The Last Weeks of Abraham Lincoln

by David Alan Johnson

  Another continuing point of anxiety for the president was the fact that General Sherman was not with his army at Goldsboro. Putting this particular fear to rest turned out to be fairly easy. Sherman once again assured Lincoln “that General Schofield was fully competent to command in my absence.” He went on to say that he planned to start back for North Carolina that very day, and also that Admiral Porter had been kind enough to put the USS Bat at his disposal for the trip. The USS Bat was a faster boat than the Russia, which had brought him to City Point. General Sherman did not indicate whether or not this news helped to calm the president's nerves.

  After all the reports to the president, and questions from the president regarding troop movements and impending battles, General Sherman had a question of his own: he wanted to know if Lincoln “was all ready for the end of the war.” Specifically, Sherman wanted to know what should be done about the thousands of Confederate soldiers, the rebels who had taken up arms against the United States Government, after the war ended. He also wanted to know how the Southern political leaders, including Jefferson Davis, should be treated. These were two pointed questions. Lincoln's answers would have a far-reaching effect on the future of the country for many years to come.

  The president did not seem to be either upset or agitated by General Sherman's questions. “He said he was all ready,” according to the general. “All he wanted from his generals was to defeat the opposing armies and to get the men comprising the Confederate armies back to their homes, at work on their farms and in their shops.”7

  As far as what should be done about Jefferson Davis, the president dropped a broad hint that Davis should be allowed to “escape the country,” although he did not say this in so many words. Instead, the president made his point with one of his famous humorous stories. He told everyone an anecdote about a man who had taken the pledge never to touch a drop of alcohol but was invited by a friend to have a drink. Rather than risk being thought of as unfriendly by turning down the invitation, he agreed to have a glass of lemonade. His friend agreed to pour him a glass of lemonade, but added that a shot of brandy would make it taste a lot better. The man replied that he would not object if a dram of brandy was added, provided that it was done “unbeknown” to him.

  Lincoln was trying to make the point that he would not object if Jefferson Davis left the country, as long as it was done “unbeknown” to him—he would discreetly look the other way if the president of the Confederacy should happen to escape to Canada or Cuba or some other foreign country.

  At this late stage of the war, President Lincoln had three goals: to bring about the surrender of Robert E. Lee's and Joseph E. Johnston's armies, to allow the former Confederate soldiers go home and start new lives, and to bring the seceded states back into the Union. When the Confederate armies were no longer a threat, the Confederate government would cease to exist. Whatever Jefferson David did, or wherever he went, was beside the point, at least as far as Lincoln was concerned.8

  Admiral Porter was impressed by the fact that President Lincoln wanted to end the war as soon as possible, and that he would be willing to accept peace on almost any terms. According to Admiral Porter, Lincoln insisted upon only two conditions from the former Confederate states: they would be required to rejoin the Union, and they must agree to abolish slavery. He was not adamant about anything else. “Let them all go, officers and all,” Lincoln said. “I want submission, and no more bloodshed…. I want no one punished; treat them liberally all round. We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union and submit to the laws.”9

  After about an hour and a half of talk and deliberation—Admiral Porter noted that the “interview between the two generals and the President lasted about an hour and a half”—the meeting finally wound down.10 All four men stood up, with the tall and angular Lincoln towering over the others, and shook hands as they prepared to leave. No formal minutes of the meeting were taken. Admiral Porter said that he “jotted down what I remembered of the conversation…when anything interesting occurred.”

  Before everyone went their separate ways, the president took General Sherman aside to have a private word. “Sherman, do you know why I took a shine to Grant and you?”11

  The general was slightly taken aback by the question. “I don't know, Mr. Lincoln,” he replied. “You have been extremely kind to me, Mr. Lincoln, far more than my deserts.”

  “Well,” the president said, “you have never found fault with me.”

  Lincoln was almost certainly thinking of General George B. McClellan when he said this, the same George B. McClellan that Lincoln had removed from command after the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg in September 1862, when he would not pursue the retreating Army of Northern Virginia, and also the same George B. McClellan who had been Lincoln's opponent in the 1864 presidential election. McClellan despised Lincoln and never missed an opportunity to criticize him or ridicule him—among other things, he called Lincoln as a baboon and a gorilla. It must have been a great relief to discover that neither Grant nor Sherman were anything like George B. McClellan, and he wanted to take a minute to let Sherman know how much he appreciated his loyalty.

  For his own part, General Sherman had a few complimentary things to say about the president, as well. The Abraham Lincoln that Sherman met at City Point was not the same Abraham Lincoln he had known a few years earlier. The war had changed Lincoln, just as it had changed the country itself. The Abraham Lincoln of 1865 was no longer the ruthless and sometimes arbitrary politician of earlier in the war, who had suspended habeas corpus and had about 13,000 people put in jail without a trial. General Sherman was well aware of the change that had taken place. “We parted on the gangway of the River Queen, about noon of March 28th, and I never saw him again,” Sherman would remember. “Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other.”12

  The ninety-minute conference between the four men was to have had far-reaching effects on the future of the reunited country—“They were hammering out a national fate,” according to one of Lincoln's biographers.13 No one could have known that in two and a half weeks an event would take place that would also change the nation's fate, and would undo everything that had been approved and agreed upon during the course of the meeting.

