Grant's courteous but decided refusal to enter into a political negotiation, and also the news that a formidable force of infantry barred the way and covered the adjacent hills and valley. The marching of the Confederate army was over forever, and Lee, suddenly brought to a sense of his real situation, sent orders to cease hostilities, and wrote another note to Grant, asking an interview for the purpose of surrendering his army.

The meeting took place at the house of Wilmer McLean, in the edge of the village of Appomattox, on April 9, 1865. Lee met Grant at the threshold, and ushered him into a small and barely furnished parlor, where were soon a.s.sembled the leading officers of the national army. General Lee was accompanied only by his secretary, Colonel Charles Marshall. A short conversation led up to a request from Lee for the terms on which the surrender of his army would be received. Grant briefly stated them, and then wrote them out. Men and officers were to be paroled, and the arms, artillery, and public property turned over to the officer appointed to receive them.

"This," he added, "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 may reside."

General Grant says in his "Memoirs" that up to the moment when he put pen to paper he had not thought of a word that he should write. The terms he had verbally proposed were soon put in writing, and there he might have stopped. But as he wrote a feeling of sympathy for his gallant antagonist came over him, and he added the extremely liberal terms with which his letter closed. The sight of Lee's fine sword suggested the paragraph allowing officers to retain their side-arms; and he ended with a phrase he evidently had not thought of, and for which he had no authority, which practically pardoned and amnestied every man in Lee's army--a thing he had refused to consider the day before, and which had been expressly forbidden him in the President's order of March 3.

Yet so great was the joy over the crowning victory, and so deep the grat.i.tude of the government and people to Grant and his heroic army, that his terms were accepted as he wrote them, and his exercise of the Executive prerogative of pardon entirely overlooked. It must be noticed here, however, that a few days later it led the greatest of Grant's generals into a serious error.

Lee must have read the memorandum with as much surprise as gratification. He suggested and gained another important concession--that those of the cavalry and artillery who owned their own horses should be allowed to take them home to put in their crops; and wrote a brief reply accepting the terms. He then remarked that his army was in a starving condition, and asked Grant to provide them with subsistence and forage; to which he at once a.s.sented, inquiring for how many men the rations would be wanted. Lee answered, "About twenty-five thousand"; and orders were given to issue them. The number turned out to be even greater, the paroles signed amounting to twenty-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-one. If we add to this the captures made during the preceding week, and the thousands who deserted the failing cause at every by-road leading to their homes, we see how considerable an army Lee commanded when Grant "started out gunning."

With these brief and simple formalities, one of the most momentous transactions of modern times was concluded. The Union gunners prepared to fire a national salute, but Grant forbade any rejoicing over a fallen enemy, who, he hoped, would be an enemy no longer. The next day he rode to the Confederate lines to make a visit of farewell to General Lee.

They parted with courteous good wishes, and Grant, without pausing to look at the city he had taken, or the enormous system of works which had so long held him at bay, hurried away to Was.h.i.+ngton, intent only upon putting an end to the waste and burden of war.

A very carnival of fire and destruction had attended the flight of the Confederate authorities from Richmond. On Sunday night, April 2, Jefferson Davis, with his cabinet and their more important papers, hurriedly left the doomed city on one of the crowded and overloaded railroad trains. The legislature of Virginia and the governor of the State departed in a ca.n.a.l-boat toward Lynchburg; and every available vehicle was pressed into service by the frantic inhabitants, all anxious to get away before their capital was desecrated by the presence of "Yankee invaders." By the time the military left, early next morning, a conflagration was already under way. The rebel Congress had pa.s.sed a law ordering government tobacco and other public property to be burned.

