All language subtitles for Civil War, The, 08 (1990)

"We believed that it
was most desirable

"that the North
should win.

"We believed in the
principle that the Union

"is indissoluble.

"We, or many of us at
least, also believed

"that the conflict
was inevitable

"and that slavery had
lasted long enough,

"but we equally believed that
those who stood against us

"held just as
sacred convictions

"that were the
opposite of ours,

"and we respected them
as every man with a heart

"must respect
those who give all

"for their belief."

Oliver Wendell
Holmes.

We are the veterans
of the Civil War,

'61 to '65.

This flag

is of the Hawkins'
Zouaves, New York.

Now salute.

As a southerner,
I would say

one of the main importances
of the war is that

southerners have
a sense of defeat,

which, none of the
rest of the country has.

You'll see in the
movie "Patton,"

the actor who plays Patton saying,
"We Americans have never lost a war."

That was a rather amazing statement
for him to make as Patton

because Patton's
grandfather was on...

in Lee's Army of
Northern Virginia,

and he certainly
lost a war.

In 1865 in
South Africa,

whites drove the Basuto
tribe from their land.

In Afghanistan, Russian troop
movements along the border

were a cause of great
international concern.

At a monastery
in Austria,

Gregor Mendel established
the principle of heredity,

and in Ireland, the poet
William Butler Yeats was born.

In 1865 in America,
Samuel Clemens

published his
first short story

as Mark Twain.

The Thirteenth Amendment,
abolishing slavery,

was formally ratified,

and the Ku Klux Klan
was formed.

In 1860, most of the nation's
thirty-one million people

lived peaceably on
farms or in small towns.

By 1865, everything
had changed:

Sharpsburg,
Maryland;

Fredericksburg,
Virginia;

Murfreesboro,
Tennessee;

Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania;

Vicksburg,
Mississippi;

Atlanta,
Georgia.

By the beginning of 1865,
the Confederacy was dying.

To the west, only the tattered Confederate
Army of Tennessee remained.

Its soldiers, like
Sam Watkins,

worried more about food
and blankets and shoes

than fighting.

Outside Petersburg,
Elisha Hunt Rhodes

and 120,000 other Union
troops were dug in,

unable to dislodge the
stubborn rebel army.

Atlanta had
been razed,

and Georgia and the
Carolinas lay helpless

in William Tecumseh
Sherman’s path.

As the new year began,
Robert E. Lee

assumed command
of all Southern forces

and with it, the hopeless task of
hurling back the huge Union armies

now closing in
from every side.

With victory
within his grasp,

Abraham Lincoln looked forward
to a second presidential term

and a new
challenge--

healing the nation he
had struggled so hard

to reunite.

"Here was the greatest and most
moving chapter in American history,

"a blending of meanness
and greatness,

"an ending and
a beginning.

"It came out of
what men were,

"but it did not go as
men had planned.

"Of all men, Abraham Lincoln came
the closest to understanding

what had happened.

"Yet even he, in his final
backward glance,

"had to confess that something
that went beyond words

"had been at work
in the land.

"The almighty had
his own purposes."

Bruce Catton.

"My aim was to
whip the rebels,

"to humble
their pride,

"to follow them to their
innermost recesses,

"and to make them
fear and dread us.

"War is cruelty.

"There's no use
trying to reform it.

"The crueler it is, the
sooner it will be over."

William Tecumseh
Sherman.

"War is all hell,"

William Tecumseh
Sherman once said,

and it was now his aim to bring that
hell to the heart of the Confederacy.

He saw from the
very beginning

how hard a war
it was gonna be,

and when he said how
hard a war it was gonna be,

he was retired under
suspicion of insanity

and then brought back
when they decided

maybe he wasn't
so crazy after all.

Sherman is maybe the
first truly modern general.

He was the first
one to understand,

in the present-
day world,

that civilians were the
backers-up of things

and that if you went
against civilians, you

deprived the army of
what kept it going, so he

quite purposely made
war against civilians.

From Atlanta
in late 1864,

Sherman proposed to march his
army through the heart of Georgia

all the way to
Savannah.

His army would
live off the land,

destroying everything in its path
that could conceivably aid

the faltering
Confederacy,

and a good deal
that couldn't.

"I can make this march,"
he promised,

"and make
Georgia howl."

Lincoln's advisors thought
Sherman’s plan foolhardy.

The president
approved it.

"If you can whip Lee

"and I can march to the Atlantic,"
Sherman told Grant,

"I think Uncle Abe will
give us 20 days' leave

"to see the
young folks."

"There are rumors that we are to cut
loose and march south to the ocean.

"We're in fine shape and, I think, could
go anywhere Uncle Billy would lead."

Private Theodore
Upson.

Before leaving Atlanta, Sherman
ordered all townspeople,

white and black,
out of their homes,

then directed his men
to burn or destroy

anything of use
to the rebels.

Civilians looted the town and
helped spread the blaze

throughout the city.

"A grand and awful spectacle
is presented to the beholder

"in this beautiful city,
now in flames.

"The heaven is one
expanse of lurid fire.

