to come to his headquarters for a holiday visit.  There was much in it besides holiday, for Grant was rapidly maturing his plans for the great event and wanted Lincoln near.  Moreover Sheridan had just arrived, and while Lincoln was there Sherman came from Goldsborough with Admiral Porter for consultation as to Sherman’s next move.  Peremptory as he was in any necessary political instructions, Lincoln was now happy to say nothing of military matters, beyond expressing his earnest desire that the final overmastering of the Confederate armies should be accomplished with the least further bloodshed possible, and indulging the curiosity that any other guest might have shown.  A letter home to Mrs. Lincoln betrays the interest with which he heard heavy firing quite near, which seemed to him a great battle, but did not excite those who knew.  Then there were rides in the country with Grant’s staff.  Lincoln in his tall hat and frock coat was a marked and curious figure on a horse.  He had once, by the way, insisted on riding with Butler, catechising him with remorseless chaff on engineering matters and forbidding his chief engineer to prompt him, along six miles of cheering Northern troops within easy sight and shot of the Confederate soldiers to whom his hat and coat identified him.  But, however odd a figure, he impressed Grant’s officers as a good and bold horseman.  Then, after Sherman’s arrival, there evidently was no end of talk.  Sherman was at first amused by the President’s anxiety as to whether his army was quite safe without him at Goldsborough; but that keen-witted soldier soon received, as he has said, an impression both of goodness and of greatness such as no other man ever gave him.

What especially remained on Sherman’s and on Porter’s mind was the recollection of Lincoln’s over-powering desire for mercy and for conciliation with the conquered.  Indeed Sherman blundered later in the terms he first accepted from Johnston; for he did not see that Lincoln’s clemency for Southern leaders and desire for the welfare of the South included no mercy at all for the political principle of the Confederacy.  Grant was not exposed to any such mistake, for a week or two before Lee had made overtures to him for some sort of conference and Lincoln had instantly forbidden him to confer with Lee for any purpose but that of his unconditional surrender.  What, apart from the reconstruction of Southern life and institutions, was in part weighing with Lincoln was the question of punishments for rebellion.  By Act of Congress the holders of high political and military office in the South were liable as traitors, and there was now talk of hanging in the North.  Later events showed that a very different sentiment would make itself heard when the victory came; but Lincoln was much concerned.  To some one who spoke to him of this matter he exclaimed, “What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me?  Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel?” There can be no doubt that the prerogative of mercy would have been vigorously used in his hands, but he did not wish for a conflict on this matter at all; and Grant was taught, in a parable about a teetotal Irishman who forgave being served with liquor unbeknownst to himself, that zeal in capturing Jefferson Davis and his colleagues was not expected of him.