General Ewell, the military commander, a.s.serts that he took the responsibility of disobeying the law, and that they were not fired by his orders. However that may be, flames broke out in various parts of the city, while a miscellaneous mob, inflamed by excitement and by the alcohol which had run freely in the gutters the night before, rushed from store to store, smas.h.i.+ng in the doors and indulging all the wantonness of pillage and greed. Public spirit was paralyzed, and the whole fabric of society seemed crumbling to pieces, when the convicts from the penitentiary, a shouting, leaping crowd of party-colored demons, overcoming their guard, and drunk with liberty, appeared upon the streets, adding their final dramatic horror to the pandemonium.

It is quite probable that the very magnitude and rapidity of the disaster served in a measure to mitigate its evil results. The burning of seven hundred buildings, comprising the entire business portion of Richmond warehouses, manufactories, mills, depots, and stores, all within the brief s.p.a.ce of a day, was a visitation so sudden, so unexpected, so stupefying, as to overawe and terrorize even wrong-doers, and made the harvest of plunder so abundant as to serve to scatter the mob and satisfy its rapacity to quick repletion.

Before a new hunger could arise, a.s.sistance was at hand. General Weitzel, to whom the city was surrendered, taking up his headquarters in the house lately occupied by Jefferson Davis, promptly set about the work of relief; organizing efficient resistance to the fire, which, up to this time, seems scarcely to have been attempted; issuing rations to the poor, who had been relentlessly exposed to starvation by the action of the rebel Congress; and restoring order and personal authority. That a regiment of black soldiers a.s.sisted in this n.o.ble work must have seemed to the white inhabitants of Richmond the final drop in their cup of misery.

Into the capital, thus stricken and laid waste, came President Lincoln on the morning of April 4. Never in the history of the world did the head of a mighty nation and the conqueror of a great rebellion enter the captured chief city of the insurgents in such humbleness and simplicity.

He had gone two weeks before to City Point for a visit to General Grant, and to his son, Captain Robert Lincoln, who was serving on Grant's staff. Making his home on the steamer which brought him, and enjoying what was probably the most satisfactory relaxation in which he had been able to indulge during his whole presidential service, he had visited the various camps of the great army in company with the general, cheered everywhere by the loving greetings of the soldiers. He had met Sherman when that commander hurried up fresh from his victorious march, and after Grant started on his final pursuit of Lee the President still lingered; and it was at City Point that he received the news of the fall of Richmond.

Between the receipt of this news and the following forenoon, but before any information of the great fire had reached them, a visit was arranged for the President and Rear-Admiral Porter. Ample precautions were taken at the start. The President went in his own steamer, the _River Queen_, with her escort, the _Bat_, and a tug used at City Point in landing from the steamer. Admiral Porter went in his flag-s.h.i.+p, the _Malvern_, and a transport carried a small cavalry escort and ambulances for the party.

But the obstructions in the river soon made it impossible to proceed in this fas.h.i.+on. One unforeseen accident after another rendered it necessary to leave behind even the smaller boats, until finally the party went on in Admiral Porter's barge, rowed by twelve sailors, and without escort of any kind. In this manner the President made his advent into Richmond, landing near Libby Prison. As the party stepped ash.o.r.e they found a guide among the contrabands who quickly crowded the streets, for the possible coming of the President had been circulated through the city. Ten of the sailors, armed with carbines, were formed as a guard, six in front and four in rear, and between them the President, Admiral Porter, and the three officers who accompanied them walked the long distance, perhaps a mile and a half, to the center of the town.

The imagination can easily fill up the picture of a gradually increasing crowd, princ.i.p.ally of negroes, following the little group of marines and officers, with the tall form of the President in its center; and, having learned that it was indeed Mr. Lincoln, giving expression to joy and grat.i.tude in the picturesque emotional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the colored race.

