CHAPTER VIII
The Wrath of the North
The mad act of crazy Wilkes Booth set the whole country crazy. The South was aghast, natural recoil intensified by apprehension. The North, convulsed with anguish, was newly inflamed, and even when the cooler moment came and we were acquitted of any responsibility for Booth’s crazy act, the angry humour of a still sore heart was against us. We, of both sections, who suffered so lately as one people in the death of President McKinley, can comprehend the woe and unreason of the moment.
Indignation and memorial meetings simply flayed the South alive. At one in the New York Custom House, when the grieving, exasperated people did not know whether to weep or to curse the more, or to end it by simply hanging us all, Mr. Chittenden rose and said: “Peace, be still!” And declared the death of Lincoln providential, God removing the man of mercy that due punishment might be meted out to rebels. Before the pacific orator finished, people were yelling: “Hang Lee!” and “The rebels deserve damnation!” Pulpits fulminated. Easter sermons demanded the halter, exile, confiscation of property, for “rebels and traitors”; yet some voices rose benignly, as Edward Everett Hale’s, Dr. Huntington’s, and Rufus Ellis’, in words fitting the day. Beecher urged moderation.
The new President, Andrew Johnson, was breathing out threatenings and slaughter before Lincoln’s death. Thousands had heard him shout from the southern portico of the Patent Office, “Jeff Davis ought to be hung twenty times as high as Haman!”
In Nicolay and Hay’s Life of Lincoln, the following paragraph follows comment upon unanimity in Southern and Northern sentiment: “There was one exception to the general grief too remarkable to be passed over in silence. Among the extreme Radicals in Congress, Mr. Lincoln’s determined clemency and liberality towards the Southern people had made an impression so unfavourable that, though they were shocked at his murder, they did not, among themselves, conceal their gratification that he was no longer in the way. In a political caucus held a few hours after the President’s death, ‘the thought was nearly universal,’ to quote the language of one of their most representative members, ‘that the accession of Johnson to the Presidency would prove a godsend to the country.’”
The only people who could profit by Lincoln’s death were in the Radical wing of the Republican party. These extremists thought Johnson their man. Senator Wade, heading a committee that waited on him, cried: “Johnson, we have faith in you! By the gods, it will be no trouble now running the Government!”
“Treason,” said the new President, “is the highest crime in the calendar, and the full penalty for its commission should be visited upon the leaders of the Rebellion. Treason should be made odious.” It is told as true “inside history” that the arrest and execution of General Lee had been determined upon; General Grant heard of it and went in the night to see President Johnson and Secretary Stanton and said to them: “If General Lee or any of the officers paroled by me are arrested while keeping the terms of their parole, I will resign my commission in the United States Army.”
But on April 15, even General Grant was of a divided mind, for he wired General Ord: “Arrest J. A. Campbell, Mayor Mayo, and members of the old Council who have not yet taken the oath of allegiance, and confine them in Libby Prison … arrest all paroled officers and surgeons until they can be sent beyond our lines unless they have taken the oath of allegiance. Extreme rigour will have to be observed whilst assassination is the order of the day with rebels.”
General Ord replied: “The two citizens we have seen. They are old, nearly helpless, and, I think, incapable of harm. Lee and staff are in town among the paroled prisoners. Should I arrest them under the circumstances, I think the rebellion here would be reopened. I will risk my life that present paroles will be kept, if you will allow me to so trust the people here, who are ignorant of the assassination, done, I think, by some insane Brutus with but few accomplices. Judge Campbell and Mr. Hunter pressed me earnestly yesterday to send them to Washington to see the President. Would they have done so if guilty?”
General Grant answered: “I leave my dispatch of this date in the light of a suggestion to be executed only as far as you may judge the good of the service demands.” But the venerable peace-maker and his associates were not to escape vengeance.
General Halleck, from Richmond, to General Grant, May 5: “Hunter is staying quietly at home, advises all who visit him to support the Union cause. His hostility to Davis did much to make Davis unpopular in Virginia. Considering this, and the fact that President Lincoln advised against arresting Hunter, I would much prefer not to arrest him unless specially ordered to do so. All classes are taking the Amnesty Oath; it would be unfortunate to shake by unnecessary arrests this desire for general amnesty. Lee’s officers are taking the oath; even Lee himself is considering the propriety of doing so and petitioning President Johnson for pardon.”
May 11, Halleck to Stanton: “R. M. T. Hunter has, in accordance with General Grant’s orders, been arrested, and is now on a gunboat in the James. Judge Campbell is still at his house. If necessary, he can be confined with Mr. Hunter. He voluntarily submits himself to such punishment as the Government may see fit to impose. He is very destitute and much broken down, and his case excites much sympathy.”
Fortress Monroe, May 22, General Halleck wires General Ord, Richmond: “The Secretary of War directs that John A. Campbell be placed in the Libby or some other secure prison. Do this at once.” Announcements of arrivals at Fort Pulaski in June would have made a fine page for any hotel desiring a brilliant register, thus: “Ex-Senator R. M. T. Hunter, Virginia; ex-Assistant Secretary of War Judge J. A. Campbell, Alabama; ex-Senator D. L. Yulee, Florida; ex-Governor Clark, Mississippi; ex-Secretary of the Treasury G. A. Trenholm, South Carolina;” and so on. Pulaski had rivals in other Federal prisons.
A reward of $25,000 for “Extra Billy” did not bring him in, but he delivered himself up to General Patrick, was paroled, and went to his home in Warrenton, Fauquier, and set to work with a will, though he was, to quote General Halleck, “seventy years old and quite feeble.” The rightful Governor of Virginia, he advised her people to cheerful acceptance of Pierpont.
As soon as the aged Governor of Mississippi learned that General Dick Taylor would surrender, he convened the Legislature; his message, recommending the repeal of the secession ordinance and deploring Lincoln’s murder, was not more than read, when General Osband, under orders from Washington, dissolved the Legislature with threats of arrest. Governor Clark was arrested: “The old soldier straightened his mangled limbs as best he could, with great difficulty mounted his crutches, and with a look of defiance, said: ‘General Osband, I denounce before high Heaven this unparalleled act of tyranny and usurpation. I am the duly and constitutionally elected Governor of Mississippi, and would resist, if in my power, to the last extremity the enforcement of your order.’”
Governors, generals and statesmen were arrested in all directions. No exception was made for Alexander H. Stephens, the invalid, the peace-maker, the gentlest Roman of them all. At Liberty Hall, Mr. Stephens and a young friend, Robert W. Hull, were playing casino, when Tim, a negro, ran in, exclaiming: “Marster, de town is full uh Yankees! Whole heaps uv ’em, gallopin’ all about, carryin’ guns.” Mr. Stephens rose and said to his guest: “I have been expecting this. They have come for me. Excuse me, please, while I pack.” He went into his bedroom and began this task, when an officer called. Mr. Stephens met him in the parlor. The officer said, “Are you Alex Stephens?” “That is my name.” “I have an order for your arrest.” “I would like to have your name and see your order.” “I am Captain Saint, of the 4th Iowa, acting under General Upton’s orders. Here is the order.” Mr. Stephens saw that himself and General Toombs were to be brought before General Upton in Atlanta. “I have been anticipating arrest,” he said quietly, “and have been careful not to be out of the way, remaining here at home. General Upton need not have sent an armed force for me. A simple intimation from him that my presence was desired would have taken me to Atlanta.” His negroes were weeping when he was carried away; one, by special permission, accompanied him.
He was left under guard in a shanty on the road; the troops went on to Washington, “to be back in a little while with Bob Toombs.” “Where is General Toombs?” asked Mr. Stephens, when