il shall be sunk, and
until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago,
so still it must be said: "The judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether."

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 for his
orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations.

This address was probably, next to the Gettysburg oration, Lincoln's
most eloquent and touching public appeal. Gladstone of England said of
it: "I am taken captive by so striking an utterance as this. I see in
it the effect of sharp trial, when rightly borne, to raise men to a
higher level of thought and action. It is by cruel suffering that
nations are sometimes born to a better life. So it is with individual
men. Lincoln's words show that upon him anxiety and sorrow have wrought
their true effect."

As the procession moved from the Capitol to the White House, at the
close of the inaugural ceremonies, a bright star was visible in the
heavens. The crowds gazing upon the unwonted phenomenon noted it as an
auspicious omen, like the baptism of sunshine which had seemed to
consecrate the President anew to his exalted office.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Close of the Civil War--Last Acts in the Great Tragedy--Lincoln at
the Front--A Memorable Meeting--Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and
Porter--Life on Shipboard--Visit to Petersburg--Lincoln and the
Prisoners--Lincoln in Richmond--The Negroes Welcoming their "Great
Messiah"--A Warm Reception--Lee's Surrender--Lincoln Receives the
News--Universal Rejoicing--Lincoln's Last Speech to the Public--His
Peelings and Intentions toward the South--His Desire for
Reconciliation.

Great events crowded upon each other in the last few weeks of the Civil
War; and we must pass rapidly over them, giving special prominence only
to those with which President Lincoln was personally connected. The Army
of the Potomac under Grant, which for nearly a year had been incessantly
engaged with the army of General Lee, had forced the latter, fighting
desperately at every step, back through the Wilderness, into