“Thereupon,” an attendant at the service noted, Davis “instantly arose, and walked hurriedly down the aisle, beneath the questionings of all eyes in the house.” Summoning his cabinet to an emergency session, he made preparations for a special train to carry the leading officials and important government papers south and west to Danville, where a new capital could be established. As word of the evacuation of the troops spread, the citizenry panicked, and a general exodus began. In the tumult, a small fire, deliberately set to destroy the tobacco warehouses before the Federals arrived, raged out of control, burning “nearly everything between Main street and the river for about three-quarters of a mile.” All the public buildings in its path, including the offices of the Richmond Examiner and the Inquirer, were destroyed, leaving only the Customhouse and the Spotswood Hotel.
The news of Richmond’s capture on April 3, 1865, reached the War Department in Washington shortly before noon. When over the wire came the words “Here is the first message for you in four years from Richmond,” the telegraph operator leaped from his seat and shouted from the window, “Richmond has fallen.” The news quickly “spread by a thousand mouths,” and “almost by magic the streets were crowded with hosts of people, talking, laughing, hurrahing, and shouting in the fullness of their joy.” A Herald reporter noted that many “wept as children” while “men embraced and kissed each other upon the streets; friends who had been estranged for years shook hands and renewed their vows of friendship.”
Gathering at the War Department, the crowd called for Stanton, who had not left his post for several nights. “As he stood upon the steps to speak,” recalled his aide A. E. Johnson, “he trembled like a leaf, and his voice showed his emotion.” He began by expressing “gratitude to Almighty God for his deliverance of the nation,” then called for thanks “to the President, to the Army and Navy, to the great commanders by sea and land, to the gallant officers and men who have periled their lives upon the battle-field, and drenched the soil with their blood.” Stanton was “so overcome by emotion that he could not speak continuously,” but when he finished, the crowd roared its approval.
Seward, who had been at the War Department awaiting news of Richmond’s fall, was urged to speak next. Clearly understanding that the moment belonged to Stanton, he kept his remarks short and humorous. He was beginning to think that it was time for a change in the cabinet, he began. “Why I started to go to ‘the front’ the other day, and when I got to City Point they told me it was at Hatcher’s Run, and when I got there I was told it was not there but somewhere else, and when I get back I am told by the Secretary that it is at Petersburg; but before I can realize that, I am told again that it is at Richmond, and west of that. Now I leave you to judge what I ought to think of such a Secretary of War as this.” The crowd erupted in “loud and lusty” cheers, and a “beaming” Stanton led them in a chorus of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Newspapers raced to issue special editions. “The demand seemed inexhaustible,” the Star reported, “and almost beyond the power of our lightning press to supply.” One hundred Herald couriers, “as fleet on foot and as breathless with enthusiasm as Malice with his fiery cross,” raced to distribute papers in every section of the city. EXTRA! GLORIOUS! FALL OF RICHMOND! read the headlines, adding that black troops were among the first to enter the city. For anyone who missed the cries of the newsboys, the sound of eight hundred guns, fired at Stanton’s order, marked the signal triumph.
That night, with bands playing in the streets, candles sparkling in the windows of government buildings, and flags flying from every housetop, Seward joined a group of guests for dinner at Stanton’s house. The evening’s joy was diminished only by the anxiety Stanton and Seward shared for Lincoln’s safety. Earlier that day, Seward had talked with James Speed about his fear that “if there were to be assassinations, now was the time.” With the fall of Richmond, Seward told Speed, “the Southern people would feel as though the world had come to an end.” At such moments, history suggested, desperate men might be prompted to take desperate action, and “the President, being the most marked man on the Federal side, was the most liable to attack.” Aware that Mary had invited Speed to join her two days later on a return trip to City Point, Seward begged him to “warn the President of the danger.”
