of
Confederates Surrendered and Exchanged--Reduction of Federal Army to a
Peace Footing--Grand Review of the Army

While in Richmond, Mr. Lincoln had two interviews with John A. Campbell,
rebel Secretary of War, who had not accompanied the other fleeing
officials, preferring instead to submit to Federal authority. Mr.
Campbell had been one of the commissioners at the Hampton Roads
conference, and Mr. Lincoln now gave him a written memorandum repeating
in substance the terms he had then offered the Confederates. On
Campbell's suggestion that the Virginia legislature, if allowed to come
together, would at once repeal its ordinance of secession and withdraw
all Virginia troops from the field, he also gave permission for its
members to assemble for that purpose. But this, being distorted into
authority to sit in judgment on the political consequences of the war,
was soon withdrawn.

Jefferson Davis and his cabinet proceeded to Danville, where, two days
after his arrival, the rebel President made still another effort to fire
the Southern heart, announcing, "We have now entered upon a new phase
of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity of guarding particular
points, our army will be free to move from point to point to strike the
enemy in detail far from his base. Let us but will it and we are free";
and declaring in sonorous periods his purpose never to abandon one foot
of ground to the invader.

The ink was hardly dry on the document when news came of the surrender
of Lee's army, and that the Federal cavalry was pushing southward west
of Danville. So the Confederate government again hastily packed its
archives and moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, where its headquarters
were prudently kept on the train at the depot. Here Mr. Davis sent for
Generals Johnston and Beauregard, and a conference took place between
them and the members of the fleeing government--a conference not unmixed
with embarrassment, since Mr. Davis still "willed" the success of the
Confederacy too strongly to see the true hopelessness of the situation,
while the generals and most of his cabinet were agreed that their cause
was lost. The council of war over, General Johnston returned to his army
to begin negotiations with Sherman; and on the following day, April 14,
Davis and his party left Greensboro to continue their journey southward.

Sherman had returned to Goldsboro from his visit to City Point, and set
himself at once to the reorganization