v1.1.1 / chapter 85 of 93 / 01 sep 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* The last days of the Confederacy were clearly at hand in the early spring of 1865. One impassioned Confederate sympathizer, the famous actor John Wilkes Booth, wanted to take action to help the rebel cause, and organized a group of like-minded individuals to kidnap President Lincoln. However, his plans kept coming unraveled; frustrated, Booth began to think of killing the President instead.
In the meantime, the Confederacy finally decided in a pathetic gesture to bring black soldiers into the conflict, while Lincoln continued to press forward on the war. He was sworn into office for a second term, an occasion marked by the delivery of a classic speech in which he reflected on the past history of the war and presented his hopes for the future.
* None of the fifteen presidents who had preceded Abraham Lincoln in office had been killed or even injured by an assassin. A lunatic had tried to shoot Andrew Jackson, but the assailant's pistols had both misfired. The nation hadn't had a civil war before either, nor a government that had resorted to the level of unusual, severe, and in some cases clearly extralegal measures to impose order. Abraham Lincoln was the perfectly logical focus of all resentment against such measures, and as such he often received threats. By the spring of 1865, he had an envelope full of eighty of them, and it is believed the President's secretaries destroyed more. In the summer of 1862, someone actually took a shot at Lincoln as he rode through the city, knocking his top hat off. The assailant was never caught.
Lincoln did not believe that excessive security was consistent with his role as President, but some security measures were taken. His big friend from Illinois days, Ward Hill Lamon, had worked as the President's informal bodyguard and was eventually given the position of marshal to formalize his efforts, and four plainclothes Washington police armed with revolvers kept a round-the-clock watch.
A Confederate spy named Thomas Nelson Conrad came up with a scheme to kidnap the President in the summer of 1864, but the plot was thwarted when Conrad found a detachment of Ohio cavalry had been assigned to guard the President when he travelled by carriage. Soon, another such plot was concocted by a somewhat less cautious individual, a well-known actor named John Wilkes Booth.
* John Wilkes Booth was the son of Junius Brutus Booth, a British-born actor who as a young man fell in love with a flower girl named Mary Ann Holmes. He was already married and had a son, but he decided to escape such inconveniences by running off with Mary Ann to Baltimore. Junius Booth became a famous actor on the American stage, as well as notorious for his drunkenness, eccentricities, and instabilities.
Mary Ann did not formally marry Junius Booth until 1851, but she bore him ten children. John Wilkes Booth was the ninth, born in 1838. Like his older brothers Junius Junior and Edwin, John Wilkes became an actor himself, performing in his first plays in 1855. John Wilkes Booth was emotional and energetic, a temperament suited to an actor. Women found him very attractive, and he quickly became a theatre star, rivalling the popularity of his less impulsive and more dignified older brother Edwin. John Wilkes cut a good figure and often stood for the photographers, printing up his images on the carte de visites that people exchanged at the time, and distributing them in quantity.
Booth started playing in the South in 1858 and found a warm audience there. By the outbreak of the war, he could bring in a thousand dollars a week, comfortable money now and a fortune in those days. Except for his vanity and inclination to the dramatic, which was far more than just acting, he was unpretentious and friendly with just about anybody.
John Wilkes Booth had strongly Southern sympathies, and often argued with his brother Edwin, who was a Unionist. Although once war came John Wilkes helped smuggle medicines to the Confederacy, he became increasingly unhappy that he had not done more to help the South against the tyranny of Abraham Lincoln.
Ironically, very much by chance, his brother Edwin Booth did the Lincoln family a service. At some time during the middle war years, Robert Todd Lincoln, the President's oldest son, was buying a train ticket at a railroad station in Jersey City, New Jersey. There was a crowd there, and in the crush Robert was shoved up against the side of a railroad car. The train began to move and Robert was dragged alongside, falling into the space between the train and the platform. A bystander dropped his baggage, grabbed Robert by the coat collar, and dragged him to safety. "Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name."
* When the Union suspended prisoner exchanges in April 1864, John Wilkes Booth decided to act. In the late summer of 1864, he got a wild idea to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and cart him off to Richmond, where the President would be held hostage against the return of Confederate prisoners. Booth sounded out friends who he knew to be pro-Confederate, and the charismatic actor began to build up a circle of accomplices to help him carry out his plan. He also went to Montreal and got in touch with Confederate agents there; it is not known exactly what they discussed, but it appears that he told them about his plan, and they provided him with contacts who might help.
