On the morning following the president's address on reconstruction, life at the White House went back to its normal routine. The usual stream of callers showed up—office seekers, well-wishers, casual visitors, people offering their congratulations for Appomattox. Washington may still have been celebrating, but it was an ordinary working Wednesday for President Lincoln and his staff. Among the items that Lincoln dealt with was a pardon for Private George Maynard of the Forty-Sixth New York Volunteers, who had been sentenced to death for desertion. The president's communiqué read simply, “Let the Prisoner be pardoned and returned to his Regiment.”1 Lincoln also asked Secretary of War Stanton to recommend Isaac G. Wilson of Illinois for an appointment to West Point.

President Lincoln also sent two telegrams to General Godfrey Weitzel in Richmond. His first telegraph concerned a reprimand that General Weitzel had received from Secretary Stanton. General Weitzel had not ordered prayers to be said for the president in churches throughout Richmond. Secretary Stanton telegraphed that he was extremely upset because General Weitzel had waived the requirement for clergymen to perform services without including “the usual prayer” for the president of the United States.² “If such has been your action it is strongly condemned by this Department,” Stanton rebuked. If the clergy in Richmond could pray for “the rebel chief,” Jefferson Davis, then they should be required to pray for President Lincoln as well.

President Lincoln had seen Secretary Stanton's dispatches, and sent his own response to General Weitzel on this small but niggling matter. “I do not remember hearing prayers spoken of while I was in Richmond,” he said, “but I have no doubt you have acted in what appeared to you to be the spirit and temper manifested by me while there.”3 In other words, General Weitzel acted in the spirit of Lincoln's outlook of leniency toward the South, even if the general did not go along with Secretary Stanton's wishes. The president was of the opinion that Weitzel acted properly.

President Lincoln's second telegram to General Weitzel concerned John A. Campbell and “the gentlemen who have acted as the Legislature of Virginia.”⁴ The president was having second thoughts about allowing the Virginia legislature to meet. He had originally been of the opinion that having an assembly made up of prominent and influential Virginians would help to make Virginia's transition back into the Union smoother and more amiable. But Gideon Welles and Edwin M. Stanton did not agree with him. Secretary Welles objected to the convening of what he still considered to be a rebel governing body. “It was a recognition of them,” he protested, and was afraid that if the “so-called legislature” met, they might “conspire against us” and make unreasonable demands.⁵

On April 7, John A. Campbell had sent General Weitzel a letter that made President Lincoln agree with Secretary Welles and change his mind about the Virginia Legislature. In his letter, Campbell stated, “The legislature of Virginia [will or should] be immediately convened.”⁶ (Brackets are in original.) He went on to state, “The spirit of the people is not broken and the resources of the country allow of a prolonged and embarrassing resistance,” and made several other defiant comments that seemed to confirm Secretary Welles's misgivings that Campbell and the Virginia Legislature might very well “conspire against us” if they were permitted to meet.

President Lincoln was not happy with “Judge Campbell,” as he called him, with the tone of Judge Campbell's letter, or with any of Campbell's pointed views regarding the Virginia legislature. On April 12, the same day he read the letter, the president telegraphed General Weitzel that he did not call “the insurgent Legislature of Virginia together, as the rightful Legislature of the State, to settle all differences with the United States.”7 He instructed General Weitzel, “Do not now allow them to assemble; but if any have come, allow them safe-return to their homes.” Lincoln was determined to show Virginia and all the seceded states every possible consideration, but was not about to allow Judge Campbell or anyone else to show any form of insolence or disrespect toward the government of the United States.

On the same Wednesday morning, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia formally surrendered to Union forces. Neither General Lee nor General Grant were present at the ceremony. General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain accepted the Confederate flags and arms from General John B. Gordon, who represented General Lee.

General Chamberlain received orders to have his lines formed for the surrender ceremony at sunrise. His men watched as the Confederate forces, “on the opposite slopes,” took down their tents for the last time and slowly formed their own ranks. After forming up, the gray lines slowly began moving forward—“The dusky swarms forge forward into gray columns of march,” General Chamberlain later wrote.⁸ The regimental battle flags were crowded so closely together, and the men of the regiments had been so thinned out by the fighting, that there seemed to be more flags than men, and “the whole column seemed crowned with red.”

