The president had been at City Point since March 24, which was just over two weeks. He had hoped to stay in Virginia until General Lee surrendered his army, but even though General Grant was closing in on Lee and the end was now only a matter of days away, it was time for President Lincoln to return to Washington.

The visit had certainly helped to raise his spirits, although the telegrams from generals Grant and Sherman were probably just as responsible for his improved morale as the change in scenery. Since his arrival at City Point, Petersburg had been evacuated, Richmond had been captured, and both Grant and Sheridan had kept Lincoln informed that Lee's army was on the brink of surrender. It has been an exciting time for him. Four years of war were finally coming to an end. He had been in the war zone and had conferred with his general-in-chief while the fighting was building to a climax. But there was work to do at the White House that needed his attention and could not be left to another time. The president made plans to return to Washington later in the day.

Before he went back to Washington, though, President Lincoln wanted to pay a visit to the wounded soldiers at Depot Field Hospital, which was about a mile and a half southwest of City Point. The hospital was made up of several hundred tents, along with about one hundred wooden barracks, and treated thousands of patients within its wards. At about noon, the president, Senator Charles Sumner, Mary Lincoln, and the Marquis de Chambrun were driven to the sprawling hospital grounds, where they were met by the senior surgeon in charge. The surgeon escorted the presidential party to the nearest ward and the president began visiting the patients.

“We passed before all the wounded and amputated,” the Marquis de Chambrun noted. “Almost all the wounded soldiers asked the President how the fight was progressing and inquired as to the political outlook, then smiled happily when told: ‘Success all along the line.’”1 Mary Lincoln did not stay with her husband throughout his visit to the hospital, but Chambrun and Senator Sumner remained nearby while the president was making his tour. Lincoln's greetings and consoling words were much appreciated by all the soldiers in the wards—and Lincoln visited many soldiers and shook a great many hands that afternoon. Senator Sumner seemed to be absolutely amazed that the president had taken the time to shake so many hands, although he seemed to be more moved than surprised by what President Lincoln had done.

The president's stay at Depot Field Hospital lasted until late afternoon. But the day's activities were not over yet. After leaving the hospital, President Lincoln and his party were driven to what the Marquis de Chambrun described as “headquarters.” Headquarters was situated “on the far side of the town in a fine suburban mansion.”² While Lincoln was busy conferring with “the generals commanding the garrison,” Chambrun and the others visited the mansion and its abandoned gardens. The marquis was much impressed by the estate, and commented on how beautifully the grounds were laid out. But his escort brushed off the compliment, and dismissed the mansion's former owners with one hard comment: “These people were traitors.” Residents of the South were not the only people who had hostile thoughts about the coming reunification.

The president was scheduled to depart City Point for Washington before the evening was over, but first he had to attend a reception aboard the River Queen. Enduring the rigors of a formal reception, and all the handshaking that went with it, was not something that the president anticipated with any pleasure. The afternoon at the hospital had already taken its toll; Lincoln was tired and needed a rest. Back on board the River Queen, he told his wife, “Mother, I have shaken so many hands today that my arms ache tonight. I almost wish that I could go to bed now.”3

It was a nice party, at least according to most of those who were present. Julia Grant had not been invited; neither had Commander John S. Barnes. Commander Barnes was on board the River Queen, under orders from Admiral Porter, but he did not set eyes on Mary Lincoln. “Mrs. Lincoln was indisposed and I did not meet her,” he said.⁴ Nobody knew if the president's wife was not feeling well, or if she was still annoyed with Commander Barnes.

Elizabeth Keckley was there, and seemed to be enjoying the party and the entire scene. “As the twilight shadows deepened the lamps were lighted and the boat was brilliantly illuminated,” she wrote. To her, the River Queen looked like “an enchanted floating palace.”⁵

A military band played for the guests during the reception. The president asked the band play La Marseillaise, which was a selection he liked and had requested for his own enjoyment. After hearing it played once, Lincoln asked the musicians to perform it a second time. The encore was apparently for the benefit of the Marquis de Chambrun. The president turned toward Chambrun and said, with a touch of dry humor, “You have to come over to America to hear it”—at the time, Napoleon III had banned La Marseillaise as the French national anthem, calling it too revolutionary.⁶

Afterward, the president asked the marquis if he had ever heard “the rebel song Dixie.” Chambrun confessed that he had not, and Lincoln asked “the surprised musicians” to play it. “That tune is now Federal property,” President Lincoln explained, “and it good to show the rebels that, with us in power, they will be free to hear it again.” This was another instance of the president's intended policy toward “the rebels”—he did not even propose to ban Dixie, the Confederate national anthem.7

The reception began to wind down around ten o'clock. Officers came by to shake hands with the president and to say goodbye before going ashore. When someone asked Lincoln to make a speech, he replied that he was too tired just then. But, he told everyone present, he would be making a speech on Tuesday, after he returned to Washington.

