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May. The number of men engaged in this battle is estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand men. After a severe contest of three days, the confederate army retreated toward Richmond. Grant followed Lee so closely that, in the early part of June, the latter was close upon the outskirts of that city. A force from Fortress Monroe, under General Butler, fortified itself on the Appomattox river, and kept back Beauregard, who was coming up from the Carolinas to the assistance of Lee. Grant soon gained a position near Petersburg, and Lee went south of the Appomattox for the purpose of defending Petersburg. Grant commenced a siege immediately, and destroyed the railway connections between Lee's position and Richmond at the close of July, so that the safety of both the army and city were imperiled. He gained several victories over Lee's army during the months of July and August. On the 18th of August, he seized the Weldon railway, the principal line of communication between Lee and the southern part of the confederacy. Several attempts were made by the rebels to recapture it, but in vain. Grant, after having demolished it for a distance of twelve miles, intrenched himself near by, and kept the army of Lee in continual terror. (See views of Atlanta, Georgia.)

After receiving Grant's order to march, Sherman, with his vast army, left Chattanooga, and moved toward Atlanta, in Georgia. He fought three heavy battles near there with the confederate force, under General John B. Hood (who had superseded Johnson), and utterly defeated them each time. In the second battle, July 22d, General McPherson was killed. Sherman sent out detachments of cavalry to cut off the railway communications with the city, and closely besieged it until the 2d of September, when Hood abandoned the place, and Sherman entered in triumph.

While these operations were in progress in the United States, a powerful rebel privateer, called the Alabama, under the command of Captain Raphael Semmes, was producing great havoc among American merchantmen in foreign waters. She carefully avoided all vessels sent against her by the government, until finally, on the 15th of June, the French government ordered

her to leave their waters, and, in doing so, she encountered a national vessel named the Kearsarge, commanded by Captain John Winslow. The Alabama was sunk, but her commander escaped in an English vessel.

In the early part of July, an invading force, under General Jubal A. Early, left Lee's army for the purpose of seizing supplies. General Lewis Wallace, with a force numbering about one-third that of Early, met the latter at the Monocacy river. He kept the confederates from Baltimore and Washington, but was compelled by superior numbers to fall back, and Early carried off a large amount of booty. On the 30th of the same month, another force ascended through Maryland, into Pennsylvania, as far as the village of Chambersburg, which they set on fire. (See views Nos. 2018, 2019, and 2020.) They immediately returned, after gathering supplies in the Shenandoah valley, closely pursued by a force from Grant's army, under General Sheridan.

On the 5th of August, a fleet under Admiral Farragut, and a co-operating land force under General Gordon Granger, entered Mobile. On the 8th, Fort Gaines, and on the 23d, Fort Morgan were surrendered to Farragut. Both these forts were strong posts at the entrance of Mobile Bay, and were well garrisoned.

In view of this and other victories, the president, on the 3d of September, issued a proclamation recommending the next Sunday, September 11th, as a day of thanksgiving and prayer.

In the beginning of November, General Sherman sent General George H. Thomas, with a considerable force, to Tennessee, against Hood, and, on the 14th, he himself left Atlanta on a march to the sea. He captured Milledgeville, the capital of the state of Georgia, on the 29th, and continued his advance toward Savannah, taking possession of that city on the 21st of December. General Hood coming up toward Nashville, he was met at Franklin by a portion of Thomas' army, under General Schofield, on the 30th of November. Schofield was driven back to Nashville, but, on the 15th of December, General Thomas advanced against Hood, and compelled him to flee into Alabama, after suffering great losses.

On the 8th of November, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected president of the United States, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, vice president, by the republican party. The democratic candidate was General George B. McClellan.

1865.

After the capture of Savannah by General Sherman, he was joined by the army in South Carolina, under General Foster. He moved northward to Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, which he captured on the 17th of February. Thence he advanced to Goldsboro, in North Carolina, where, on the 22d of March, he was joined by General Schofield, from Newbern, and General Terry, who had captured Wilmington, on the Cape Fear river, on the 15th of January, assisted by a naval force under Admiral Porter. This united force held Johnston in check at Raleigh, the capital of the state.