In the spirit of reconciliation shown by both General Grant and President Lincoln, General Chamberlain ordered his men to salute the surrendering Confederates, which he described as “a salute of arms.”⁹ Prompted by the bugler's call, the entire Union line gave “the soldier's salutation” of “carry arms,” the marching salute. General Gordon was riding at the head of the Confederate column, depressed and with a downcast face. But as soon as he heard the snap of the muskets, he returned the salute by wheeling his horse toward the Union lines and touching the point of his sword to the toe of his boot. General Gordon also instructed his own men to salute the Union ranks as they passed by—“honor answering honor.”

Each individual Confederate division then came forward to lay down its arms—the men fixed bayonets, stacked their muskets, removed their cartridge boxes and set them on the ground. The final part of the ceremony consisted of giving up their regimental battle flags. The flags were brought forward, “reluctantly, with agony of expression,” rolled up, and set down next to the stacked muskets and cartridge boxes.10 Some of the men rushed from the ranks to kneel over the standards and touch them for the last time.

The ceremony went on all day long; the divisions came forward, surrendered their weapons and flags, and withdrew. Federal wagons came to collect everything during the intervals between the coming and going of the Confederate units. Once in a while, the contents of the cartridge boxes were found to be unserviceable, and the ammunition would be emptied into the street.

Throughout the day, while the ceremony was taking place, General Chamberlain had the chance to speak with several Confederate generals. Most of them were completely taken by surprise concerning the generosity shown by both President Lincoln and General Grant. “You astonish us,” one of them said, “by your honorable and generous conduct. I fear we should not have done the same by you had the case been reversed.”¹¹ “I will go home,” another Confederate officer said, “and tell Joe Johnston we can't fight such men as you. I will advise him to surrender.”

But it was not all kind words and forgiveness and magnanimity. General Chamberlain spoke with another Confederate officer concerning the good will that the men on both sides had shown toward each other, and remarked that brave men might become good friends in spite of the war. The Confederate officer did not agree at all. “You are mistaken, sir,” he said. “You may forgive us, but we won't be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts…which you little dreamed of. We hate you, sir.”12

General Chamberlain did his best to calm the officer, trying to make light conversation and mentioning that everyone would soon be going home. “Home!” the Confederate repeated with anger in his voice. “We haven't any. You have destroyed them. You have invaded Virginia, and ruined her. Her curse is on you.”¹³ Staff officers both in blue and gray who overheard the outburst thought it was comical and laughed at the display of bad temper. But the unhappy Confederate officer was not joking. Many thousands of Southerners were in full agreement with him.

President Lincoln was well aware that not everyone shared his, and General Grant's, feeling of generosity concerning the South. Many throughout the North felt the same anger and bitterness toward their former enemy, and cursed the former Confederate states. The next four years looked to be a long battle with the Radical Republicans for the president, but Lincoln was not worried. He would deal with his opponents, in Congress and elsewhere, when the time came, and he was confident that he would be able to carry out his program for reconciliation and reunification during the coming four years.

In North Carolina, General William Tecumseh Sherman was still in pursuit of General Joseph Johnston's army, and marched into Smithfield on Tuesday, April 11. Joe Johnston had already left Smithfield by the time General Sherman arrived. He was moving as quickly as he could toward Raleigh—he “retreated hastily,” according to Sherman—and had burned several bridges during his retreat.¹⁴ This left General Sherman with the job of rebuilding the destroyed bridges, which took up most of the day.

That night, General Sherman received an urgent message from General Grant: General Lee had surrendered “his whole army” to him at Appomattox. He immediately announced the news to his troops in a special field order:

[Special Field Orders, No. 54]

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN THE FIELD, SMITHFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA, April 12, 1865.

The general commanding announces to the army that he has official notice from General Grant that General Lee surrendered to him his entire army, on the 9th inst., at Appomattox Court-House, Virginia.

