Among the president's activities on this Wednesday was a meeting with Secretary of State William Seward about a suitable appointment for former postmaster Montgomery Blair.

In September 1864, President Lincoln had asked Postmaster Blair to resign his position. The president's request had been a purely political move, which had been made to bolster his chances of winning the election. The candidate of the third-party Radical Democracy Party, John C. Fremont, was threatening to split the Republican vote in November. The Radical Democracy was made up mainly of dissatisfied and disgruntled Republicans who still held a good many of the same views as the Republicans, except that the Radicals were a lot more extreme in their outlook regarding slavery—they wanted to abolish slavery immediately and did not have the patience to wait until the end of the war. Fremont was popular enough that he might very well have taken enough votes away from Lincoln and Andrew Johnson to give the election to the Democrats and their candidate, George B. McClellan. Fremont agreed to withdraw from the race in exchange for Montgomery Blair's resignation.

Fremont and the Radicals wanted Blair out of politics, or at least out of the immediate political picture—among other things that alienated Fremont and his fellow Radicals, Blair had opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and was not an extreme abolitionist. So Lincoln asked for Blair's resignation in exchange for Fremont's dropping out of the presidential race.

As far as Lincoln was concerned, this was a more than fair exchange. He might have been president as well as commander in chief, but above all he was a professional politician, and a very practical and hard-headed politician at that. Now that Blair had resigned as postmaster, Lincoln offered him a post as ambassador to either Spain or Austria. Blair considered Lincoln's offer and decided to reject both appointments.

The president also nominated a Commander John J. Young promotion to the rank of captain on the Navy's reserve list. Commander Young had been passed over for promotion “in consequence of physical disability, this disability having occurred in the discharge of his duties.” The Senate confirmed Young's promotion two days later, on March 10, 1865.1 One of Lincoln's more enjoyable duties as president included doing a good deed from time to time, including speaking up for a naval officer who had been slighted by government officials.

The time had not yet come when General Grant could “commence the spring campaign,” as he would write,² but fighting had already started in North Carolina. On March 8, Federal troops under Jacob D. Cox were attacked by Confederates commanded by Braxton Bragg near the town of Kinston. Some of the Union troops broke and ran, but the line held and the Confederates were beaten off. In spite of this initial setback, Bragg continued his attack against the Union position. The battle was another indication that it would only be a matter of time before fighting began in Virginia—Kinston, North Carolina, is only 161 miles away from Petersburg, Virginia.

General Grant and President Lincoln were not the only ones who hoped that the impending battles would be the final campaign of the war. Every soldier in the trenches south of Petersburg was hoping for the same thing. “It rained hard all day and everything looks desolate, and I feel very lonely and homesick,” Lieutenant Colonel Elisha Hunt Rhodes scribbled in his diary. “No news of a move yet, but it cannot be delayed long. If Lee stays in Petersburg General Grant will catch him from the south. I hope so, for I am tired of fighting and want the war to end.”³