The circle included two old friends of Booth's named Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin, both of whom had been Confederate privates but were now working at various jobs in Washington. He also recruited David Herold, a Washington local who spent a great deal of time hunting outside the city and knew the land very well; Edman "Ned" Spangler, a stagehand who occasionally shared a drink with Booth; and John Surratt JR, who was working as a Confederate courier at the time. Surratt also brought in a German immigrant named George Atzerodt, who was something of a doubtful quantity since he had little nerve and drank too much.
As if to compensate for Atzerodt, Booth presently brought in Lewis Powell, who went by the alias of "Lewis Paine". Paine was a big, strong fellow from Florida who had been a Confederate private and had been captured at Gettysburg. He had escaped and then led a shadowy existence, possibly fighting as a Confederate guerrilla in Virginia and certainly operating as a Confederate agent in Washington. Paine was a quiet man with a inclination to violence, and was devoted to Booth, who he called "Cap".
By the end of the year, Booth had the muscle he needed to carry out the plan. He considered trying to kidnap the President at a theater performance in mid-January 1865, but wavered and put his scheme on hold. The conspirators bided their time, acquiring weapons and other useful tools.
* While Booth plotted, the Confederacy continued to scrape the bottom of the barrel in efforts to stave off defeat. On 13 March 1865, the Confederate Congress finally passed an act to use black men as soldiers.
That it happened even when things were so desperate was only because Robert E. Lee had endorsed the idea in a letter he sent to the Confederate Congress in mid-February. Although backed by Lee's authority there was considerable debate over the bill. The bill would be passed by a narrow margin, and the machinery would be put into motion under the command of General Dick Ewell, but it was much too little and far too late. Astoundingly, nothing at all was said in its text about emancipating slaves who fought for the Confederacy, and in fact verbiage in the measure insisted that it implied no change in the institution. Two companies of black soldiers would be organized in all, and still remain slaves. It would have been a non-starter even in better circumstances, and by the time the bill was passed, the Confederacy's clock was close to midnight. From the first to the last, slavery forced Confederates down mad paths.
On hearing the news of the passage of the bill, Lincoln said that he was glad of it, since such a desperate measure meant that "insurgent resources" were scraping the bottom of the barrel. A Northern cartoonist depicted "The Impetuous Charge Of The First Colored Rebel Regiment", with black troops all deserting to Union lines in a wild joyous rush as a black Union sergeant offers them a hot meal.
In modern times, there are those who assert that large numbers of blacks fought for the Confederacy. There are tales of two black Confederate regiments that fought at Seven Pines / Fair Oaks, but absolutely no details of these supposed regiments have ever been uncovered. There are stories of black Confederate guerrillas in Missouri and elsewhere, but the distinction between a guerrilla and a bandit can be indistinct, and there's no saying that these folk weren't just armed robbers.
It does appear to be true that at least one regiment of black freemen was raised in New Orleans before the fall of that city to the Union, but the story is entirely obscure, with some sources claiming that the black officers of this regiment were actually slaveholders themselves, and that the authorities were so unenthusiastic about the idea that the regiment rarely drilled. There is no evidence that this regiment saw any combat or was even assigned to perform serious military duties. According to the story, some of the enlisted black soldiers from this regiment later signed up with Ben Butler's Unionist Louisiana Native Guards.
Slaves were often used for labor in Confederate camps, and Confederate officers sometimes retained use of slave servants while in the field. No doubt sometimes slaves wore Confederate uniforms, either simply out of conformance to the standards of a camp or because that was all there was to wear. However, they carried no rank, and no solid evidence, such as photographs of armed black Confederates or rosters of black Confederate regiments, supports the notion that slaves signed up to actually fight for the Confederacy in any numbers. If they had, the heated debate among Confederate leadership over the arming of black men would be a bit hard to understand.
It is hard to say that no black men threw in their lot with the Confederacy, but if so they remain effectively invisible compared to the 166 regiments of black troops employed by the Union. Slavery was maintained by force and intimidation, and though there is clear evidence that slaves often had a startling amount of loyalty to their masters, the idea that slaves would be motivated to support the system that kept them in chains defies simple logic.
* Inauguration Day, 4 March 1865, was rainy and muddy. Lincoln must have clearly reflected on his first inauguration, four years before. It must have seemed like four centuries to him after all the chaos that had followed, but at least he could have the satisfaction of knowing that the war that had followed his first inauguration was now clearly drawing to a close.
The inauguration got off to a bad start. Vice President Andrew Johnson took his oath of office before the President spoke. Johnson had been ill with typhoid, and so he took a drink of whiskey to brace himself for the event. It was too big a drink, and he followed the oath with a rambling stump speech that reeked of alcohol to everyone in the audience, with Johnson ignoring hints from those near him to cut it short and sit down. The audience was scandalized; the scandal would blow over when the facts became known and most people realized that Andrew Johnson was not a drunkard. His enemies would hang on to the image, however.
