Bloody Times (3 page)

A Union officer wrote about what he saw as he entered the city in early morning, when it was still burning. “As we neared the city the fires seemed to increase in number and size, and at intervals loud explosions were heard. On entering the square we found Capitol Square covered with people who had fled there to escape the fire and were utterly worn out with
fatigue
and fright. Details were at once made to scour the city and press into service every able-bodied man, white or black, and make them assist in extinguishing the flames.”

Constance Cary ventured outside to see her ruined and fallen city. Horrified, she discovered that Yankees had occupied the Confederate White House. “I looked over at the President’s house, and saw the porch crowded with Union soldiers and politicians, the street in front filled with curious gaping negroes.” The sight of ex-slaves roving freely about disgusted her. “It is no longer our Richmond,” she complained, and added that the Confederate anthem still had the power to raise some people’s spirits: “One of the girls tells me she finds great comfort in singing ‘Dixie’ with her head buried in a feather pillow.”

All day on April 3, Washington, D.C., celebrated the fall of Richmond. The
Washington Star
newspaper captured the joyous mood: “As we write Washington city is in such a blaze of excitement and enthusiasm as we never before witnessed here. . . . The thunder of cannon; the ringing of bells; the eruption of flags from every window and housetop, the shouts of enthusiastic gatherings in the streets; all echo the glorious report. RICHMOND IS OURS!!!”

Broadside from the first week of April 1865.

The Union capital celebrated without President Lincoln, who was still with the army. While Washington rejoiced, the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, worried about Lincoln’s safety. He believed that the president was traveling in enemy territory without sufficient protection. Stanton urged Lincoln to return to Washington. But Lincoln didn’t take the warning. He telegraphed back:

Head Quarters Armies of the United States
City-Point,
April 3. 5 P.M. 1865

Hon. Sec. of War

Washington, D.C.

Yours received. Thanks for your caution; but I have already been to Petersburg, stayed with Gen. Grant an hour & a half and returned here. It is certain now that Richmond is in our hands, and I think I will go there to-morrow. I will take care of myself.

A. Lincoln

President Davis did not arrive in Danville until 4:00
P.M.
on the afternoon of April 3. It had taken eighteen hours to travel just 140 miles. The plodding journey from Richmond to Danville made clear an uncomfortable truth. If Jefferson Davis hoped to avoid capture, continue the war, and save the Confederacy, he would have to move a lot faster than this. Still, the trip had served its purpose. It had saved, for at least another day, the Confederate States of America.

On the afternoon and evening of Monday, April 3, the government on wheels unpacked and set up shop in Danville, Virginia. Jefferson Davis hoped to remain there as long as possible. In Danville he could send and receive communications so that he could issue orders and control the movements of his armies. It would be hard for his commanders to telegraph the president or send riders with the latest news if he stayed on the move and they had to chase him from town to town. In Danville he had the bare minimum he needed to continue the war.

The citizens of Danville had received word that their president was coming, and a large number of people waited at the station for his train. They cheered Jefferson Davis when he stepped down from his railroad car. The important people of the town opened their homes to the president and his government. But soon refugees fleeing from Richmond and elsewhere flooded into Danville. There was not enough room for everyone. Many slept in railroad cars and cooked their meals in the open.

But in Danville Davis and his government had little to do except wait for news. The future course of the war in Virginia depended upon Robert E. Lee and what was left of his army. Davis expected news from Lee on April 4, but none came. The president longed for action: He wanted to rally armies, send them to strategic places, and continue fighting. Instead, he had to sit still and wait for word from the Army of Northern Virginia.

“April 4 and the succeeding four days passed,” noted Stephen R. Mallory, the secretary of the navy, “without bringing word from Lee or Breckinridge, or of the operations of the army; and the anxiety of the President and his followers was intense.” Refugees from Richmond carried wild stories. Some said Lee had won “a glorious victory.” Others said Lee was too busy fighting to send messengers. Jefferson Davis ignored the rumors.

*  *  *

On April 4, as Davis waited impatiently for news, Lincoln experienced one of the most thrilling days of his life. “Thank God that I have lived to see this!” he wrote. “It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years, and now the nightmare is gone. I want to go to Richmond.”

Admiral Porter, a Union navy admiral, agreed to take him there, “[i]f there is any of it left. There is black smoke over the city.” On the
River Queen
they traveled up the river toward Richmond. When the water became too shallow for big boats, Porter transferred the president and Tad to his personal craft, the “admiral’s barge.” Despite the fancy name, it was no more than a big rowboat. But it allowed them to continue.

The city looked eerie. Lincoln and Porter peered at the rebel capital but saw no one. They saw smoke from the fires. The only sound was the creaking of the oars. “The street along the river-front was as deserted,” Porter observed, “as if this had been a city of the dead.” Although the Union army had controlled the city for several hours, “not a soldier was to be seen.”

The oarsmen rowed for a wharf, and Lincoln stepped out of the boat. Admiral Porter described what happened next: “There was a small house on this landing, and behind it were some twelve negroes digging with spades. The leader of them was an old man sixty years of age. He raised himself to an upright position as we landed, and put his hands up to his eyes. Then he dropped his spade and sprang forward.” The man knelt at Lincoln’s feet, praising him, calling him the messiah come to free his children from slavery. “Glory, Hallelujah!” he cried, and kissed the president’s feet. The others did the same.

