The president received a telegram from Secretary of War Stanton, which gave him an update on the condition of Secretary of State Seward. The news was that Secretary Seward's injuries were not as severe as they had first appeared. “Mr. Seward although seriously injured is not in danger,” Stanton reported, and went on to say that the surgeon general “saw no reason for alarm.”1 This came as very welcome news for the president. Not only did it mean that his secretary of state was not in any mortal danger, which everyone seemed to believe on April 5, but it also meant that he would now be able to stay on at City Point for a few more days. There would be no need for him to rush back to Washington and its stress and strain and partisan politics. Instead, he would be able to remain at army headquarters and read the dispatches from Grant and Sheridan as soon as they came in, which was much more satisfying.

John A. Campbell and his plan involving the Virginia legislature still had to be dealt with. Lincoln gave a great deal of thought to the situation, and telegraphed General Godfrey Weitzel in Richmond to give instructions regarding “the gentlemen who have acted as the Legislature of Virginia”—he did not want to say “the Virginia legislature,” since this would imply that he was recognizing the Confederate governing body, and, by implication, the Confederacy itself.² Lincoln instructed General Weitzel that if these “gentlemen” wanted to assemble in Richmond “and take measures to withdraw Virginia troops” from General Lee's army, the general should “give them permission and protection” until such time that they might “attempt some action hostile to the United States.” Anyone attempting any hostile action should be given “reasonable time to leave,” and placed under arrest if they did not leave Richmond within the set time limits. The president ended his message by telling General Weitzel, “Allow Judge Campbell to see this but do not make it public.”

President Lincoln also contacted General Grant regarding Judge Campbell and the “gentlemen” from the Virginia legislature, probably with Admiral Porter's advice regarding Richmond being under military jurisdiction in mind. The president first summed up what he had said to General Weitzel, namely that the legislature should be allowed to meet in Richmond for the purpose of withdrawing Virginia troops from the Confederate forces—he did not mention anything about the reinstating of Virginia to the Union—and then went on to give his thoughts on Judge Campbell's proposal.

The president had certainly mulled over his conversation with Judge Campbell and Gustavus Meyer aboard the River Queen, and he evidently had lost his enthusiasm for what had been discussed. “I do not think it very probable that anything will come of this,” he advised General Grant, but thought it best to notify him of the meeting “so that if you should see signs, you may understand them.”3 He added that the measure regarding the withdrawal of Virginia troops from Lee's army was totally unnecessary—“it seems that you are pretty effectually withdrawing the Virginia troops from opposition to the government.” This comment probably gave General Grant a small chuckle.

Mary Lincoln returned to City Point aboard the steamer Monohasset on April 6. She had not seen her husband since April 1 and was alarmed by his appearance. He seemed to be more tired and anxious than ever—anxious over how soon the war would end and anxious over the reunification of the country after it finally ended. But her worries concerning the president did not prevent her from taking a grand tour of Richmond. She had been in Washington when her husband and Tad had visited the Confederate capital and missed the cheering of the freed slaves, and had missed seeing Jefferson Davis's house.

Mary Lincoln wanted to see Richmond every bit as much as her husband, and decided to have her own tour of the city. Along with Senator Sumner, the Marquis de Chambrun, Robert Lincoln's girlfriend, and Elizabeth Keckley, Mrs. Lincoln saw everything worth seeing. As a biographer put it, “Mary Lincoln triumphantly toured the enemy capital.”4 The only person who enjoyed the sightseeing tour more than Mrs. Lincoln was Elizabeth Keckley, the former slave.

Mrs. Lincoln's perspective of the capital was not much different than her husband's had been. “Hundreds of Negroes” welcomed her party with “loud enthusiasm;” from the doorways, “terrified white people peeped out;” and she discovered that Jefferson Davis's residence was “a fine building with beautiful parlors,” and also that the Confederate president “had carried away everything moveable in his hasty flight.”⁵ But Mrs. Lincoln also stopped at Libby Prison, which the president had decided not to visit during his tour of Richmond. The prison had once detained thousands of Federal inmates, but now housed about nine hundred Confederates. “Mrs. Lincoln was anxious to see them,” the Marquis de Chambrun explained. “Almost all these unfortunates rose respectfully; some few, however, hissed or whistled.” The marquis does not mention Mary Lincoln's reaction to this, or to anything else she experienced in Richmond, except that she had become angry and indignant when she learned of the mistreatment of Union prisoners. When she was informed that three thousand Union prisoners had been packed into the same space that now held nine hundred Confederates, he recalled that “our indignation overflowed.”

