Dixie After the War. Myrta Lockett Avary

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СКАЧАТЬ war, although many men on either side do not care for you one way or the other. … Your race suffers from living among us, ours from your presence.” He applied $25,000 to the venture, but it failed; New Grenada objected to negro colonisation.

      Two months before his visit to Richmond, some official (Colonel Kaye, as I remember) was describing to him the extravagancies of South Carolina negroes when Sherman’s army announced freedom to them, and Mr. Lincoln walked his floor, pale and distressed, saying: “It is a momentous thing—this liberation of the negro race.”

      He left a paper in his own handwriting with Judge Campbell, setting forth the terms upon which any seceded State could be restored to the Union; these were, unqualified submission, withdrawal of soldiers from the field, and acceptance of his position on the slavery question, as defined in his proclamations. The movement gained ground. A committee in Petersburg, headed by Anthony Keiley, asked permits to come to Richmond that they might coöperate with the committee there.

      “Unconditional surrender,” some commented. “Mr. Lincoln is not disposed to humiliate us unnecessarily,” was the reassurance. “He promised Judge Campbell that irritating exactions and oaths against their consciences are not to be imposed upon our people; they are to be encouraged, not coerced, into taking vows of allegiance to the United States Government; Lincoln’s idea is to make allegiance a coveted privilege; there are to be no confiscations; amnesty to include our officers, civil and military, is to be granted—that is, the power of pardon resting with the President, he pledges himself to liberal use of it. Lincoln is long-headed and kind-hearted. He knows the best thing all around is a real peace. He wishes to restore confidence in and affection for the Union. That is plain. He said: ‘I would gladly pardon Jeff Davis himself if he would ask it.’ ”

      I have heard one very pretty story about Mr. Lincoln’s visit to Richmond. General Pickett, of the famous charge at Gettysburg, had been well known in early life to Mr. Lincoln when Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson, General Pickett’s uncle, were law partners in Illinois. Mr. Lincoln had taken warm interest in young George Pickett as a cadet at West Point, and had written him kindly, jovial letters of advice. During that hurried sojourn in Richmond, Abraham Lincoln took time for looking up Mr. Johnson. His carriage and armed retinue drew up in front of the old Pickett mansion. The General’s beautiful young wife, trembling with alarm, heard a strange voice asking first for Mr. Johnson and then about General Pickett, and finally: “Is General Pickett’s wife here?” She came forward, her baby in her arms. “I am General Pickett’s wife.” “Madam, I am George’s old friend, Abraham Lincoln.” “The President of the United States!” “No,” with a kindly, half-quizzical smile, “only Abraham Lincoln, George’s old friend. And this is George’s baby?” Abraham Lincoln bent his kindly, half-sad, half-smiling glance upon the child. Baby George stretched out his hands; Lincoln took him, and the little one, in the pretty fashion babies have, opened his mouth and kissed the President.

      “Tell your father,” said Lincoln, “that I will grant him a special amnesty—if he wants it—for the sake of your mother’s bright eyes and your good manners.” A short while after that—when Lincoln was dead—that mother was flying, terror-stricken, with her baby to Canada, where General Pickett, in fear of his life, had taken refuge.

      Mr. Lincoln left instructions for General Weitzel to issue passes to the legislators and State officials who were to come to Richmond for the purpose of restoring Virginia to the Union. The “Whig” had sympathetic articles on “Reconstruction,” and announced in due order the meeting of citizens called “to consider President Lincoln’s proposition for reassembling the Legislature to take Virginia back into the Union.” It printed the formal call for reassembling, signed by the committee and many citizens, and countersigned by General Weitzel; handbills so signed were printed for distribution.

      General Shepley, whose cordial acquiescence in the conciliation plan had been pronounced, said in after years that he suffered serious misgivings. When General Weitzel directed him to issue the passes for the returning legislators, he inquired: “Have you the President’s written order for this?” “No. Why?” “For your own security you should have it, General. When the President reaches Washington and the Cabinet are informed of what has been done and what is contemplated, this order will be rescinded, and the Cabinet will deny that it has ever been issued.”

      “I have the President’s commands. I am a soldier and obey orders.”

      “Right, General. Command me and I obey.”

      Mr. Lincoln’s written order reiterating oral instructions came, however.

      Admiral Porter, according to his own account, took President Lincoln to task for his concessions, and told him in so many words that he was acting outside of his rights; Richmond, being under military rule, was subject to General Grant’s jurisdiction. The Admiral has claimed the distinction of working a change in the President’s mind and of recovering immediately the obnoxious order from Weitzel, killing, or trying to kill, a horse or so in the undertaking. He characterised the efforts of Judges Campbell and Thomas to serve their country and avert more bloodshed as “a clever dodge to soothe the wounded feelings of the people of the South.” The Admiral adds: “But what a howl it would have raised in the North!”

      Admiral Porter says the lectured President exclaimed: “Well, I came near knocking all the fat in the fire, didn’t I? Let us go. I seem to be putting my foot into it here all the time. Bless my soul! how Seward would have preached if he had heard me give Campbell permission to call the Legislature! Seward is an encyclopedia of international law, and laughs at my horse sense on which I pride myself. Admiral, if I were you, I would not repeat that joke yet awhile. People might laugh at you for knowing so much more than the President.”

      He was acting, he said, in conjunction with military authorities. General Weitzel was acting under General Grant’s instructions. The conciliatory plan was being followed in Petersburg, where General Grant himself had led the formal entry.

      “General Weitzel warmly approves the plan.”

      “He and Campbell are personal friends,” the Admiral remarked significantly.

      Whatever became of those horses driven out by Admiral Porter’s instructions to be killed, if need be, in the effort to recover that order, is a conundrum. According to Admiral Porter the order had been written and given to General Weitzel while Mr. Lincoln was in the city. According to Judge Campbell and General Shepley, and the original now on file in Washington, it was written from City Point.

      Dated, “Headquarters Department of Virginia, Richmond, April 13, 1865,” this appeared in the “Whig” on the last afternoon of Mr. Lincoln’s life:

      “Permission for the reassembling of the gentlemen recently acting as the Legislature is rescinded. Should any of the gentlemen come to the city under the notice of reassembling already published, they will be furnished passports to return to their homes. Any of the persons named in the call signed by J. A. Campbell and others, who are found in the city twelve hours after the publication of this notice will be subject to arrest, unless they are residents. (Signed) E. O. C. Ord, General Commanding the Department.”

      General Weitzel was removed. Upon him was thrown the blame of the President’s “blunder.” He was charged with the crime of pity and sympathy for “rebels” and “traitors.” When Lincoln was dead, a high official in Washington said: “No man more than Mr. Lincoln condemned the course General Weitzel and his officers pursued in Richmond.”

      In more ways than one General Weitzel had done that which was not pleasing in the sight of Mr. Stanton. Assistant Secretary of War Dana had let Stanton know post-haste that General Weitzel was distributing “victuals” to “rebels.” Stanton wired to know of General Weitzel if СКАЧАТЬ