It is easy also to imagine the sharp anxiety of those who had the President's safety in charge during this tiresome and even foolhardy march through a city still in flames, whose white inhabitants were sullenly resentful at best, and whose grief and anger might at any moment culminate against the man they looked upon as the incarnation of their misfortunes. But no accident befell him. Reaching General Weitzel's headquarters, Mr. Lincoln rested in the mansion Jefferson Davis had occupied as President of the Confederacy, and after a day of sight-seeing returned to his steamer and to Was.h.i.+ngton, to be stricken down by an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet, literally "in the house of his friends."

x.x.xVI

Lincoln's Interviews with Campbell--Withdraws Authority for Meeting of Virginia Legislature--Conference of Davis and Johnston at Greensboro--Johnston Asks for an Armistice--Meeting of Sherman and Johnston--Their Agreement--Rejected at Was.h.i.+ngton--Surrender of Johnston--Surrender of other Confederate Forces--End of the Rebel Navy--Capture of Jefferson Davis--Surrender of E. Kirby Smith--Number of Confederates Surrendered and Exchanged--Reduction of Federal Army to a Peace Footing--Grand Review of the Army

While in Richmond, Mr. Lincoln had two interviews with John A. Campbell, rebel Secretary of War, who had not accompanied the other fleeing officials, preferring instead to submit to Federal authority. Mr.

Campbell had been one of the commissioners at the Hampton Roads conference, and Mr. Lincoln now gave him a written memorandum repeating in substance the terms he had then offered the Confederates. On Campbell's suggestion that the Virginia legislature, if allowed to come together, would at once repeal its ordinance of secession and withdraw all Virginia troops from the field, he also gave permission for its members to a.s.semble for that purpose. But this, being distorted into authority to sit in judgment on the political consequences of the war, was soon withdrawn.

Jefferson Davis and his cabinet proceeded to Danville, where, two days after his arrival, the rebel President made still another effort to fire the Southern heart, announcing, "We have now entered upon a new phase of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity of guarding particular points, our army will be free to move from point to point to strike the enemy in detail far from his base. Let us but will it and we are free"; and declaring in sonorous periods his purpose never to abandon one foot of ground to the invader.

The ink was hardly dry on the doc.u.ment when news came of the surrender of Lee's army, and that the Federal cavalry was pus.h.i.+ng southward west of Danville. So the Confederate government again hastily packed its archives and moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, where its headquarters were prudently kept on the train at the depot. Here Mr. Davis sent for Generals Johnston and Beauregard, and a conference took place between them and the members of the fleeing government--a conference not unmixed with embarra.s.sment, since Mr. Davis still "willed" the success of the Confederacy too strongly to see the true hopelessness of the situation, while the generals and most of his cabinet were agreed that their cause was lost. The council of war over, General Johnston returned to his army to begin negotiations with Sherman; and on the following day, April 14, Davis and his party left Greensboro to continue their journey southward.

Sherman had returned to Goldsboro from his visit to City Point, and set himself at once to the reorganization of his army and the replenishment of his stores. He still thought there was a hard campaign with desperate fighting ahead of him. Even on April 6, when he received news of the fall of Richmond and the flight of Lee and the Confederate government, he was unable to understand the full extent of the national triumph. He admired Grant so far as a man might, short of idolatry, yet the long habit of respect for Lee led him to think he would somehow get away and join Johnston in his front with at least a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia. He had already begun his march upon Johnston when he learned of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

Definitely relieved from apprehension of a junction of the two Confederate armies, he now had no fear except of a flight and dispersal of Johnston's forces into guerrilla bands. If they ran away, he felt he could not catch them; the country was too open. They could scatter and meet again, and so continue a partizan warfare indefinitely. He could not be expected to know that this resolute enemy was sick to the heart of war, and that the desire for more fighting survived only in a group of fugitive politicians flying through the pine forests of the Carolinas from a danger which did not exist.