Stanton, who worried constantly about the president’s safety, needed no reminders that the situation was more hazardous than ever. He had tried to keep Lincoln from going to Petersburg, asking him “to consider whether you ought to expose the nation to the consequence of any disaster to yourself,” and pointing out that while generals must run such risks “in the line of their duty,” political leaders were not “in the same condition.” Lincoln was already back from Petersburg when he received Stanton’s telegram. He thanked the secretary for his concern and promised to “take care of [himself],” while simultaneously announcing his intended departure for Richmond the next day.
At 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, April 4, Lincoln set forth on his historic journey to Richmond. When the Malvern reached the channel approaching the city, its passage was blocked by “wreckage of all sorts,” including “dead horses, broken ordnance, wrecked boats,” and floating torpedoes. They were forced to transfer to the captain’s barge, which was towed in behind a little tug manned by marines. When the tug went aground, the president’s arrival was left to the rowing skills of a dozen sailors. The situation was unnerving to Crook. “On either side,” he recalled, “we passed so close to torpedoes that we could have put out our hands and touched them.”
“Here we were in a solitary boat,” Admiral Porter remembered, “after having set out with a number of vessels flying flags at every mast-head, hoping to enter the conquered capital in a manner befitting the rank of the President of the United States.” Lincoln was not disturbed in the slightest. The situation reminded him, he cheerfully noted, of a man who had approached him seeking a high position as a consulate minister: “Finding he could not get that, he came down to some more modest position. Finally he asked to be made a tide-waiter. When he saw he could not get that, he asked me for an old pair of trousers. But it is well to be humble.”
No sooner had the presidential party reached the landing than Lincoln was surrounded by a small group of black laborers shouting, “Bress de Lord!…dere is de great Messiah!…Glory, Hallelujah!” First one and then several others fell on their knees. “Don’t kneel to me,” Lincoln said, his voice full of emotion, “that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.” The men stood up, joined hands, and began to sing a hymn. The streets, which had been “entirely deserted,” became “suddenly alive” with crowds of black people “tumbling and shouting, from over the hills and from the water-side.”
An ever-growing crowd trailed Lincoln as he walked up the street. “It was a warm day,” Admiral Porter noted, and Lincoln, whose tall figure “overtopped every man there,” was easily visible. From the windows of the houses along the two-mile route, hundreds of white faces looked on with curiosity at the lanky figure, “walking with his usual long, careless stride, and looking about with an interested air and taking in everything.”
Lincoln’s bodyguard was relieved when they finally reached the safety of General Weitzel’s headquarters, for he thought he had glimpsed a figure in Confederate uniform pointing a gun at Lincoln from a window along the route. Weitzel and his officers had occupied the stucco mansion that Jefferson Davis had abandoned only two days earlier. Captain Barnes recalled that when Lincoln walked into the “comfortably furnished” office of the Confederate president, he crossed the room “to the easy chair and sank down in it.” To all present, it seemed “a supreme moment,” but Lincoln betrayed no sense of exaltation or triumph. His first words, softly spoken, were simply to ask for a glass of water. The water was promptly supplied, along with a bottle of whiskey. An old black servant still at his post told them that “Mrs. Davis had ordered him to have the house in good condition for the Y
ankees.”
Lincoln had already toured the mansion, seeming “interested in everything,” and had met with the members of General Weitzel’s staff, when the Confederate assistant secretary of war, John Campbell, arrived to see him. Lincoln welcomed Campbell, whom he had met two months earlier at the Hampton Roads Conference. While the details of their conversation were later disputed, it appears that Lincoln, still fearing that Lee might engage in a final battle, agreed to allow the Virginia legislature to convene, on the understanding that they would repeal the order of secession and remove the state’s troops from the war.
Riding through the city that afternoon in an open carriage, the president and his entourage found the Confederate statehouse “in dreadful disorder, signs of a sudden and unexpected flight; members’ tables were upset, bales of Confederate scrip were lying about the floor, and many official documents of some value were scattered about.” When they finally returned to the flagship, both Admiral Porter and William Crook were greatly relieved. Having worried all day about Lincoln’s safety, Crook later wrote that it was “nothing short of miraculous that some attempt on [Lincoln’s] life was not made. It is to the everlasting glory of the South that he was permitted to come and go in peace.”