Lincoln went forward to give his own inaugural address, telling a marshal before he did so to go get Vice-President Johnson under control. When Lincoln took the stand, the clouds parted momentarily, and light shined down on him. Encouraged, he delivered a short and neat address:
BEGIN QUOTE:
* Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attentions, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hopes for the future, no prediction to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it -- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.
It may seem strange that men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we shall not be judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope -- fervently we do pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgements of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and for his orphan -- do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
END QUOTE
It was the shortest inaugural address since George Washington's second inauguration. Although some found its style turgid, most found it simple, concise, even profound. Charles Francis Adams JR wrote his father in Britain, without mockery: "That rail-splitting lawyer is one of the wonders of the day." It would be arguably the most memorable presidential inaugural address ever delivered.
Following the address, the oath of office was administered by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Judge Salmon P. Chase. Chase must have certainly reflected that he would have much preferred to have been on the receiving and not the giving end of that oath.
Then it was back to work for Lincoln. People who saw him thought he was ill, but those closest to him knew he was simply worn out by campaigning, by politics, by office-seekers, by the war. There was no rest after the inauguration, either. Treasury Secretary William Fessenden, who hadn't wanted the job in the first place and had been railroaded into it, resigned in order to return to the Senate, and was replaced in the cabinet on 7 March by Hugh McCulloch, an Indiana banker. However, Interior Secretary John P. Usher then resigned as well, claiming that since he was from Indiana as well it would not be proper to have two cabinet secretaries from the same state. He was replaced by James Harlan, an Iowa Senator. Harlan was a good friend and stood likely to be a relative in time, since Robert Todd Lincoln was courting Harlan's daughter. The marriage would have to wait until the war was over, however, since Robert was now in uniform as a captain in the Union Army, serving as an adjutant on Grant's staff.
Robert had graduated from Harvard at the end of 1864 and wanted to serve his country, but Mary Lincoln, whose emotional balance had never really recovered from the death of Willie Lincoln and who had continued to grow more unstable, was distraught at the thought of losing another of her sons. Lincoln had written Grant in January to ask if a place could be found for Robert down in City Point, and of course Grant was agreeable. Robert left for his military assignment after the inaugural ceremony.
On 20 March, Grant sent Lincoln a wire suggesting that he himself come down to City Point for a chat, military reviews, and a little leisure. Mary Lincoln wanted to go along as well, to see Robert, and the family left Washington on 23 March on board the steamer RIVER QUEEN.
* Booth attended Lincoln's second inauguration on 4 March. A photograph taken at the event was actually later found to show Booth in a balcony behind the President and to his left, with Lewis Paine standing just below the podium, wearing a hat. What Booth thought of the ceremony is not known, but it appears that around this time he began to seriously consider assassinating Lincoln instead of kidnapping him.
In fact, since prisoner exchanges had been in effect again from January, the rationale for kidnapping Lincoln had vanished. How much Booth actually took that fact into consideration is also hard to say, since family and acquaintances found his behavior increasingly obsessive and erratic. On 13 March, Booth outlined to the other conspirators his precise plan for kidnapping the President from Ford's Theater, a Washington establishment not far from the White House, and the response was far from positive. Sam Arnold replied that he wanted no part of the whole crackpot scheme, and added that he was becoming impatient with the idle plotting.
Booth flew into a rage and threatened Arnold, but other conspirators spoke up and voiced similar objections. Booth then angrily hinted that if he could not carry out the kidnapping plot, he would "know what to do." That broke up the meeting, with several conspirators replying that they would have nothing to do with any plot to harm the President. Shaken, Booth apologized, saying he had drunk too much champagne, and the group resumed their discussion.
For the moment, Booth stayed with the kidnapping plot. Attempting to kidnap the President from Ford's Theater was now clearly impractical, but on discovering that there was to be a theatrical performance at a military hospital named Campbell Hospital on 17 March, and that the President was likely to attend, they felt they could intercept his carriage along the relatively secluded road to the hospital. However, the President did not go, and all the conspirators accomplished that day was to give themselves a somewhat apprehensive outing in the woods. The minor fiasco led more of the conspirators to have second thoughts.
* While Grant ground away at Lee's defenses around Petersburg and Sherman moved up through the Carolinas, other strong Federal moves were grinding the Confederacy into dust.
