________________________________________________
_ HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, March 28, 1865.
DEAR MOTHER: I arrived here safely the day before yesterday, and I hope
that you will soon receive some of the letters I forwarded on that day.
It is an extraordinary place, this City Point; a military city sprung up
like a mushroom in a winter. And my breath was quite taken away when I
first caught sight of it on the high table-land. The great bay in front
of it, which the Appomattox helps to make, is a maze of rigging and
smoke-pipes, like the harbor of a prosperous seaport. There are gunboats
and supply boats, schooners and square-riggers and steamers, all huddled
together, and our captain pointed out to me the 'Malvern' flying Admiral
Porter's flag. Barges were tied up at the long wharves, and these were
piled high with wares and flanked by squat warehouses. Although it was
Sunday, a locomotive was puffing and panting along the foot of the ragged
bank.
High above, on the flat promontory between the two rivers, is the city of
tents and wooden huts, the great trees in their fresh faint green
towering above the low roofs. At the point of the bluff a large flag
drooped against its staff, and I did not have to be told that this was
General Grant's headquarters.
There was a fine steamboat lying at the wharf, and I had hardly stepped
ashore before they told me she was President Lincoln's. I read the name
on her--the 'River Queen'. Yes, the President is here, too, with his
wife and family.
There are many fellows here with whom I was brought up in Boston. I am
living with Jack Hancock, whom you will remember well. He is a captain
now, and has a beard.
But I must go on with my story. I went straight to General Grant's
headquarters,--just a plain, rough slat house such as a contractor might
build for a temporary residence. Only the high flagstaff and the Stars
and Stripes distinguish it from many others of the same kind. A group of
officers stood chatting outside of it, and they told me that the General
had walked over to get his mail. He is just as unassuming and democratic
as "my general." General Rankin took me into the office, a rude room,
and we sat down at the long table there. Presently the door opened, and
a man came in with a slouch hat on and his coat unbuttoned. He was
smoking a cigar. We rose to our feet, and I saluted.
It was the general-in-chief. He stared at me, but said nothing.
"General, this is Major Brice of General Sherman's staff. He has brought
despatches from Goldsboro," said Rankin.
He nodded, took off his hat and laid it on the table, and reached out for
the despatches. While reading them he did not move, except to light
another cigar. I am getting hardened to unrealities,--perhaps I should
say marvels, now. Our country abounds in them. It did not seem so
strange that this silent General with the baggy trousers was the man who
had risen by leaps and bounds in four years to be general-in-chief of our
armies. His face looks older and more sunken than it did on that day in
the street near the Arsenal, in St. Louis, when he was just a military
carpet-bagger out of a job. He is not changed otherwise. But how
different the impressions made by the man in authority and the same man
out of authority!
He made a sufficient impression upon me then, as I told you at the time.
That was because I overheard his well-merited rebuke to Hopper. But I
little dreamed that I was looking on the man who was to come out of
the West and save this country from disunion. And how quietly and simply
he has done it, without parade or pomp or vainglory. Of all those who,
with every means at their disposal, have tried to conquer Lee, he is the
only one who has in any manner succeeded. He has been able to hold him
fettered while Sherman has swept the Confederacy. And these are the two
men who were unknown when the war began.
When the General had finished reading the despatches, he folded them
quickly and put them in his pocket.
"Sit down and tell me about this last campaign of yours, Major," he said.
I talked with him for about half an hour. I should rather say talked to
him. He is a marked contrast to Sherman in this respect. I believe that
he only opened his lips to ask two questions. You may well believe that
they were worth the asking, and they revealed an intimate knowledge of
our march from Savannah. I was interrupted many times by the arrival of
different generals, aides, etc. He sat there smoking, imperturbable.
Sometimes he said "yes" or "no," but oftener he merely nodded his head.
Once he astounded by a brief question an excitable young lieutenant, who
floundered. The General seemed to know more than he about the matter he
had in hand.
When I left him, he asked me where I was quartered, and said he hoped I
would be comfortable.
Jack Hancock was waiting for me, and we walked around the city, which
even has barber shops. Everywhere were signs of preparation, for the
roads are getting dry, and the General preparing for a final campaign
against Lee. Poor Lee! What a marvellous fight he has made with his
material. I think that he will be reckoned among the greatest generals
of our race.
Of course, I was very anxious to get a glimpse of the President, and so
we went down to the wharf, where we heard that he had gone off for a
horseback ride. They say that he rides nearly every day, over the
corduroy roads and through the swamps, and wherever the boys see that
tall hat they cheer. They know it as well as the lookout tower on the
flats of Bermuda Hundred. He lingers at the campfires and swaps stories
with the officers, and entertains the sick and wounded in the hospitals.
Isn't it like him?
