Lincoln's Last Days: Part 1

The speech he is about to give is vital to the peace of the country.

Lincoln steps up to the podium and delivers an eloquent appeal for reunification in his second inaugural address.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations,” the president says humbly.

As he speaks, the sun bursts through the clouds, its light surrounding the tall and outwardly serene Lincoln.

The president has ambitious plans for his second term in office.

Grant is forty-two and Lee’s exact opposite: dark-haired and sloppy in dress, a small, introspective man who has a fondness for cigars and a close relationship with horses.

Like Lee, Grant possesses a genius for warfare—indeed, he is capable of little else.

The day before, at the decisive Battle of Five Forks, Union General Phil Sheridan and 45,000 men had captured a pivotal crossing, cutting off the main road to North Carolina.

The Union scouts can clearly see the small artillery battery

Lee’s retreat is unruly and time-consuming, despite the sense of urgency.

A cannon barrage could kill hundreds instantly, and Grant’s cannons are certainly close enough to do the job.

Grant and Lincoln also believe that a Confederacy without a capital is a doomsday scenario for the rebels.

He takes the walkway in long, eager strides, a smile suddenly stretching across his face, his deep fatigue vanishing at the sight of his favorite general.

When he shakes Grant’s hand, it is with great gusto.

The way is littered with hundreds of dead soldiers, their unburied bodies swollen by death and sometimes stripped bare by scavengers.

Lincoln can clearly see that Richmond—or what’s left of it—barely resembles the refined city it was.

The Confederate attempt to destroy supplies and arms to keep them out of the approaching Union army’s hands has escalated out of control.

In a cruel irony, it was not the Union army that laid waste to the city.

Brick facades and chimneys still stood, but wooden frames and roofs had been incinerated

Smoldering ruins and the sporadic whistle of artillery greeted the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Corps of the Union army.

He is a politician, and politicians are seldom given the chance to play the role of conquering hero.

I think we would have welcomed a yell of defiance.

Against all odds, his men regained their confidence as the trenches of Petersburg receded into the distance.

His eyes were red as if with weeping, his cheeks sunken and haggard, his face colorless.

At a time when every fiber of their being cries out for sleep and food, they press forward over muddy, rutted roads, enduring rain and chill and the constant harassment of Union cavalry.

On the rare occasions when the army stops to rest, men simply crumple to the ground and sleep.

In this way, Lee’s army dwindles.

He decides that his only hope is to be bold—a quality this Harvard man possesses in abundance.

After conferring with General Read, Washburn orders his tiny cavalry to assemble just out of rifle range, in columns of four, then addresses the ranks.

The audacity of the Union cavalry charge and its succeed-at-all-costs desperation ignites panic in the rebel force.

Hearing the ferocity of the firing from High Bridge, he assumes that the Union force is much bigger than the group of men who galloped past him earlier.

By two P.M. his division pours into the small town of Marshall’s Crossroads, where they are met by a lone artillery battalion.

The Confederates dig in immediately, knowing that more fighting is imminent.

All afternoon, the three Union divisions initiate mounted and dismounted cavalry charges against the dug-in rebels.

There are, as the name implies, two narrow bridges.

Horses and mules balk in their tracks, sensing the panic and confused by the noise.

Some of the men wave white handkerchiefs, mocking the Confederates, jeering that they should surrender.

In that instant, the Confederate force is overcome by righteous indignation.

The battle degenerates into butchery and a confused struggle of personal conflicts.

Three hours later, after encountering wave after never-ending wave of blue-clad soldiers—too many for his men to beat back—Gordon sent word back to Lee that he had “fought my corps to a frazzle.”

The man who had succeeded his entire life, excelling at everything and failing at nothing, was beaten.

Lee sits astride his horse, painfully vulnerable to a sniper’s bullet despite his flag of truce.

As the soldier gallops back to Lee, small patrols of Union infantry march to the front and prepare to probe the Confederate lines for vulnerability.

“I asked to see you to ascertain upon what terms you would receive the surrender of my army.”

He stares at a page, composing the sequence of words that will most amicably end the war.