Phil Sheridan packed up and left Winchester on 27 February, going south in the Shenandoah Valley with 10,000 cavalry. The Federals reached the outskirts of Staunton on 1 March. Early and his command of about 1,200 men had been camped near there, but they pulled out ahead of the Yankees, to set up again in the hills to the east. Rosser had about 1,200 cavalry as well, but they were not with Early, having been camped some miles from Staunton.
Sheridan had the option of ignoring Early and proceeding to Lynchburg, but it was clearly time to finish off the Confederacy in the Valley once and for all. Custer's division made an uncomfortable ride through rain and mud, arriving near the town of Waynesboro on the morning of 2 March to charge the rebels, with some of his troopers dismounting and fighting as infantry. Early didn't stand a chance. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Stonewall's Jackson's right-hand cartographer, was watching the battle from a lookout vantage and described the result as "one of the most terrible panics and stampedes I have ever seen."
Sheridan didn't allow them to get away, either. At the end of the day, the Federals had taken over a thousand prisoners, 11 guns, 200 loaded wagons, and dozens of battle flags. Early's little army had not been scattered, it had been almost completely wiped out. Early and much of his staff were not among the prisoners, having managed to make a getaway. He showed up at Lee's headquarters at mid-month, with Lee sending him back to the Valley to round up and organize whatever scattered rebel forces were still in that area. That wasn't much, since the last substantial command there, Rosser's cavalry, had been called east by Lee to replace the troopers sent south with Wade Hampton.
Before the end of the month, Lee recalled Early, ordering him to go home and wait for further instructions. Early had simply lost too many battles, and nobody wanted to serve under him any longer. He had to go. This was brutally unjust, since Early had held out longer under odds that nobody would have taken on a bet, but it was the reality of things. To soften the blow, Lee gave Early a letter praising, with undoubted sincerity, his ability, courage, energy, and devotion. Early would treasure the letter to the end of his days.
* Phil Sheridan had given little thought to Early's fate after the Battle of Waynesboro. He sent his prisoners and loot to the rear, rested his troopers for a few days, and then set out south again on 6 March. He tore up the tracks of the Virginia Central and the Orange & Alexandria railroads near Charlottesville and then moved on the vital rail junction at Lynchburg, one of his high-priority targets.
As it turned out, Lynchburg was heavily defended, all the bridges over the James in the area had been burned, the river was swollen and not easily crossed. Sheridan decided the better of attacking Lynchburg and of going south to link up with Sherman. Sheridan had wanted to link up with Grant anyway, in order to be in on the kill when the Union Army finished off Robert E. Lee, and decided to ride down the north bank of the James to join Grant at Petersburg.
By 10 March, Sheridan's command was at Columbia, Virginia, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Richmond. He sent a rider east with a message for Grant, informing his commander of his progress, and asking for supplies to be stockpiled at the old Federal base at White House, on the Pamunkey, to replenish the troopers at the end of the ride.
The cavalrymen arrived at White House on 20 March after three weeks in the saddle. Though Sheridan had lost many horses, largely from hoof-rot, he had lost only about 100 men. Grant sent instructions to have Sheridan refit his cavalry and then bring them over the James, where they would be used to cut Lee's escape routes out of Petersburg. The cavalrymen began crossing the James on 26 March, with Sheridan riding to City Point to confer with Grant.
* Grant was pleased with Sheridan's energy, but was much less pleased with way plans in the West were going. They were characterized by the same old tiresome delays, everything running about a month behind schedule. Stoneman didn't leave Knoxville for North Carolina with his 4,000 troopers until 20 March. A week after they departed, Grant wired Thomas to have him send Stoneman into southwest Virginia to expand on the similar December raid into that area. As discussed later, there simply wasn't much for Stoneman and his cavalry to do in North Carolina by that time.
Canby's push on Mobile was similarly delayed, not beginning until 17 March. It was 26 March before the Federals even arrived at Mobile to put the city under siege. This delay was particularly troublesome, because it meant that there was no way that Canby was going to be in any position to assist in Wilson's drive on Selma, Alabama.
Wilson's push had been just as delayed as the others, since finding horses in the region hadn't got any easier since the battle of Franklin. He wasn't able to begin crossing the Tennessee until 18 March. The area was badly flooded and it took days just to get over the river. Wilson and his troopers weren't into northern Alabama until 22 March. There was another worry with this particular expedition. Wilson had 12,500 troopers, all armed with new Spencer repeater carbines, and they should have been more than a match for any force the rebels had in the area to throw at him. The problem was that Wilson was up against Bedford Forrest, who had proven again and again that it did not pay to underestimate him. There wasn't much Grant could do about this but trust in Wilson and hope for the best.
