tion with the rest of the Confederacy, was cut off and destroyed: our armies were drawn together, making a circle of steel around the beleaguered capital and the harassed chief. So carefully and completely had Grant mapped out his last campaign, that, after a long season of toil over his charts, diagrams, and plans, while at private quarters in New York, it is said that he gave a pass dated months ahead to an intimate friend, one of the stanchest loyalists in the nation, granting admission to his headquarters in the field; telling him, if he reported at the time mentioned, he would see the fall of Richmond. The city was evacuated at the exact date of this most extraordinary pass.

On the 25th of March, 1865, Lee made an assault on Grant's lines. One of the general officers far to the front was visited by Grant with the request to be put as near as possible to the enemy. Cautiously he crawled very close to the rebel skirmishline. After lying on the ground and listening for some time with great attention, he withdrew, saying, "The heart is all out of them. Their fire is slack and scattered. It is time to end it." One history says of that end,

"On the 1st of April Sheridan attacked Lee's right at Five Forks, assaulted and carried the fortified position of the enemy, capturing all his artillery and between five thousand and six thousand prisoners. The defeat was decisive. The rebels fled in every direction; and the bulk of the force that had been in front of Sheridan never was able again to rejoin Lee.

...

"News of the victory reached Grant at nine o'clock in the evening. He at once determined that the hour had come for the final assault. Without consulting any one, he wrote a despatch to Meade, ordering an attack at midnight all along the lines in front of Petersburg, which were at least ten miles long. . . . That night the enemy evacuated Petersburg and Richmond, flying south-west towards Danville. So the goal that our armies had been four years seeking to attain was won. Grant did not wait a moment, but, without entering Richmond in person, pushed on in pursuit at daylight on the 3d, leaving to a subordinate the glory of seizing the capital of Virginia. The energy with which he folfollowed the unhappy Lee was terrific. He disposed his columns on two roads, and marched with marvellous speed. Sheridan, Ord, Meade, vied with each other in their efforts to overtake and annihilate the last fighting force of the rebellion; and the men, inspired with their recent and magnificent triumphs, murmured at no labors or dangers. Meanwhile mindful, even at this intense crisis, of all other and co-operative emergencies, Grant, as he was pursuing Lee, sent orders to Sherman to push at once against Johnston, so that the war might be finished at once. 'Rebel armies,' he reminded him, are now the only strategic points to strike at.'

It may be doubted if the loyal American lives who does not appreciate the sterling moral qualities, the intellectual powers, and surprising military genius which elevated Lee above any other Southern officer; but, in proportion as they admire the military chief of the rebellion, they detest its civil head. The infamous charge of Jefferson Davis that the object of the loyal armies aimed "at nothing less than the extermination of yourselves, your wives, and your children," found its

most fitting rebuke in the following account and terms of surrender :

"All arms, artillery, and public property were to be turned over to officers appointed by Grant. These were the stipulations as Lee consented to them; but, after he had signified his acceptance, Grant inserted the clause that the side-arms and private horses and baggage of the officers might be retained. Lee seemed much gratified at this magnanimity, which saved him and his officers the peculiar humiliation of a formal surrender of their weapons. He asked, how about the horses of the cavalry-men, which, in the rebel army, were the property of the private soldier. Grant replied that these were included in the surrender. Lee looked at the paper again, and acquiesced in Grant's interpretation. The latter then said, 'I will not change the terms of the surrender, General Lee; but I will instruct my officers who receive the paroles to allow the 'men to retain their horses, and take them home to work their little farms? RICHARDSON.

Thus the manhood and generosity of Grant answered the lying imputations of Davis.

CHAPTER XI.

THE VANISHED CAPITAL.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN went, by invitation of Gen. Grant, to witness the "lost cause" in the throes of death.

In contesting Illinois with Douglas in 1858, Lincoln had asserted as his belief that this government could not "endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect," said he, "the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will be all the one thing or all the other." He was at the camp of Grant to behold, if not the complete fulfilment of this prophecy, at least a mighty stride towards this desirable, though yet unaccomplished, end. Almost four years previous Stephens of Georgia, in addressing the citizens of Richmond, who were about to range Virginia with the Southern Confederacy, said, "What had you, the friends of liberty, to hope for while under Lincoln? Nothing. Beginning in usurpation, where will he end? He will quit Washington as ignominiously as he entered it, and God's will will have been accomplished." This man, whose large, kind heart, perfect hon

esty, and tireless consecration of effort to his country had won from his loyal compatriots a love and trust bestowed on but few men who have ever lived; the man, whose legal choice as President had given umbrage to the conspirators of the South; whose name had been held up in scorn as a brutal tyrant, and covered with derision as an ignorant despot; whom children had been taught to hate and brand with the vilest epithets, and upon whose head the loudest curses and foulest abuse had been heaped by a misguided people, this great, loving, simple-hearted man, because God's will had been accomplished, had "quit Washington" to soon visit the vanishing capital of a baseless confederacy. The event is so admirably described by Holland in his "Life of Lincoln," that place here is given to it, to impress on a new generation a most pathetic and striking incident in history:

"He went up in a man-of-war on the afternoon of Monday, landed at Rochetts, below the city, and, with his boy 'Tad,' rode up the remaining mile in a boat. He entered the city in no triumphal car. No brilliant cavalcade accompanied him; but on foot, with no guard except the sailors who had rowed him up the James, he entered, and passed through the streets of the fallen capital. But his presence soon became known to the grateful blacks, who pressed upon him with their thankful ejaculations and tearful blessings on every side. Better and more expressive were the hats and handkerchiefs tossed in the air by these happy and humble people, than flags and streamers floating from masts and housetops. 'Glory to God! glory! glory!'