Bloody Crimes (10 page)

On this day, General Weitzel, who was now in command of the former Confederate capital, asked Lincoln what policies he should adopt in dealing with the conquered rebels. Thomas Graves overheard the conversation, and Lincoln’s answer became an American legend. “President Lincoln replied that he did not want to give any orders on that subject, but, as he expressed it, ‘If I were in your place I’d let ’em up easy, let ’em up easy.’ ”

This was one of the most remarkable statements ever spoken by a commander in chief. During his time in Richmond, Lincoln did not order the arrests of any rebel leaders who remained there, nor did he order their property seized. And he uttered no words of vengeance or punishment. Even while he sat in Jefferson Davis’s own home, he did
not disparage or defame the Confederate president. Nor did he order an urgent manhunt for Davis and the cabinet officers who had evacuated the city less than two days before. It was a moment of singular greatness. It was Abraham Lincoln at his best.

After Lincoln left the Confederate White House, he toured Richmond in a buggy. Blacks flocked to him and rejoiced, just as they had at the river landing and during his walk to Davis’s mansion. His triumphant tour complete, he returned to the wharf for the journey back to City Point. As he left a black woman warned him to be careful. “Don’t drown, Massa Abe, for God’s sake!” If he had heard her, any man possessing Abraham Lincoln’s sense of humor would have enjoyed laughing at that heartfelt, urgent, yet comical plea.

Death by drowning was not the greatest threat Lincoln faced that day. Not all of Richmond welcomed him to the ruined capital. Most whites stayed in their homes behind locked doors and closed shutters, with some glaring at the unwelcome conqueror through their windows. It was a miracle that not one embittered Confederate—not a single one—poked a rifle or a pistol through an open window and opened fire on the despised Yankee president. No one even shouted epithets. Lincoln knew the risk: “I walked alone on the street, and anyone could have shot me from a second-story window.” The Richmond tour was one of Lincoln’s most triumphant days—certainly the most important day of his presidency. But it was also one of the most dangerous days of his life. No American president before or since has ever placed himself in such a volatile and dangerous environment.

Lincoln left no written account of his journey to Richmond. He was a splendid writer with a fine analytical mind and keen powers of observation, but he did not possess a diarist’s temperament nor had he ever kept a journal. It was unlikely that he would have written his memoirs after he left office in March 1869. With less than a year of formal schooling, he came to writing as a utilitarian, employing it to plead a legal case, convey information, make an argument,
reply to an inquiry, propose a policy, justify an action, or persuade the reader. Only a few times in his life did he write to reminisce, to entertain, to regale, or to amuse with a story or a joke. His storytelling art was oral and ephemeral. Lincoln was a superb and—when the occasion demanded—eloquent writer, and an equally talented narrative speaker.

CHAPTER THREE
“Unconquerable Hearts”

W
hile Lincoln toured her home on April 4, Varina Davis had just reached Charlotte, North Carolina. She had declined an invitation to remain in Danville, electing instead to press on. She remembered the journey as being incredibly miserable: “The baggage cars were all needing repairs and leaked badly. Our bedding was wet through by the constant rains that poured down in the week of uninterrupted travel which was consumed in reaching our destination. Universal consternation prevailed throughout the country, and we avoided seeing people for fear of compromising them with the enemy, should they overrun North Carolina.”

Varina, her children, and their small group of traveling companions settled into a rented house in Charlotte, where they awaited word from Jefferson Davis. Colonel Burton Harrison, his escort mission accomplished, headed north to Danville to rejoin his chief in the new, temporary Confederate capital.

F
or Davis to maintain command over the forces of the Confederacy, and to order them into action, he needed military intelligence, especially from General Lee. The sudden evacuation of Richmond had disrupted Davis’s regular channels of communication and had left him blind. He spent much of April 4 sending and receiving messages. He wrote to General P. G. T. Beauregard: “Please give me any reliable information you have as to
movements of enemy
and dispositions to
protect the Piedmont R.R.
I have no communication from
Gen’l Lee since Sunday.”

Beauregard replied at 3:30
P.M.
from Greensboro, North Carolina. He knew nothing of Lee. “I consider R.R. from Chester to Danville safe at present.
Will send today 600 more men to latter point. Twentyfive hundred
more could be sent if absolutely needed but they are returned men from various commands in Army of Tennessee temporarily stopped here & organized here. General
Johnston
has ordered here
some cavalry
which I have diverted
from Hillsborough to Danville.
No news from Lee or Johnston.”

Davis replied promptly. “The reports in regard
to the raiders
very contradictory. But evidence indicates that they have not been at
Madison. The cavalry
you have ordered here, will be of especial value at this time, and with the Infantry en route will probably serve the immediate necessity. Have sent courier
to Gen’l Lee
from whom I have no communication.” The present status of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia two days after the evacuation of Richmond was central to Davis’s plans, and the lack of intelligence frustrated the president.

Later that day, bad news arrived from other regions of the Confederacy. Howell Cobb, former governor of Georgia and a major Confederate leader, sent word to Davis of multiple disasters: “Selma has fallen—The Enemy threatens Montgomery and it is believed will march upon Columbus Georgia. I submit for your consideration that Woffords command should be kept in Georgia & ordered to report
to me. Please answer as Wofford is preparing to move towards Chattanooga and Knoxville Road East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad.”

Davis heard about more setbacks from his nephew Joseph R. Davis: “My Brigade was lost except about twenty men all captured; I went to Richmond to join you—arrived too late. I came to this place [Powhatan Courthouse] on foot. On the capture of my command lost everything. I will join the army and remain with it in some capacity. I deeply regret having missed you as I hoped in an humble way to have served you. Remember me in love to aunt and the children.”

