29th. Saturday. Yesterday we came home instead of going to Madison, on account of rain. Spent a portion of the day with the boys at Charlie’s—dinner. Went up to see Will off. Evening at Mrs. Holtslander’s.
April 2015
[The next letter refers to the death of President Lincoln.]
Saturday, April 29, 1865.
… It was a frightful blow at first. The people have refused to believe he was dead. Last Sunday the black minister of Frogmore said that if they knew the President were dead they would mourn for him, but they could not think that was the truth, and they would wait and see. We are going to-morrow to hear what further they say. One man came for clothing and seemed very indifferent about them — different from most of the people. I expressed some surprise. “Oh,” he said, “I have lost a friend. I don’t care much now about anything.” “What friend?” I asked, not really thinking for a moment. “They call him Sam,” he said; “Uncle Sam, the best friend ever I had.” Another asked me in a whisper if it were true that the “Government was dead.” Rina says she can’t sleep for thinking how sorry she is to lose “Pa Linkum.” You know they call their elders in the church — or the particular one who converted and received them in — their spiritual father, and he has the most absolute power over them. These fathers are addressed with fear and awe as “Pa Marcus,” “Pa Demas,” etc. One man said to me, “Lincoln died for we, Christ died for we, and me believe him de same mans,” that is, they are the same person.
We dressed our school-house in what black we could get, and gave a shred of crape to some of our children, who wear it sacredly. Fanny’s bonnet supplied the whole school.
Chattanooga, Saturday, April 29. It has been raining at times all day and last night. Went to town on pass this morning, got a paper containing the cheering news of Johnston’s surrender of all troops east of Chattahoochee River. Hurrah! Hurrah! Everybody feels very good, but we have become accustomed to good news, it does not call forth much demonstration.
Saturday, April 29. — Johnston’s surrender I regard as the end of the war. Celebrate it by wearing a white collar, first time in service, four years!
April 29, 1865.
Boys plowing in old house field. We are needing rain. Everything looks pleasant, but the state of our country is very gloomy. General Lee has surrendered to the victorious Grant. Well, if it will only hasten the conclusion of this war, I am satisfied. There has been something very strange in the whole affair to me, and I can attribute it to nothing but the hand of Providence working out some problem that has not yet been revealed to us poor, erring mortals. At the beginning of the struggle the minds of men, their wills, their self-control, seemed to be all taken from them in a passionate antagonism to the coming-in President, Abraham Lincoln. Our leaders, to whom the people looked for wisdom, led us into this, perhaps the greatest error of the age. “We will not have this man to rule over us!” was their cry. For years it has been stirring in the hearts of Southern politicians that the North was enriched and built up by Southern labor and wealth. Men’s pockets were always appealed to and appealed to so constantly that an antagonism was excited which it has been impossible to allay. They did not believe that the North would fight. Said Robert Toombes: “I will drink every drop of blood they will shed.” Oh, blinded men! Rivers deep and strong have been shed, and where are we now?—a ruined, subjugated people! What will be our future? is the question which now rests heavily upon the hearts of all.
This has been a month never to be forgotten. Two armies have surrendered. The President of the United States has been assassinated, Richmond evacuated, and Davis, President of the Confederacy, put to grief, to flight. The old flag has been raised again upon Sumter and an armistice accepted.
Tenleytown, D. C., April 29th, 1865.
I can write of nothing, just now, but “Home, Sweet Home;” can think of nothing else. Is it a wonder? When work was to be done, did I not set my face, like flint, to do it? And now, the task complete, our Nation’s unity restored, slavery wiped out, and peace secured, is it any wonder my impatient soul chafes at restraint? But, patience, thou spirit of unrest. I have been making out muster rolls today; tomorrow we muster. Captain Sudborough has returned. He learned, in Philadelphia, that we were coming, and hastened to join us, that he might go home with the regiment. Every detailed man has been returned. The next muster rolls I make will be to muster us out of the service.
Friday, 28th—The weather continues fine. We spent the day in washing and cleaning our clothing. We received orders to start for Washington at 8 o’clock in the morning, going by way of Richmond, Virginia. Great rejoicing in camp at the thought of going home—to come back no more. The report is that the four corps under Sherman, with Kilpatrick’s cavalry, are going North, while the Twenty-third Corps under Schofield will remain at Raleigh until all of Johnston’s men leave for their homes. He will take over the munitions of war surrendered by Johnston.