He hasn't changed, either. I believe that the great men don't change.
Away with your Napoleons and your Marlboroughs and your Stuarts. These
are the days of simple men who command by force of character, as well as
knowledge. Thank God for the American! I believe that he will change
the world, and strip it of its vainglory and hypocrisy.
In the evening, as we were sitting around Hancock's fire, an officer came
in.
"Is Major Brice here?" he asked. I jumped up.
"The President sends his compliments, Major, and wants to know if you
would care to pay him a little visit."
If I would care to pay him a little visit! That officer had to hurry to
keep up with the as I walked to the wharf. He led me aboard the River
Queen, and stopped at the door of the after-cabin.
Mr. Lincoln was sitting under the lamp, slouched down in his chair, in
the position I remembered so well. It was as if I had left him but
yesterday. He was whittling, and he had made some little toy for his son
Tad, who ran out as I entered.
When he saw me, the President rose to his great height, a sombre,
towering figure in black. He wears a scraggly beard now. But the sad
smile, the kindly eyes in their dark caverns, the voice--all were just
the same. I stopped when I looked upon the face. It was sad and lined
when I had known it, but now all the agony endured by the millions, North
and South, seemed written on it.
"Don't you remember me, Major?" he asked.
The wonder was that he had remembered me! I took his big, bony hand,
which reminded me of Judge Whipple's. Yes, it was just as if I had been
with him always, and he were still the gaunt country lawyer.
"Yes, sir," I said, "indeed I do."
He looked at me with that queer expression of mirth he sometimes has.
"Are these Boston ways, Steve?" he asked. "They're tenacious. I didn't
think that any man could travel so close to Sherman and keep 'em."
"They're unfortunate ways, sir," I said, "if they lead you to misjudge
me."
He laid his hand on my shoulder, just as he had done at Freeport.
"I know you, Steve," he said. "I shuck an ear of corn before I buy it.
I've kept tab on you a little the last five years, and when I heard
Sherman had sent a Major Brice up here, I sent for you."
What I said was boyish. "I tried very hard to get a glimpse of you
to-day, Mr. Lincoln. I wanted to see you again."
He was plainly pleased.
"I'm glad to hear it, Steve," he said. "Then you haven't joined the
ranks of the grumblers? You haven't been one of those who would have
liked to try running this country for a day or two, just to show me how
to do it?"
"No, sir," I said, laughing.
"Good!" he cried, slapping his knee. "I didn't think you were that kind,
Steve. Now sit down and tell me about this General of mine who wears
seven-leagued boots. What was it--four hundred and twenty miles in fifty
days? How many navigable rivers did he step across?" He began to count
on those long fingers of his. "The Edisto, the Broad, the Catawba, the
Pedee, and--?"
"The Cape Fear," I said.
"Is--is the General a nice man?" asked Mr. Lincoln, his eyes twinkling.
"Yes, sir, he is that," I answered heartily. "And not a man in the army
wants anything when he is around. You should see that Army of the
Mississippi, sir. They arrived in Goldsboro' in splendid condition."
He got up and gathered his coat-tails under his arms, and began to walk
up and down the cabin.
"What do the boys call the General?" he asked.
I told him "Uncle Billy." And, thinking the story of the white socks
might amuse him, I told him that. It did amuse him.
"Well, now," he said, "any man that has a nickname like that is all
right. That's the best recommendation you can give the General--just say
'Uncle Billy.'" He put one lip over the other. "You've given 'Uncle
Billy' a good recommendation, Steve," he said. "Did you ever hear the
story of Mr. Wallace's Irish gardener?"
"No, sir."
"Well, when Wallace was hiring his gardener he asked him whom he had been
living with.
"'Misther Dalton, sorr.'
"'Have you a recommendation, Terence?'
"'A ricommindation is it, sorr? Sure I have nothing agin Misther Dalton,
though he moightn't be knowing just the respict the likes of a first-
class garthener is entitled to.'"
He did not laugh. He seldom does, it seems, at his own stories. But I
could not help laughing over the "ricommindation" I had given the
General. He knew that I was embarrassed, and said kindly:--
"Now tell me something about 'Uncle Billy's Bummers.' I hear that they
have a most effectual way of tearing up railroads."
I told him of Poe's contrivance of the hook and chain, and how the
heaviest rails were easily overturned with it, and how the ties were
piled and fired and the rails twisted out of shape. The President
listened to every word with intense interest.
"By Jing!" he exclaimed, "we have got a general. Caesar burnt his
bridges behind him, but Sherman burns his rails. Now tell me some more."
He helped me along by asking questions. Then I began to tell him how the
negroes had flocked into our camps, and how simply and plainly the
General had talked to them, advising them against violence of any kind,
and explaining to them that "Freedom" meant only the liberty to earn
their own living in their own way, and not freedom from work.
