ugural
culminates:

"With malice toward 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."

XXXVI. PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR

During the five weeks which remained to Lincoln on earth, the army was
his most obvious concern. He watched eagerly the closing of the enormous
trap that had been slowly built up surrounding Lee. Toward the end of
March he went to the front, and for two weeks had his quarters on a
steamer at City Point. It was during Lincoln's visit that Sherman came
up from North Carolina for his flying conference with Grant, in which
the President took part. Lincoln was at City Point when Petersburg fell.
Early on the morning of April third, he joined Grant who gives a strange
glimpse in his Memoirs of their meeting in the deserted city which so
recently had been the last bulwark of the Confederacy.(1) The same day,
Richmond fell. Lincoln had returned to City Point, and on the following
day when confusion reigned in the burning city, he walked through its
streets attended only by a few sailors and by four friends. He visited
Libby Prison; and when a member of his party said that Davis ought to
be hanged, Lincoln replied, "Judge not that ye be not judged."(2) His
deepest thoughts, however, were not with the army. The time was at hand
when his statesmanship was to be put to its most severe test. He had
not forgotten the anxious lesson of that success of the Vindictives
in balking momentarily the recognition of Louisiana. It was war to the
knife between him and them. Could he reconstruct the Union in a wise and
merciful fashion despite their desperate opposition?

He had some strong cards in his hand. First of all, he had time.
Congress was not in session. He had eight months in which to press
forward his own plans. If, when Congress assembled the following
December, it should be confronted by a group of reconciled Southern
States, would it venture to refuse them recognition? No one could have
any illusions as to what the Vindictives would try to do. They would
continue the struggle they had begun over Louisiana; and if their power
permitted, they would rouse the nation to join battle with the President