28th. Saw the train come in. Commenced to rain early in the day. The procession was grand. Got wet through looking at it. The Bajida and other arrangements were splendid. Very unpleasant day.
Chattanooga, Friday, April 28. I have just finished treading out another eight hours of this rebellion. Scoured my sabre and turned it over to the orderly so my successor can have it. Most of the boys are on duty, some are white-washing the stables, others policing, and I find more quiet to write than usual. Our quarters are full of boisterous soldiers generally—sixteen makes a great noise. Have written to T. L. and must cease this scribble to enjoy a short space of quiet inaction, for I am in a happy, lazy mood.
By the way, our gallant old leader, General Sherman, has committed a grave mistake in dealing with his crafty foe, Johnston. Already the ravenous editors are pouncing upon him to tear him by piecemeal, but the soldiers are slow to censure one whom they respect so much. I for one doubt not his sincerity for a single moment. But, great in magnanimity himself, he placed far too much confidence in the honor of his enemy. General Grant goes forward. All will soon be right again. Booth has been shot by his pursuers, thereby cheating hemp of its dues.
Charles Francis Adams, U.S. Minister to the U.K., to his son, Charles.
London, April 28, 1865
Your letter from Richmond was sent by John, as you desired, over to us. I read it with the greatest interest, and sent it off to your mother at Rome. It was a singular circumstance that you, in the fourth generation of our family, under the Union and the constitution, should have been the first to put your foot in the capital of the Ancient Dominion, and that, too, at the head of a corps which prefigured the downfall of the policy which had ruled in that capital during the whole period now closely approaching a century. How full of significance is this history, which all of us are now helping to make! It is literally the third and fourth generation which is paying the bitter penalty for what must now be admitted were the shortcomings of the original founders of the Union. It was Jefferson who uttered the warning words, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” Yet even he in his latest years recoiled in equal terror from the opportunity then presented of applying at least a corrective to the fatal tendency of that moment. We have had it all to do at a period when the dangerous evil had reached the plenitude of its power and threatened to expand its sway over all. Practically the task may be said to have been accomplished. But at what a penalty to the generations now alive, and perhaps to their posterity!
And now comes the crowning abomination of this unholy spirit. With its physical power finally crushed, it strives to wreak its last vengeance upon the heads of those whom circumstances have happened to put forward as the leading instruments to bring about this change. Stupidly and blindly these puny devils bring on themselves by their own acts the danger of aggravating the very chastisement under which they are writhing. The magnanimity of the victorious nation was but speaking in the persons of Abraham Lincoln
and William H. Seward words of conciliation and kindness to the fallen, when they came in to substitute another whose bitter sense of personal wrong naturally mingles an alloy of vindictiveness in all his feelings, and to supply fuel to the popular fire which might in its progress burn them all from the face of the earth. Verily, the ways of Providence are past finding out! It looks to me as if it was not its will that mercy should be extended to these miserable criminals.
Yet there was never a moment when the position of the nation was more sublime than on that very Good Friday, the 14th of April, when this most atrocious crime was committed. The war had gone to the extent of disarming all further effective resistance by the rebels, and the question left to decide was only how best to soften the bitterness of defeat. The public voice was unequivocally for Christian charity, and the exercise of it had been agreed upon as a policy in the Executive Mansion by the Chief Magistrate in conjunction with the Commander in Chief of the forces. Even the most prejudiced of the English are reluctantly constrained to admit that this was the grandest spectacle seen in a popular government ever since the world began. Just at that instant comes in a whisper prompted by the father of all evil, “Let us knock down all this edifice by a single blow.” And the blow was given.
But I doubt if it accomplished its object. It may however complete other purposes not contemplated by its author. It may fix the condition of immediate and total emancipation more firmly than before, and likewise call forth from all that is found worth saving in the doomed community a sentiment of reprobation which may be the forerunner of a higher morality hereafter. The murder of Abraham Lincoln sets a stigma which will not be effaced or expiated except by long years of thorough reformation.
The excitement in this country has been deep and wide, spreading through all classes of society. My table is piled with cards, letters and resolutions. . . .
