ten sailors as a guard, and had to walk over a mile CHAP. XI. and a half to headquarters, it seemed foolhardy in the President to go. However we went through without accident; but I never passed a more anx- April 4,1865. ious time than in this walk. In going up (and we were amongst the very first boats) we ran the risk of torpedoes and the obstructions; but I think the risk the President ran in going through the streets of Richmond was even greater, and shows him to have great courage. The streets of the city were filled with drunken rebels, both officers and men, and all was confusion. . . A large portion of the city was still on fire." The imagination may easily fill up the picture of a gradually increasing crowd, principally of negroes, following the little group of marines and officers with the tall form of the President in its center; and, having learned that it was indeed Mr. Lincoln, giving expression to wonder, joy, and gratitude in a variety of picturesque emotional ejaculations peculiar to the colored race, and for which there was ample time while the little procession made its tiresome march, whose route cannot now be traced. At length the party reached the headquarters of General Weitzel, established in the very house occupied by Jefferson Davis as the Presidential mansion of the Confederacy, and from which he had fled less than two days before. Here Mr. Lincoln was glad of a chance to sit down and rest, and a little later to partake of refreshments which the general provided. An informal reception, chiefly of Union officers, naturally followed, and later in the afternoon General Weitzel went with the President and Admiral Porter in a carriage, CHAP. XI. guarded by an escort of cavalry, to visit the Capitol, the burnt district, Libby Prison, Castle Thunder, and other points of interest about the city; and of Apl. 4, 1865. this afternoon drive also no narrative in detail by an eye-witness appears to have been written at the time. Campbell, It was probably before the President went on this drive that there occurred an interview on political topics which forms one of the chief points of interest connected with his visit. Judge John A. Campbell, rebel Assistant Secretary of War, remained in Richmond when on Sunday night the other members of the Confederate Government fled, and on Tuesday morning he reported to the Union military governor, General G. F. Shepley, and informed him of his "submission to the military Pamphlet. authorities." Learning from General Shepley that Mr. Lincoln was at City Point, he asked permission to see him. This application was evidently communicated to Mr. Lincoln, for shortly after his arrival a staff-officer informed Campbell that the requested interview would be granted, and conducted him to the President at the general's headquarters, where it took place. The rebel general J. R. Anderson and others were present as friends of the judge, and General Weitzel as the witness of Mr. Lincoln. Campbell, as spokesman, "told the President that the war was over," and made inquiries about the measures and conditions necessary to secure peace. Speaking for Virginia, he "urged him to consult and counsel with her public men, and her citizens, as to the restoration of peace, civil order, and the renewal of her relations as a member of the Union." Ibid. 1865. In his pamphlet, written from memory long after- CHAP. XI. wards, Campbell states that Mr. Lincoln replied "that my general principles were right, the trouble was how to apply them"; and no conclusion was reached except to appoint another interview for the following day on board the Malvern. This second interview was accordingly held on Wednesday, April 5, Campbell taking with him only a single citizen of Richmond, as the others to whom he sent invitations were either absent from the city or declined to accompany him. General Weitzel was again present as a witness. The conversation apparently took a wide range on the general topic of restoring local governments in the South, in the course of which the President gave Judge Campbell a written memorandum,1 embracing an outline of 1"As to peace, I have said before, and now repeat, that three things are indispensable: "1. The restoration of the national authority throughout the United States. "2. No receding by the Executive of the United States on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon in the late annual message, and in preceding documents. "3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the Government. That all propositions coming from those now in hostility to the Government, not inconsistent with the foregoing, will be respectfully considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. "I now add that it seems useless for me to be more specific with those who will not say that they are ready for the indispensable terms, even on conditions to be President printed in Campbell Pamphlet, pp. 9, 10. CHAP. XI. conditions of peace which repeated in substance the terms he had proffered the rebel commissioners (of whom Campbell was one) at the Hampton Roads Conference on the 3d of February, 1865. The only practical suggestion which was made has been summarized as follows by General Weitzel in a statement written from memory, as the result of the two interviews: "Mr. Campbell and the other gentlemen assured Mr. Lincoln that if he would allow the Virginia Legislature to meet, it would at once repeal the ordinance of secession, and that then General Robert E. Lee and every other Virginian would submit; that this would amount to the virtual destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia, and eventually to the surrender of all in Phila the other rebel armies, and would insure perfect peace in the shortest possible time." Weitzel, delphia Times." 1865. Out of this second conference, which also ended without result, President Lincoln thought he saw an opportunity to draw an immediate and substantial military benefit. On the next day (April 6) he wrote from City Point, where he had returned, the following letter to General Weitzel, which he immediately transmitted to the general by the hand of Senator Morton S. Wilkinson, in whose presence he wrote it, and who was on his way from City Point to Richmond: It has been intimated to me that the gentlemen who have acted as the Legislature of Virginia in support of the rebellion may now desire to assemble at Richmond, and take measures to withdraw the Virginia troops and other support from resistance to the General Government. If they attempt it, give them permission and protection, until, if at all, they attempt some action hostile to the United States, in which case you will notify them, give them reasonable time to leave, and at the end of which CHAP. XI. time arrest any who remain. Allow Judge Campbell to see this, but do not make it public. This document bears upon its face the distinct military object which the President had in view in permitting the rebel Legislature to assemble, namely, to withdraw immediately the Virginia troops from the army of Lee, then on its retreat towards Lynchburg. It could not be foreseen that Lee would surrender the whole of that army within the next three days, though it was evident that the withdrawal of the Virginia forces from it, under whatever pretended State authority, would contribute to the ending of the war quite as effectually as the reduction to an equal extent of that army by battle or capture. The ground upon which Lincoln believed the rebel Legislature might take this action is set forth in his dispatch to Grant of the same date, in which he wrote: Secretary Seward was thrown from his carriage yesterday and seriously injured. This with other matters will take me to Washington soon. I was at Richmond yesterday and the day before, when and where Judge Campbell, who was with Messrs. Hunter and Stephens in February, called on me, and made such representations as induced me to put in his hands an informal paper repeating the propositions in my letter of instructions to Mr. Seward, which you remember, and adding "that if the war be now further persisted in by the rebels, confiscated property shall at the least bear the additional cost, and that confiscation shall be remitted to the people of any State which will now promptly and in good faith withdraw its troops and other support from the resistance to the Government." Judge Campbell thought it not impossible that the rebel legislature of Virginia would do the latter, if permitted, and accordingly I ad Lincoln to Weitzel, April 6, 1865. Weitzel, Testimony, Report of on Conduct Committee of the War, 1864-65. Part I., p. 521. |