Commander John S. Barnes remained on board the River Queen, expressly to look after President Lincoln. On Admiral Porter's instructions, Commander Barnes assigned two officers, along with a detachment of enlisted men, to guard “the president's person day and night.”⁸ As an added precaution, the crew of the River Queen had their identity papers and personnel records examined. “Mr. Lincoln's safety” was very much on Admiral Porter's mind, whether it was because he had heard rumors of an assassination attempt against the president, or if it was just a matter of concern because he considered the security of the president to be the Navy's responsibility. According to Commander Barnes, Admiral Porter “now became full of concern lest come mishap should occur during Mr. Lincoln's trip back to Washington, for which he or the Navy might be held responsible.”

At about eleven o'clock, the River Queen's lights and party decorations were taken down, and the boat began steaming down the James River toward Chesapeake Bay. She was accompanied by the USS Bat. Admiral Porter would like to have had the president's boat escorted by a few additional gunboats and other armed warships, but the Queen was too fast to allow for this possibility. The president wanted to return to Washington as quickly as the River Queen's boilers would allow, which eliminated the possibility of being convoyed by slower and more heavily armed escorts. No other ship except the Bat could even hope to keep pace with the River Queen.

After the excitement of the day's activities, President Lincoln was in a quiet and thoughtful mood. “Mr. Lincoln stood a long while gazing at the hills,” the Marquis de Chambrun observed.9 The area had been a battleground throughout much of the war but the same ground, “so animated a few days before,” was now “dark and silent.” The president stayed out on deck “absorbed in thought” while the River Queen made its way downriver.

In the country west of Sayler's Creek, Colonel Elisha Hunt Rhodes was also in a thoughtful mood. His thoughts mainly concerned the ending of the war. “I have fifty men less than when I left Petersburg on the 2nd,” he wrote.¹⁰ “Some are dead, and some are wounded. God help them and bring us peace.” Colonel Rhodes was also thinking about General Robert E. Lee, and about when he might surrender: “Still on, on, with cannon booming in our front, showing that Lee is not far away and perhaps may be at bay.”

General Grant was also focusing on General Lee's army, which, in the general's estimation, was “rapidly crumbling.”¹¹ Soldiers who had enlisted from that particular section of Virginia, he noted, “were continually dropping out of the ranks and going to their homes.” General Grant came across a Confederate colonel who introduced himself as the proprietor of the hotel where Grant had spent the previous night. The colonel reported that he was the only man in his regiment who had not deserted. Since he was now all alone, he decided to drop out along with everybody else. Now he wanted to surrender and did not exactly know what to do. Grant advised him to stay where he was “and he would not be molested.” Grant's reaction to the Confederate colonel's story was typically straightforward: “That was one regiment which had been eliminated from Lee's force by the crumbling process.”

Colonel Horace Porter's account of this incident is a bit more sarcastic than General Grant's. Colonel Porter described the hotel proprietor as “a rather hungry-looking gentleman in gray, wearing the uniform of a colonel,” who decided to “stop off” at home to look after his property after his regiment had crumbled to pieces.12 “It is safe to say that his hotel had never before had so many guests in it,” Colonel Porter remarked, “nor at such reduced rates.” He went on to say that “His story was significant as indicating the disintegrating process which was going on in the ranks of the enemy.” The colonel's regiment may have crumbled away, but at least he still had his hotel.

General Grant's intentions were to cross the Appomattox River to the north bank and then move westward with the units that were trying to make contact with Lee's rear guard. The troops were moving “with alacrity” and without any straggling. “They began to see the end of what they had been fighting four years for,” Grant explained. “Nothing seemed to fatigue them.”¹³

Before setting out from Farmville, General Grant sent another letter to General Lee regarding the Army of Northern Virginia's surrender:

APRIL 8, 1865.

General R. E. LEE,

Commanding C. S. Army:

GENERAL: Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of same date, asking the condition on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply I would say that, peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, viz, that the men and officers surrender shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged. I will meet you, or will designate officers to meet any officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

U. S. GRANT,

Commanding Armies of the United States.14

Bearing in mind what President Lincoln had said aboard the River Queen at the end of March, Grant offered General Lee the most generous terms possible—he wanted Lee to understand that he would accept just about any condition, and insisted upon only one definite term: that the men and officers would not take up arms again against the Federal government. Grant was also willing to meet Lee almost anywhere, “at any point agreeable to you,” as long as General Lee agreed to surrender his army.

