Our One Common Country (38 page)

When the president reached the Executive Mansion, he climbed the stone steps to the seat of the rebellion, cheered by freed slaves and black and white Union troops. He asked for a glass of water and sat in Davis's chair. General Shepley gave him welcome and lunch. General Weitzel asked him how he should treat the people. “If I were in your place,” Lincoln said, “I'd let 'em up easy—let 'em up easy.”

Escorted by Admiral Porter and the Fifth Massachusetts, a unit of black cavalry, the president and Tad took a carriage ride to Capitol Square. Jefferson had designed the pillared temple that housed the Rebel government. Now it showed signs of disorderly flight. Tables were overturned. Bales of Confederate money lay abandoned and unmissed. Drifts of documents were scattered across the floor.

When Stanton learned that Lincoln was in Richmond, he sent Assistant Secretary Charles Dana after him, with orders, as Dana recalled them, “to keep as close as possible to Mr. Lincoln for the purpose of watching and reporting.” Having heard about Weitzel's largesse, Stanton fired off a wire demanding to know “under what authority he is distributing rations to the people of Richmond.” Dana told him Grant had authorized it. For
feeding desperate Americans, the War Department would be reimbursed from the sale of captured property.

The
Whig
was the only paper with an office still standing. In its last edition under Rebel management, the
Whig
had said, “It is ultimately impossible for the people of the South to embrace the Yankees. Even to recognize them as fellow creatures.” An “acre of blood” would separate them forever. On the day of Lincoln's coming, the
Whig
reopened its doors as a voice of the occupation, led by a Unionist Virginian.

Judge Campbell was told that Lincoln had come to Richmond to confer with his generals and would see him at the presidential mansion. “A staff officer came for me,” Campbell says. Northern newspapermen noticed the dignified figure sitting sadly in an anteroom.

When the judge was led into Davis's familiar parlor, accompanied by a friend by the name of Gustavus Myers, Abraham Lincoln greeted him, with Weitzel and Shepley in their jarring blue uniforms. It must have seemed strange. Campbell gave the president a courtly bow. He soon picked up an impression that Lincoln was expecting some authorized communication. The judge disabused him of that. Campbell had told Secretary Breckinridge he would stay in Richmond and try to see President Lincoln, he said. He had asked for authority to discuss peace but received no reply. He had stayed on his own, “to perform my duty to my country.” The war was over, “and all that remained to be done was to compose the country.” He described the city's desolation and asked the president and his generals to preserve order but impose no restraints on the people, make no requisitions on them, demand no oaths of allegiance, leave their churches alone. Lincoln set his mind at ease and so did Weitzel and Shepley.

Campbell felt compelled to speak for Virginia “what would have been more appropriate for a Virginian” if a Virginian were here to say it. The war was under way when Virginia rallied to the South, he said. She had played no part in starting it. The president should summon her influential men, who would surely help restore peace and order, reconstruct the state's political system, renew her membership in the Union, meet “the
new and extraordinary conditions of society.” For the South as a whole, “a large, liberal, and magnanimous policy” would serve the Northern people as well as the Southern. If Virginia were treated harshly, other Southern states would be taught to resist instead of submit. Campbell quoted from
Henry V
as nearly as he recalled: “When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentlest gamester is the soonest winner.”

He had expected the collapse for some time, he said, had tried to bring about peace, but no one would take the responsibility. After Hampton Roads, he had spent the rest of the winter in search of the man who would accept the inevitable and lead the South through it. He had gone to Mr. Davis, to Congress, to General Lee. Everyone had pointed to someone else. But now that the end had come, Virginia's public men would restore her to the Union and “aid in the work of pacification.” If Lincoln called them together, “the work would be nearly done.”

The president asked whom Campbell meant by Virginia's public men. Among others, the judge named General Lee, Senator Hunter, William Cabell Rives, and John B. Baldwin, who had met with Lincoln privately in 1861 to try to find a compromise. The war had been a contest between “close communities.” The party that had fought for independence had meant to stay close to the North had it won. Now the winner should make its success “as little aggravating to the other as possible.”

Lincoln replied that Campbell's principles were right; “the trouble was how to apply them.” He said he was impressed by what the judge had said about finding someone to help him make peace. (He did not cite his own difficulties.) He “wanted to have another talk,” and would stay overnight to do so. He invited Campbell to call again tomorrow, and told him “I might bring with me citizens of the place.” Nothing was said about oak trees or necks.

Before the judge left, a distinguished old Virginian came to see the president. When Campbell introduced him, Lincoln knew his name. “You fought for the Union in Mexico.”

“Mr. Lincoln,” he replied, “if the Union will be fair to Virginia, I will fight for the Union again. Younger men than I, Mr. President, will give you that pledge.”

“He looked at me hard,” the old Virginian recalled, “and shook my hand, and there wasn't any need for him to say anything.”

A day or two later, Julia Grant and some other generals' wives steamed up the James on the
Mary Martin
for a sightseeing trip to Richmond. She regretted it immediately.

A carriage had been hired to drive them around the city. One or two carriages bore other privileged tourists, “and occasionally an old colored servant would pass along, looking on us as intruders, as we all felt we were.” The city was otherwise deserted, the streets near the public buildings strewn with paper. Julia returned to the
Martin
and slept. Darkness had fallen when she awoke. On the paddle wheeler's deck, she listened to the peeping frogs, looked out at the blackened city, and cried.

Robert E. Lee and what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia, some 30,000 famished men and boys and a few thousand half-dead horses, were still moving west, pursued by Grant and 120,000 healthy troops. Hardship had purged them of their quitters. Many had deserted when the army began its retreat, but a veteran would later recall that “not one of us who remained despaired of the end we sought.” They discussed where their miraculous stand would be made, and wondered where the seat of government would be.

For security's sake, Lincoln was persuaded to spend the night on Admiral Porter's
Malvern,
anchored in the James. According to Porter, the captain of the warship
Clinton
came aboard and said he was short of rations. He had given some away to pleading women, “destitute of food.” Porter chastised the captain for his profligacy with government property until Lincoln made a gesture with both hands. “Give them all the provisions they want. Give them all they want.”

The admiral was embarrassed by the
Malvern
's accommodations—only one substantial stateroom and a small cabin aft with a sofa and four chairs. “I could not sling a cat around by the tail.” Lincoln enjoyed it thoroughly. What pleased him most, he said, was that no one could get at
him but those he chose to see. He declined Porter's offer of his stateroom and slept in the small cabin. He would soon tell the admiral that his brief time on the
Malvern
was one of the pleasantest of his life. With peace at hand after four years of war, he would always consider it the holiday of his administration.

He had less than two weeks to live.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Allow Judge Campbell to See This, But Do Not Make It Public

It was warm in Richmond on Thursday morning and the ruins still smoldered. On the
Malvern,
Lincoln was preparing to see Judge Campbell, but the South had gambled away a shrinking stack of chips since they met at Hampton Roads. When they spoke on the
River Queen
in February, the Rebels had a capital, Lee was checking Grant, and Sherman had just begun his assault on South Carolina. When they met on the
Malvern
in April, Lee was on the run, Sherman was moving north, Lincoln presided over Richmond, and Davis and his Cabinet were fugitives. With only Campbell left to talk to, Lincoln came back to the table nonetheless.

Having seen Lincoln's interest in the idea that Virginia's leading men could help them make peace, Campbell tried to gather such men to accompany him, but most of them had fled and others declined to come. Even when Campbell shared his proof of the South's inability to fight on, the stigma of conciliation was too much for some, the humiliation too much for others. To meet with Abraham Lincoln, Judge Campbell could find no one more consequential than Gustavus Adolphus Myers, the friend who had accompanied him yesterday. The judge called Myers “an established member of the bar.” The acerbic John Jones called him “a little old lawyer” and an influence peddler. He was more than that. A longtime member and sometime chairman of the city council and a leader of Richmond's Jewish community, he had made his home on Governor
Street a literary salon and served as Britain's attorney in the Rebel capital. Still, Campbell had hoped to bring to the President of the United States a weightier leading man than a Richmond city councilman.