"The air is filled
with flying cinders.

"The city, which,
next to Richmond,

"has furnished more material
for prosecuting the war

"than any other
in the South,

"exists no more as
a means for injury

to be used by the
enemies of the Union.

Sherman began
his march.

Sixty-two-thousand men
in blue were on the move

in two great
columns.

Their supply train
stretched twenty-five miles.

A slave watching the
army stream past

wondered aloud if
anybody was left up north.

"The name of the captor
of Atlanta, if he fails now,

"would become the
scoff of mankind

"and the humiliation of the
United States for all time.

"If he succeeds, it will be
written on the tablet of fame."

London Herald.

"Reaching the hill just
outside the old rebel works,

"we paused to
look back.

"Behind us lay
Atlanta in ruins,

"the black smoke
rising high in the air,

"hanging
like a pall.

"Then we turned our
horses' heads to the east.

"Atlanta was soon lost
behind the screen of trees

"and became a
thing of the past."

It had been cumulative
evidence that an army

could subsist itself

on what was growing in the
fields, winter or summer,

and they were a...

a moving city, like.

They would grind
their own corn

at the grist mills
along the way,

butcher their
own cattle.

Sherman was perfectly satisfied
he could make the march

without difficulty with
regard to supplies.

In fact, they ate better on that
march than they did not marching.

Sweet potatoes were
particularly prized, and pork.

They had
plenty to eat.

"This is probably
the most gigantic

"pleasure excursion
ever planned.

"It already beats everything
I ever saw soldiering

"and promises to prove
much richer yet."

"We had a gay
old campaign.

"Destroyed all we could
not eat, stole their niggers,

"burned their cotton and
gins, spilled their sorghum,

"burned and twisted their railroads,
and raised hell, generally."

Sherman's men
tore up railroads,

heating the rails and twisting
them beyond repair.

It became a
trademark--

Sherman’s Neckties.

He forbade his men to plunder
the homes they passed,

but neither he nor they took
the order very seriously.

"I've got a regiment that can
kill, gut, and scrape a pig

"without breaking ranks."

"They say no living
thing is found

"in Sherman's track,
only chimneys.

"like telegraph poles, to carry the
news of his attack backwards."

Mary Chesnut.

"I doubt if history
affords a parallel

"to the deep and bitter enmity
of the women of the south.

"No one who sees
them and hears

"but must feel the
intensity of their hate."

"As far as the
eye could reach,

"the lurid flames of burning
houses lit up the heavens.

"I could stand out on the veranda
and for two or three miles

"watch the Yankees
as they came on."

"I could mark when they
reached the residence

"of each and every
friend on the road."

The troops looted slave
cabins, as well as mansions,

poked their ramrods into flower
beds in search of buried valuables,

and burned everything
in their path.

"The thousand pounds of meat
in my smokehouse is gone.

"My eighteen
fat turkeys,

"my hens,
chickens, and fowl,

"my young pigs,

"are shot down
in my yard

"as if they were
the rebels."

"The cruelties practiced
on this campaign

"towards
the citizens

"have been enough to blast a
more sacred cause than ours.

"We hardly
deserve success."

At Milledgeville, Georgia,
Sherman’s men boiled their coffee

over bonfires of
Confederate currency,

held a mock session
of the legislature

that passed a resolution
returning Georgia to the Union.

Sherman's men were feasting on
delicacies foraged from local farms

when a band of emaciated
men tottered into the firelight.

They were Union escapees
from Andersonville Prison.

An Indiana colonel remembered
that the sight of the starved men

"sickened and
infuriated" his troops.

"When foraging now,

"they think of the tens of thousands
of their imprisoned comrades

"slowly perishing
with hunger,

"and they sweep with the
scythe of destruction."

Before they were through,
Sherman and his men

would cross 425 miles
of hostile territory

and wreak $100 million
worth of havoc.

The South would
never forget.

"We will fight you
to the death.

"Better to die a thousand deaths
than submit to live under you

"and your
negro allies."

General John
Bell Hood.

Lacking a leg and
the use of one arm,

John Bell Hood had to be strapped
to the saddle each morning,

but he fought as hard
and as recklessly as ever.

Hood and his dwindling army now
tried to divert Sherman’s attention

by moving north
to join forces

with Nathan Bedford
Forrest’s cavalry

and invade
Tennessee.

Sherman was delighted.

"If he will go to the Ohio river,
I'll give him rations," he said.

"My business
is down south."

Waiting for Hood in
Tennessee was a fresh,

well-equipped Union army a
third again as large as Hood's,

commanded by George Thomas,
`the "Rock of Chickamauga."

At Franklin,

Hood ordered a series of
thirteen hopeless charges

in which twelve
Confederate generals

and 7,000
soldiers were lost,

more men than U. S. Grant had
lost at Cold Harbor the year before,

more than George McClellan
lost in all the battles

of the Seven
Days in 1862.

Franklin is a
horrendous battle,

and the flower of the
army fell. These...

There's a strong suspicion that Hood
was trying to discipline his army

by staging that charge,
and there's some truth in it.

His army was
wrecked.