  Later that afternoon, General Sherman left City Point for his own headquarters aboard the USS Bat. After the Bat had cast off and was underway, Commander Barnes thanked the general for making the journey on his ship instead of the Russia, which had brought him to City Point. He explained that Admiral Porter had given him the job of escorting and attending the River Queen; this assignment also gave Commander Barnes the “special duty” of looking after Mrs. Lincoln as long as she was at City Point and until she returned to Washington.

  Because of Mary Lincoln's attitude toward him after the incident involving Mrs. Ord and the president, Commander Barnes was not happy about being made her special caretaker. The assignment made Barnes's position “very unpleasant,” according to General Sherman.14 But the change of duty had absolved the commander from having to look after Mrs. Lincoln; “he felt much relieved when he was sent with me to North Carolina,” General Sherman observed. Commander Barnes was apparently not aware that the job of taking General Sherman back to North Carolina had also come from Admiral Porter.

  President Lincoln would be staying behind at City Point, aboard the River Queen, with his wife. He could see that the war's final campaign would be starting very soon. General Sherman had already departed to join his army, and General Grant would be off for Petersburg the next day. It did not take very much in the way of foresight to realize that the battle between Grant and General Lee, the “one more bloody battle” that Lincoln was dreading and anticipating, was imminent. The president decided not to return to Washington until the fighting along the Petersburg line had ended, which, for all intents and purposes, would also mean the end of the war.

  Colonel Elisha Hunt Rhodes, w
riting in his diary in the Petersburg trenches, was having the same thoughts as President Lincoln. “We are still under orders to be ready to move, and no doubt a few days more will settle the fate of Petersburg.”15 Colonel Rhodes also shared the president's view on the outcome of the impending battle: “I shall be glad to welcome the dawn of peace, for I am tired of bloodshed.”

  At about 8:30 in the morning, President Lincoln went ashore from the River Queen to say goodbye to General Grant, who was in the process of moving his headquarters to the Petersburg front. When the president arrived, horses were being put aboard the train that would take the general and his staff the ten or so miles to Petersburg. General Grant livened up the occasion with a funny story—he regaled the president with one of the “numerous ingenious and impracticable suggestions” on how to win the war that were sent to him on an almost daily basis.1 The latest idea was to equip the Union army with bayonets that were exactly one foot longer than the enemy's. When the two armies met in battle, “our bayonets would go clear through the enemy, while theirs would not reach far enough to touch our men, and the war would be ended.”

  The president laughed at the story, and reciprocated with a story of his own about the “terror of cold steel.”2 When he was a young man visiting Louisville, a “very tough-looking citizen” blocked his way and waved a bowie knife in front of his face. After a few minutes, the knife-wielding “citizen” asked, “Stranger, kin you lend me five dollars on that?” Lincoln quickly reached into his pocket and handed the man a bank note. “There's ten, neighbor; now put up your scythe.”

  These jokes provided one of the few light moments for the president that morning. General Grant had already said goodbye to his wife. Colonel Horace Porter thought that Julia Grant looked sad and sorrowful, but Mrs. Grant said that she felt nothing but admiration as her husband “mounted and rode away to victory and peace.”3 But as President Lincoln walked toward the train with General Grant, Colonel Porter remarked that the president seemed more serious than at any other time since he had been at City Point—“The lines on his face seemed deeper and the rings under his eyes were of a darker hue.”4

  Just before the general and his staff boarded the train, the president shook hands with Grant and with every officer on the platform. Once on board, everyone raised their hats “respectfully” to the president. President Lincoln returned the salute and said, in a voice choked with emotion, “Good-by, gentlemen. God bless you all.”5 And in a remark that was typical Lincoln, he added, “Remember, your success is my success.” He was fully aware that he would never had been reelected in 1864 if it had not been for the accomplishments of the army in the field, especially the capture of Atlanta by General Sherman.

  General Grant recognized the president's uneasy state of mind. “He intends to remain at City Point for the present, and will be the most anxious man in the country to hear from us, his heart is so wrapped up in our success,” he told Colonel Porter and other staff members on board the train.6 Grant did not seem very concerned about the immediate future, and predicted, “but I think we can send him some good news in a day or two.”

  The general wasted no time in communicating with President Lincoln—he sent the president three telegrams within hours of leaving City Point. In his first communiqué, Grant informed Lincoln that he had arrived at the front at 11:15 a.m., and that there was “No firing.”7 His second message stated that all troops were in their assigned positions for the coming offensive, and that there still had not been any enemy opposition. But it was the general's third telegram, sent from Gravelley Creek and received at 5:10 p.m., that immediately captured Lincoln's attention. Grant wired that General Charles Griffin's division had been attacked at about 4:00 p.m.—“The enemy were repulsed leaving about 60 prisoners in our hands,” and added that both sides had suffered casualties.

