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chapter seven TOWARDS AN INDEfiNITE SHORE By late afternoon, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. When the couple had set out earlier, the day was sunny and the thermometer was reaching for seventy. Now a cold, raw wind came whistling down the streets from the north, and the dark clouds above portended rain.1 Nevertheless, little or nothing could dampen the joy of the carriage ride. Following an inspection of the Montauk, a monitor gunboat that lay at anchor in the Potomac, and a jaunt to the “Soldier’s Home,” their summer retreat, Abraham and Mary Lincoln turned back toward the White House.2 As had been the case throughout the day, the president’s spirits were high. His goal had been reached. The weary load he had shouldered for the past four years was now about to be set down. And Abraham Lincoln felt relief. “Dear husband,” Mary stared at her normally morose mate, “you almost startle me, by your great cheerfulness.” “[W]ell I may feel so, Mary,” the president smiled. “I consider this day, the war has come to a close.”3 “I never saw him so sumpremely [sic] cheerful—his manner was even playful,” remembered the first lady.4 Recalled the president’s secretary, John Hay: The day was one of unusual enjoyment to Mr. Lincoln. . . . His mood . . . was singularly happy and tender. He talked much of the past and the future. . . . He was never simpler or gentler than on this day of unprecedented triumph; his heart overflowed with sentiments of gratitude to Heaven, which took the shape usual to generous natures, of love and kindness to all men.5 Indeed, nothing bore out the truth of those words more than Lincoln’s 45 46 the darkest dawn actions earlier that day. Visiting with his father soon after returning from duty on General Grant’s staff, Lincoln’s oldest son, twenty-one-year-old Robert, handed the president a prized photograph. After carefully studying the face in the image, the face of the same man who had very nearly dashed all hopes for a reunited nation, Lincoln at last spoke. “It is a good face,” the president said softly as he sat gazing at Robert E. Lee. “It is the face of a noble, brave man. I am glad the war is over at last.”6 Lincoln’s words were in sharp contrast to the cry of Radical Republicans who were even then demanding the arrest and execution of the “arch-traitor” Lee. The howl for the old Virginian’s blood was second only to that of Jefferson Davis. Many Northerners would have savored the spectacle of Davis and Lee being paraded through the streets of Washington in chains. Lincoln differed. Although his motives were no doubt based in part on politics, the president preferred to simply allow Lee to return to his home in peace and watch while Davis fled the country into exile. “Now, General,” the president had earlier suggested to William T. Sherman, “I’m bound to oppose the escape of Jeff. Davis; but if you could manage to let him slip out unbeknownst-like, I guess it wouldn’t hurt me much!”7 Additionally, Lincoln hurried to save lives. Already noted for a liberal pardon policy, with the close of war the president picked up the pace. “Well, I think this boy can do more good above ground than under ground,” he said while commuting a death sentence for desertion that afternoon.8 Coming down the staircase at the White House just prior to the carriage ride with Mary, the president overheard a one-armed soldier declare that he would almost be willing to lose the other arm if it could but shake the hand of Abraham Lincoln. “You shall do that and it shall cost you nothing, my boy!” the tall, smiling president announced as he approached the man.9 “I have never been so happy in my life,” Lincoln admitted to Mary. Although her husband’s happiness should have been a source of comfort , the words were not entirely welcome to the superstitious woman. The last time Lincoln had uttered similar sentiments, their eleven-yearold son, Willie, had died.10 “We must both, be more cheerful in the future ,” cautioned the husband. “[B]etween the war & the loss of our darling Willie—we have both, been very miserable.”11 For her part, Mary Todd Lincoln was more than ready to be cheerful. Indeed, much like her husband—though...

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