A History of the American People

said: Then there is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths.' The two generals met at Appomattox Court House, Grant dressed inrough garb,' spattered
with mud. Both men were, in fact, carefully dressed for the occasion, as they wished to appear
for posterity. The terms were easily agreed, Grant allowing that Southern officers could keep
their sidearms and horses. Lee pointed out that, in the South, the enlisted men in the cavalry and
artillery also owned their horses. Grant allowed those to be kept too. After Lee's surrender on
April 9, Davis hurried to Greenboro to rendezvous with General Johnston's army. But in the
meantime Johnston had reached an agreement with General Sherman which, in effect, dissolved
the Confederacy. Davis gave the terms to his Cabinet, saying he wanted to reject them, but the
Cabinet accepted them. Washington, however, did not, and the South had to be content, in the
end, with a simple laying down of arms.
By this time Lincoln was dead. He had summoned Grant to hear his account of the surrender
at Appomattox, and he beamed with pleasure when the general told him that the terms had
extended not just to the officers but to the men: I told them to go back to their homes and their families and that they would not be molested, if they did nothing more.' Lincoln expected Sherman to report a similar surrender and he told Grant he expected good news as he had just had one of his dreams which portended such. Grant said he described howhe seemed to be in
some singular, indescribable vessel and ... he was moving with great rapidity to an indefinite
shore.’ Lincoln told his wife (April 14), who said to him, Dear husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness,'And well may I feel so, Mary. I consider this day, the war has come
to a close.'
On April 15 they went to a performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford's
Theater. Lincoln was no longer protected by Pinkerton, but Marshal Ward Hill Lamon, who
often served as his bodyguard, begged him not to go to the theater or any similar place, and on
no account to mingle with promiscuous crowds. That evening was particularly dangerous since it
had been widely advertised that Grant, too, would join the President in his theater excursion.
Name, date, time, place-all were published. John Wilkes Booth (1838-65), from an acting family
of British origins, also noted for mental instability, and brother of the famous tragedian Edwin
Booth, was a self-appointed Southern patriot. He had three days to organize the assassination,
with various associates. He also planned to kill Seward and Vice-President Andrew Johnson
(1808-75), regarded with peculiar abhorrence in the South because he was a Democrat and a
Southerner, from Tennessee, the only Southerner who remained in the Senate in 1861-and
accordingly rewarded with the vice-presidency in Lincoln's second term.
Booth had no difficulty in getting into the theater, and he obtained entry to the President's box
simply by showing Charles Forbes, the White House footman on duty, his calling-card. He
barred the door of the box, moved behind Lincoln, who was leaning forward, then aimed his
Derringer at the back of the President's head and pulled the trigger. He then drew a knife,
stabbing Lincoln's ADC, jumped from the box, breaking his ankle in the process, shouted `Sic
semper tyrannis,' the motto of the State of Virginia, and escaped through the back of the theater.
Two weeks later he was shot and killed in Bowling Green, Virginia. Lincoln himself was taken
to a nearby house where he lingered for nine hours, never regaining consciousness.
It is clear that Booth had links going back to Richmond but equally clear that Davis knew
nothing about the assassination plot and would never have authorized it. But many at the time
believed he was involved. His last days of liberty were clouded by rumors, including one that a
price of $100,000 was on his head and another that he was dressed as a woman. He was taken on