of May, General Kirby Smith
surrendered all of them, West of that river.

On that day, organized, armed Rebellion against the United States
ceased, and became a thing of the past. It had been conquered, stamped
out, and extinguished, while its civic head, Jefferson Davis, captured
May 11th, at Irwinsville, Georgia, while attempting to escape, was, with
other leading Rebels, a prisoner in a Union fort. Four years of armed
Rebellion had been enough for them. They were absolutely sick of it.
And the magnanimity of the terms given them by Grant, completed their
subjugation. "The wisdom of his course," says Badeau, "was proved by
the haste which the Rebels made to yield everything they had fought for.
They were ready not only to give up their arms, but literally to implore
forgiveness of the Government. They acquiesced in the abolition of
Slavery. They abandoned the heresy of Secession, and waited to learn
what else their conquerors would dictate. They dreamed not of political
power. They only asked to be let live quietly under the flag they had
outraged, and attempt in some degree to rebuild their shattered
fortunes. The greatest General of the Rebellion asked for pardon."

CHAPTER XXXI.

ASSASSINATION!

But while some of the great Military events alluded to in the preceding
Chapter, had been transpiring at the theatre of War, something else had
happened at the National Capital, so momentous, so atrocious, so
execrable, that it was with difficulty the victorious soldiers of the
Union, when they first heard the news, could be restrained from turning
upon the then remaining armed Rebels, and annihilating them in their
righteous fury.

Let us go back, for a moment, to President Lincoln, whom we left on
board the Ocean Queen, at City Point, toward the end of March and the
beginning of April, receiving dispatches from Grant, who was
victoriously engaged at the front. On the very day that Richmond fell
--April 4th--President Lincoln, with his little son "Tad," Admiral Porter,
and others, visited the burning city, and held a reception in the
parlors of the Mansion which had now, for so many years, been occupied
by the Chief Conspirator, Jefferson Davis, and which had been
precipitately abandoned when the flight of that Arch-Rebel and his
"Cabinet" commenced. On the 6th, the President, accompanied by his
wife, Vice-President Johnson, and others from Wa