slaughter.  Northern cavalry got ahead of Lee, tearing up the railway lines he had hoped to use and blocking possible mountain passes; and his supply trains were being cut off.  After a long running fight and one last fierce battle on April 6, at a place called Sailor’s Creek, Lee found himself on April 9 at Appomattox Court House, some seventy miles west of Petersburg, surrounded beyond hope of escape.  On that day he and Grant with their staffs met in a neighbouring farmhouse.  Those present recalled afterwards the contrast of the stately Lee and the plain, ill-dressed Grant arriving mud-splashed in his haste.  Lee greeted Meade as an old acquaintance and remarked how grey he had grown with years.  Meade gracefully replied that Lee and not age was responsible for that.  Grant had started “quite jubilant” on the news that Lee was ready to surrender, but in presence of “the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly” he fell into sadness.  Pleasant “talk of old army times” followed, and he had almost forgotten, as he declares, the business in hand, when Lee asked him on what terms he would accept surrender.  Grant sat down and wrote, not knowing when he began what he should go on to write.  As he wrote he thought of the handsome sword Lee carried.  Instantly he added to his terms permission for every Southern officer to keep his sword and his horse.  Lee read the paper and when he came to that point was visibly moved.  He gauged his man, and he ventured to ask something more.  He thought, he said, Grant might not know that the Confederate cavalry troopers owned their own horses.  Grant said they would be badly wanted on the farms and added a further concession accordingly.  “This will have the best possible effect on the men,” said Lee.  “It will do much towards conciliating our people.”  Grant included also in his written terms words of general pardon to Confederate officers for their treason.  This was an inadvertent breach, perhaps, of Lincoln’s orders, but it was one which met with no objection.  Lee retired into civil life and devoted himself thereafter to his neighbours’ service as head of a college in Virginia—­much respected, very free with alms to old soldiers and not much caring whether they had fought for the South or for the North.  Grant did not wait to set foot in the capital which he had conquered, but, the main business being over, posted off with all haste to see his son settled in at school.

Lincoln remained at City Point till April 8, when he started back by steamer.  Those who were with him on the two days’ voyage told afterwards of the happy talk, as of a quiet family party rejoicing in the return of peace.  Somebody said that Jefferson Davis really ought to be hanged.  The reply came in the quotation that he might almost have expected, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”  On the second day, Sunday, the President read to them parts of “Macbeth.”  Sumner, who was one of them, recalled that he read twice over the lines,