General Sheridan held command of the Shenandoah valley, and, in the early part of March, he attacked General Early at Charlottesville, and gained a great victory. He then destroyed the railway communication between Richmond and Lynchburg, and, at about the middle of March, he, with General Edward O. C. Ord, and the army of the James, joined General Grant before Richmond. (See views of Richmond, Virginia.)

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Lee now endeavored to escape from Richmond, and go to join Johnston, in North Carolina, but, in this he was foiled by Grant, who would not allow him to leave Richmond. After several severely fought battles, in which Lee suffered a loss of over twenty thousand men, he was, at length, obliged to sign terms of capitulation. On the 9th of April, the main army of the confederates was surrendered by their general-in-chief to General Grant, and they were paroled as prisoners of war. This was "the death blow to the rebellion." The "president," Jefferson Davis, and the other ring-leaders of the conspiracy fled, and, on the 26th, General Johnston surrendered to General Sherman "on the terms accorded to Lee." The inferior forces were speedily dispersed, and the war was substantially ended in May.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.

JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION.

President Lincoln went down to the front on the 24th of March, 1865, and, at the time of the fall of Richmond, he was at Grant's headquarters in City Point, Virginia. The next day, April 4th,, he went to Richmond, and held a levee in the deserted mansion of the late confederate "president."

On the 14th of April, four years after the evacuation of Fort Sumter, General Anderson, together with a great many officers, soldiers and civilians, celebrated this anniversary by raising over the ruins the old flag which Anderson carried away with him at the time of the evacuation. (See views Nos. 3137 to 3146, . inclusive.)

At this time the whole land was filled with rejoicing concerning the surrender of Lee, and the probable speedy surrender of Johnston, but, on the morning of the 15th of April, the joy was turned into sorrow by the announcement that, on the previous evening, the president had been stricken down by the hand of an assassin. President Lincoln and General Grant had been invited to visit Ford's theatre on that evening, and it had been publicly announced that they would be present. General Grant, on that day, was suddenly called out of the city, but the president, not willing to disappoint the public, went, with his wife and two others. During the progress of the play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor of some note, came into the box from behind, shot the president, and, jumping on the stage, escaped through the back door of the theatre. At the same time, Secretary Seward, who was lying ill at his residence, was severely wounded by a man who had entered the house ostensibly for the purpose of delivering a message from Mr. Seward's attending physician. A plot

had been concocted to murder the president, vice president, General Grant, the cabinet officers, and other distinguished persons, and the leaders of the "confederacy" were suspected of forming it, in the hope that "in the midst of the confusion that might ensue, their wicked cause might gain an advantage. The plan, however, was unsuccessful. The president was the only one killed. Secretary Seward recovered, and the men appointed to assassinate the other intended victims, failed to carry out their part of the plot.

Andrew Johnson was inaugurated president at ten o'clock on the 15th of April, and "the government went steadily on in its course." The remains of the martyred president were taken, by the way of the most important cities of the United States, to his former residence, Springfield, Illinois. Large crowds of people accompanied the funeral procession in every city through which it passed. In Philadelphia the body was seen by one hundred and twenty thousand citizens, and in New York, both to and from the City Hall, where the body was exhibited, the mournful cortege was attended by an immense concourse. (See views of the "funeral of President Lincoln, New York city.")

On the 26th of April, the day of the surrender of Johnston, Booth and one of his accomplices, David C. Harrold, were found in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia. Upon their refusal to surrender themselves, the barn was set on fire. At this, Harrold came out and gave himself up, but Booth, still refusing, was shot by a sergeant named Corbett.

On the 10th of May, the fugitive president of the "Confederate States" was captured by a portion of the fourth Michigan cavalry, under Colonel B. D. Pritchard. They surprised his party in their camp near Irwinsville, Georgia, and, while Davis was attempting to escape in the disguise of a woman, he was made a prisoner. He was taken to Washington to await his trial on a charge of treason.

On the 7th of July, Harrold, and some others convicted of complicity in the assassination conspiracy, were hung, and other accomplices punished by banishment or imprisonment.

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