The defeat at Nashville is in large
part due to what had happened

at Franklin a
month before.

At Nashville, George
Thomas attacked

what was left of
Hood's army.

"My boot was full of blood and
my clothing saturated with it.

"I reached General
Hood's headquarters.

"He was much
agitated and affected,

"pulling his hair with his one
hand--he had but one--

"and crying like his
heart would break."

Sam Watkins.

Hood's army
had disintegrated.

"I beheld for the first and
only time," he confessed,

"a Confederate army abandon
the field in confusion."

Hood resigned.

Lee recalled Joe
Johnston to active duty

and put him in charge
of patching together

whatever Confederate forces
remained outside of Virginia.

"We were willing to go anywhere
or to follow anyone who'd lead us.

"We were anxious to
flee, fight, or fortify.

"I have never seen an army
so confused and demoralized.

"The whole thing seemed to be
tottering and trembling."

"Gentlemen,

"you cannot qualify war in
harsher terms than I will.

"We cannot change the hearts
of these people of the South,

"but we can make
war so terrible

"and make them
so sick of war

"that generations
will pass away

"before they again
appeal to it."

William Tecumseh
Sherman.

"Darkest of all Decembers
ever my life has known,

"sitting here by
the embers,

"stunned, helpless, alone."

Mary Chesnut.

"My name is
Charles Jess.

"I was born in South
Carolina as a slave,

"and I was freed

"when Sherman’s army came
into the County of Chatham.

"I was a
Union man.

"I's a slave and could
not be anything else

"because I wanted
my freedom,

"and I hoped and expected
it would give me my freedom,

"as it did."

"The Negroes followed the army
like a sable cloud in the sky

"before a
thunderstorm.

They thought it was
freedom now or never."

Twenty-five-thousand slaves
fled to Sherman’s army,

jubilant he had come
to liberate them,

but fearful that if they strayed
too far from his columns,

they would be caught by
Confederate guerrillas.

"Perfect anarchy reigned,"
one plantation owner said.

It was, said another,
"the breath of emancipation."

And the Yankees
would come,

then, after
a while,

there'd be a whole troop of men come.
They said they were Yankees,

all riding horses.

So I asked them, I said,
"where are they going?"

They said they all
going home now.

They said, "Well, all of you
niggers is all free now."

"They gather around
me in crowds,

"and I can't find out whether I am
Moses or Aaron, but surely,

"I am rated as one
of the congregation."

"It seems the good people in the
north are terribly worried about us.

"They called us
the "Lost Army,"

"and some thought we
would never show up again.

"I don't think they know what kind of
an army this is that Uncle Billy has.

"Why, if Grant can keep
Lee and his troops busy,

"we can tramp all over
this Confederacy."

Private Theodore
Upson.

Throughout the north, people wondered
what had happened to Sherman’s army,

until suddenly, William
Tecumseh Sherman

emerged near
Savannah.

"December 25, 1864.

"Dear Mr. President,

"I beg to present you,
as a Christmas gift,

"the city of
Savannah,

"with 150 heavy guns
and plenty of ammunition,

"also about 25,000
bales of cotton."

He then regroups
at Savannah,

and in the
last week of

January, he starts

into South Carolina.

South Carolina gets it
even worse than Georgia

because they figured that's
where secession started.

Sherman now turned his columns
northward into the Carolinas.

A relentless winter
rain was falling,

and Confederate generals
were confident no army

could march
through the mud.

But Sherman and his men
made a steady ten miles a day.

Battalions of ax-
men led the way,

hacking down
whole forests

to construct
corduroy roads.

"When I learned that Sherman’s army was
marching through the Salkehatchie swamps

"making its own roads at the
rate of a dozen miles a day

"and bringing its artillery
and wagons with it,

"I made up my mind that there had
been no such army in existence

"since the days
of Julius Caesar."

Joseph E.
Johnston.

Sherman's men were still
harsher in South Carolina

than they had
been in Georgia.

"Here is where treason
began," a private said,

"and by God, this is
where it shall end."

Few houses were
left standing.

"The wind moans among
the bleak chimneys

"and whistles through
the gaping windows.

"The market is
a ruined shell,

"its spire
fallen in,

"the old bell,
"secessia,"

"that had rung out every
state as it seceded,

"lying half-buried
in the earth."

On February
17th, 1865,

Fort Sumter
was abandoned,

along with all
of Charleston.

"This disappointment,"
Jefferson Davis admitted,

"is extremely bitter."

"A city of ruins,

"of desolation,

"of vacant houses,
of widowed women,

"'of rotting wharves,

"of deserted
warehouses,

"of weed-
wild gardens,

"of miles of grass-
grown streets,

"of acres of pitiful and
voiceful barrenness--

"that is Charleston,

"wherein rebellion
loftily reared its head."

"Jack Middleton writes
from Richmond,

" 'The wolf is at
the door here.'

"We dread starvation far more
than we do Grant or Sherman.

"Famine--that is
the word, now."

Mary Chesnut.

Everywhere the Union
armies marched,

the back roads filled with
Confederate refugees.

Thousands fled to Texas
in search of a new start.

