A History of the American People

May l0. Almost his last words to his colleagues were that he was glad no member of his Cabinet had made money out of the war and that they were all broke and poor.' He himself gave his last gold coin to a little boy presented to him as his namesake. All he then had in his pockets was a wad of worthless Confederate scrip. His soldiers-captors jeered at him:We'll hang Jeff Davis
from a sour apple tree.' Their commander, Major-General James Wilson, said later: The thought struck me once or twice that he was a mad man.' Davis was put in heavy leg-irons and taken to Fort Monroe, opposite Norfolk, Virginia, where he was held for 720 days mostly in solitary confinement, and subjected to many humiliations, with bugs in his mattress and only a horse-bucket to drink from. None of this would have happened had Lincoln lived. Johnson, now president, insisted on this to prove to Northern opinion that he was not favoring a fellow-Southerner. On the other hand, he hated the idea, put forward by Stanton, the Secretary of War, and others, that Davis should be tried, convicted, and hanged. So he allowed Dr John J. Craven, who visited Davis many times in his cell and had long conversations with him, to smuggle out his diaries and have them written up by a popular writer, Charles G. Halpine. They appeared as The Prison Life o f Jefferson Davis, presenting him as a tragic hero, aroused much sympathy, even in the North, and prepared the way for his release. Davis detested the book. He refused to ask for a pardon, demanding instead a trial which (he was sure) would lead to his acquittal and vindicate him totally. Instead, a writ of habeas corpus (which Lincoln had suspended but was now permitted again) got him out in May 1867. He then went to Canada, and wrote rambling memoirs, lived to bury all his sons, and died, full of years and honor-in the South at least-in 1889. His funeral, attended by a quarter of a million people, was the largest ever held in the South. Lee, by contrast, was broken and tired and did not last long. When he died in 1870 people were amazed to learn he was only sixty-three. He spent his last years in the thankless job of running a poor university, Washington College, believing thatwhat the South needs most is
education.' He refused to write his memoirs, blamed no one, avoided publicity, and, when in
doubt, kept his mouth shut. Legend has it that his last words were Tell Hill he must come up!' andStrike the tent!'. In fact he said nothing.
The end of the Civil War solved the problem of slavery and started the problem of the blacks,
which is with America still. Everyone, from Jefferson and Washington onwards, and including
Lincoln himself, had argued that the real problem of slavery was not ending it but what to do
with the freed blacks afterwards. All these men, and the overwhelming majority of ordinary
American whites, felt that it was almost impossible for whites and blacks to live easily together.
Lincoln did not regard blacks as equals. Or rather, they might be morally equal but in other
respects they were fundamentally different and unacceptable as fellow-citizens without
qualification. He said bluntly that it was impossible just to free the slaves and make them
politically and socially our equals.' He freely admitted an attitude to blacks which would now be classified as racism:My own feelings will not admit [of equality].' The same was true, he added,
of the majority of whites, North as well as South. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question. A universal feeling, whether well- or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded.' He told a delegation of blacks who came to see him at the White House and asked his opinion about emigration to Africa or elsewhere, that he welcomed the idea: There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored
people to remain with us.' He even founded an experimental colony on the shores of San
Domingo, but the dishonesty of the agents involved forced the authorities to ship the blacks back
to Washington. All schemes to get the blacks back to Africa had been qualified or total failures,