"We have got a general, sure enough," he cried. "He talks to them
plainly, does he, so that they understand? I say to you, Brice," he went
on earnestly, "the importance of plain talk can't be overestimated. Any
thought, however abstruse, can be put in speech that a boy or a negro can
grasp. Any book, however deep, can be written in terms that everybody
can comprehend, if a man only tries hard enough. When I was a boy I used
to hear the neighbors talking, and it bothered me so because I could not
understand them that I used to sit up half the night thinking things out
for myself. I remember that I did not know what the word demonstrate
meant. So I stopped my studies then and there and got a volume of
Euclid. Before I got through I could demonstrate everything in it,
and I have never been bothered with demonstrate since."
I thought of those wonderfully limpid speeches of his: of the Freeport
debates, and of the contrast between his style and Douglas's. And I
understood the reason for it at last. I understood the supreme mind that
had conceived the Freeport Question. And as I stood before him then, at
the close of this fearful war, the words of the Gospel were in my mind.
'So the last shall be first, and the first, last; for many be called, but
few chosen.'
How I wished that all those who have maligned and tortured him could talk
with him as I had talked with him. To know his great heart would disarm
them of all antagonism. They would feel, as I feel, that his life is so
much nobler than theirs, and his burdens so much heavier, that they would
go away ashamed of their criticism.
He said to me once Brice, I hope we are in sight of the end, now. I
hope that we may get through without any more fighting. I don't want to
see any more of our countrymen killed. And then," he said, as if talking
to himself, "and then we must show them mercy--mercy."
I thought it a good time to mention Colfax's case. He has been on my
mind ever since. Mr. Lincoln listened attentively. Once he sighed, and
he was winding his long fingers around each other while I talked.
"I saw the man captured, Mr. Lincoln," I concluded, "And if a
technicality will help him out, he was actually within his own skirmish
line at the time. The Rebel skirmishers had not fallen back on each side
of him."
"Brice," he said, with that sorrowful smile, "a technicality might save
Colfax, but it won't save me. Is this man a friend of yours?" he asked.
That was a poser.
"I think he is, Mr. Lincoln. I should like to call him so. I admire
him." And I went on to tell of what he had done at Vicksburg, leaving
out, however, my instrumentality in having him sent north. The President
used almost Sherman's words.
"By Jing!" he exclaimed. (That seems to be a favorite expression of
his.) "Those fellows were born to fight. If it wasn't for them, the
South would have quit long ago." Then he looked at me in his funny way,
and said, "See here, Steve, if this Colfax isn't exactly a friend of
yours, there must be some reason why you are pleading for him in this
way."
"Well, sir," I said, at length, "I should like to get him off on account
of his cousin, Miss Virginia Carvel." And I told him something about
Miss Carvel, and how she had helped you with the Union sergeant that day
in the hot hospital. And how she had nursed Judge Whipple."
"She's a fine woman," he said. "Those women have helped those men to
prolong this war about three years.
"And yet we must save them for the nation's sake. They are to be the
mothers of our patriots in days to come. Is she a friend of yours, too,
Steve?"
What was I to say?
"Not especially, sir," I answered finally. I have had to offend her
rather often. But I know that she likes my mother."
"Why!" he cried, jumping up, "she's a daughter of Colonel Carvel. I
always had an admiration for that man. An ideal Southern gentleman of
the old school,--courteous, as honorable and open as the day, and as
brave as a lion. You've heard the story of how he threw a man named
Babcock out of his store, who tried to bribe him?"
"I heard you tell it in that tavern, sir. And I have heard it since."
It did me good to hear the Colonel praised.
"I always liked that story," he said. "By the way, what's become of the
Colonel?"
"He got away--South, sir," I answered. "He couldn't stand it.
He hasn't been heard of since the summer of '63. They think he was
killed in Texas. But they are not positive. They probably never will
be," I added. He was silent awhile.
"Too bad!" he said. "Too bad. What stuff those men are made of! And so
you want me to pardon this Colfax?"
"It would be presumptuous in me to go that far, sir," I replied. "But I
hoped you might speak of it to the General when he comes. And I would be
glad of the opportunity to testify."
He took a few strides up and down the room.
"Well, well," he said, "that's my vice--pardoning, saying yes. It's
always one more drink with me. It--" he smiled--"it makes me sleep
better. I've pardoned enough Rebels to populate New Orleans. Why," he
continued, with his whimsical look, "just before I left Washington, in
comes one of your Missouri senators with a list of Rebels who are shut up
in McDowell's and Alton. I said:--
"'Senator, you're not going to ask me to turn loose all those at once?'