Thousands more
flocked to Richmond,

hoping the Confederate
government would care for them.

There was little
it could do.

The Confederate government
was coming apart.

The governor of North Carolina refused
to permit any but his own troops

to wear the 92,000
uniforms he was hoarding.

In Georgia, Governor
Joseph Brown

threatened to secede
from the Confederacy.

States' rights
still came first.

"If the
Confederacy fails,

"there should be written
on its tombstone--

" 'Died of a theory.' "

President
Jefferson Davis.

"I have been up to
see the congress,

"and they do not seem
able to do anything

"except eat peanuts
and chew tobacco,

"while my army
is starving."

Robert E. Lee.

Lee begged for
more supplies.

Davis had
none to give.

A single stick of firewood
cost $5.00 in Richmond.

A barrel of flour
had risen to $250

and could rarely be
found even at that price.

"I daily part with my
raiment for food.

"We find no one
who will exchange

"eatables for
Confederate money,

"so we are devouring
our clothes."

Hundreds of Confederate soldiers
were deserting every day,

cold, hungry
barefoot,

driven by desperate
letters from home.

Lee asked
that slaves

now be armed to defend
the Confederacy.

"We must decide," he said,
"whether the negro shall fight for us

"or against us."

"Those willing to
fight," he added,

"would be freed
after the war."

The Confederate Congress
finally authorized black troops

because, as the
Richmond examiner said,

"the country will not
deny General Lee

"anything he
may ask for."

Six days later,

the citizens of Richmond
saw an astonishing sight--

a new Confederate battalion
made up of white convalescents

and black
hospital orderlies

marching up main street
to the strains of Dixie.

"You cannot make soldiers
of slaves, or slaves of soldiers.

"The day you make
a soldier of them

"is the beginning of the
end of the revolution,

"and if slaves seem
good soldiers,

"then our whole theory
of slavery is wrong."

Senator Howell
Cobb, Georgia.

Earlier that winter, the
United States Congress

had voted 119-56 to pass
the Thirteenth Amendment

to abolish slavery

and sent it to the
states for ratification.

Eleven months later,

slavery was officially
abolished everywhere

and for all time.

"Verily,

"the work does not end with
the abolition of slavery,

"but only begins."

Frederick Douglass.

"I see the president
almost every day.

"I saw him this morning about
8:30, coming into business.

"We've got so that
we exchange bows,

"and very
cordial ones.

"I see very plainly

"Abraham Lincoln's
dark brown face

"with its deep-
cut lines,

"the eyes always, to me,
with a latent sadness

"in the expression.

"None of the
artists or pictures

"has caught
the deep,

"though subtle and indirect,
expression of this man's face.

"There's something
else there.

"One of the great portrait painters
of two or three centuries ago

"is needed."

Walt Whitman.

"March 4th.

"We captured twenty-
five cannon.

"General Mower fired
them today in a salute

"in honor of the inauguration of
Mr. Lincoln for his second term.

"His first inauguration was not
celebrated in North Carolina,

"but the glorification over the
beginning of his second term

"goes to make up
the deficiency."

George Nichols.

Inauguration Day
was cold and windy,

just as it had been
four years earlier.

But the U.S. Capitol
was now complete,

its great iron
dome in place,

crowned by a
bronze Liberty.

Just before the president began
to speak, the clouds parted,

flooding the stand
with brilliant sunlight.

"Fondly do
we hope,

"fervently
do we pray

"that this mighty
scourge of war

"may speedily
pass away.

"Yet if God wills
that it continue

"until all the
wealth piled up

"by the bondsman's
250 years of unrequited toil

"shall be sunk,

"and until every drop of
blood drawn with the lash

"shall be paid by another
drawn with the sword,

"as was said
3,000 years ago,

"so still must
be said,

"The judgments of
the Lord are true

"and righteous
altogether.

"With malice
towards none,

"with charity
for all,

"with firmness in the right as
God gives us to see the right,

"let us strive on to finish
the work we are in,

"to bind up the
nation's wounds,

"to care for him who shall
have borne the battle

"and for his widow
and his orphan.

"To do all which may
achieve and cherish

"a just and lasting
peace among ourselves

"and with all nations."

Can it be anyone
but Lincoln

that any of us

could be drawn to
as the central

figure of the war?

Because,
in a way,

he comprehended
both sides.

"We must not
be enemies.

"We must
be friends.

"I'm a tired man,"
Lincoln said afterwards.

"Sometimes I think I'm the
tiredest man on earth."

In the crowd just a few
yards from Lincoln

was the young actor
John Wilkes Booth,

a pistol in
his pocket.

His vantage point on the
balcony, Booth said afterwards,

"had offered an excellent
chance to kill the president...

"if I had wished."

John Wilkes Booth
was a fervent believer

in slavery and
white supremacy,

but during four
years of war,

he had not been
able to bring himself

actually to fight for
the southern cause.

"I have begun to deem
myself a coward

"and to despise my
own existence."

His mind fixed
on Lincoln

as the tyrant responsible for
all the country's troubles

and his own.

