officials in Richmond. On April 6, Davis wrote another letter to Varina. “In my letter of yesterday I gave you all of my prospects which can now be told, not having heard from Genl. Lee and having to conform my movements to the military necessities of the case. We are now fixing an Executive office where the current business may be transacted here and do not propose at this time to definitely fix upon a point for seat of Govt. in the future. I am unwilling to leave Va. and do not know where within her borders the requisite houses for the Depts. and the Congress can be found…Farewell my love, may God bless preserve and guide you.”
Many Southerners agreed that the loss of Richmond did not signify the total defeat of the Confederacy. On April 6, Eliza Frances Andrews, the twenty-four-year-old daughter of Judge Garnett Andrews, a lawyer in Washington, Georgia, and the owner of Maywood plantation and its two hundred slaves, wrote in her diary: “Itook a long walk through the village with Capt. Greenlaw after dinner, and was charmed with the lovely gardens and beautiful shade trees. On coming home, I heard of the fall of Richmond. Everybody feels very blue, but not disposed to give up as long as we have Lee.”
O n April 6, Robert E. Lee telegraphed Davis from his headquarters at Rice’s Station, Virginia, South Side Railroad: “I shall be tonight at Farmville. You can communicate by telegraph to Meherrin and by courier to Lynchburg.” The Army of Northern Virginia was, President Davis believed, still in the game.
From Charlotte, Varina Davis wrote to her husband again on April 7. Their exchange of letters after the fall of Richmond was the beginning of a correspondence that evolved into one of the great collections of American love letters. “The news of Richmond came upon me like the ‘abomination of desolation,’” she wrote. “…I who know that your strength when stirred up is great, and that you can do with a few what others have failed to do with many am awaiting prayerfully the advent of time when it is God’s will to deliver us through his own appointed agent…Numberless surmises are hazarded here as to your future destination and occupation—but I know that wherever you are, and in whatever engaged, it is an efficient manner for the country.” She ended her letter intimately: “Our little ones are all well, but very unruly…Li Pie [their infant daughter Varina Anne] is sweet and pink, and loving her hands and gums are hot, and swollen, and I think she is teething…Write to me my own precious only love, and believe me as ever your devoted Wife.”
O n April 7, Abraham Lincoln, still at City Point, continued to follow the telegraph and dispatch traffic. Reading between the lines, he sensed that victory was imminent. He had become an expert at reading the dry words of a military communication and then interpretingthe unsaid meaning behind the text. He had read several thousand of them during the war and knew how to take their pulse. Now, on April 7, when he held them with his fingers, Lincoln could feel victory resonating from the sheets of paper. Then General Phil Sheridan gave the president a military assessment that inflamed his taste for victory so much that it provoked him to send a telegraph to General Grant. He ordered his commanding general of the armies of the United States to close in for the kill and win the war.
Head Quarters Armies of the United States
City-Point,
April 7. 11 A.M. 1865
Lieut. Gen. Grant.
Gen. Sheridan says “If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender.” Let the thing be pressed.
A. Lincoln
That day in Washington, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles wrote in his diary: “It is desirable that Lee should be captured. He, more than any one else, has the confidence of the Rebels, and can, if he escapes, and is weak enough to try and continue hostilities, rally for a time a brigand force in the interior. I can hardly suppose he would do this, but he has shown
Many Southerners agreed that the loss of Richmond did not signify the total defeat of the Confederacy. On April 6, Eliza Frances Andrews, the twenty-four-year-old daughter of Judge Garnett Andrews, a lawyer in Washington, Georgia, and the owner of Maywood plantation and its two hundred slaves, wrote in her diary: “Itook a long walk through the village with Capt. Greenlaw after dinner, and was charmed with the lovely gardens and beautiful shade trees. On coming home, I heard of the fall of Richmond. Everybody feels very blue, but not disposed to give up as long as we have Lee.”
O n April 6, Robert E. Lee telegraphed Davis from his headquarters at Rice’s Station, Virginia, South Side Railroad: “I shall be tonight at Farmville. You can communicate by telegraph to Meherrin and by courier to Lynchburg.” The Army of Northern Virginia was, President Davis believed, still in the game.
From Charlotte, Varina Davis wrote to her husband again on April 7. Their exchange of letters after the fall of Richmond was the beginning of a correspondence that evolved into one of the great collections of American love letters. “The news of Richmond came upon me like the ‘abomination of desolation,’” she wrote. “…I who know that your strength when stirred up is great, and that you can do with a few what others have failed to do with many am awaiting prayerfully the advent of time when it is God’s will to deliver us through his own appointed agent…Numberless surmises are hazarded here as to your future destination and occupation—but I know that wherever you are, and in whatever engaged, it is an efficient manner for the country.” She ended her letter intimately: “Our little ones are all well, but very unruly…Li Pie [their infant daughter Varina Anne] is sweet and pink, and loving her hands and gums are hot, and swollen, and I think she is teething…Write to me my own precious only love, and believe me as ever your devoted Wife.”
O n April 7, Abraham Lincoln, still at City Point, continued to follow the telegraph and dispatch traffic. Reading between the lines, he sensed that victory was imminent. He had become an expert at reading the dry words of a military communication and then interpretingthe unsaid meaning behind the text. He had read several thousand of them during the war and knew how to take their pulse. Now, on April 7, when he held them with his fingers, Lincoln could feel victory resonating from the sheets of paper. Then General Phil Sheridan gave the president a military assessment that inflamed his taste for victory so much that it provoked him to send a telegraph to General Grant. He ordered his commanding general of the armies of the United States to close in for the kill and win the war.
Head Quarters Armies of the United States
City-Point,
April 7. 11 A.M. 1865
Lieut. Gen. Grant.
Gen. Sheridan says “If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender.” Let the thing be pressed.
A. Lincoln
That day in Washington, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles wrote in his diary: “It is desirable that Lee should be captured. He, more than any one else, has the confidence of the Rebels, and can, if he escapes, and is weak enough to try and continue hostilities, rally for a time a brigand force in the interior. I can hardly suppose he would do this, but he has shown
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