The most important event for President Lincoln, or at least the event that had the most immediate effect on his life at City Point, was the departure of Mary Lincoln for Washington. One of Lincoln's biographers wrote, “To her husband's undoubted relief, she went back to Washington, leaving Tad with his father.”1 The president telegraphed Edwin M. Stanton on Saturday afternoon, “Mrs. L. has started home; and I will thank you to see that our coachman is at the Arsenal wharf at eight (8) o'clock to-morrow morning, there wait until she arrives.”²

Mary Lincoln, for her own part, seemed very glad to get away from everything and everyone connected with City Point. Secretary of State Seward, who had been visiting the president for the past two days, accompanied Mrs. Lincoln back to Washington aboard the steamer Monohasset. An associate of the president named Carl Schurz, who had campaigned for Lincoln in 1860, remarked that Mary Lincoln's spirits rose very quickly as soon as she was away from City Point. Carl Schurz also noted that she was “overwhelmingly charming to me,” and that she “had me driven to my hotel in her own state carriage” as soon as the Monohasset docked.³ Mrs. Lincoln felt more at home in the White House, where her role as First Lady was clearly defined, than in the man's world of an army base surrounded by troops and officers and munitions.

While his wife was on her way back to Washington, President Lincoln spent much of the day on Saturday at City Point's telegraph office. General Grant had promised to keep the president notified concerning activities southwest of Petersburg “because he was so much interested in the movements taking place that I wanted to relieve his mind as much as I could.”4

The general telegraphed the president three times on April 1. The first two messages were mainly concerned with the fighting of the previous day, which moved Lincoln to complain that “they contain little additional except that Sheridan also had pretty hot work yesterday, that infantry was sent to his support during the night, and that he, Grant, has not since heard from Sheridan.”⁵ But Grant's third dispatch, which was received at 5:05 p.m., contained just the news that Lincoln had been waiting for. Federal cavalry under General Thomas C. Devin had “carried the barricade” at Five Forks that had been held by George E. Pickett's division, and “the whole 5th Corps” is now moving up toward Five Forks to attack the enemy.⁶ “Our men have never fought better,” the message goes on. “All are in excellent spirits and are anxious to go in…. The enemys loss yesterday was very heavy many of their dead are lying in the woods.”

The telegram had actually been sent by Colonel Horace Porter, who had been expressly posted to Sheridan's command by General Grant. “I wish you would spend the day with Sheridan's command and send me a bulletin every half-hour or so,” Grant told Porter, “advising me fully of the progress made.”⁷ Colonel Porter met General Sheridan at about 10:00 a.m. on the Five Forks road, and stayed with him throughout most of the day. As a result, he also had a first-hand view of the fighting throughout the day, because Sheridan was usually in the middle of it. His account of what he saw at Five Forks is vivid and colorful.

“Bullets were now humming like a swarm of bees around our heads, and shells were crashing through the ranks,” he wrote. Several members of General Sheridan's staff were shot, including a sergeant who had been holding the general's personal battle flag. “All this time Sheridan was dashing from one point of the line to another, waving his flag, shaking his fist, encouraging, entreating, threatening, praying, swearing, the true personification of chivalry, the very incarnation of battle.”8

Colonel Porter had been sending frequent dispatches to General Grant back at headquarters during this time, including the message that President Lincoln received at 5:05 p.m. At about 7:30, he started back to headquarters to report to General Grant in person. He covered the distance between Five Forks and Grant's headquarters as quickly as the muddy roads allowed and found the general and his staff sitting around a “blazing camp-fire.” Grant wore a blue cavalry overcoat, and sat quietly smoking a cigar. As soon as he arrived, Colonel Porter started shouting the news—General Sheridan had broken General Lee's line, the way to the Confederate rear was now wide open, and thousands of prisoners had been taken.

The colonel was so excited that at least one onlooker thought he must be drunk. “Dignity was thrown to the winds,” Porter remembered.⁹ He became so carried away that he slapped General Grant on the back—much to the general's surprise, and everybody else's amusement. The general did not join in all the shouting and excitement. He just stood silently, watching the commotion with a cigar in his mouth, until he heard Porter mention prisoners. “How many prisoners were taken?” he wanted to know. Colonel Porter responded that over five thousand prisoners were now behind the Union lines, and noticed that the general's expression actually changed slightly when he heard the colonel's answer—Grant's “impassive features” gave way to a slight smile.

After listening to the account of what had happened at Five Forks that day—“to the description of Sheridan's day's work,” as noted by Colonel Porter—General Grant walked into his tent to write several field dispatches, which were telegraphed to all commands. After handing his messages to an orderly, the general rejoined the group and calmly announced, “I have ordered a general assault along the lines.”¹⁰ The attack was scheduled for four o'clock the next morning. Colonel Porter noted that Grant gave the order, “as coolly as if remarking about the weather.”

General Grant's idea was to have all commands move against the Confederate lines as quickly as possible, to prevent General Lee from withdrawing troops from Petersburg and sending them against General Sherman. He sent another dispatch at 9:30 p.m., adding that he wanted the artillery to support the attack and that he would let the troops “attack in their own way.”11

His commanders replied with enthusiasm. General Ord said that he would go into the enemy's works “as a hot knife goes through butter,” and General Horatio Wright of the Sixth Corps responded that he would “make the fur fly.”¹² General Grant was encouraged by the enthusiasm of his generals. He went to bed just after midnight—“the general soon tucked himself into his camp-bed, and was soon sleeping as peacefully as if the next day was to be devoted to a picnic instead of a decisive battle.”

General Grant could afford a good night's sleep. Shortly before going to bed, he sent a report on General Philip Sheridan's activities. “He has carried everything before him,” Grant telegraphed, “he has captured three brigades of infantry and a train of wagons and is now pushing up his success.”¹³ It looked as though the morning's coming general offensive would bring another day of triumph and achievement. “I have ordered everything else to advance and prevent a concentration of the enemy against Sheridan.” There did not seem to be any reason for Grant to lose any sleep.

President Lincoln, on the other hand, did not have General Grant's calm and steady temperament. If Grant's planned offensive succeeded, it would mean the end of the war; he realized that, but it would also mean more dead and wounded and more killing. The fact that his son Robert was a member of Grant's staff probably added to the president's apprehensions. He spent most of the day at City Point's telegraph office, reading messages from the front and forwarding some of them along either to Secretary Stanton or Secretary Seward in Washington.

Toward the end of the day, Lincoln returned to the River Queen. “There his anxiety became more intense.”14 His bodyguard, William Crook, wrote that the president could hear cannon fire from “not many miles away,” discharging their salvoes into the Confederate positions southwest of Petersburg. After the sun went down, he could also see the muzzle flashes.

The firing kept Lincoln awake all night. He refused to go to his cabin, and would not even consider getting some much-needed sleep. “Almost all night he walked up and down the deck, pausing now and then to listen or to look out into the darkness to see if he could see anything.”¹⁵ The president's nerves were even more on edge than usual. “I have never seen such suffering in the face of any man as was in his that night.” And the morning promised to bring another full day of fighting.