Davis knew he had to inspire the people of the Confederacy and make them realize that his move to Danville was not a shameful flight to save himself but instead was a strategic retreat. He sought, by personal example, to make them believe that he had not abandoned them, that the cause was not lost, that he would never surrender, and that he would lead them to victory and independence. He drafted a presidential proclamation for the whole South to read. Issued the same day that Abraham Lincoln toured Richmond, the text was published as a one-page broadside on the printing press of the local Danville newspaper. Remembered only by students of the Civil War, and rarely quoted in full, the remarkable Danville Proclamation provides unfiltered insights into the mind of the retreating but unbowed president.

To the People of the Confederacy

Danville, Va.,

April 4, 1865

The General-in-Chief of our Army has found it necessary to make such movements of the troops as to uncover the Capital, and thus involve the withdrawal of the Government from the city of Richmond.

It would be unwise, even if it were possible, to conceal the great moral, as well as material injury to our cause that must result from the occupation of Richmond by the enemy. It is equally
unwise and unworthy of us, as patriots engaged in a most sacred cause, to allow our energies to falter, our spirits to grow faint, or our efforts to become relaxed, under reverses however calamitous. While it has been to us a source of national pride, that for four years of unequalled warfare, we have been able, in close proximity to the centre of the enemy’s power to maintain the seat of our chosen Government free from the pollution of his presence; while the memories of the heroic dead, who have freely given their lives to its defence, must ever remain enshrined in our hearts; while the preservation of the capital, which is usually regarded as the evidence to mankind of separate existence, was an object very dear to us, it is also true, and should not be forgotten, that the loss which we have suffered is not without compensation.

For many months the largest and finest army of the Confederacy, under the command of a leader whose presence inspires equal confidence in the troops and the people, has been greatly trammeled by the necessity of keeping constant watch over the approaches to the capital, and has thus been forced to forego more than one opportunity for promising enterprises.

The hopes and confidences of the enemy have been constantly excited by the belief, that their possession of Richmond would be the signal for our submission to their rule, and relieve them from the burthen of a war which, as their failing resources admonish them, must be abandoned if not brought to a successful close.

It is for us, my countrymen, to show by our bearing under reverses, how wretched has been the self-deception of those who have believed us less able to endure misfortune with fortitude, than to encounter danger with courage.

We have now entered upon a new phase of the struggle, the memory of which is to endure for all ages, and to shed ever increasing lustre upon our country. Relieved from the necessity of guarding cities and particular points, important but not vital to our defence with our army free to move from point to point,
and strike in detail the detachments and garrison of the enemy; operating in the interior of our own country, where supplies are more accessible, and where the foe will be far removed from his own base, and cut off from all succor in case of reverse, nothing is now needed to render our triumph certain, but the exhibition of your own unquenchable resolve. Let us but will it, and we are free; and who in the light of the past, dare doubt your purpose in the future?

Animated by that confidence in your spirit and fortitude, which never yet has failed me, I announce to you, fellow countrymen, that it is my purpose to maintain your cause with my whole heart and soul; that I will never consent to abandon to the enemy one foot of the soil of any one of the States of the Confederacy; that Virginia, noble State, whose ancient renown has eclipsed by her still more glorious recent history; whose bosom has been bared to receive the main shock of this war; whose sons and daughters have exhibited heroism so sublime as to render her illustrious in all time to come; that Virginia, with the help of the people, and by the blessing of Providence, shall be held and defended, and no peace ever be made with the infamous invaders of her homes by the sacrifice of any of her rights or territory.

If by stress of numbers, we should ever be compelled to a temporary withdrawal from her limits, or those of any other border State, again and again will we return, until the baffled and exhausted enemy shall abandon in despair his endless and impossible task of making slaves of a people resolved to be free.

Let us not then respond, my countrymen, but, relying on the never failing mercies and protecting care of our God, let us meet the foe with fresh defiance, with unconquered and unconquerable hearts.

Jefferson Davis

April 4 was a day of two different messages from two different men. One man, Lincoln, wanted to end the war and appealed to his people to “let ’em up easy.” The other man, Davis, anticipating a “new phase of the struggle,” beseeched his people to “let us meet the foe with fresh defiance.”

O
n April 5 Davis wrote a letter to Varina, revealing the details of his last few hours in the city:

Danville Va

5 April 65

My Dear Wife

…I made the necessary arrangements at my office and went to our house to have the proper dispositions made there
—
Nothing had been done after you left and but little could be done in the few hours which remained before the train was to leave
—
I packed the bust [of his deceased son, Samuel] and gave it to Jno. Davis who offered to take it & put it where it should never be found by a Yankee
—
I also gave him charge of the painting of the heroes of the valley
—
Both were removed after dark
—
The furniture of the house was left and very little of the things I directed to be put up
—
beddings and groceries were saved. Mrs. Omelia behaved just as you described her, but seemed anxious to serve and promised to take care of every thing which may mean some things. The Auctioneer returned acct of sale 28,400 dollars
—
could not dispose of the carriages
—
Mr. Grant was afraid to take the carriage to his house
—
&c. &c. I sent it to the Depot to be put on a flat, at the moment of starting it was said they could not take it in that train but would bring it on the next one
—
It has not been heard from since
—
I sent a message to Mr. Grant that I had neglected to return the cow and wished him to send for her immediately
—