r signed by General Weitzel, inviting
Hunter, McMullen and other noted rebel leaders, including members
of the rebel legislature, to meet in Richmond on the twenty-fifth
to confer with our authorities on the restoration of peace,
transportation and safe conduct being ordered for the purpose. We
were all thunderstruck, and fully sympathized with the hot indignation
and wrathful words of the chairman of our committee. We soon
afterwards learned that the order had been directed by the President,
and while we were thoroughly disgusted by this display of misguided
magnanimity we saw rebel officers strutting around the streets in
full uniform, looking as independent as if they had been masters
of the city. We left on the afternoon of the twelfth, and were
interested in seeing Drury's Landing, Dutch-Gap Canal, Malvern
Hill and other points of historic interest. Before reaching
Fortress Monroe the next day, Senators Wade and Chandler changed
their minds respecting our journey to Charleston, which was abandoned,
and after spending a few hours very pleasantly at that place and
Point Lookout, we reached Washington on the evening of the
fourteenth.

Soon after retiring I was roused from a deep sleep by loud raps at
my door. W. L. Woods, clerk of my committee, entered in the greatest
excitement, and told me that Lincoln had just been assassinated,
and Seward and son probably, and that rebel assassins were about
to take the town. Supposing all this to be true I grew suddenly
cold, heart-sick and almost helpless. It was a repetition of my
experience when the exaggerated stories about the Bull Run disaster
first reached me in the summer of 1861. I soon rallied, however,
and joined the throng on the street. The city was at once in a
tempest of excitement, consternation and rage. About seven and a
half o'clock in the morning the church bells tolled the President's
death. The weather was as gloomy as the mood of the people, while
all sorts of rumors filled the air as to the particulars of the
assassination and the fate of Booth. Johnson was inaugurated at
eleven o'clock on the morning of the 15th, and was at once surrounded
by radical and conservative politicians, who were alike anxious
about the situation. I spent most of the afternoon in a political
caucus, held for the purpose of considering the necessity of a new
Cabinet and a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr.
Lincoln; and while everybody was shocked at