Booth hatched a scheme
to kidnap Lincoln

and gathered a worshipful
band of dubious conspirators

willing to
help out:

Lewis Paine, a
wounded Confederate

who had recently sworn
allegiance to the Union;

David E. Herold,
a druggist's clerk

who was thought by some
to be mentally retarded;

George Atzerodt, a German-
born wagon painter

barely able to make himself
understood in English;

and John H. Surratt, a
sometime Confederate spy

whose widowed mother Mary kept
a Washington boarding-house

where booth and his
admirers sometimes met.

Two weeks after the inauguration,
Booth and his accomplices,

all wearing masks,

rode out toward the
Soldiers' Home,

where Lincoln often slept,
hoping to intercept his carriage.

The president
never came.

"So goes the world,"
Booth wrote.

"Might makes right."

Late in March, Lincoln sailed
down to City Point, Virginia,

to confer with his generals aboard
Grant's floating headquarters,

the River Queen.

Sherman, who had interrupted
his march through the Carolinas,

had met Lincoln only
once before, in 1861,

and found him then a weak
and partisan politician

unequal to
his task.

The talks lasted
two days.

Grant, Sherman,
and Admiral Porter

detailed plans for one
last major campaign.

Lincoln, satisfied that victory
seemed within reach,

outlined plans
for peace.

"If the rebels would lay down their
guns and go home," Lincoln said,

"they should be
welcomed back

"as citizens of the
United States."

"I never saw
him again.

"Of all the men I ever met, he
seemed to me to possess more

"of the elements
of greatness

"combined with
goodness

"than any other."

William Tecumseh
Sherman.

"My own corps was stretched until the men stood like a row of vedettes

"fifteen feet apart.

"It was
not a line,

"it was the mere
skeleton of a line."

General John
B. Gordon.

Ulysses S. Grant
and Robert E. Lee

had faced one another in front
of Petersburg for nine months.

Slowly, steadily,

Grant had extended his
trenches around Petersburg.

Lee's lines had been
forced to stretch, too,

but his army
was shrinking.

In nine months, 60,000
southern soldiers had deserted.

"All of us think we're
whipped now.

"The men are ragged and
they're getting half rations.

"Some say we'll have to go to Georgey,
but the men will not go there."

The thinning Confederate
lines around Petersburg

finally extended
fifty-three miles.

Grant's forces
numbered 125,000;

Lee's had
dwindled to 35,000.

Lee's only hope lay in moving
his army to the southwest

to link up with Johnston in
the hills of North Carolina

and fight on.

On March 25th,

Confederates under
John B. Gordon

mounted a sudden night assault that
briefly won possession of an earthwork

called Fort Stedman.

It was Lee's
last advance.

Grant counterattacked,

racing around the rebel flank to
block Lee's escape at Five Forks.

There, on
April 1st,

he routed a Confederate
division under George Pickett.

The next day, Union
forces attacked

all along the
Petersburg line.

Slowly, relentlessly,
and at great cost,

they drove the Confederates
out of their trenches.

Among the Southern
dead left behind

were shoeless boys
as young as fourteen.

"The conduct of the
Southern people

"appears many
times truly noble,

"as exemplified, for instance,
in the defense of Petersburg.

"Old men with silver locks lay
dead in the trenches side-by-side

"with mere boys of
thirteen or fourteen.

"It almost makes one sorry
to have to fight against people

"who show such devotion for
their homes and their country."

Washington Roebling.

A. P. Hill, who had served Lee
faithfully in a dozen battles

and staved off Confederate
disaster at Antietam,

tried to rally
his men.

Two Union
infantrymen

shot him dead as he
rode between the lines.

"He is at rest,

"and we who are left
are the ones to suffer."

In Petersburg, the scene
of nine months' siege,

fell to Grant's army.

As black civilians
cheered the black soldiers

that led the Union
columns into the city,

Lee's army slipped across
the Appomattox River.

In Richmond, Jefferson
Davis was attending

10:00 services that
Sunday morning

at St. Paul's
Episcopal Church

when the sexton
handed him a message.

"President Davis,

"My lines are broken
in three places.

"Richmond must be
evacuated this evening."

Robert E. Lee.

"I happened to sit in the
rear of the president's pew,

"so near that I plainly
saw this sort of

"grey pallor that
came upon his face

"as he read a scrap of
paper thrust into his hand."

Davis hurried from the church and
ordered his government to move to

Danville, Virginia,
140 miles to the south.

On the evening
of April 2nd,

Davis and his cabinet
boarded the last train,

a series of freight
cars labeled

"Treasury Department,"
"Quartermaster's Department,"

"War Department."

"We tried to comfort ourselves
by saying, in low tones,

"that the capital was
only moved temporarily,

"that General Lee
would make a stand

"and repulse the
daring enemy,

"and that we would yet win
the battle and the day."

A slave dealer
named Lumpkin

failed to get his fifty
chained slaves aboard.

He had to unlock $50,000
worth of property in the street

and let them go.

The retreating Confederates
set fire to much of Richmond.

Mobs plundered stores,
broke into abandoned houses.

