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the President completed his river journey in a twelve-oared barge and walked about a mile and a half through the Richmond streets accompanied by Admiral Porter and three other officers with a guard of only ten sailors armed with carbines. He was received with demonstrations of joy by the negroes and, though the city was full of drunken civilians, he met with neither molestation nor indignity. He went to the house which Davis had occupied as a residence, now Weitzel’s headquarters and, if we may believe some personal recollections, looked about the house and sat in Davis’s chair with boyish delight. Lincoln passed the night in Richmond and on April 5 returned to City Point. Under that date Jones reported perfect order in the city and Dana telegraphed from Richmond, “Whig appeared yesterday as Union paper.… Theatre opens here to-night.” 1 18 The Army of Northern Virginia evacuated Richmond and Petersburg during the night of April 2 and the early morning of the 3d. Grant, without tarrying for a visit to Richmond, set after them in hot pursuit. After a chase of eighty miles he hemmed them in and compelled their surrender. 2 When Lee became convinced that further resistance was useless he said, “Then there is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” He ordered the white flag to be displayed,

Note 1. O. R., XLVI, Pt. 3, 575. [back]

Note 2. T. L. Livermore wrote on Jan. 8. 1906: “During the Appomattox campaign, March 29 to April 9, 1865, with a force of about 116,000 effectives, Grant manœuvred and drove out of their intrenchments in front of Richmond and Petersburg about 52,000 Confederates and then with 72,000 men pursuing for eighty miles the remainder of the Confederate army estimated at 37,000, captured, dispersed, or put hors de combat on the way about 9000, and finally surrounded and received the surrender of 28,231. In no other modern campaign has an army ever pursued, surrounded and captured so many men in full flight.” Milt. Hist. Soc., VI, 451. [back]

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