April 4, 1865---"May I have a glass of water?"

APRIL 4, 1865:                    

“May I have a glass of water?” --- Abraham Lincoln

I

 Robert E. Lee’s army is marching.

The indomitable Army of Northern Virginia continues wending its way west from Richmond and Petersburg under blue skies and in cool weather. Despite the prime marching conditions, the A.N.V. is beginning to show signs of decay. Most of the men in Lee’s four columns have not eaten a square meal in weeks, and almost all of them have eaten nothing in at least 24 hours. Barefoot and ragged they move along, some of them stumbling from weariness. Today, more men will drop out of line --- some will simply pass out from hunger-induced vertigo. The majority, in a mass act of will, will continue to travel forward to the rendezvous point at Amelia Court House where nearly half a million rations await them.

The horses of the army have no such willpower. They are starving. Grain for feed is gone. The new grass is too short to crop. Often, the poor animals simply stop and hang their heads in exhaustion. Cajolery, even beatings, cannot induce them to pull their wagons another inch. Some of the weakest just keel over dead. These are cut from their traces and their emaciated bodies are dragged by main force to the roadsides. The men do not even bother to butcher the bony carcasses for meat. Less horses to pull loads means that wagons must be abandoned as well. The abandoned wagons are stripped of anything crucial that can be easily carried. Most of the precious cargo, already culled from what remained in Richmond and Petersburg, is left behind. 

Lee is deeply troubled. He had estimated that the march to Amelia Court House would take a day and a half, perhaps two at most, but it is taking longer. Not much longer, really, but Lee realizes that he is in a race against time as much as a race against the Union. An army marches on its stomach, it is said, and right now his army has no stomach. His increasingly slow-moving men can march only an hour or two without rest, the dying horses are slowing his wagon trains even more, the need to let the horses forage for anything yet even more, and the Union’s hit-and-run attacks on his columns are a deadly source of delay he simply cannot afford.

As the army moves west, the steep little hills and gullies that have kept Sheridan’s pursuit off Lee’s flanks are turning into a gently rolling plain. Lee knows that once the land opens out the Union army will be able to flank his columns. Already the Union cavalry is moving parallel to the tails of his lines, between his lines much like interlocking fingers.

The Battle of Tabernacle Church:  

A battle breaks out at Tabernacle Church when Union and Confederate cavalry meet near Beaver Pond Creek. Union cavalry are standing directly in front of Lee’s objective of Amelia Court House, and in a sharp engagement are dislodged, freeing the road for passage by Lee’s troops. The Union forces are ordered to nearby Jetersville, which they occupy overnight. 

In 1924, the "new" Amelia Court House replaced the one Lee would have seen

The Confederate columns at last begin to gather in the small town of Amelia Court House late in the day. Finally, their long-awaited rendezvous point is reached.  

Amelia Court House is a small and forgotten place, consisting of a handful of houses, a General Store, an inn or two, and the courthouse itself, which serves Amelia County. The disruptions of war mean that the shelves in the General Store are looking decidedly bare, as are the larders in the inns. So, Lee and his men are relieved to see a government freight train sitting on a siding, waiting for them as planned. Salvation, in the form of food, is at hand.

Lee orders the latches thrown and the boxcar doors opened.    

II

“Glory, Halellujah!” a man cries out midmorning at the Richmond quay known as Rocketts Landing. The man is African-American, and newly-freed from bondage. “Glory! Glory! Glory!” 

As the man drops to his knees, quickly followed by other freedmen, the object of their adoration looks down on them from a great height, speaking kindly but sternly. Stooping to raise the man to his feet he addresses them all. “No. No. No. That is not right. You must not bow to me, nor should you bow now to any mortal man. If you must bend the knee, then do so in respect of the Creator who has brought us all to this great day.” 

The people rise as one at these words, but they continue to cry out: “Glory be! It’s him! I knowed him jest as soon as I seed him! Father Abraham has come down among his children!”  one man shouts. Another sings an old slow Spiritual about Moses and the Promised Land, and soon the tall man in the frock coat and signature stovepipe hat is in the midst of a singing, sobbing, swaying crowd of black folk, some begging to touch his coat, others begging “the Messiah” to be his escorts. “I’d rather see him than see Jesus Christ hisself!” one man calls out excitedly, to which a woman answers calmly, “Christ truly is come unto us this day.” 

The man they call their “Messiah” is deeply moved, and tears start in his eyes. Although the Marine detachment assigned to guard him tries to shoulder aside the pressing throng, their charge raises a hand to stop them. He has no fear, and nothing to fear from this crowd. It is Richmond, late the capital of the Confederacy, and after four years of terrible bloodshed Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, the Great Emancipator, has come in peace. 

He has come against advice --- Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, is right now panicking in Washington D.C., hardly calmed by his President’s peremptory assertion in regard to his own safety:  “I can take care of myself.”  And Admiral David Dixon Porter does not ever want to tell Stanton of the odyssey Lincoln experienced transiting the James River --- an odyssey of dangerous submarine obstructions and deadly floating mines that necessitated the shrinkage of the President’s fleet from an ironclad and two gunboats to an oar-driven open Admiral’s gig. “It is well to be humble,” Lincoln joked as he balanced his hat on his knees trying to keep it dry as the chop and spray of the river brought a little water over the gunwales. 

He has brought his son Tad, who is twelve this day, and is gazing at Richmond as though it is a birthday present. Mrs. Lincoln is absent. After humiliating herself at City Point several days ago, Mary Lincoln chose to make herself scarce, and a frightening dream that the White House was aflame provided her a convenient excuse to return thence. Perhaps, however, she was seeing Richmond in her dream. The badly-damaged city stinks of the aftermath of burning. Smoldering rubble is everywhere, still being wet down by the U.S. firefighting brigades.