The fire on land spread to
the Confederate arsenal.

The explosion
rocked the city

and shattered windows
for miles around.

"Everything was in the
wildest confusion.

"The low characters of the town had broken
into everything and were looting the town,

"being aided to a considerable
extent by the soldiers

"who had broken
through all discipline."

"I saw a Confederate
soldier on horseback pause

"under my window.

"He wheeled and
fired behind him,

"rode a short
distance,

"wheeled and
fired again.

"Coming up
the street

"rode a body of
men in blue."

"Arriving at the capital,
I sprang from my horse,

"first unbuckling the Stars
and Stripes from my saddle,

"and with Captain Langdon,
I rushed up to the roof.

"Together, we hoisted the first
large flag over Richmond

"and, on the peak of the
roof, drank to its success."

Mrs. Robert
E. Lee,

too crippled by arthritis to
travel, remained in Richmond.

The Union commander posted
a guard before her house,

a black
cavalryman,

to ensure no harm
came to her.

"April 3rd, 1865.

"Thank God I have
lived to see this.

"It seems to me that
I have been dreaming

"a horrid nightmare
for four years,

"and now the
nightmare is gone.

"I want to see
Richmond."

On April 3rd, Abraham
Lincoln and his son, Tad,

arrived at Rockett's Wharf
aboard a small barge

and were escorted
through the smoking city

by a unit of
black cavalry.

Freed slaves mobbed
the president,

laughing, singing,
weeping for joy,

kneeling before him,
straining to touch his clothes.

"I know I am free," said one man,
"for I have seen Father Abraham

"and felt him."

The president walked about
a mile through the crowd

and loped up the steps of the
Confederate White House,

now Union
headquarters.

When he sat down at
Jefferson Davis' desk,

the troops outside
burst into cheers.

"Richmond has fallen,

"and I have no heart
to write about it.

"They are too
many for us.

"Everything lost in Richmond,
even our archives.

"Blue-black is
our horizon."

Mary Chesnut.

"There is a stillness in the midst of
which Richmond, with her ruins

"and her unchanging spires, rests beneath a ghastly, fitful glare.

"We are under the
shadow of ruins.

"From the pavements where we
walk stretches a vista of devastation.

"The wreck, the loneliness
seem interminable.

"There is no
sound of life

"but the stillness
of the catacomb.

"Only as our footsteps fall dull
on the deserted sidewalk

"and a funeral troop
of echoes bump

"against the dead walls and
closed shutters in reply.

"And this is
Richmond,

"says a
melancholy voice.

"And this is
Richmond."

On April 8th, Abraham and Mary
Lincoln took a drive together

past a country cemetery on
the outskirts of Petersburg.

"It was a retired place
shaded by trees,

"and early spring flowers were
opening on nearly every grave.

"It was so quiet
and attractive

"that we stopped the carriage
and walked through it.

"Mr. Lincoln seemed
thoughtful and impressed.

"He said, Mary,

"you are younger than I.
You will survive me.

"When I'm gone,

"lay my remains in some
quiet place like this."

"General Lee was
riding slowly

"along the line of
tangled wagons.

"He rode erect, as if
incapable of fatigue."

Lee's army
fled westward.

Grant was right
behind them.

"On and on, hour after hour,
from hilltop to hilltop,

"the lines were alternately
forming, fighting, and retreating,

"making one almost
continuous battle.

"A boy soldier came running
by at the top of his speed.

"When asked why he was
running, he shouted back,

" 'I'm running 'cause
I can't fly.' "

From Danville
on April 4th,

Jefferson Davis issued a
proclamation pledging to fight on.

"Relieved from
the necessity

"of guarding cities,

"with our army free to
move from point to point,

"nothing is now needed
to render our triumph

"certain but our own
unquenchable resolve.

"No peace will
ever be made

"with the infamous
invaders."

On April 6th at Sailor’s Creek,
Union cavalry and infantry

inflicted 6,000 casualties
on Lee's army

and captured eight generals,
including Lee's own son, Custis.

He now had fewer
than 25,000 men.

One-hundred-twenty-five-
thousand federal troops

were now closing in on
Lee from three sides.

Union General Phil
Sheridan wired Grant:

"if the thing is pressed, I think
that Lee will surrender."

"Let the thing be pressed,"
Lincoln answered.

An officer urged
Lee to surrender.

The general asked what the country
would think of him if he failed to fight on.

"The country be damned," said
the officer, "there is no country.

"There has been no country
for a year or more.

"You're the country
to these men."

"The few men who still
carried their muskets

"had hardly the
appearance of soldiers;

"their clothes all tattered
and covered with mud,

"their eyes sunken
and lusterless,

"Yet still they were waiting
for General Lee to say

"where they were to
face about and fight."

Magnus Thompson,
35th Virginia Cavalry Battalion.

Lee's Confederate army
was moving along one side

of the
Appomattox River,

a willow-fringed run that
any country boy could jump.

His pursuers clung
to the opposite bank.

Five p.m.,
April 7th, 1865.

"General Lee,

"the result of
last week

"must convince you of the
hopelessness of further resistance.