  President Lincoln immediately wired back—“Your three dispatches received. From what direction did the enemy come that attacked Griffin? How do things look now?”8 As General Grant had pointed out, the president was the most anxious man in the country to hear from him, and he was especially anxious to hear some good news.

  Grant replied that Griffin had been attacked near the intersection of the Quaker Road and the Boydton Plank Road, and also updated his earlier account. “Warren [General Gouverneur K. Warren] reports the fighting pretty severe but the enemy repulsed leaving one hundred prisoners in our hands.”9 Grant's main point was that the enemy had been driven back, and there was no need for any anxiety. Union forces had cut the Boydton Plank Road in two places, and were now in position to move against the Confederate right flank.

  The president also sent a message to General Godfrey Weitzel, near Richmond. Lincoln telegraphed this short communiqué: “What, if any thing, have you observed on your front to-day?”10 General Weitzel replied that the most recent intelligence informed him that Fitz Hugh Lee's cavalry passed through Richmond the day before, and was seen moving toward Petersburg “at a fast gait.” He ended by saying, “as soon as I hear anything new I will telegraph you.”

  This was the most up-to-date information available, but it is doubtful that it helped to put the president at ease. He knew that a major battle was about to begin, probably the last significant battle of the war, and Lincoln would not be able to relax until it was over.

  The army was in position to move out as soon as the order came through from General Grant. General Weitzel waited in front of Richmond; General Sheridan was in place at Dinwiddie Court House, about twelve miles southwest of Petersburg; General Ord's position was a few miles east of Sheridan, at the intersection of Hatcher's Run and the Vaughan Road. Altogether, five infantry corps, along with Sheridan's cavalry, were standing by. Colonel Elisha Hunt Rhodes noted, “I feel that the enemy are about to leave Petersburg, and we are held in readiness to pursue them.”11

  All that was needed to begin the attack was several days of dry weather. The weather had been cooperating with all the troop movements during the past several days. Julia Grant wrote that it had been a “glorious bright morning” when her husband left for Petersburg.12 But the weather changed abruptly later in the day—clouds started forming up during the afternoon, and changed to a heavy rain that night. General Grant feared that the rain would make the roads impassable for any large-scale troop movements, especially for Sheridan's cavalry. As the rain continued into the next day, Grant could see that he would have to delay the start of his offensive against General Lee. The sudden change in the weather, along with the resulting change in plans, increased everyone's anxieties, including President Lincoln's.

  While President Lincoln was aboard the River Queen, a man came on board and asked to see the president. The stranger was referred to William H. Crook, Lincoln's bodyguard. Crook did not give the exact date of the stranger's visit; he only mentioned that it took place not long before the final assault on Petersburg. The president had given instructions not to admit anyone except General Grant or Admiral Porter; Crook informed the visitor that Lincoln was busy and could not be disturbed.

  When he heard what Crook had to say, the visitor became “very much excited.”13 He explained that he had known “Mr. Lincoln” when they were both living in Illinois, and that he had rendered “valuable services during his campaign for the presidency,” and also that he had spent large sums of money on Lincoln's behalf. Now he was in trouble, and needed to see the president; he insisted that he knew Lincoln personally. Crook asked the visitor for his name. At first, the man refused to give it, but finally said that it was Smith and that he used to live near Lincoln in Illinois.

  Crook delivered Smith's message to the president, who laughed when he heard the name—“Smith is, of course, an uncommon name.” But after thinking about it for a minute, Lincoln's entire demeanor changed. “If what he says is true, I would know,” he said with a note of seriousness in his voice. “But I do not. The man is an impostor, and I won't see him.”

  Mr. Smith was “very much disturbed” when he heard the pr
esident's answer. He begged Crook to take him to see the president; when that failed, he resorted to bribery. Crook ordered Smith to leave the River Queen, and threatened to have him arrested if he refused. Before he left, Smith turned and said to the River Queen's captain, “If Mr. Lincoln does not see me now, he will know me dammed soon after he does see me.” With that, “Mr. Smith” stormed down the gangplank, walked onto the shore, and disappeared.

  William Crook was convinced that “Mr. Smith” was actually John Surratt, one of John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators. “I think ‘Smith’ and Surratt were the same man,” he later recalled. Crook had lived in the same Maryland county as John Surratt, and knew what he looked like. Smith/Surratt had changed over the years—as Crook remembered him, John Surratt was pale and emaciated, while Smith “was ragged and dirty and very much sunburned”—but Crook thought the change in appearance might have been caused by a “change in circumstance,” or by the passage of time, or by a disguise. Crook had no doubts that Smith and Surratt were the same man, and that he had come on board the River Queen to kill Lincoln. Long after the war ended, he would write, “I shall always believe that Surratt was seeking an opportunity to assassinate the President at this time.” There would be other opportunities in the very near future.

  President Lincoln seemed to be of two mindsets when he considered his stay at City Point. He sent a telegram to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton explaining his dilemma. “I have begun to feel that I ought to be at home,” he cabled, “and yet I dislike to leave without seeing nearer to the end of General Grant's present movement.”1