Chapter XV, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 3

Twenty-seven thousand men were included in the capitulation, but only 10,000 of these retained their arms. It was an affecting scene when Lee bade farewell to his dejected followers, Beliquias Banaum at que immitis Achilli, the sad remains of the magnificent army which he had so often led to victory. These wasted ranks, these haggard, gaunt, and ragged figures, were all that was left of the army that had triumphed at Bull Run, broken and discomfited the hosts under M'Lellan, defended the blood-stained hills of Fredericsburg, and driven Hooker from the field of Chancellorsville in inglorious flight across the Rappahannock; these were all the survivors of the charging lines which at Gettysburg had well-nigh achieved the impossible, and driven Meade from his commanding ridge and its bristling defences. His men crowded round him as he passed along the ranks for the last time, grasping their outstretched hands; and the only words he could utter were, " Men, we have fought through the war together. I have done the best that I could for you. My heart is too full to say more." Lee had done the best he could for them, and it was now palpably evident that no more could be done. " The resources of the Confederacy were utterly exhausted. 01 the 150,000 men whose names were borne on its muster- rolls a few weeks ago, at least one-third were already disabled or prisoners, and the residue could neither be clad nor fed - not to dream of their being fitly armed or paid; while the resources of the loyal states were scarcely touched, their ranks nearly or quite as full as ever, and their supplies of ordnance, small arms, munitions, &c., more ample than in any previous April. Of the million or so borne on our muster-rolls, probably not less than half were then in active service, with half as many more able to take the field at short notice."

The capitulation of the Army of Virginia was a signal for the close of hostilities everywhere. Sherman, on hearing of the fall of Richmond and Petersburg, advanced from Goldsboro' against Johnston, who soon proposed to surrender upon terms. Sherman was induced to sign a provisional convention (April 18), the effect of which would have been to continue and confirm to the existing State Governments in the Confederate States the enjoyment of legislative and executive powers. Of course, this convention was instantly disallowed at Washington, and in signing it, even provisionally, it is clear that Sherman exceeded his powers. Johnston then surrendered his army (April 26) on precisely the same terms as those which had been granted to Lee. Early in May, General Dick Taylor surrendered what was left of the Confederate forces in Alabama to General Canby on the same terms. Thesense of the still unbroken strength and great resources of the Confederate power in Texas and Western Louisiana seems to have been the inducement with General Kirby Smith to publish a spirited proclamation (April 21) to the soldiers of the trans-Mississippian army, urging them to continue the struggle. But his soldiers had too much common sense to take his advice, and abandoned their colours en masse. President Davis, on reaching Danville after the fall of Richmond, issued thence (April 5) a proclamation breathing interminable hostility. But he soon was obliged to depart, and wandered about for some time in an aimless manner, being gradually deserted by the guards and officials who had accompanied him from Richmond, until he was surprised and captured at a place in Northern Georgia by a party of Federal troopers. The last occasion on which blood was spilt in this civil war was an affair in Texas (May 13), when the Confederate General Slaughter defeated and drove back with loss to Brazos Santiago a Federal force under Colonel Barrett. A general order, addressed by Grant on the 2nd June to the " Soldiers of the Armies of the United States," in thanking them for their patriotic exertions, formally announced the termination of hostilities. The armies were everywhere disbanded as soon as possible, the men returning to the pursuits of industry; by the 15th October upwards of 785,000 men had been mustered out of the service.

A terrible crime cast a gloom over the rejoicings with which the people of the Northern States were celebrating the conclusion of the war. Since the commencement of hostilities in the spring of 1865, Mr. Lincoln had remained chiefly at City Point on the James river, receiving news from the front and telegraphing it to the North. On the day after General Weitzel had occupied Richmond, the President visited it, and walked as a conqueror among the smouldering ruins of the fallen city, receiving an enthusiastic greeting from the negro population. On the 9th April, he came up to Washington, and three days afterwards addressed to a vast crowd assembled in front of the Executive Mansion a speech on Reconstruction, in which, while reserving all important questions for the decision of Congress, he spoke of the South with that kindliness and absence of bitterness which had characterised all his words and deeds throughout the struggle, and expressed a wish that the Confederate States should be restored to all the functions of self-government and equal power in the Union at the earliest day consistent with the national integrity, safety, and tranquillity. On the 14th inst., after a personal interview with Grant, and after he had listened to the story of Lee's surrender told by his son, Captain Robert Lincoln, who, being on Grant's staff, had been an eye-witness of the scene, the President was induced to seek relaxation from his many and weighty cares by visiting the performance that night at Ford's Theatre. Both lie and Grant had been publicly announced as probable visitors to the theatre, but the latter was compelled by the pressure of business to disappoint the expectations that had been raised. In the middle of the performance, while all were intent on the play, a man, whose profession as an actor gave him the freedom of the house, entered the front door of the theatre, presented his card to the President's messenger, followed him to the vestibule of the private box where the President was sitting with Mrs. Lincoln, quietly entered the vestibule, securing the door behind him; then stepping into the private box just behind his victim, armed with a pistol in one hand and a dagger in the other, he fired the pistol at the President, who was leaning forward with his eyes fixed on the stage. The ball pierced the skull behind the left ear, and lodged, after traversing the brain, just behind the right eye. Mr. Lincoln's head fell slightly forward, and his eyes closed; but no word or cry came from his lips; and though life was not extinct for nine hours, there was no sign of consciousness for a single instant between the firing of the shot and his death. The whole occurrence was so sudden, that the first thing that startled the audience and the President's companions in. the box was the sound of the pistol. Major Rathbone, who was sitting beside the President, turned round and collared the assassin; but the man, dropping the pistol, stabbed the officer with his dagger, inflicting a serious wound in the arm; then, breaking from his hold, he sprang to the front of the box; cried out, as he brandished his dagger, " Sic semper tyrannis and leaped down upon the stage. Then, turning to the audience, he shouted, " The South is avenged," and, running to the back of the stage, escaped into the street, where a horse was being held for him, mounted, and rode out of Washington, seeking refuge in the neighbouring state of Maryland. But in leaping on the stage, the man had caught his foot and fallen, spraining his ankle severely, and the officers of justice were able by means of this indication to track him to his hiding-place. When they came upon him, he made a desperate resistance, and was mortally wounded before he could be taken. It was found that his name was John Wilkes Booth; he was a native of Baltimore in Maryland, and the son of a well-known English actor.

About the same time that this crime was being committed in the theatre, a man, whose name was afterwards found to be Payne Powell (he was the son of a clergyman in Florida), obtained admission into the house of Secretary Seward, then confined to his bed in consequence of severe injuries received when he had been recently thrown from his carriage, and making his way to the sick man's room rushed upon him and endeavoured to despatch him with a bowie-knife. Members of Mr. Seward's family had before confronted the ruffian, and been wounded in the attempt to obstruct his passage; the sick man was therefore warned, and was able so far to protect himself with his right arm against the murderous blows of the assassin, that the wounds inflicted, though severe, were not mortal. An invalid soldier who was in the room, named Robinson, grasped the man before he could accomplish his purpose, and, though wounded, would not relinquish his hold; the cry of " murder" was raised from the windows; and the assassin, seeing that his only hope was in flight, broke from the soldier, wounded with his bowie-knife those who attempted to prevent his escape, and, mounting the horse which he had left in the street, rode off. He was afterwards arrested, tried and convicted by a military court, and executed.

The grief and indignation which filled the hearts of all the friends of the Union upon hearing of these foul crimes took a form in which, natural and excusable as it was, there was something to deplore. As the Gunpowder Plot involved the whole Roman Catholic body in England in penal consequences through the crime of half a dozen persons, so the assassination of Mr. Lincoln by one Southern sympathiser, and the blood-thirsty assault on Mr. Seward by another, disposed the people of the North to a policy of severity towards the whole Southern population. The appearance of a proclamation signed by the new President, Andrew Johnson (who, having been Vice-President, succeeded on the death of Mr. Lincoln), in which the crime of Booth and his associates was roundly stated to have been " incited, concerted, and procured by and between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and Jacob Thompson " and other "rebels and traitors against the Government of the United States harboured in Canada," and large rewards were offered for the apprehension of the persons named, intensified the feelings of animosity and detestation with which the North was now disposed to regard the people of the South, and especially their leaders in the late struggle. This accusation was shown upon investigation to be wholly 'groundless. Indeed, could we suppose that President Davis was wicked enough, he certainly was not foolish enough, to plan the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. Though inflexible in his resolve to force the Confederates back into the Union, Mr. Lincoln was never hurried on by the fierce passions of many of those with whom he acted, nor goaded by failure, nor inflamed by success, to indulge in feelings of personal resentment towards his opponents. He was an eminently just, large- hearted, and tolerant man; only two days before his death he had, as we have seen, displayed a kind and conciliatory feeling towards the South; and if the process of reconstruction had been superintended by him, it would, we may be certain, have been carried out with the utmost measure of leniency and forbearance that public opinion at the North would allow. As it was, that duty fell into the hands of men who made a religion of Unionism, just as Mr. Lincoln did, but had not that tenderness for the persons of misbelievers by which he was animated. The in-coming President, on the contrary, in a reply to a delegation made a short time after his accession to office, said, if Mr. Lincoln's murderer ought to suffer the severest penalty known to the law, "what punishment should be inflicted upon the assassins who have raised their daggers against the life of a nation - against the life and happiness of 30,000,000 of people? " " Treason," he continued, " is a crime, and must be punished as a crime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of political opinion. It must not be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion, to be overlooked and forgiven. It is a crime before which all other crimes sink into insignificance; and in saying this, it must not be considered that I am influenced by angry or revengeful feelings/' Possibly not; but men who speak of " treason " in this way - and Mr. Johnson represented pretty faithfully at the moment the sentiments and resolves of the great Republican party - are not taking the most likely method of conciliating the traitors. But on this question of the reconstruction of the Union, than which none can be more important, more crucial for the future of America, we shall have to speak at a later period.

What were the precise motives which impelled Booth and his accomplices to the perpetration of these enormous crimes, it is difficult to decide. That morbid vanity, the desire of making a great sensation, and being the hero of a great theatrical display, - that an imagination fed on stage plays, and firing itself with the mental reproduction of tragic situations had something to do with the crime of Booth, may reasonably be supposed. But these motives will not account for it altogether; still less will they explain the conduct of Powell. Mr. Greeley considers that it was in his character as the destroyer of slavery that Mr. Lincoln incurred the furious hatred of these men and the class to which they belonged; - that they dealt their blows as slave-holders at the man who had struck off the negro's fetters. This is a seductive theory, but Mr. Greeley adduces no evidence whatever to support it. On the whole, it seems more likely that the assassination of Mr. Lincoln was due to the violent momentary recoil of the will and passion of the Confederate people, which, after a period of triumph, and another period of struggle, had been at length coerced and crushed into powerlessness by the overwhelming numbers and overwhelming resources which Mr. Lincoln had brought into the field. That coercion was accompanied by all circumstances calculated to irritate undisciplined minds to frenzy; - such as the unmerited and intense sufferings of women and children, the merciless ravaging of many a fruitful and prosperous region, the sacrifice of precious lives, and the ruin of private fortunes. Driven wild by the near view of all this misery, and unable to appreciate the motives of those who deliberately caused it that they might secure what to them appeared a higher ultimate good, the conspirators may have seen in Lincoln the impersonation of the " fire, famine, and slaughter " which were desolating their native fields, and have imagined themselves to be exercising a righteous retribution when they struck him down. With such a theory Booth's exclamations - " Sic semper tyrannis," and " The South is avenged " - seem most readily to tally.