As Lincoln rested on the Malvern that night, all the public buildings in the nation’s capital were illuminated by order of the secretary of state. “The city was all alight with rockets, fireworks, and illuminations of every description,” observed Noah Brooks, “the streets being one blaze of glory.” It seemed “the entire population of Washington” had poured into the streets to share in the triumph and view the brilliant spectacle produced by “thousands of lighted candles.”
Though Seward joined in the glorious celebrations, he continued to fret. The following day he told Welles that he had secured a revenue cutter to take him to Richmond with some important papers that required the president’s immediate attention. “He is filled with anxiety to see the President,” Welles recorded in his diary, “and these schemes are his apology.”
Minutes after taking leave of Welles, Seward nearly lost his life in a carriage accident. Fanny and her friend Mary Titus had come to the Department to join her father and brother Fred for their “customary” afternoon ride. As the horses moved up Vermont Avenue, the coachman stopped to close the carriage door, which had not been properly latched. Before he could return to his seat, the horses bolted, “swinging the driver by the reins as one would swing a cat by the tail.” Both Fred and Seward jumped out, hoping they could stop the runaway horses. Fred was not hurt, but Seward caught his heel on the carriage as he jumped, and landed “violently upon the pavement,” causing him to lose consciousness.
“The horses tore along,” Fanny recorded in her diary, and “we seemed to be whirling on to certain destruction.” At an alley, they “turned. We brushed against a tree,” and headed straight toward the corner of a house, where she feared she would be “crushed to death.” Fortunately, a passing soldier got control of the reins and brought an end to the terrifying ride. Rushing back to the place where her father had fallen, Fanny was horrified to find his broken body, “blood streaming from his mouth.” At first she feared he was dead.
For two hours after he was carried to his home, Seward remained unconscious. When he came to at last, he was delirious with pain, having suffered a broken jaw and a badly dislocated shoulder. Doctors arrived, and Fanny could hear his agonized cries through the bedroom door. When she was finally allowed to see him, “he was so disfigured by bruises…that he had scarcely a trace of resemblance to himself.”
Hearing the news, Stanton rushed to Seward’s bedside, where, Fanny recalled, he “was like a woman in the sickroom.” He ministered carefully to his friend, perhaps remembering childhood days when he had accompanied his father on sick calls. He “wiped his lips” where the blood had caked, “spoke gently to him,” and remained by his side for hours. Returning to the War Department, Stanton sent Lincoln a telegram at City Point: “Mr Seward was thrown from his carriage his shoulder bone at the head of the joint broken off, his head and face much bruised and he is in my opinion dangerously injured. I think your presence here is needed.”
Receiving the message shortly before midnight, Lincoln advised Grant that Seward’s accident necessitated his return to Washington. Meanwhile, Mary and her invited guests, including James Speed, Elizabeth Keckley, Charles Sumner, Senator Harlan, and the Marquis de Chambrun, were steaming toward City Point. At dawn the next morning, Mary sent a telegram to Stanton: “If Mr Seward is not too severely injured—cannot the President, remain until we arrive at City Point.” By this time the surgeon general had determined that Seward had suffered no internal injuries. Stanton informed Mary that there was “no objection to the President remaining at City Point.” A few hours later, he sent word to Lincoln that Seward was recovering. “I have seen him and read him all the news…. His mind is clear and spirits good.”
When Mary’s party arrived at noon on April 6, Lincoln brought them into the drawing room of the River Queen and relayed the latest bulletins, all positive, from Grant. “His whole appearance, pose, and bearing had marvelously changed,” Senator Harlan noted. “He was, in fact, transfigured. That indescribable sadness which had previously seemed to be an adamantine element of his very being had been suddenly changed for an equally indescribable expression of serene joy, as if conscious that the great purpose of his life had been attained.” Nonetheless, the marquis marveled, “it was impossible to detect in him the slightest feeling of pride, much less of vanity.”
