CH. XIII. Harrison, his private secretary; Major Maurin and Captain Moody, Lieutenant Hathaway; Jeff. D. Howell, midshipman in the rebel navy, and twelve private soldiers; Miss Maggie Howell, sister of Mrs. Davis; two waiting maids, one white and one black, and several other servants. We also captured five wagons, three ambulances, about fifteen horses, and from twenty-five to thirty mules. The train was mostly loaded with commissary stores and private baggage of the party." 1865. The details of the return march are unnecessary; there is no allegation that the prisoners were ill treated. They arrived at Macon on May 13, both captors and prisoners having on the way first learned of the offer of a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for Davis's apprehension on the charge of having been an accomplice in the assassination of President Lincoln. The assumption of Davis's guilt, and the proclamation offering the reward, were not based upon mere public excitement, but upon testimony given by witnesses who appeared before the Bureau of Military Justice, and which seemed conclusively to prove that the rebel President had taken part in that dreadful conspiracy. But this evidence was found to be untrustworthy; upon an investigation held by a Committee of Congress about a year later, several of these witnesses retracted their statements and declared that their testimony as given originally was false in every particular. No prosecution on this charge was therefore begun against Davis; but after an imprisonment of about two years in Fort Monroe, he was indicted and arraigned at Richmond before the United States Circuit Court for the District of Virginia for the crime of treason, CH. XIIL and liberated on bail, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, and Cornelius Vanderbilt having volunteered to become his principal bondsmen. On the 3d of December, 1868, a motion was made to quash the indictment on the ground that the penalties and disabilities denounced against and inflicted on him for his alleged offense, by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, were a bar to any proceedings upon such indictment. The court, consisting of Chief-Justice Chase and Judge John C. Underwood, considered the motion, and two days later announced that they disagreed in opinion, and certified the question to the Supreme Court of the United States. Though not announced, it was understood that the Chief-Justice held the affirmative and Judge Underwood the negative. Three weeks from that day President Johnson bestowed upon Mr. Davis and those who had been his followers a liberal and fraternal Christmas gift. On the 25th of December, 1868, he issued a proclamation supplementing the various prior proclamations of amnesty, which declared "unconditionally and without reservation, to all and to every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities, under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof." The Government of course took no further action in the suit; and at a subse CH. XIII. quent term of the Circuit Court the indictment was dismissed on motion of Mr. Davis's counsel. The ex-President of the Confederate States was thus relieved from all penalties for his rebellion except the disability to hold office imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which Congress refused to remove. This ended the public career of Jefferson Davis. He returned to his home in Mississippi, where he lived unmolested nearly a quarter of a century after the downfall of his rebellion; emerging from his retirement only by an occasional letter or address. In some of these, as well as in his elaborate work entitled "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," very guarded undertones revealed an undying animosity to the Government of the United States, whose destiny he had sought to pervert, whose trusts he had betrayed, whose honors he had repaid by attempting its destruction, and whose clemency he appeared incapable of appreciating even in his defeat. He died at New Orleans on December 6, 1889, while visiting that city. CHAPTER XIV THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL TH HE 14th of April was a day of deep and tran- CHAP. XIV. quil happiness throughout the United States. It was Good Friday, observed by a portion of the people as an occasion of fasting and religious meditation; but even among the most devout the great tidings of the preceding week exerted their joyous influence, and changed this period of traditional mourning into an occasion of general and profound thanksgiving. Peace, so strenuously fought for, so long sought and prayed for, with prayers uttered and unutterable, was at last near at hand, its dawn visible on the reddening hills. The sermons all day were full of gladness; the Misereres turned of themselves to Te Deums. The country from morning till evening was filled with a solemn joy; but the date was not to lose its awful significance in the calendar: at night it was claimed once more, and forever, by a world-wide sorrow. The thanksgiving of the nation found its principal expression at Charleston Harbor. A month before, after Sherman had "conquered Charleston by turning his back upon it," the Government resolved that the flag of the Union should receive a conspicuous reparation on the spot where it had 1865. 1865. CHAP. XIV. first been outraged. It was ordered by the President that General Robert Anderson should, at the hour of noon on the 14th day of April, raise above the ruins of Fort Sumter the identical flag lowered and saluted by him four years before. In the absence of General Sherman the ceremonies were in charge of General Gillmore. Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous of the antislavery preachers of the North, was selected to deliver an oration. The surrender of Lee, the news of which arrived at Charleston on the eve of the ceremonies, gave a more transcendent importance to the celebration, which became at once the occasion of a national thanksgiving over the downfall of the rebellion. On the day fixed Charleston was filled with a great concourse of distinguished officers and citizens. Its long-deserted streets were crowded with an eager multitude, and gay with innumerable flags, while the air was thrilled from an early hour with patriotic strains from the many bands, and shaken with the thunder of Dahlgren's fleet, which opened the day by firing from every vessel a national salute of twenty-one guns. By eleven o'clock a brilliant gathering of boats, ships, and steamers of every sort had assembled around the battered ruin of the fort; the whole bay seemed covered with the vast flotilla, planted with a forest of masts, whose foliage was the triumphant banners of the nation. The Rev. Matthias Harris, the same chaplain who had officiated at the raising of the flag over Sumter, at the first scene of the war, offered a prayer; Dr. Richard S. Storrs and the people read, in alternate verses, a selection of psalms of thanksgiving and victory, beginning with these marvelous |