of posts and picket
lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
Unfortunately it had not proved possible to get this informal
expression of a very important piece of policy conveyed throughout the
lines farther west. An enterprising and over-zealous captain of cavalry,
riding across from the Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party
in Florida and, "butting in," captured, on May 10th, "the white
elephant."

The last commands of the Confederate army were surrendered with General
Taylor in Louisiana on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas on
the 26th of May. As Lincoln had foreshadowed, not a few complications
resulted from this unfortunate capture of Davis, complications that were
needlessly added to by the lack of clear-headedness or of definite
policy on the part of a confused and vacillating President. During the
months in which Davis was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and while the
question of his trial for treason was being fiercely debated in
Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy naturally concentrated upon
its late President. He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving emblem
of the contest. His vanities, irritability, and blunders were forgotten.
It was natural that, under the circumstances, his people, the people of
the South, should hold in memory only the fact that he had been their
leader and that he had through four strenuous years borne the burdens
of leadership with unflagging zeal, with persistent courage, and with an
almost foolhardy hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy the best
of his life, and he was entitled to the adoration that the survivors of
the Confederacy gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost cause.

The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded by the men in the front, for
whom through the early years of their campaigning he had been not only
the leader but the inspiration, was indicated by the manner in which the
news of his death was received. I happened myself on the day of those
sad tidings to be with my division in a little village just outside of
Goldsborough, North Carolina. We had no telegraphic communication with
the North, but were accustomed to receive despatches about noon each
day, carried across the swamps from a station through which connection
was made with Wilmington and the North. In the course of the morning, I
had gone to the shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know during
the days of our sojourn, for th