Lincoln's Last Days

by Bill O'Reilly

  General Grant on the front cover of the July 25, 1863, issue of Harper’s Weekly, an illustrated news magazine.

  The sound of horseshoes on cobblestones echoes down the quiet street. It’s Lincoln. Stepping down from his horse, Lincoln walks through the main gate of the house Grant has chosen for their meeting. He takes the walkway in long, eager strides, a smile suddenly stretching across his face, his deep fatigue vanishing at the sight of his favorite general. When he shakes Grant’s hand, it is with great gusto.

  The two men sit on the veranda, taking no notice of the cold. Their conversation shows deep mutual respect. Lincoln and Grant talk for ninety minutes. Although Grant had hoped to receive word of Richmond’s fall while he was with the president, too much time has passed. He must leave to join his army and continue the pursuit of Lee. President Lincoln and General Grant shake hands, then Grant gallops off to join the Army of the Potomac.

  Before leaving, Lincoln also shakes hands with some people in the crowd gathered in front of the meeting place. He then rides back to City Point. The way is littered with hundreds of dead soldiers, their unburied bodies swollen by death and sometimes stripped bare by scavengers. Lincoln doesn’t look away.

  Upon his return to City Point, he receives the reward Grant had hoped to deliver personally. A courier hands the president a telegram informing him that Richmond has fallen.

  “Thank God that I have lived to see this,” Lincoln cries. “It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years, and now the nightmare is gone.”

  But the nightmare’s not really gone. President Lincoln has just twelve days to live.

  Chapter

  3

  TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1865

  Richmond, Virginia

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN STANDS on the deck of the USS Malvern as the warship chugs slowly and cautiously up the James River toward Richmond. The channel is choked with burning warships and the floating corpses of horses. Deadly antiship mines known as torpedoes bob on the surface, drifting with the current, ready to explode the instant they come into contact with a vessel.

  The USS Malvern. Note the paddle wheel and smokestack in the middle of the ship, as well as the masts for sails at both the bow and stern. This ship could use either wind or steam power.

  The Confederate capital is now in Union hands. Lincoln can clearly see that Richmond—or what’s left of it—barely resembles the refined city it was. The sunken ships and torpedoes in the harbor tell only some of the story. Part of Richmond is gone, burned to the ground.

  A lithograph showing the burning of Richmond, Virginia, and its evacuation.

  When it becomes too dangerous for the Malvern to get any closer, Lincoln is rowed to shore. Finally, he steps from the barge and up onto a landing.

  What Lincoln sees now can only be described as shocking.

  The Confederate attempt to destroy supplies and arms to keep them out of the approaching Union army’s hands has escalated out of control. In a cruel irony, it was not the Union army that laid waste to the city. Richmond was destroyed by its own sons.

  Richmond had still been in flames on the morning of April 3, when the Union troops arrived. Brick facades and chimneys still stood, but wooden frames and roofs had been incinerated. Smoldering ruins and the sporadic whistle of artillery greeted the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Corps of the Union army.

  The instant the long blue line marched into town, the slaves of Richmond were free. They were stunned to see that the Twenty-fifth contained black soldiers from a new branch of the army known as the USCT—the United States Colored Troops.

  The ruins of Richmond. Note what appears to be smoke still rising from ruins in the center of the photograph.

  Lieutenant Johnston Livingston de Peyster, a member of the staff of Twenty-fifth Corps commander Major General Godfrey Wetzel, galloped his horse straight to the capitol building. “I sprang from my horse,” he wrote proudly, and “rushed up to the roof.” In his hand was an American flag. Dashing to the flagpole, he hoisted the Stars and Stripes over Richmond. The city was Confederate no more.

  That particular flag had thirty-six stars, a new number, because of Nevada’s recent admission to the Union. By tradition, this new flag would not become official until the Fourth of July. It was the flag of the America to come—the postwar America, united and expanding. It was, in other words, the flag of Abraham Lincoln’s dreams.

  Chapter

  4

  TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1865

  Richmond, Virginia

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN HAS NEVER FOUGHT in battle. In his short three-month enlistment during the Black Hawk War in 1832, he never saw combat. He is a politician, and politicians are seldom given the chance to play the role of conquering hero. But this is Lincoln’s war. It always has been. To Lincoln goes the honor of conquering hero.

  No one knows this better than the freed slaves of Richmond. They gather around Lincoln, so alarming the men who rowed him ashore that they form a protective ring around the president. The sailors maintain this ring around Lincoln as he marches through the city, even as the admiring crowd grows to hundreds.

  The white citizens of Richmond, tight-lipped and hollow-eyed, take it all in. They make no move, no gesture, no sound to welcome him. “Every window was crowded with heads,” one sailor will remember. “But it was a silent crowd. There was something oppressive in those thousands of watchers without a sound, either of welcome or hatred. I think we would have welcomed a yell of defiance.”

  The Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia, home of President Jefferson Davis.

  Soon Lincoln finds himself on the corner of Twelfth and Clay Streets, staring at the former home of Jefferson Davis. Lincoln steps past the sentry boxes, grasps the wrought-iron railing, and marches up the steps into the Confederate White House.