After giving his note to an orderly for delivery to General Lee, General Grant rode from Farmville to the north side of the Appomattox, where he joined the advancing columns of General George Gordon Meade. Grant was moving in “light marching order,” taking no baggage or personal belongings with him. He and his staff wanted to be close to the front and did not waste any time in getting there. According to Colonel Porter, “we billeted ourselves at night in farm houses, or bivouacked on porches, and picked up meals at any camps that seemed to have something to spare in the way of rations.”¹⁵ When General Lee's reply arrived, Grant wanted to be in a position to respond to it and report to President Lincoln.

General Grant had been suffering from what Colonel Porter described as “a severe headache” all afternoon, which had been brought on by fatigue, anxiety, rushed meals or no meals at all, and lack of sleep. President Lincoln was not the only one who worried himself sick over the war. The general did his best to cure the headache by indulging in the colorful remedies of the day—soaking his feet in a mixture of hot water and mustard, and applying mustard plasters to his wrists and to the back of his neck. Nothing worked. He spent the night in a “double house.” The general “threw himself on the sofa,” while his staff slept on the floor.16

At around midnight, an officer brought “the expected letter” from General Lee. It was taken to General Grant's room, where the general was in too much pain to sleep. “Come in, I am awake,” the general said, “I am suffering too much to get any sleep.” He sat up on the sofa and, by the light of a candle that Colonel Porter had brought, read General Lee's reply:

APRIL 8, 1865.

Lieutenant-General GRANT,

Commanding Armies of the United States:

GENERAL: I received at a late hour your note of to-day. In mine of yesterday I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the surrender of this army; but as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of all, I desired to know whether your proposals would lead to that end. I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia; but as far as your proposal may affect the C. S. forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 a.m. to-morrow, on the old stage road to Richmond, between the picket-lines of the two armies.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General¹⁷

General Grant did not have the authority to negotiate anything connected with “the restoration of peace,” which General Lee had mentioned twice in his letter. Only President Lincoln himself had the power to discuss peace terms. “It looks as if Lee still means to fight,” Grant said, “I will reply in the morning.”18 After making “a few more comments,” he stretched himself out on the sofa again. Colonel Porter expressed his hopes that the general might be able to get some sleep.

Abraham Lincoln's visit to City Point, as well as to Richmond and Petersburg, was more than just a vacation. “The expedition had been spoken of almost as if it were a pleasure trip,” Lincoln's bodyguard, William Crook, wrote.¹⁹ “Of course,” Crook went on, “in one sense this was true.” The trip did give the president some time away from the pressures and politics and politicians of Washington, which he confessed were killing him. Cynics would be quick to point out that the visit also got him away from his wife, which was another relief. But traveling to City Point accomplished a lot more than just giving the president some peace and quiet and relaxation.

As William Crook noted, Lincoln's City Point visit “was a matter or executive duty, and a very trying and saddening duty in many of its features.” For one thing, going to army headquarters gave the president a first-hand look at the war. He had read all the dispatches and newspaper reports, but at Fort Stedman he saw for himself what artillery fire and the rifled musket could do, which seemed to add to his anxieties regarding the war and how soon it could be brought to an end. “This is the first time in the history of the war that the President has been personally present to encourage and animate the soldiers,” an article in New York's the Sun reported.²⁰ The article went on to report that Lincoln's first-hand observation of the fighting, along with his consultation with his “military chiefs,” combined to give ample evidence of “how anxiously he regarded…the great struggle.”

William Crook, who accompanied the president during his time away from Washington, observed that his visits to Richmond and Petersburg also had an adverse effect on President Lincoln: “These things wore new furrows in his face” and also served to make Lincoln sadder, but at the same time made him more sympathetic toward the soldiers on both sides, including “the forlorn rebel prisoners.”21

President Lincoln's stay at City Point also allowed him to see the war from a general's point of view. General Grant remembered that the president was with him “all the time” during his stay at army headquarters. “We visited the different camps,” General Grant said many years after the war ended, and he also did his best to keep Lincoln both interested and informed.²² The president certainly was kept informed as to what Grant and Meade and Sheridan were trying to accomplish. “He was very anxious about the war closing,” General Grant said, and worried that a new campaign would begin if General Lee managed to join General Johnston's army in North Carolina. The more Grant saw of Lincoln, the more he was impressed by what he saw. After the war, Grant would say that Lincoln was “a great man.”