of his army and the replenishment
of his stores. He still thought there was a hard campaign with desperate
fighting ahead of him. Even on April 6, when he received news of the
fall of Richmond and the flight of Lee and the Confederate government,
he was unable to understand the full extent of the national triumph. He
admired Grant so far as a man might, short of idolatry, yet the long
habit of respect for Lee led him to think he would somehow get away and
join Johnston in his front with at least a portion of the Army of
Northern Virginia. He had already begun his march upon Johnston when he
learned of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

Definitely relieved from apprehension of a junction of the two
Confederate armies, he now had no fear except of a flight and dispersal
of Johnston's forces into guerrilla bands. If they ran away, he felt he
could not catch them; the country was too open. They could scatter and
meet again, and so continue a partizan warfare indefinitely. He could
not be expected to know that this resolute enemy was sick to the heart
of war, and that the desire for more fighting survived only in a group
of fugitive politicians flying through the pine forests of the Carolinas
from a danger which did not exist.

Entering Raleigh on the morning of the thirteenth, he turned his heads
of column southwest, hoping to cut off Johnston's southward march, but
made no great haste, thinking Johnston's cavalry superior to his own,
and desiring Sheridan to join him before he pushed the Confederates to
extremities. While here, however, he received a communication from
General Johnston, dated the thirteenth, proposing an armistice to enable
the National and Confederate governments to negotiate on equal terms. It
had been dictated by Jefferson Davis during the conference at
Greensboro, written down by S.R. Mallory, and merely signed by Johnston,
and was inadmissible and even offensive in its terms; but Sherman,
anxious for peace, and himself incapable of discourtesy to a brave
enemy, took no notice of its language, and answered so cordially that
the Confederates were probably encouraged to ask for better conditions
of surrender than they had expected to receive.

The two great antagonists met on April 17, when Sherman offered
Johnston the same terms that had been accorded Lee, and also
communicated the news he had that morning received of the murder of Mr.
Lincoln. The Confederate general expressed his unfeigned sorrow at t