Dixie After the War. Myrta Lockett Avary
for General Weitzel to issue passes to the legislators and State officials who were to come to Richmond for the purpose of restoring Virginia to the Union. The “Whig” had sympathetic articles on “Reconstruction,” and announced in due order the meeting of citizens called “to consider President Lincoln’s proposition for reassembling the Legislature to take Virginia back into the Union.” It printed the formal call for reassembling, signed by the committee and many citizens, and countersigned by General Weitzel; handbills so signed were printed for distribution.
General Shepley, whose cordial acquiescence in the conciliation plan had been pronounced, said in after years that he suffered serious misgivings. When General Weitzel directed him to issue the passes for the returning legislators, he inquired: “Have you the President’s written order for this?” “No. Why?” “For your own security you should have it, General. When the President reaches Washington and the Cabinet are informed of what has been done and what is contemplated, this order will be rescinded, and the Cabinet will deny that it has ever been issued.”
“I have the President’s commands. I am a soldier and obey orders.”
“Right, General. Command me and I obey.”
Mr. Lincoln’s written order reiterating oral instructions came, however.
Admiral Porter, according to his own account, took President Lincoln to task for his concessions, and told him in so many words that he was acting outside of his rights; Richmond, being under military rule, was subject to General Grant’s jurisdiction. The Admiral has claimed the distinction of working a change in the President’s mind and of recovering immediately the obnoxious order from Weitzel, killing, or trying to kill, a horse or so in the undertaking. He characterised the efforts of Judges Campbell and Thomas to serve their country and avert more bloodshed as “a clever dodge to soothe the wounded feelings of the people of the South.” The Admiral adds: “But what a howl it would have raised in the North!”
Admiral Porter says the lectured President exclaimed: “Well, I came near knocking all the fat in the fire, didn’t I? Let us go. I seem to be putting my foot into it here all the time. Bless my soul! how Seward would have preached if he had heard me give Campbell permission to call the Legislature! Seward is an encyclopedia of international law, and laughs at my horse sense on which I pride myself. Admiral, if I were you, I would not repeat that joke yet awhile. People might laugh at you for knowing so much more than the President.”
He was acting, he said, in conjunction with military authorities. General Weitzel was acting under General Grant’s instructions. The conciliatory plan was being followed in Petersburg, where General Grant himself had led the formal entry.
“General Weitzel warmly approves the plan.”
“He and Campbell are personal friends,” the Admiral remarked significantly.
Whatever became of those horses driven out by Admiral Porter’s instructions to be killed, if need be, in the effort to recover that order, is a conundrum. According to Admiral Porter the order had been written and given to General Weitzel while Mr. Lincoln was in the city. According to Judge Campbell and General Shepley, and the original now on file in Washington, it was written from City Point.
Dated, “Headquarters Department of Virginia, Richmond, April 13, 1865,” this appeared in the “Whig” on the last afternoon of Mr. Lincoln’s life:
“Permission for the reassembling of the gentlemen recently acting as the Legislature is rescinded. Should any of the gentlemen come to the city under the notice of reassembling already published, they will be furnished passports to return to their homes. Any of the persons named in the call signed by J. A. Campbell and others, who are found in the city twelve hours after the publication of this notice will be subject to arrest, unless they are residents. (Signed) E. O. C. Ord, General Commanding the Department.”
General Weitzel was removed. Upon him was thrown the blame of the President’s “blunder.” He was charged with the crime of pity and sympathy for “rebels” and “traitors.” When Lincoln was dead, a high official in Washington said: “No man more than Mr. Lincoln condemned the course General Weitzel and his officers pursued in Richmond.”
In more ways than one General Weitzel had done that which was not pleasing in the sight of Mr. Stanton. Assistant Secretary of War Dana had let Stanton know post-haste that General Weitzel was distributing “victuals” to “rebels.” Stanton wired to know of General Weitzel if he was “acting under authority in giving food supplies to the people of Richmond, and if so, whose?” General Weitzel answered, “Major-General Ord’s orders approved by General Grant.”
Mr. Dana wrote Mr. Stanton, “Weitzel is to pay for rations by selling captured property.” General Weitzel apologised for magnanimity by explaining that the instructions of General Ord, his superior, were “to sell all the tobacco I find here and feed those in distress. A great many persons, black and white, are on the point of starvation, and I have relieved the most pressing wants by the issue of a few abandoned rebel stores and some damaged stores of my own.” “All receivers of rations must take the oath,” Mr. Stanton wrote back.
In Northern magazines left by Federal soldiers visiting negroes in Matoaca’s yard, black Cato saw caricatures of Southern ladies mixing in with negroes and white roughs and toughs, begging food at Yankee bureaus. “Miss Mato’ca,” he plead earnestly, “don’ go whar dem folks is no mo’. It will disgrace de fam’ly.” She had put pride and conscience in her pocket, drawn rations and brought home her pork and codfish.
Revocation of permission for the reassembling of the Virginia Legislature was one of Mr. Lincoln’s last, if not his last, act in the War Department. Stanton gave him no peace till it was written; he handed the paper to Mr. Stanton, saying: “There! I think that will suit you!” “No,” said the Iron Chancellor of the Union. “It is not strong enough. It merely revokes your permission for the assembling of the rebel legislators. Some of these men will come to Richmond—are doubtless there now—in response to the call. You should prohibit the meeting.” Which was done. Hence, the prohibitory order in the “Whig.”
Mr. Lincoln wrote, April 14, to General Van Alen, of New York: “Thank you for the assurance you give me that I shall be supported by conservative men like yourself in the efforts I may use to restore the Union, so as to make it, to use your own language, a Union of hearts as well as of hands.” General Van Alen had warned him against exposing himself in the South as he had done by visiting Richmond; and for this Mr. Lincoln thanked him briefly without admitting that there had been any peril. Laconically, he had thanked Stanton for concern expressed in a dispatch warning him to be careful about visiting Petersburg, adding, “I have already been there.”
When serenaded the Tuesday before his death, he said, in speaking of the bringing of the Southern States into practical relations with the Union: “I believe it is not only possible, but easier to do this, without deciding, or even considering, whether these States have ever been out of the Union. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad.”
His last joke—the story-tellers say it was his last—was about “Dixie.” General Lee’s surrender had been announced; Washington was ablaze with excitement. Delirious multitudes surged to the White House, calling the President out for a speech. It was a moment for easy betrayal into words that might widen the breach between sections. He said in his quaint way that he had no speech ready, and concluded humorously: “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I ever heard. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it. I presented the question to the Attorney-General and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize. I ask the band to give us a good turn upon it.” In that little speech, he claimed of the South by right of conquest a song—and nothing more.
THE LAST CAPITAL
CHAPTER V
The