aff. Lincoln in his tall hat and frock
coat was a marked and curious figure on a horse. He had once, by the
way, insisted on riding with Butler, catechising him with remorseless
chaff on engineering matters and forbidding his chief engineer to
prompt him, along six miles of cheering Northern troops within easy
sight and shot of the Confederate soldiers to whom his hat and coat
identified him. But, however odd a figure, he impressed Grant's
officers as a good and bold horseman. Then, after Sherman's arrival,
there evidently was no end of talk. Sherman was at first amused by the
President's anxiety as to whether his army was quite safe without him
at Goldsborough; but that keen-witted soldier soon received, as he has
said, an impression both of goodness and of greatness such as no other
man ever gave him.

What especially remained on Sherman's and on Porter's mind was the
recollection of Lincoln's over-powering desire for mercy and for
conciliation with the conquered. Indeed Sherman blundered later in the
terms he first accepted from Johnston; for he did not see that
Lincoln's clemency for Southern leaders and desire for the welfare of
the South included no mercy at all for the political principle of the
Confederacy. Grant was not exposed to any such mistake, for a week or
two before Lee had made overtures to him for some sort of conference
and Lincoln had instantly forbidden him to confer with Lee for any
purpose but that of his unconditional surrender. What, apart from the
reconstruction of Southern life and institutions, was in part weighing
with Lincoln was the question of punishments for rebellion. By Act of
Congress the holders of high political and military office in the South
were liable as traitors, and there was now talk of hanging in the
North. Later events showed that a very different sentiment would make
itself heard when the victory came; but Lincoln was much concerned. To
some one who spoke to him of this matter he exclaimed, "What have I to
do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries
unto me? Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel?"
There can be no doubt that the prerogative of mercy would have been
vigorously used in his hands, but he did not wish for a conflict on
this matter at all; and Grant was taught, in a parable about a teetotal
Irishman who forgave being served with liquor unbeknownst to himself,
that zeal in capturing Jefferson Davis and his