"I regard it as my duty
to shift from myself

"the responsibility of any
further effusion of blood

"by asking of you the
surrender of that portion

"of the Confederate
States Army

"known as the Army
of Northern Virginia."

Ulysses S. Grant.

On April 8th, Grant again
flanked Lee's army

and captured two
trainloads of supplies.

The Confederates were living
on handfuls of parched corn.

That night, Lee and
his weary lieutenants

gathered around
a campfire

near the little village of
Appomattox Courthouse.

"We met in the woods
at his headquarters

"by a low-burning
bivouac fire.

"There was no tent, no table,
no chairs, no camp stools.

"On blankets spread upon the ground
or on saddles at the roots of trees

"we sat around the
great commander."

General John
B. Gordon.

They were almost
entirely surrounded,

outnumbered
nearly five-to-one,

without hope of resupply
or reinforcement.

"By sunrise, we had reached
Appomattox Station,

"where we might
cut Lee's retreat.

"Already we heard the sharp
ring of the horse artillery.

"There was
no mistake.

"Sheridan was square across the
enemy's front, holding at bay

"all that was left of the proudest
army of the Confederacy.

"It had come
at last--

"the supreme hour."

April 9th was
Palm Sunday.

Lee ordered Gordon to make one
more attempt at breaking out.

At dawn, just outside
Appomattox Courthouse,

Gordon's men drove federal
cavalry from their positions

and swept forward
to the crest of a hill.

Below them, a solid wall
of blue was advancing--

the entire Union
Army of the James.

"There is nothing
left for me to do

"but to go and see
General Grant,

"and I would rather die
a thousand deaths."

Shortly before noon,
Lee dispatched a letter

under a white flag
into the Union lines.

Grant was resting in a field,
nursing a blinding headache.

Suddenly, a horseman galloped
up, at full speed, a reporter noted,

"waving his hat above his head
and shouting at every jump."

Grant opened the
envelope, looked at it,

then asked his friend, General
John Rawlins, to read it aloud--

Lee would surrender.

Grant, himself,
said nothing,

"betrayed no more
emotion," a witness said,

than "last year's
bird nest,"

but his headache had
instantly disappeared.

"No one looked his
comrade in the face.

"Finally Colonel Duff,
Chief of Artillery,

"sprang upon a log and
proposed three cheers.

"A feeble hurrah came
from a few throats,

"when all broke
down in tears."

Lee dispatched Colonel Charles
Marshall to Appomattox Courthouse

to find a suitable building in
which he and Grant might meet.

The streets were
almost deserted.

Marshall stopped the first
civilian he happened to see,

Wilmer McLean,

who reluctantly agreed to loan the
armies his house for the occasion.

"By a singular
coincidence,

"the meeting of
Generals Lee and Grant

"took place in the house
of Wilmer McLean,

"the same gentleman who, in 1861,
at the Battle of Bull Run,

"had tendered his house to General
Beauregard for headquarters.

"He removed from
Manassas after the battle

"with the intention of
seeking some quiet nook

"where the alarms of war
could never find him."

"One o'clock came.

"I turned about.

"There behind me appeared a
commanding form, superbly mounted,

"richly accoutered,

"of imposing bearing,
noble countenance,

"with expression
of deep sadness

"over-mastered by
a deeper strength.

"It was no other than
Robert E. Lee.

"Not long after appeared
another form--plain,

"unassuming, simple,
and familiar to our eyes,

"but as awe-inspiring as Lee
in his splendor and sadness.

"It was Grant,

"sitting his saddle with the
ease of a born master,

"taking no notice
of anything,

"all his faculties gathered
into intense thought.

"He seemed greater than
I had ever seen him,

"a look as of another
world about him."

Lee arrived at the
McLean house first,

magnificent in a
crisp gray uniform,

an engraved
sword at his side.

"I have probably to be General Grant's
prisoner," he explained to an aide,

"and thought I must make
my best appearance."

He waited half an hour
for Grant to arrive.

The Union commander wore
a private's dirty jacket.

His boots and trousers
were splattered with mud.

He had no sword.

The two commanders
shook hands.

"What general Lee's feelings
were, I do not know.

"As he was a man
of much dignity

"with an impassible face, his
feelings were entirely concealed

"from my observation.

"But my own feelings
were sad and depressed.

"I felt like
anything

"rather than rejoicing
at the downfall of a foe

"who had fought so
long and valiantly

"and had suffered so
much for a cause,

"though that cause
was, I believe,

"one of the worst for which
people ever fought."

Grant reminded Lee that they had met
once before during the Mexican war.

Lee said he had not remembered
what Grant looked like.

"Our conversation
grew so pleasant

"that I almost forgot the
object of the meeting.

"General Lee called my
attention to the object."

They knew
each other.

Grant remembered
Lee very well.

Lee didn't quite
remember Grant.

That was
understandable

from the time that they were
acquainted back in the early days,

but I think it was the
sensitivity that the...

the two men had
for each other and

for the moment;

enormous dignity,
and yet,

the necessary
informality--

Grant not wanting
to get to the point

too quickly;

Lee bringing
him up shortly

to the point of why
they're together;

Lee dressed

in his last
good uniform;

Grant apologizing

that he was rushing from
the field and didn't have

time to change;

the scribe being
unable to

hold the
pen steady,

and having it taken
by another soldier;

the...

that--from Lee's point
of view--awful moment,

and from Grant's point of view, glorious
moment, and yet for the two of them,

a sad and
quiet moment;

and Lee taking
his leave and

doffing his hat from
Traveller and

riding back to
his troops

after securing

those reasonable terms.

It was the-- it was the beginning
of the unification of the country.

The terms Grant offered
were simple and generous:

Confederate officers could keep their
side-arms and personal possessions;

officers and men who
owned their own horses

could keep
them, too.

It was
planting season.

Grant asked Lee how
many men he had

and if they needed
any rations.

Lee said he no longer
knew the size of his army,

but he was sure all
his men were hungry.

Grant offered
25,000 rations.

"This will have the best
effect upon my men.

"It will be very gratifying
and do much toward

"conciliating
our people."

Colonel Ely S. Parker,
a Seneca Indian,

and a member
of Grant's staff,

inscribed the articles of surrender
for the two commanders to sign.

The two men
shook hands again.

Lee left the house,
mounted Traveller,

and started back
toward his army.

The Union soldiers
began to cheer.

Grant ordered
them to stop.

"The confederates are now
our prisoners," he explained,

"and we do not want to
exult over their downfall.

"The war
is over.

"The rebels are our
countrymen again."

Lee's men lined the
road to his camp.

"As he approached, we could
see the reins hanging loose,

"and his head was sunk
low on his breast.

"As the men began to cheer, he
raised his head, and, hat in hand,

"he passed by, his face
flushed, his eyes ablaze."

"As he passed,

"they raised their heads and looked
upon him with swimming eyes.

"Those who could find
voice said good-bye.

"Those who
could not speak

"passed their hands gently
over the sides of Traveller."

"If one army drank
the joy of victory

"and the other the
bitter draught of defeat,

"it was a joy moderated by
the recollection of the cost

"at which it had
been purchased

"and a defeat
mollified

"by the consciousness
of many triumphs.

"If the victors could recall
a Malvern Hill, an Antietam,

"a Gettysburg,
a Five Forks,

"the vanquished could recall
a Manassas, a Fredericksburg,

"a Chancellorsville,
a Cold Harbor."

A crowd of soldiers waited
in front of Lee's tent.

"Boys," he
told them,

"I have done the
best I could for you.

"Go home, now,

"and if you make as good
citizens as you have soldiers,

"you will do well,

"and I shall always
be proud of you.

"Good-bye,

"and God
bless you all."

He turned and
disappeared into his tent.

The formal surrender
came three days later.

General John
B. Gordon,

shot through the face and
wounded four more times

in the service of
the Confederacy,

led 20,000 men toward the
Union lines for the last time--

not to fight, but to stack their arms
and surrender their battle flags.

There to
receive them

was Major General Joshua
Lawrence Chamberlain,

himself wounded six
times for the Union.

Promoted on the field at
Petersburg near death,

he had somehow
survived.

"On they come with the old swinging
route step and swaying battle flags.

"Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood--

"thin, worn, and
famished, but erect,

"and with eyes
looking level into ours,

"waking memories that bound
us together as no other bond.

"Was not such manhood
to be welcomed back

"into the Union so
tested and assured?

"On our part, not a sound of
trumpet more, nor roll of drum,

"not a cheer, nor word, nor
whisper of vainglorying,

"nor motion
of man,

"but an awed stillness,
rather, and breath-holding,

"as if it were the
passing of the dead."

Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain.

Now, Chamberlain made
an extraordinary gesture.

"Chamberlain called
his men into line,

"and as my men marched
in front of them,

"the veterans in blue
gave a soldierly salute

"to those
vanquished heroes,

"a token of respect from
Americans to Americans."

General John
B. Gordon.

"At the sound of that
machine-like snap of arms,

"General Gordon
started,

"then wheeled his
horse, facing me,

"touching him gently with the spur
so that the animal slightly reared,

"and, as he
wheeled,

"horse and rider
made one motion.

"The horses head swung
down with a graceful bow,

"and General Gordon dropped
his sword point to his toe

"in salutation."

In Washington,
fireworks filled the sky.

A great crowd gathered around the
White House and called for Lincoln.

He was too weary to
make a formal speech

but asked the
band to play Dixie.

"I have always thought it one of the
best tunes I ever heard," he said.

The next day, Lincoln walked over
to Alexander Gardner’s studio

at the corner of
7th and D Street

to sit for
another portrait.

Somehow, the glass-plate negative
cracked while being developed.

The photographer
made a single print,

then threw the
negative away.

Over the next
four years,

there would be plenty of time
to make more Lincoln portraits.

Just a few
blocks away,

a friend found John Wilkes Booth
alone in his darkened room

and asked him if he
wanted to get a drink.

"Yes," said Booth, who was now
drinking a quart of brandy a day,

"anything to drive
away the blues."