Lee must have read the memorandum with as much surprise as gratification.  He suggested and gained another important concession—­that those of the cavalry and artillery who owned their own horses should be allowed to take them home to put in their crops; and wrote a brief reply accepting the terms.  He then remarked that his army was in a starving condition, and asked Grant to provide them with subsistence and forage; to which he at once assented, inquiring for how many men the rations would be wanted.  Lee answered, “About twenty-five thousand”; and orders were given to issue them.  The number turned out to be even greater, the paroles signed amounting to twenty-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-one.  If we add to this the captures made during the preceding week, and the thousands who deserted the failing cause at every by-road leading to their homes, we see how considerable an army Lee commanded when Grant “started out gunning.”

With these brief and simple formalities, one of the most momentous transactions of modern times was concluded.  The Union gunners prepared to fire a national salute, but Grant forbade any rejoicing over a fallen enemy, who, he hoped, would be an enemy no longer.  The next day he rode to the Confederate lines to make a visit of farewell to General Lee.  They parted with courteous good wishes, and Grant, without pausing to look at the city he had taken, or the enormous system of works which had so long held him at bay, hurried away to Washington, intent only upon putting an end to the waste and burden of war.

A very carnival of fire and destruction had attended the flight of the Confederate authorities from Richmond.  On Sunday night, April 2, Jefferson Davis, with his cabinet and their more important papers, hurriedly left the doomed city on one of the crowded and overloaded railroad trains.  The legislature of Virginia and the governor of the State departed in a canal-boat toward Lynchburg; and every available vehicle was pressed into service by the frantic inhabitants, all anxious to get away before their capital was desecrated by the presence of “Yankee invaders.”  By the time the military left, early next morning, a conflagration was already under way.  The rebel Congress had passed a law ordering government tobacco and other public property to be burned.  General Ewell, the military commander, asserts that he took the responsibility of disobeying the law, and that they were not fired by his orders.  However that may be, flames broke out in various parts of the city, while a miscellaneous mob, inflamed by excitement and by the alcohol which had run freely in the gutters the night before, rushed from store to store, smashing in the doors and indulging all the wantonness of pillage and greed.  Public spirit was paralyzed, and the whole fabric of society seemed crumbling to pieces, when the convicts from the penitentiary, a shouting, leaping crowd of party-colored demons, overcoming their guard, and drunk with liberty, appeared upon the streets, adding their final dramatic horror to the pandemonium.