 

There are few whites around, and fewer Union troops around, as Lincoln begins strolling Richmond’s city streets. Here and there, Virginia Unionists appear and give their President a warm welcome. One woman, wrapped Columbia-fashion in an American flag, salutes Lincoln as he walks by, and he doffs his hat to her. Most white Richmonders, though, are indoors, regarding the “conqueror” through their shades and shutters with dismay, anger, bemusement, and even a little humor. “I expected to see a monster,” one resident wrote, “but saw only a man. Still, I must admit he is the ugliest man I have ever seen.”  (Lincoln was well aware of his homeliness, and to a fellow attorney who once dismissed him as “two-faced,” Lincoln rejoindered, “Do you really think that if I had two faces I would be wearing this one?”)

There are some calls for the hanging of “The President” by white Richmonders angry at the Confederate-born conflagration who hear at second and third hand that Jefferson Davis has returned to town.

Kate Mason Rowland of Richmond gives vent to some of the worst impulses of 19^th Century humanity when she describes Lincoln as he “harangued a mob of Jews, niggers, and Yankees from the steps of the Presidential Mansion. What a pity it was not burnt too!”   

After Lincoln’s “harangue” he disappears into the Confederate White House. Finding Jefferson Davis’ office, he seats himself gingerly in the chair behind Davis’ desk, tilts it back cautiously, and asks for a glass of water. Taking a long quaff, he settles back contemplatively. It is only thirty-six hours since Davis was in the room, and Lincoln is very conscious of the fact. 

By the time President Lincoln is ready to leave the former Confederate White House, the military has procured a carriage, and Lincoln and Tad ride the rest of the day, with Major General Weitzel at their side. Cheering crowds (mostly comprised of emancipated slaves) line the route, though a few white Southerners are in the crowd as well.

At the grand equestrian statue of George Washington upon Richmond’s Capitol Hill, Lincoln tells his enraptured audience to “Cast off the name of slave, and trample it . . . Liberty is yours from this day forth.” He also advises any listening Unionists to “Let ‘em up easy,” in reference to the Confederates. 

The life-size Lincoln Memorial in Richmond recalls the President's visit with Tad

Even as the President is speaking, his Vice-President, stone cold sober in Washington D.C., is insisting in another speech that “Jeff Davis, and all his nest of traitors needs to be burned out. Hang them!” he cries ten times to a roaring crescendo of approval. When Lincoln hears of Johnson’s speech and its riotous reception, the lines on his face deepen the more. Johnson’s gibbet-strewn vision of a reunited America is not the proud yet wise United States that Abraham Lincoln envisions.   

III

At the Confederacy’s breakfast Cabinet meeting, Jefferson Davis broaches the idea of an invasion of New Orleans by Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi. There are any number of problems with the plan, the worst of which is that the Danville government has no way to communicate with their forces in the Trans-Mississippi. Never mind the fact that the Confederates in the Trans-Mississippi are poorly-armed, scattered, and without forceful leadership. 

When this is pointed out to him, Davis begins to hatch a plan to move the Confederate government to Texas. But this will require that Davis --- one of the most recognizable faces of the 19^th Century --- safely cross 1000 miles of the North American heartland, an area divided (in 1865) into a patchwork of Union and Confederate war zones. Even if Davis can make it most of the way without being captured or recognized, he will have to cross the great natural barrier of the Mississippi River --- a Union waterway --- incognito. And carrying on the fight from Texas will mean abandoning the gallant Army of Northern Virginia.  He will have to travel at best with only a few companions. He cannot take along his 3000-man bodyguard. He will have to leave much of what was salvaged from Richmond behind. The Confederacy will, for all intents and purposes, have to start over from scratch. This idea too is tabled.

But it does give birth to another idea, the possibility of establishing a Government-in-Exile in Havana, Cuba. All the Cabinet has to do is travel to Union-held Key West and board a blockade-runner. If they don’t get caught they can make port in Cuba in a few hours. Of course, the Spaniards don’t recognize the Confederacy, and of course this will mean that the C.S.A.’s government will move clear off the continent, but . . .

Sutherlin House in Danville, Virginia was the last "permanent" Confederate White House / Capitol

 . . . maybe Lee will be able to link up with Johnston in a few days . . .

The Cabinet Room / parlor

After much ado about nothing, Davis adjourns the meeting and retires to his upstairs bedroom. The new Confederate Capitol is the William Sutherlin House. Sutherlin, a rabid Confederate, is Provost Marshal of Danville, and a wealthy tobacco planter and merchant who has lent the use of his house to the C.S.A.. The Sutherlin family, along with their slaves (“servants”) remains in residence. 

The Presidential bedroom

Cabinet meetings are usually held in the parlor. Perhaps tellingly, much of the business paperwork of the Confederacy remains aboard the Presidential Train. Davis’ 3000-man detachment is quartered all around town.

IV

Even as Richmond welcomes Lincoln the Civil War goes on unabated elsewhere. 

Although elements of General William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A.’s armies in North Carolina continue to move toward Raleigh, the State capital, Sherman has established a headquarters for himself at Goldsboro. Today, a delegation of North Carolinians calls on Sherman to ask his help in alleviating the want of local residents. Sherman’s written reply is reproduced below:

Gentlemen: 

 I cannot undertake to supply horses or to encourage peaceful industry in North Carolina until the State shall perform some public act showing that, as to her, the war is over.

 I sympathize with the distress of families, but cannot undertake to extend relief to individuals.

 With respect, your obedient servant,

 W.T. Sherman, Maj. Gen., Com’d’g. 

As yet, that “public act” is wanting. Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A.’s army is not far away, and it is still marching under the Blood-Stained Banner.