April 13, 1865---"The last man, we trust, has been slain . . ."

APRIL 13, 1865:         

The great struggle is over . . . The history of blood is brought to a close. The last shot has been fired. The last man, we trust, has been slain . . . ” --- The New York Times

I

A skirmish breaks out in Wetumpka, Alabama, outside Montgomery. Two skirmishes, morning and afternoon, take place at Whistler’s Creek, Alabama, near Mobile.

In North Carolina, Stoneman’s Raid completes the destruction of Salisbury and ransacks the town of Statesville. Stoneman barely misses capturing Jefferson Davis when he decides to blow up the Reed Fork Creek Bridge rather than stop and search the last train passing over it. Raleigh, the State’s capital, surrenders to William Tecumseh Sherman.

The 13^th and 35^th Texas Cavalry are sent to northern Texas to fight Unionists and renegade Indians.

In Pilot Knob, Missouri, Union troops engage with bushwhacker J.W. Farris and his 75 men, most of whom are his kin.

The S.S. SULTANA, a Union riverboat converted to a hospital ship, leaves St. Louis, Missouri. Its destination is New Orleans, its task to bring mustered-out and wounded men back home to the north. On the trip south it is carrying hundreds of paroled Confederates.

There are wounds and lives lost in each military engagement this day. For a “great struggle” that is “over,” this one continues to claim its wounded and its dead in impressive numbers.

II

Over Jefferson Davis’ weakening objections, P.G.T. Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston compose a letter to William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A.. They suggest a cease-fire:

Dear General:

The results of the recent campaign in Virginia have changed the relative military condition of the belligerents. I am, therefore, induced to address you in this form the inquiry whether, to stop the further effusion of blood and devastation of property, you are willing to make a temporary suspension of active operations, and to communicate to Lieutenant-General Grant, commanding the armies of the United States, the request that he will take like action in regard to other armies, the object being to permit the civil authorities to enter into the needful arrangements to terminate* the existing war.  

J.E. Johnston

Cmdg.

Sherman is ecstatic. Without delay he responds:

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI

IN THE FIELD, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, April 14, 1865.

General J. E. JOHNSTON, commanding Confederate Army.

GENERAL:

I have this moment received your communication of this date. I am fully empowered to arrange with you any terms for the suspension of farther hostilities between the armies commanded by you and those commanded by myself, and will be willing to confer with you to that end. I will limit the advance of my main column, to-morrow, to Morrisville, and the cavalry to the university, and expect that you will also maintain the present position of your forces until each has notice of a failure to agree.

That a basis of action may be had, I undertake to abide by the same terms and conditions as were made by Generals Grant and Lee at Appomattox Court-House, on the 9th instant, relative to our two armies; and, furthermore, to obtain from General Grant an order to suspend the movements of any troops from the direction of Virginia. General Stoneman is under my command, and my order will suspend any devastation or destruction contemplated by him. I will add that I really desire to save the people of North Carolina the damage they would sustain by the march of this army through the central or western parts of the State.

I am, with respect, your obedient servant,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

*In some transcriptions Johnston offers to “exterminate” the war.

III

A Federal holiday is declared throughout the North. Most employers, government and private, give their employees the day off, some even with pay.

IV

President Lincoln appointed William P. Kellogg as Collector of Customs for the Port of New Orleans. It was his first such appointment in the south since the beginning of the war. 

President Lincoln asked U.S. Marshal Ward Hill Lamon, his friend, former law partner, and bodyguard, to go to Richmond for the weekend as his personal envoy to the City Fathers. Lamon, a barrel-chested man who was taller and much broader than Lincoln himself, was uneasy with the President’s decision. He asked Lincoln to reconsider. Lincoln laughed off his old friend’s fears. He explained that though he’d given George Crook the night off and that Lamon would be away, the theatre had its own security man for him, a police officer named John Parker.

“Don’t go out on Friday night,” Lamon begged. “Especially not to the theatre.”   Lamon pointed out to the President that Washington City, already chaotic with crowds, would be full of unpredictable and uncontrollable revelers celebrating the first weekend of peace in four years.

“You, my friend are insanely apprehensive of my safety,” Lincoln told Lamon. He then unaccountably spoke to Lamon about the “assassination dream,” which he had suffered again for the third night in a row.

The President was in such a poor mood after this admission that Lamon pulled out his old banjo and played the bluegrass music of the President’s youth to soothe Lincoln’s mind.

Did Lamon’s warning resonate with Lincoln when Charles Hess and Leonard Grover the owner-managers of Grover’s National Theatre (today “The National Theatre”) invited the Lincoln family to see Aladdin: Or, The Wonderful Lamp on Friday night, April 14^th?  Having already made plans to attend Our American Cousin with General and Mrs. Grant at Ford’s Theatre, Mary and Abraham declined the Grover’s Theatre invitation, but both agreed that Tad would be happier seeing an action-adventure than an adult comedy, and they arranged for him to go to the National in their stead.