“If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God always ascribe to Him?  Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.  Yet if God wills that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether....  With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive 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 orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

After the election of 1864, Lincoln’s word had been “a common cause, a common interest, and a common country.”  The invocation in this last inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the men of the grey and those of the blue.

At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment.  Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no authority to discuss any political relations.  On the first of April, the right wing of Lee’s army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at Five Forks, and on the day following Richmond is evacuated by the rear-guard of Lee’s army.  The defence of Richmond during the long years of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent.  It must always take a high rank in the history of war operations.  The skilful use made of positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders.