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as in the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through the friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided. The Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States, but to further in every way the return of their communities to prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed to be sadly distant.

On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss of its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their great captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been grateful.

The great task had been accomplished and the responsibilities accepted in the first inaugural had been fulfilled.

In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task of steering the nation through the storm of rebellion, the divided opinions and counsels of friends, and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and abroad. In April, 1865, the national existence was assured, the nation's credit was established, the troops were prepared to return to their homes and resume their work as citizens. At no time in history had any people been able against such apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to maintain a national existence. There was, therefore, notwithstanding the great misfortune, for the people South and North, in the loss of the wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties remained to be adjusted, a dramatic fitness in having the life of the leader close just as the last army of antagonists was laying down its arms. The first problem of the War that came to the administration of 1861 was that of restoring the flag over Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, the day when Booth's pistol was laying low the President, General Anderson, who four years earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was fulfilling the duty of restoring the Stars and Stripes.

The news of the death of Lincoln came to the army of Sherman, with which my own regiment happened at the time to be associated, on the 17th of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman had sent word to the north to have all the troops who were holding posts along the coasts of North Carolina concentrated on a line north of Goldsborough. It was his dread that General Johnston might be able to effect a junction with the retreating forces of Lee and it was important to do whatever was practicable, either with forces or with a show of forces, to delay Johnston and to make such combination impossible. A thin line of Federal troops was brought into position to the north of Johnston's advance, but Sherman himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky and persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any opposing line to the north, Johnston would have found it impossible to continue his progress towards Virginia. He was checked checked at Goldsborough after the battle of Bentonville and it was at Goldsborough that the last important force of the Confederacy was surrendered.

We soldiers learned only later some of the complications that preceded that surrender. President Davis and his associates in the Confederate government had, with one exception,

made their way south, passing to the west of Sherman's advance. The exception was Postmaster-General Reagan, who had decided to remain with General Johnston. He appears to have made good with Johnston the claim that he, Reagan, represented all that was left of the Confederate government. He persuaded Johnston to permit him to undertake the negotiations with Sherman, and he had, it seems, the ambition of completing with his own authority the arrangements that were to terminate the War. Sherman, simple-hearted man that he was, permitted himself, for the time, to be confused by Reagan's semblance of authority. He executed with Reagan a convention which covered not merely the surrender of Johnston's army but the preliminaries of a final peace. This convention was of course made subject to the approval of the authorities in Washington. When it came into the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the counsel of Seward and Stanton, promptly disavowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had. reported to Washington from Appomattox, to make his way at once to Goldsborough and, relieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. Grant's response was characteristic. He said in

substance: "I am here, Mr. President, to obey orders and under the decision of the Commanderin-chief I will go to Goldsborough and will carry out your instructions. I prefer, however, to act as a messenger simply. I am entirely unwilling to take out of General Sherman's hands the command of the army that is so properly Sherman's army and that he has led with such distinctive sucGeneral Sherman has rendered too great a service to the country to make it proper to have him now humiliated on the ground of a political blunder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any way a party to his humiliation.”

cess.

Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's first instruction and to have Sherman at once relieved, but the man who had just come from Appomattox was too strong with the people to make it easy to disregard his judgment on a matter which was in part at least military. The PresiIdent was still new to his office and he was still prepared to accept counsel. The matter was, therefore, arranged as Grant desired. Grant took the instructions and had his personal word with Sherman, but this word was so quietly given that none of the men in Sherman's army, possibly no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. Grant took pains so to arrange the last stage of

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