  He is shown into a small room with floor-to-ceiling windows and crossed cavalry swords over the door. “This was President Davis’s office,” a housekeeper says respectfully.

  Lincoln’s eyes roam over the elegant wood desk, which Davis had so thoughtfully tidied before running off two days earlier. “Then this must be President Davis’s chair,” he says with a grin, sinking into its burgundy padding. He crosses his legs and leans back.

  The fireplace and mantel in Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s office. Draped above the mantel are the first two flags of the Confederacy: the Stars and Bars (left), and the Stainless Banner (right). Above the crossed flags is a portrait of Jefferson Davis.

  Lincoln can afford to relax. He has Richmond. The Confederacy is doomed. All the president needs now is for Grant to finish the rest of the job, and then he can get to the work of reunification that will be known to history as Reconstruction.

  Chapter

  5

  TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1865

  Amelia Court House, Virginia

  THE DAY-AND-A-HALF TRUDGE to Amelia Court House, where Lee and his soldiers hope to find rations, began optimistically enough, with Lee’s men happy to finally be away from Petersburg and looking forward to their first real meal in months. Lee’s optimism slowly filtered down into the ranks. Against all odds, his men regained their confidence as the trenches of Petersburg receded into the distance.

  By the time they reach Amelia Court House, on April 4, electricity sizzles through the ranks. The men are speaking of hope and are confident of victory as they wonder where and when they will fight the Yankees once again.

  It’s just before noon when they arrive. Lee quietly gives the order to unload the supply train and distribute the food in an organized fashion. The last thing he wants is for his army to give in to their hunger and rush the train. Orderliness is crucial for an effective fighting force.

  The train doors are yanked open. Inside, huge wooden containers are stacked floor to ceiling. Lee’s excited men hurriedly jerk the boxes down onto the ground and pry them open.

  Then, horror!

  This is what those boxes contain: 200 crates of ammunition, 164
cartons of artillery harnesses, and 96 carts to carry ammunition.

  There is no food.

  A Civil War–era railroad train with boxcars. The men are probably guards.

  Lee’s optimism is replaced by defeat. “His face was still calm, as it always was,” wrote one enlisted man. “But his carriage was no longer erect, as his soldiers had been used to seeing it. The troubles of these last days had already plowed great furrows in his forehead. His eyes were red as if with weeping, his cheeks sunken and haggard, his face colorless. No one who looked upon him then, as he stood there in full view of the disastrous end, can ever forget the intense agony written on his features.”

  Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.

  Lee sends wagons out to scour the countryside in search of food. He anxiously awaits their return, praying they will be overflowing with grains and smoked meats and leading calves and pigs to be slaughtered.

  The wagons come back empty. The countryside is bare.

  Lee must move before Grant finds him. His fallback plan is yet another forced march, this one to the city of Danville, where more than a million rations are supposed to await. Danville, however, is a hundred miles south. As impossible as it is to think of marching an army that far on empty stomachs, it is Lee’s only hope.

  Chapter

  6

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1865

  Amelia Court House, Virginia

  A COLD RAIN FALLS ON THE MORNING of April 5. Lee gives the order to move out. It is, in the mind of one Confederate soldier, “the cruelest marching order the commanders had ever given the men in four years of fighting.” Units of infantry, cavalry, and artillery begin trudging down the road. Danville is a four-day march—if they have the energy to make it. “It is now,” one soldier writes in his diary, “a race of life or death.”

  They get only seven miles before coming to a dead halt at a Union roadblock outside Jetersville. At first there appears to be no more than a small cavalry force. But a quick look through Lee’s field glasses reveals the truth. Union soldiers are digging trenches and fortifications along the road and reinforcing them with fallen trees and fence rails to protect themselves from rebel bullets.

  Lee gallops his horse, Traveller, to the front and considers the situation. Sometimes knowing when not to fight is just as important to a general’s success as knowing how to fight.

  And this is not a time to fight.

  Lee quickly turns his army west in a big loop toward the town of Paineville. The men don’t travel down one single road but spread out along a series of parallel roads connecting the hamlets and burgs of rural Virginia. The countryside is rolling and open in some places, forested in others, and sometimes swampy. Creeks and rivers overflow their banks from the recent rains, drenching the troops at every crossing.

  Lee marches his men all day, and then all night. At a time when every fiber of their being cries out for sleep and food, they press forward over muddy, rutted roads, enduring rain and chill and the constant harassment of Union cavalry.

  On the rare occasions when the army stops to rest, men simply crumple to the ground and sleep. When it is time to march again, officers move from man to man, shaking them awake and ordering them to their feet. Some men refuse to rise and are left sleeping, soon to become Union prisoners. Others can’t rise because they’re simply too weak. These men, too, are left behind. In this way, Lee’s army dwindles. The 30,000 who retreated from Petersburg just three days ago have been reduced by half.

  Shortly after midnight, a courier approaches the marching soldiers and hands Lee a captured Union message from Grant to his generals, giving orders to attack at first light.