Entering Raleigh on the morning of the thirteenth, he turned his heads of column southwest, hoping to cut off Johnston's southward march, but made no great haste, thinking Johnston's cavalry superior to his own, and desiring Sheridan to join him before he pushed the Confederates to extremities. While here, however, he received a communication from General Johnston, dated the thirteenth, proposing an armistice to enable the National and Confederate governments to negotiate on equal terms. It had been dictated by Jefferson Davis during the conference at Greensboro, written down by S.R. Mallory, and merely signed by Johnston, and was inadmissible and even offensive in its terms; but Sherman, anxious for peace, and himself incapable of discourtesy to a brave enemy, took no notice of its language, and answered so cordially that the Confederates were probably encouraged to ask for better conditions of surrender than they had expected to receive.

The two great antagonists met on April 17, when Sherman offered Johnston the same terms that had been accorded Lee, and also communicated the news he had that morning received of the murder of Mr.

Lincoln. The Confederate general expressed his unfeigned sorrow at this calamity, which smote the South, he said, as deeply as the North; and in this mood of sympathy the discussion began. Johnston a.s.serted that he would not be justified in such a capitulation as Sherman proposed, but suggested that together they might arrange the terms of a permanent peace. This idea pleased Sherman, to whom the prospect of ending the war without shedding another drop of blood was so tempting that he did not sufficiently consider the limits of his authority in the matter. It can be said, moreover, in extenuation of his course, that President Lincoln's despatch to Grant of March 3, which expressly forbade Grant to "decide, discuss, or to confer upon any political question," had never been communicated to Sherman; while the very liberality of Grant's terms led him to believe that he was acting in accordance with the views of the administration.

But the wisdom of Lincoln's peremptory order was completely vindicated.

With the best intentions in the world, Sherman, beginning very properly by offering his antagonist the same terms accorded Lee, ended, after two days' negotiation, by making a treaty of peace with the Confederate States, including a preliminary armistice, the disbandment of the Confederate armies, recognition by the United States Executive of the several State governments, reestablishment of the Federal courts, and a general amnesty. "Not being fully empowered by our respective princ.i.p.als to fulfil these terms," the agreement truthfully concluded, "we individually and officially pledge ourselves to promptly obtain the necessary authority."

The rebel President, with unnecessary formality, required a report from General Breckinridge, his Secretary of War, on the desirability of ratifying this most favorable convention. Scarcely had he given it his indors.e.m.e.nt when news came that it had been disapproved at Was.h.i.+ngton, and that Sherman had been directed to continue his military operations; and the peripatetic government once more took up its southward flight.

The moment General Grant read the agreement he saw it was entirely inadmissible. The new President called his cabinet together, and Mr.

Lincoln's instructions of March 3 to Grant were repeated to Sherman--somewhat tardily, it must be confessed--as his rule of action.

All this was a matter of course, and General Sherman could not properly, and perhaps would not, have objected to it. But the calm spirit of Lincoln was now absent from the councils of the government; and it was not in Andrew Johnson and Mr. Stanton to pa.s.s over a mistake like this, even in the case of one of the most ill.u.s.trious captains of the age.

They ordered Grant to proceed at once to Sherman's headquarters, and to direct operations against the enemy; and, what was worse, Mr. Stanton printed in the newspapers the reasons of the government for disapproving the agreement in terms of sharpest censure of General Sherman. This, when it came to his notice some weeks later, filled him with hot indignation, and, coupled with some orders Halleck, who had been made commander of the armies of the Potomac and the James, issued to Meade, to disregard Sherman's truce and push forward against Johnston, roused him to open defiance of the authorities he thought were persecuting him, and made him declare in a report to Grant, that he would have maintained his truce at any cost of life. Halleck's order, however, had been nullified by Johnston's surrender, and Grant, suggesting that this outburst was uncalled for, offered Sherman the opportunity to correct the statement. This he refused, insisting that his record stand as written, although avowing his readiness to obey all future orders of Grant and the President.