"He said just what you said when you were speaking of Missouri a while
ago, that he was afraid of guerilla warfare, and that the war was nearly
over. I signed 'em. And then what does he do but pull out another batch
longer than the first! And those were worse than the first.
"'What!, you don't want me to turn these loose, too?'
"'Yes, I do, Mr. President. I think it will pay to be merciful.'
"'Then durned if I don't,' I said, and I signed 'em."
STEAMER "RIVER QUEEN."
ON THE POTOMAC, April 9, 1865.
DEAR MOTHER: I am glad that the telegrams I have been able to send
reached you safely. I have not had time to write, and this will be but a
short letter.
You will be surprised to see this heading. I am on the President's boat,
in the President's party, bound with him for Washington. And this is how
it happened: The very afternoon of the day I wrote you, General Sherman
himself arrived at City Point on the steamer 'Russia'. I heard the
salutes, and was on the wharf to meet him. That same afternoon he and
General Grant and Admiral Porter went aboard the River Queen to see the
President. How I should have liked to be present at that interview!
After it was over they all came out of the cabin together General Grant
silent, and smoking, as usual; General Sherman talking vivaciously; and
Lincoln and the Admiral smiling and listening. That was historic! I
shall never expect to see such a sight again in all my days. You can
imagine my surprise when the President called me from where I was
standing at some distance with the other officers. He put his hand on my
shoulder then and there, and turned to General Sherman.
"Major Brice is a friend of mine, General," he said. "I knew him in
Illinois."
"He never told me that," said the General.
"I guess he's got a great many important things shut up inside of him,"
said Mr. Lincoln, banteringly. "But he gave you a good recommendation,
Sherman. He said that you wore white socks, and that the boys liked you
and called you 'Uncle Billy.' And I told him that was the best
recommendation he could give anybody."
I was frightened. But the General only looked at me with those eyes that
go through everything, and then he laughed.
"Brice," he said, "You'll have my reputation ruined,"
"Sherman," said Mr. Lincoln, "you don't want the Major right away, do
you? Let him stay around here for a while with me. I think he'll find
it interesting." He looked at the general-in-chief, who was smiling just
a little bit. "I've got a sneaking notion that Grant's going to do
something."
Then they all laughed.
"Certainly, Mr. Lincoln," said my General, "you may have Brice. Be
careful he doesn't talk you to death--he's said too much already."
That is how I came to stay.
I have no time now to tell you all that I have seen and heard. I have
ridden with the President, and have gone with him on errands of mercy and
errands of cheer. I have been almost within sight of what we hope is the
last struggle of this frightful war. I have listened to the guns of Five
Forks, where Sheridan and Warren bore their own colors in the front of
the charge, I was with Mr. Lincoln while the battle of Petersburg was
raging, and there were tears in his eyes.
Then came the retreat of Lee and the instant pursuit of Grant, and--
Richmond. The quiet General did not so much as turn aside to enter the
smoking city he had besieged for so long. But I went there, with the
President. And if I had one incident in my life to live over again, I
should choose this. As we were going up the river, a disabled steamer
lay across the passage in the obstruction of piles the Confederates had
built. Mr. Lincoln would not wait. There were but a few of us in his
party, and we stepped into Admiral Porter's twelve-oared barge and were
rowed to Richmond, the smoke of the fires still darkening the sky. We
landed within a block of Libby Prison.
With the little guard of ten sailors he marched the mile and a half to
General Weitzel's headquarters,--the presidential mansion of the
Confederacy. You can imagine our anxiety. I shall remember him always
as I saw him that day, a tall, black figure of sorrow, with the high silk
hat we have learned to love. Unafraid, his heart rent with pity, he
walked unharmed amid such tumult as I have rarely seen. The windows
filled, the streets ahead of us became choked, as the word that the
President was coming ran on like quick-fire. The mob shouted and pushed.
Drunken men reeled against him. The negroes wept aloud and cried
hosannas. They pressed upon him that they might touch the hem of his
coat, and one threw himself on his knees and kissed the President's feet.
Still he walked on unharmed, past the ashes and the ruins. Not as a
conqueror was he come, to march in triumph. Not to destroy, but to heal.
Though there were many times when we had to fight for a path through the
crowds, he did not seem to feel the danger.
Was it because he knew that his hour was not yet come?
To-day, on the boat, as we were steaming between the green shores of the
Potomac, I overheard him reading to Mr. Sumner:--
"Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further."
WILLARD'S HOTEL, WASHINGTON, April 10, 1865.
I have looked up the passage, and have written it in above.
It haunts me. _
Read next: BOOK III: Volume 8: Chapter XV. The Man of Sorrows
Read previous: BOOK III: Volume 8: Chapter XIII. From the Letters of Major Stephen Brice
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