weakness, and his infidelity to the country which educated, and employed, and paid him shows great ingratitude. His true course would be to desert the country he has betrayed, and never return.” Perhaps, Welles suspected, so would Jefferson Davis, and he expressed the same wish for the rebel chief.
In City Point, as Lincoln prepared to board the River Queen and return to Washington, a U.S. Army band serenaded him with a farewell evening concert. The president had spent eighteen days and seventeen nights with his men: The long visit had invigorated him and increased the bonds of affection between them. During the war thecommon soldiers had always been happy to see their president and cheered him on sight. In the election of 1864, it was the soldiers’ vote that kept Lincoln in office when their former commander, General George McClellan, tried to unseat him. Lincoln enjoyed military music, and during summers in Washington, the U.S. Marine Corps band had played concerts on the White House grounds. At 11:00 P.M. the River Queen steamed away from City Point and headed for Washington. Lincoln did not know it, but he was leaving a day too early. If only he could have read Robert E. Lee’s mind, he would never have returned to Washington that night.
While Lincoln was en route to Washington on April 8, Davis had been in Danville for five days. He still refused to believe that the Army of Northern Virginia was in danger of immediate collapse, even though Secretary of War Breckinridge had given him a report that day saying the war was lost. But Davis was far from the front lines and could not receive telegrams or couriers in anything close to real time. At the front, events were in flux, with the situation changing hourly. Far away in the new capital, Davis did not learn of battlefield events before or while they were occurring, but only after they had already happened. And Lee was fighting for his life. He did not have time to dispatch a series of detailed telegraphic or courier messages. And so the president of the Confederacy did not know what his most important general was thinking.
Lee considered the possibility of continuing the fighting, but he had hardly any men left and fit for battle—no more than several thousand. His thoughts, and loyalty, turned to his surviving soldiers. The postwar South would need them—the country had lost so many boys already. In many ways they were the South, not cities like Richmond, Atlanta, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Savannah, and the rest. If the Confederacy was doomed to lose these final battles, suffering great loss of life with no hope of victory, was it right to sacrifice any more lives? More fighting might have been suicidal, even criminal. Lee sent a courier to Danville bearing a message for the president:Surrender was inevitable. Lee knew what he must do. He composed a letter to General Ulysses S. Grant, asking that they meet the next day at a little place called Appomattox Court House.
I n the morning a great controversy erupted in Richmond, on the first Sunday since the burning of the city and the beginning of Union occupation. In church services during the war, it was the custom of the ministers to ask God’s blessing for President Davis and the Confederate cause. Now Yankee officials demanded that ministers bless not Davis but Lincoln. This was too much for the downtrodden citizens to bear. The dispute made it all the way to the ears of Lincoln, who found the whole episode embarrassing.
In Danville, Davis, ignorant of Lee’s appointment with Grant later in the day, continued to make war plans. He sent a telegram to his top general to plan the next phase of the struggle: “Your dispatch of the 6th…received. Hope the line of couriers established will enable you to communicate safely and frequently…You will realize the reluctance I feel to leave the soil of Virginia…the fall of Selma and the reported advance of the enemy on Montgomery, and the fears expressed for the
In City Point, as Lincoln prepared to board the River Queen and return to Washington, a U.S. Army band serenaded him with a farewell evening concert. The president had spent eighteen days and seventeen nights with his men: The long visit had invigorated him and increased the bonds of affection between them. During the war thecommon soldiers had always been happy to see their president and cheered him on sight. In the election of 1864, it was the soldiers’ vote that kept Lincoln in office when their former commander, General George McClellan, tried to unseat him. Lincoln enjoyed military music, and during summers in Washington, the U.S. Marine Corps band had played concerts on the White House grounds. At 11:00 P.M. the River Queen steamed away from City Point and headed for Washington. Lincoln did not know it, but he was leaving a day too early. If only he could have read Robert E. Lee’s mind, he would never have returned to Washington that night.
While Lincoln was en route to Washington on April 8, Davis had been in Danville for five days. He still refused to believe that the Army of Northern Virginia was in danger of immediate collapse, even though Secretary of War Breckinridge had given him a report that day saying the war was lost. But Davis was far from the front lines and could not receive telegrams or couriers in anything close to real time. At the front, events were in flux, with the situation changing hourly. Far away in the new capital, Davis did not learn of battlefield events before or while they were occurring, but only after they had already happened. And Lee was fighting for his life. He did not have time to dispatch a series of detailed telegraphic or courier messages. And so the president of the Confederacy did not know what his most important general was thinking.
Lee considered the possibility of continuing the fighting, but he had hardly any men left and fit for battle—no more than several thousand. His thoughts, and loyalty, turned to his surviving soldiers. The postwar South would need them—the country had lost so many boys already. In many ways they were the South, not cities like Richmond, Atlanta, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Savannah, and the rest. If the Confederacy was doomed to lose these final battles, suffering great loss of life with no hope of victory, was it right to sacrifice any more lives? More fighting might have been suicidal, even criminal. Lee sent a courier to Danville bearing a message for the president:Surrender was inevitable. Lee knew what he must do. He composed a letter to General Ulysses S. Grant, asking that they meet the next day at a little place called Appomattox Court House.
I n the morning a great controversy erupted in Richmond, on the first Sunday since the burning of the city and the beginning of Union occupation. In church services during the war, it was the custom of the ministers to ask God’s blessing for President Davis and the Confederate cause. Now Yankee officials demanded that ministers bless not Davis but Lincoln. This was too much for the downtrodden citizens to bear. The dispute made it all the way to the ears of Lincoln, who found the whole episode embarrassing.
In Danville, Davis, ignorant of Lee’s appointment with Grant later in the day, continued to make war plans. He sent a telegram to his top general to plan the next phase of the struggle: “Your dispatch of the 6th…received. Hope the line of couriers established will enable you to communicate safely and frequently…You will realize the reluctance I feel to leave the soil of Virginia…the fall of Selma and the reported advance of the enemy on Montgomery, and the fears expressed for the
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