nly to what it should be as the egg is to
the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by
smashing it. What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to
other States. So new and unprecedented," he ended, "is the whole case
that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to
details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would
surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be
inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my
duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am
considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will
be proper." A full generation has had cause to lament that that
announcement was never to be made.

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, with solemn religious service the Union
flag was hoisted again on Fort Sumter by General Anderson, its old
defender. On that morning there was a Cabinet Council in Washington.
Seward was absent, in bed with an injury from a carriage accident.
Grant was there a little anxious to get news from Sherman. Lincoln was
in a happy mood. He had earlier that morning enjoyed greatly a talk
with Robert Lincoln about the young man's new experience of soldiering.
He now told Grant and the Cabinet that good news was coming from
Sherman. He knew it, he said, for last night he had dreamed a dream,
which had come to him several times before. In this dream, whenever it
came, he was sailing in a ship of a peculiar build, indescribable but
always the same, and being borne on it with great speed towards a dark
and undefined shore. He had always dreamed this before victory. He
dreamed it before Antietam, before Murfreesborough, before Gettysburg,
before Vicksburg. Grant observed bluntly that Murfreesborough had not
been a victory, or of any consequence anyway. Lincoln persisted on
this topic undeterred. After some lesser business they discussed the
reconstruction of the South. Lincoln rejoiced that Congress had
adjourned and the "disturbing element" in it could not hinder the work.
Before it met again, "if we are wise and discreet we shall re-animate
the States and get their governments in successful operation, with
order prevailing and the Union re-established." Lastly, there was talk
of the treatment of rebels and of the demand that had been heard for
"persecution" and "bloody work." "No one need expect me," said
Lincoln, "to take any part