ed that it was indeed "Massa Lincum," expressing their joy and
gratitude in fervent blessings and in the deep emotional cries of the
colored race. It is easy also to imagine the sharp anxiety of those who
had the President's safety in their charge during this tiresome and even
foolhardy march through a town still in flames, whose white inhabitants
were sullenly resentful at best, and whose grief and anger might at any
moment break out against the man they looked upon as the chief author of
their misfortunes. No accident befell him. He reached General Weitzel's
headquarters in safety, rested in the house Jefferson Davis had occupied
while President of the Confederacy; and after a day of sightseeing
returned to his steamer and to Washington, there to be stricken down by
an assassin's bullet, literally "in the house of his friends."

XIII. THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL

Refreshed in body by his visit to City Point and greatly cheered by
the fall of Richmond, and unmistakable signs that the war was over, Mr.
Lincoln went back to Washington intent on the new task opening before
him--that of restoring the Union, and of bringing about peace and good
will again between the North and the South. His whole heart was bent on
the work of "binding up the nation's wounds" and doing all which lay
in his power to "achieve a just and lasting peace." Especially did
he desire to avoid the shedding of blood, or anything like acts of
deliberate punishment. He talked to his cabinet in this strain on the
morning of April 14, the last day of his life. "No one need expect that
he would take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst
of them," he exclaimed. Enough lives had been sacrificed already.
Anger must be put aside. The great need now was to begin to act in the
interest of peace. With these words of clemency and kindness in
their ears they left him, never again to come together under his wise
chairmanship.

Though it was invariably held in check by his vigorous common-sense,
there was in Mr. Lincoln's nature a strong vein of poetry and mysticism.
That morning he told his cabinet a strange story of a dream that he had
had the night before--a dream which he said came to him before great
events. He had dreamed it before the battles of Antietam, Murfreesboro,
Gettysburg and Vicksburg. This time it must foretell a victory by
Sherman over Johnston's army, news of which was hourly expected, for
he knew of no other important event