Campbell and Myers met Weitzel at the Executive Mansion and the three of them took a carriage to Rockett's Wharf, “no other Gentlemen having appeared,” as Myers put it. They boarded the
Malvern
at 10:00 a.m. and the president greeted them cordially in the warship's
modest cabin with its sofa and four chairs, acknowledging that they came in no official capacity. Lincoln had drafted a memorandum of terms for peace, which he read line by line, with no less conviction than he had shown at Hampton Roads, pausing to comment on each of his three conditions before moving to the next.

The document said that the National Authority must be restored. Lincoln added that he and the good people of the North had had enough of war. He hoped “in the Providence of God” there would never be another.

The document said that there would be no armistice short of a permanent peace. Lincoln added that he would do all he could to save every Southern life if the Confederacy laid down its arms.

The document said that the executive would not retreat from any of his previous positions on slavery. Lincoln added that all existing presidential acts “must pass for what they are worth”; he would not take them back; he could not do so in good faith even if he had wanted to; “but this would not debar action by other government authorities.”
*

His conditions had not changed since Hampton Roads, but his freedom of movement had. The conquest of Richmond and the imminent end of the war had strengthened his hand, and neither Congress nor his Cabinet were there to tell him no. Instead of increasing the pressure, he eased it back. On the
River Queen,
he had refused to treat with Rebels in arms. On the
Malvern,
he repeated to Campbell his refusal to negotiate until the Rebels stopped fighting, but his memorandum said that all
propositions consistent with his preconditions “will be respectfully considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality.”

There was more. Lincoln had told Grant that if the commissioners had written “reunion” on a sheet of paper at Hampton Roads, they could have written almost anything else, and the commissioners had been telling whomever would listen that Davis should have sent them back to Lincoln with reasonable terms for reunion. With Richmond at his feet, Lincoln's memorandum implored the fleeing Rebels to do just that, despite what he said to Campbell about refusing to negotiate with Rebels in arms:

 

I now add that it seems useless for me to be more specific with those who will not say they are ready for the indispensable terms,
even on
condition to be named by themselves.
If there be any who are ready for those indispensable terms
on any condition whatever
let them say so, and state their conditions, so that such conditions can be distinctly known and considered. [Emphasis added]

 

This was not just an offer to treat with armed Rebels. It was barely short of a plea.

There was more. On the
River Queen,
Lincoln had said he would use his executive powers to forgo
future
confiscations of property if the war ended now, Seward had added that a forgiving Congress (a laughable oxymoron) might restore what was already taken, and Lincoln had said he would consider such restorations liberally. On the
Malvern,
Lincoln pledged, in writing, that
all
existing confiscations, other than “supposed property in slaves” and property that third parties had acquired, would be “remitted to the people of any State” that stopped resisting the federal government. If they prolonged the war instead, its costs would be allayed by the sale of that property.

Lincoln spoke to Campbell of the Southern leaders too. “It would not be proper to offer a pardon to Mr. Davis,” he said. Besides, he went on, perhaps with a crooked grin, Mr. Davis had said he would not take one, and he did not believe in forcing one on anybody. But almost anyone who wanted one could have it for the asking. In a kind, almost teasing way,
the president said he would “save any repentant sinner from hanging.” If Campbell enjoyed a moment of relief, he did not say so.

The judge's legal mind saw no material difference between the terms he was hearing now and the terms he had heard at Hampton Roads. They should have been accepted then, he thought. They must be accepted now. But the political differences were crucial. No longer could it be said that Abraham the First offered nothing but subjugation and a refusal to treat with the South. On the
River Queen
he had given the Southern peace commissioners nothing in writing. On the
Malvern,
when he finished reading his memorandum inviting Southern leaders to accept his essential terms “on any condition whatever,” he handed it to Campbell to publish as he wished. Had he done so at Hampton Roads
,
Davis could not have suppressed it.

But how to act on it now? Davis and his Congress were gone. With the exception of Judge Campbell, so was the cabal. With no authority to do more, the judge urged the president to suspend the war. The result would be “peace on your own terms.” Lincoln agreed to consider it, despite the written rejection of any truce that he had just handed over.