About thirty five miles southwest of Richmond, General Ulysses S. Grant had his mind focused on a more immediate problem. General Robert E. Lee and his army had moved out from Amelia Court House during the night; Grant's forces were right behind the Confederates, doing their best to catch up with them. The army had been moving at a rate of thirty miles a day, sometimes more, past the discarded muskets and broken vehicles left behind by the retreating Confederates. General Lee was still moving westward, heading for the town of Farmville, a stop on the Southside Railroad. Lee was still trying for Danville and General Johnston's army in North Carolina. Grant was trying to stop him.

The two sides finally met at Sayler's Creek. According to General Grant's laconic account, “a heavy engagement took place in which infantry, artillery, and cavalry were all brought into action.”6 He went on to explain that his men had the advantage of occupying the high ground, and also that they were able to fire more rapidly—as the enemy retreated, they had to turn to face Grant's men every time they fired, which slowed their rate of fire.

Colonel Elisha Hunt Rhodes saw the battle from a completely different perspective. The first sign of the impending battle came during the afternoon, when Colonel Rhodes heard firing off to the right and front of his position. One of General Sheridan's senior officers said that Sayler's Creek was directly ahead of them, and that a Confederate wagon train was on the other side of it, guarded by a “Rebel corps” commanded by General Richard “Baldy” Ewell. The cavalry had stopped the advance of the wagon train. Colonel Rhodes's regiment, the Second Rhode Island Infantry, was ordered to attack.

When he reported back to his regiment, a captain asked Colonel Rhodes, “Colonel, are we to fight again?” When Rhodes said yes, the captain responded, “This will be the last battle if we win, and then you and I can go home.”⁷ Along with everyone else in the Second Rhode Island, Colonel Rhodes certainly hoped this would be the last battle.

Colonel Rhodes's unit moved down a hill, crossed the creek, and attacked the Confederate position. The Confederates retreated toward a patch of woods. When they came within fifty yards of the woods, a Confederate officer stepped out and shouted for the men to fire. “A long line of Rebels fired right into our faces and then charged through our line and getting between us and the river.”8 The Rhode Islanders regrouped and reformed, recrossed the river, and captured the Confederate wagon train. They also captured “about fifty Rebel officers,” and kept after the retreating Confederates until after dark. The day's fighting cost the Second Rhode Island forty-four men killed and wounded. One of those killed was the captain that had asked if the regiment would be fighting that day.

The fighting at Sayler's Creek cost General Lee more than he could afford. “The enemy's loss was very heavy,” General Grant said, in an understatement.⁹ “Some six general officers fell into our hands in this engagement, and several thousand men were made prisoners.” General Grant realized that the fighting could not go on much longer, not at the rate that General Lee was losing men.

One of the Confederate officers that had been captured was General Richard “Baldy” Ewell. In the course of the day, General Grant met a relative of General Ewell, a Dr. Smith, who told Grant about a conversation he had had with Ewell. According to Dr. Smith, General Ewell said that when General Grant's army crossed the James River in June 1864, “he knew their cause was lost.”¹⁰ Because of this, General Ewell was of the opinion that “the authorities” should have asked for an armistice at that time, “to make the best terms they could while they still had a right to claim concessions.” But now it was too late—“the cause was lost and they had no right to claim anything.”

General Ewell had gone on to say “that for every man that was killed after this in the war somebody”—somebody in the Confederate government, he meant—“was responsible and it would be very little better than murder.”¹¹ General Ewell's mind was clearly on bringing the fighting to an end, but he was not sure if General Lee would be willing to surrender his army without being able to consult with President Davis beforehand. General Ewell hoped that he would.