So far as Johnston was concerned, the war was indeed over. He was unable longer to hold his men together. Eight thousand of them left their camps and went home in the week of the truce, many riding away on the artillery horses and train mules. On notice of Federal disapproval of his negotiations with Sherman, he disregarded Jefferson Davis's instructions to disband the infantry and try to escape with the cavalry and light guns, and answered Sherman's summons by inviting another conference, at which, on April 26, he surrendered all the forces in his command on the same terms granted Lee at Appomattox; Sherman supplying, as did Grant, rations for the beaten army. Thirty-seven thousand men and officers were paroled in North Carolina--exclusive, of course, of the thousands who had slipped away to their homes during the suspension of hostilities.

After Appomattox the rebellion fell to pieces all at once. Lee surrendered less than one sixth of the Confederates in arms on April 9.

The armies that still remained, though inconsiderable when compared with the mighty host under the national colors, were yet infinitely larger than any Was.h.i.+ngton ever commanded, and capable of strenuous resistance and of incalculable mischief. But the march of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, and his northward progress through the Carolinas, had predisposed the great interior region to make an end of strife: a tendency which was greatly promoted by the masterly raid of General J.H.

Wilson's cavalry through Alabama, and his defeat of Forrest at Selma.

An officer of Taylor's staff came to Canby's headquarters on April 19 to make arrangements for the surrender of all the Confederate forces east of the Mississippi not already paroled by Sherman and Wilson, embracing some forty-two thousand men. The terms were agreed upon and signed on May 4, at the village of Citronelle in Alabama. At the same time and place the Confederate Commodore Farrand surrendered to Rear-Admiral Thatcher all the naval forces Of the Confederacy in the neighborhood of Mobile--a dozen vessels and some hundreds of officers.

The rebel navy had practically ceased to exist some months before. The splendid fight in Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, between Farragut's fleet and the rebel ram _Tennessee_, with her three attendant gunboats, and Cus.h.i.+ng's daring destruction of the powerful _Albemarle_ in Albemarle Sound on October 27, marked its end in Confederate waters. The duel between the _Kearsarge_ and the _Alabama_ off Cherbourg had already taken place; a few more encounters, at or near foreign ports, furnished occasion for personal bravery and subsequent lively diplomatic correspondence; and rebel vessels, fitted out under the unduly lenient "neutrality" of France and England, continued for a time to work havoc with American s.h.i.+pping in various parts of the world. But these two Union successes, and the final capture of Fort Fisher and of Wilmington early in 1865, which closed the last haven for daring blockade-runners, practically silenced the Confederate navy.

General E. Kirby Smith commanded all the insurgent forces west of the Mississippi. On him the desperate hopes of Mr. Davis and his flying cabinet were fixed, after the successive surrenders of Lee and Johnston had left them no prospect in the east. They imagined they could move westward, gathering up stragglers as they fled, and, crossing the river, join Smith's forces, and there continue the war. But after a time even this hope failed them. Their escort melted away; members of the cabinet dropped off on various pretexts, and Mr. Davis, abandoning the attempt to reach the Mississippi River, turned again toward the east in an effort to gain the Florida coast and escape by means of a sailing vessel to Texas.

The two expeditions sent in pursuit of him by General Wilson did not allow this consummation, which the government at Was.h.i.+ngton might possibly have viewed with equanimity. His camp near Irwinville, Georgia, was surrounded by Lieutenant-Colonel Pritchard's command at dawn on May 10, and he was captured as he was about to mount horse with a few companions and ride for the coast, leaving his family to follow more slowly. The tradition that he was captured in disguise, having donned female dress in a last desperate attempt to escape, has only this foundation, that Mrs. Davis threw a cloak over her husband's shoulders, and a shawl over his head, on the approach of the Federal soldiers. He was taken to Fortress Monroe, and there kept in confinement for about two years; was arraigned before the United States Circuit Court for the District of Virginia for the crime of treason, and released on bail; and was finally restored to all the duties and privileges of citizens.h.i.+p, except the right to hold office, by President Johnson's proclamation of amnesty of December 25, 1868.