With nothing left to hide, Campbell told Lincoln that Lee could be sustained no more, and slavery was dead. Everybody knew it. Over the winter, he said, talk of compromise had been heard in Richmond from men who had previously spurned it, though no one could be found to make peace. But with Lee on the edge of capture and Richmond occupied, there would be no hesitation to accept the president's terms. The judge handed Lincoln a copy of a document he had given to Davis and Breckinridge, proposing terms of reunion. Lincoln promised to consider it. He had been “meditating a plan,” he said, but had not fixed on it, and would make no decision until he returned to City Point. When he was satisfied, he would write General Weitzel in a day or two.

And then he astonished the judge. Pointing uphill to the white-pillared capitol that Jefferson had designed, he said he was inclined to assemble “the very Legislature that has been sitting up yonder,” to come back and restore Virginia to the Union and recall her soldiers from the war. He already had a government in Virginia, he said, but it had “a very
small margin,” and he was not disposed to increase it.
12
*
Reconvening the legislature to recognize federal authority was “desirable in many points of view,” Lincoln said. He likened it to a tenant caught between contesting landlords and acknowledging the one who had shown the better title. He would like to give the legislature leave to come to Richmond and go home again if it reached no conclusion. Campbell had the impression that he expected it to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment in a show of healing.

Campbell had merely asked to assemble some prominent men. Lincoln had gone much further. The judge was delighted by his willingness to give the defeated state governments “some tolerance.” Far more than that, he was talking about giving them some power. Campbell said he thought it “not impossible” that the reassembled legislature would repeal Virginia's secession and withdraw her troops.
13
**

Lincoln asked Gustavus Myers, who had been sitting there quietly, about the composition and sentiments of “the gentlemen who comprise the Legislature,” and whether they would come back to Richmond if called. Myers vouched for them.

Further on the subject of Virginia's leading men, Lincoln told Campbell he would like to see Mr. Hunter. They might agree on some proposition to bring the sections together. Based on their talk on the
River Queen,
he said, he believed that Mr. Hunter's intentions were honest, and valued his influence with his people. But Hunter had gone home to Essex County, and Lincoln was leaving for City Point in a few hours. Nothing came of his wish.

Myers told Lincoln that the occupying army's behavior had calmed Richmond's fears and produced kind feelings, but if the people were forced to take an oath of allegiance it would all be spoiled. Lincoln replied
that the people should be
encouraged
to take an oath, but he had never attached much importance to demanding one. Then the president turned to Weitzel. The decision would be his. On the carriage ride to the
Malvern,
Weitzel had said he did not believe in forcing principles under oath. He said it again now.

Then Campbell read a paper proposing a military convention between Grant and Lee. Lincoln asked to take it with him, fueling the judge's hopes.

Campbell would later say that this conversation with Lincoln “impressed me favorably and kindly to him,” as it had on the
River Queen,
and they parted with mutual good wishes. Admiral Porter had already surmised that their meeting had been cordial, “to judge from their laughter.”

At three o'clock that day, the Rebel War Department clerk John B. Jones made a timed and dated entry in his deathwatch on the Confederacy. “I feel that this Diary is near its end.”

Eager to join Lincoln, Seward arranged for a revenue cutter to take him to Richmond, then went for a ride in his two-horse carriage with his son Fred, his daughter Fan, and her friend. When the horses suddenly bolted on Vermont Avenue, startled by a slamming coach door, Seward tried to stop them and was thrown to the street like a sack of mail. He was carried unconscious to his home, his battered face unrecognizable, his jaw and right arm broken. His recovery was said to be doubtful.

The Secretary of War was summoned to Seward's side. “Stanton wiped his lips,” Fan said, “spoke gently to him,” read to him, returned every day to nurse him “like a woman.” Seward's jaw was so smashed up it could barely be wired together. His agony kept the household in tears for days. When he tried to bless Stanton, emotion overcame him.

Late that morning, unaware of Seward's suffering, Lincoln returned to City Point on the
Malvern.