Lincoln was embarrassed. He did not want to enter Richmond like a king. He spoke to the throng of former slaves. “Don’t kneel to me. That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.”

Before allowing Lincoln to leave them and proceed on foot into Richmond, the freed slaves burst into joyous song:

Oh, all ye people clap your hands,

And with triumphant voices sing;

No force the mighty power withstands

Of God, the universal King.

The hymn drew hundreds of blacks to the landing. They surrounded Lincoln, making it impossible for him to move. Admiral Porter recognized how foolish he had been to bring the president of the United States ashore without enough soldiers to protect him.

The crowd went wild. Some rushed forward, laid their hands upon the president, and collapsed in joy. Some, too awed to approach Father Abraham, kept their distance and, speechless, just stared at him. Others yelled for joy and performed somersaults. Lincoln spoke to them: “My poor friends, you are free—free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it. . . . Liberty is your birthright. . . . But you must try to deserve this priceless boon. Let the world see that you merit it, and are able to maintain it by your good works. Don’t let your joy carry you into excesses. Learn the laws and obey them. . . . There, now, let me pass on; I have but little time to spare. I want to see the capital.”

Porter ordered six marines to march ahead of the president and six behind him, and the landing party walked toward downtown Richmond. The streets were dusty, and smoke from the fires still hung in the air. Lincoln could smell Richmond burning. By now thousands of people, blacks and whites, crowded the streets.

A beautiful girl, about seventeen years old, carrying a bouquet of roses, stepped into the street and advanced toward the president. Admiral Porter watched her struggle through the crowd. “She had a hard time in reaching him,” he remembered. “I reached out and helped her within the circle of the sailors’ bayonets, where, although nearly stifled with dust, she gracefully presented her bouquet to the President and made a neat little speech, while he held her hand. . . . There was a card on the bouquet with these simple words: ‘From Eva to the Liberator of the slaves.’”

Porter spotted a sole soldier on horseback and called out to him: “Go to the general, and tell him to send a military escort here to guard the President and get him through this crowd!”

“Is that old Abe?” the trooper asked before galloping off.

Lincoln went on to the Confederate White House and entered Jefferson Davis’s study. One of the men with him remembered watching Lincoln sit down and say, “‘This must have been President Davis’s chair.’” Lincoln crossed his legs and “looked far off with a serious, dreamy expression.” Lincoln knew the Confederate president had been here, in this room, no more than thirty-six hours ago. This was the closest Abraham Lincoln had ever come to Jefferson Davis.

One observer remembered that Lincoln “lay back in the chair like a tired man whose nerves had carried him beyond his strength.” Sitting in the quiet study of the Confederate president, perhaps Lincoln weighed the cost—more than 620,000 American lives—paid to get there. He did not speak. Then he requested a glass of water.

After Lincoln left the Confederate White House, he toured Richmond in a buggy. Blacks flocked to him and rejoiced, just as they had done at the river landing. But not all of Richmond welcomed him to the ruined capital. Most whites stayed in their homes behind locked doors and closed shutters, with some glaring at the unwelcome conqueror through their windows.

It was a miracle that no one poked a rifle or a pistol through an open window and opened fire on the despised Yankee president. Lincoln knew the risk. “I walked alone on the street, and anyone could have shot me from a second-story window,” he said. His Richmond tour was one of Lincoln’s triumphs. It was the most important day of his presidency. It was also one of the most dangerous days of his life. No American president before or since has ever placed himself at that much risk.

Before Lincoln left Richmond, the Union general left in charge of the city asked Lincoln to tell him how he should deal with the conquered rebels. Lincoln’s answer became an American legend. He replied that he didn’t want to give any orders, but, “If I were in your place I’d let ’em up easy, let ’em up easy.”

During his time in Richmond, Lincoln did not order arrests of any rebel leaders who stayed in the city, did not order their property seized, and said nothing of vengeance or punishment. Nor did he order a manhunt for Davis and the officials who had left the city less than two days ago. It was a moment of remarkable greatness and generosity. It was Abraham Lincoln at his best.

On the day Abraham Lincoln came to Richmond, Varina Davis reached Charlotte, North Carolina. Her journey had been miserable. “The baggage cars were all needing repairs and leaked badly. Our bedding was wet through by the constant rains that poured down.” Varina, her children, and her small group of traveling companions settled into a rented house in Charlotte.

Jefferson Davis stayed in Danville for the next several days. He spent much of April 4, his first full day in Danville, sending and receiving messages. Bad news arrived from all over the Confederacy. “Selma [Alabama] has fallen—The Enemy threaten Montgomery [Alabama] and it is believed will march upon Columbus Georgia,” one message read. Davis received more bad news from his nephew: “My Brigade was lost except about twenty men all captured; I went to Richmond to join you—arrived too late. . . . I deeply regret having missed you as I hoped in an humble way to have served you. Remember me in love to aunt and the children.”

Jefferson Davis’s behavior once he reached Danville proved to the people of the South that he had not fled Richmond in a panicked bid to save his own life. If he had wanted to escape, even flee the country, Davis could have kept traveling south. Instead, he settled in Danville and prepared to continue the war. He wanted to show the people of the Confederacy that he had not abandoned them, that the cause was not lost, that he would never surrender, and that he would lead them to victory.