Glory to God and our country, and all honor to our comrades in arms, toward whom we are marching!

A little more labor, a little more toil on our part, the great race is won, and our Government stands regenerated, after four long years of war.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.15

“Of course, this created a perfect furor of rejoicing,” General Sherman wrote, in a massive understatement. Men cheered and shouted and threw their hats in the air, just as General Grant's men had done at Appomattox three days earlier. Now that General Lee had surrendered, the question on everyone's mind concerned General Johnston and what he would do. General Sherman wondered, “would he surrender at Raleigh? Or would he allow his army to disperse into guerilla bands, to ‘die in the last ditch?’”¹⁶

“I know well that Johnston's army could not be caught,” he said, “the men could escape us, disperse, and assemble again at some place agreed on, and thus the war might be prolonged indefinitely.”17 The general remembered what the president had said about the Confederate troops. Aboard the River Queen at City Point, President Lincoln had told Grant and Sherman that he wanted all surrendered troops “back at their homes, engaged in their civil pursuits.” A guerilla war was the last thing General Sherman wanted.

That evening, part of his army had come in contact with the rear guard of Confederate troops under Wade Hampton as they moved toward Raleigh. General Sherman himself headed infantry units on a more southerly course, trying to prevent Joe Johnston from retreating southward and escaping to fight a guerilla war, the alternative both President Lincoln and himself hoped to avoid.

The many warnings that President Lincoln had received regarding assassination attempts began to affect his sleep. During the second week of April, Lincoln told his friend Ward Lamon, his wife, and one or two others who were present, the details of a recent dream. It was a frightening dream; the president had kept the details to himself for a few days, but he wanted to talk about it because it was disturbing him. Because it had put him in such a grave and solemn mood, Mrs. Lincoln wanted to hear about the dream as much as her husband wanted to talk about it.

Lincoln began by explaining that he had gone to bed fairly late on the night of the dream, which had been about ten days earlier, after waiting up for dispatches from the front. When he finally did go to bed, he had a disturbed sleep and began dreaming. In the dream that had distressed him so much, Lincoln heard “subdued sobs,” as though a number of people were crying.¹⁸ It seemed to him that he got out of bed and went downstairs, where he heard “the same pitiful sobbing,” but he could not see anyone sobbing. “I went from room to room; no living person was in sight.” But he kept hearing the same “mournful sounds of distress” everywhere he went. He kept on looking, trying to find out exactly what was taking place and why anyone should be sobbing and behaving so strangely, and finally found himself in the East Room.

Inside the East Room, he saw a catafalque, along with a corpse “wrapped in funeral vestments” and with its face covered. Soldiers were stationed around the catafalque, acting as guards, and a crowd of people stood by, “weeping pitifully.” Lincoln asked one of the soldiers, “Who is dead in the White House?”

“The President,” the soldier replied, “he was killed by an assassin.” This was followed by “a large burst of grief” from the crowd, which woke Lincoln from his dream. He was not able to sleep any more that night, and remained “strangely annoyed” by the dream ever since.

Mrs. Lincoln was also frightened by the dream. “This is horrid!” she said. “I wish you had not told it.” She went on to say that she was glad that she did not believe in dreams, or else she would be living “in terror from this time forth.”

“Well,” the president answered, “it is only a dream, Mary. Let us say no more about it and try to forget it.” But the dream had badly frightened President Lincoln. Ward Lamon noticed that Lincoln seemed to be “grave, gloomy, and at times visibly pale” because of his nightmare. He also remembered that the president quoted from Hamlet, “to sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub!” with an accent on the last three words.

The story of President Lincoln's White House nightmare has been told many times, and has been included in a number of Lincoln biographies. It is worth retelling because it gives some insight into Abraham Lincoln's frame of mind during this point in time. He had his hopes and plans for the future of the country now that the war was nearly over, as well as his own ideas concerning reconstruction. But at the same time he also feared, and was even resigned to the possibility, that he would not live long enough to carry them out.