While the visitors went off to Richmond, Lincoln remained at City Point to await further word from Grant. Welcome news soon arrived—a copy of a telegram from Sheridan, reporting a successful engagement with Lee’s retreating armies that had resulted in the capture of “several thousand prisoners,” including a half-dozen generals. “If the thing is pressed,” Sheridan predicted, “I think Lee will surrender.” Lincoln rejoined: “Let the thing be pressed.”
That evening Julia Grant, accompanied by Lincoln’s old friend E. B. Washburne, joined the Lincoln party on the River Queen. The conversation turned on what should be done with Jefferson Davis if he were apprehended. “Don’t allow him to escape the law,” one of the group said, “he must be hung.” At once Lincoln interjected: “Let us judge not, that we be not judged.”
On Saturday morning, Lincoln and his guests visited Petersburg. At a certain spot, the marquis recalled, “he gave orders to stop the carriage.” On his previous visit, Lincoln had noticed a “very tall and beautiful” oak tree that he wanted to examine more closely. “He admired the strength of its trunk, the vigorous development of branches,” which reminded him of “the great oaks” in the Western forests. He halted the carriage again when they passed “an old country graveyard” where trees shaded a carpet of spring flowers. Turning to his wife, Lincoln said, “Mary, you are younger than I. You will survive me. When I am gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like this.” On the train ride back to City Point, Lincoln observed a turtle “basking in the warm sunshine on the wayside.” He asked that the train be stopped so that the turtle could be brought into the car. “The movements of the ungainly little animal seemed to delight him,” Elizabeth Keckley recalled. He and Tad shared “a happy laugh” all the way back to the wharf.
Such distractions could not forestall the afternoon’s grim task. Lincoln visited injured soldiers at City Point, moving “from one bed to another,” the marquis recalled, “saying a friendly word to each wounded man, or at least giving him a handshake.” At one bed, he held the hand of a twenty-four-year-old captain who had been cited for bravery. “The dying man half-opened his eyes; a faint smile passed over his lips. It was then that his pulse ceased beating.” Lincoln remained among the wounded for five hours and returned to the steamer depleted. “There has been war enough,” he said when the marquis inquired about troubles with France over Mexico, “during my second term there will be no more fighting.”
Tha
t evening, as the River Queen prepared to return to Washington, Grant’s officers and staff came to say farewell. Lincoln had hoped to remain at City Point until Lee’s surrender, but he felt he should visit Seward. “As the twilight shadows deepened the lamps were lighted, and the boat was brilliantly illuminated,” Elizabeth Keckley recalled, “it looked like an enchanted floating palace.” When the military band came aboard, Lincoln asked them to play “La Marseillaise” in honor of the Marquis de Chambrun.
As the River Queen steamed toward Washington on Sunday, “the conversation,” Chambrun recalled, “dwelt upon literary subjects.” Holding “a beautiful quarto copy of Shakespeare in his hands,” Lincoln read several passages from Macbeth, including the king’s pained tribute to the murdered Duncan:
Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
Lincoln read the lines slowly, marveling “how true a description of the murderer that one was; when, the dark deed achieved, its tortured perpetrator came to envy the sleep of his victim,” and when he finished, “he read over again the same scene.” Lincoln’s ominous selection prompted James Speed to deliver Seward’s warning about the increased threat upon his life. “He stopped me at once,” Speed recalled, “saying, he had rather be dead than to live in continual dread.” Moreover, he considered it essential “that the people know I come among them without fear.”
Early that evening, the steamer passed by Mount Vernon, prompting Chambrun to say to Lincoln, “Mount Vernon and Springfield, the memories of Washington and your own, those of the revolutionary and civil wars; these are the spots and names America shall one day equally honor.” The remark brought a dreamy smile to Lincoln’s face. “Springfield!” he said. “How happy, four years hence, will I be to return there in peace and tranquility.”