  But at last Lee gets good news in the form of a report from his commissary general, I. M. St. John: 80,000 rations have been rushed to the town of Farmville, just nineteen miles away. Lee can be there in a day. He swings his army toward Farmville. It is his final chance to keep the Confederate struggle alive.

  A painting by H. A. Ogden of General Robert E. Lee riding his horse, Traveller.

  An 1865 photograph of High Bridge that spans the Appomattox River near Farmville, Virginia.

  Chapter

  7

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1865

  Jetersville, Virginia

  Night

  GENERAL GRANT IS ALSO ON A MIDNIGHT RIDE. The great hooves of his horse beat a tattoo on the bad roads and forest trails of central Virginia. Speed is of the essence. Scouts report that Lee is escaping, marching his men through the night in a bold attempt to reach rations at Farmville. From there, it’s just a short march to High Bridge, a stone-and-wood structure wide enough to handle an army. The bridge spans the Appomattox River, separating central and western Virginia. Once Lee crosses and burns the bridge behind him, his escape into North Carolina and the heart of Confederate territory will be complete, and the dreadful war will continue.

  Tonight decides everything. Grant is so close to stopping Lee. Grant knows that he must ride hard. Lee must be captured now.

  Major General George Gordon Meade, commanding general of the Army of the Potomac.

  As always, Grant’s battle plan is simple: Get in front of Lee. Block his path. Rather than wait until morning, he orders his staff to mount up for the sixteen-mile midnight ride to Jetersville, where General Sheridan and his cavalry are camped. After speaking with “Little Phil” Sheridan, who enthusiastically agrees to Grant’s plan, the two continue on to the headquarters of Major General George G. Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac.

  * * *

  When Grant became general in chief of the Union armies, he could have made his headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many people expected him to do that. But Grant hates Washington and its politicians. Instead, he established his headquarters in the field, with the Army of the Potomac. Because of this, people think that Grant commands the Army of the Potomac. That is not true—Meade is the commander. But Grant is Meade’s boss. So Meade will do what Grant says.

  * * *

  Grant delivers his orders. Sheridan will attack from Lee’s front, and Meade from Lee’s rear. At first light, Meade’s infantry will chase and find Lee’s army, then harass them and slow their forward movement. Sheridan, meanwhile, will “put himself south of the enemy and follow him to his death.” In this way, the Confederate race to North Carolina will stop dead in its tracks.

  Promptly at six A.M., the two armies begin to march.

  The Black Thursday of the Confederacy has arrived.

  Chapter

  8

  THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1865

  Rice’s Station, Virginia

  Dawn

  IT HAS NOW BEEN FOUR DAYS since the Confederate army began retreating from Petersburg. For four days, the Army of Northern Virginia has eluded the army of General Grant. Better yet, there are rations waiting just a few miles away, in Farmville.

  The plan is for Lee’s men to fill their empty bellies in Farmville, then march over High Bridge. Lee will order the bridge burned immediately after they cross, preventing the Union army from following. In a few days, they’ll reach North Carolina.

  But grim news awaits them when they ride into Rice’s Station. A group of Union cavalry galloped through an hour ago. They are now ahead of the Confederates. General Longstreet’s scouts report that 800 bluecoats on foot and on horseback are headed for High Bridge. Their goal, obviously, is to burn the bridge and close Lee’s escape route.

  Lee hears the thunder of approaching hooves. General Thomas Lafayette Rosser, an outgoing twenty-eight-year-old Texan, gallops his cavalry into Rice’s Station.

  Longstreet approaches Rosser and, warning him about the Union plan, screams, “Go after the bridge burners. Capture or destroy the detachment, even if it takes the last man of your command to do it.”

  Rosser salutes. Then he grins and barks the order to his men. The quiet morning air explodes with noise as hundreds of hooves pound into the narrow dirt road.

  An 1865 photograph showing
the railroad track and wooden pedestrian walkways on High Bridge.

  After they depart, there is nothing Longstreet can do but wait.

  Chapter

  9

  THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1865

  Farmville, Virginia

  Midmorning

  THE UNION FORCE RACING TO BURN High Bridge consists of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry, and the 123rd Ohio Infantry.

  Colonel Francis Washburn of the Fourth Massachusetts orders his cavalry to gallop ahead of the foot soldiers. His men will burn the bridge while the infantry covers the rear.

  As Colonel Washburn and his men arrive within three miles of High Bridge, they are joined by Union general Theodore Read, who has undertaken a daring mission to warn Washburn that the Confederates are hot on his trail and that a small force of rebels who have been at High Bridge for months are dug in around it. Read has full authority to cancel Washburn’s mission if he thinks it too risky.

  Washburn and Read hold a council of war at a hilltop plantation known as Chatham, roughly halfway between Rice’s Station and High Bridge. They can see the bridge in the distance, and the two dirt forts defending it. General Read orders Washburn to proceed to the bridge. Read will stay behind with the infantry to cover the cavalry’s rear. This is a gamble, and both of these brave officers know it.