The Civil War was not quite over when the president took a victory stroll through the captured Confederate capital
Abraham Lincoln walked into the burning Confederate capital, uphill from the river, passing abandoned slave markets on his right, holding his son Tad’s hand on the boy’s 12th birthday.
A low murmur rose among the ruins at the sight of the 6-foot-4-inch man in black, slightly stooped, topped by his signature stovepipe hat. It was the sound of rumor turning to revelation. A crowd of liberated slaves gathered around Lincoln. They grabbed at his clothes and fell at his feet. “Don’t kneel to me,” Lincoln gently rebuked them. “That is not right. You must kneel to God only and thank Him for the liberty you will afterward enjoy.
“It was a bow which upset the forms, laws, customs and ceremonies of centuries,” observed Charles Coffin of theAs they passed the notorious Libby Prison, where more than 1,000 Union officers had been held in horrific conditions, Lincoln pointed out the brick and iron structure to his son. The crowd shouted, “Tear it down!” but the president raised his hand and quieted them, saying, “No, leave it as a monument.” Healing could not occur by simply erasing history.
It was a moment of supreme triumph but there was no hint of triumphalism. General Lee’s army had not yet surrendered—that would come five days later at Appomattox Court House. But the Civil War had been won. Surrounded by the ghosts of the Confederacy, Lincoln toured the mansion, its tall drawing rooms with crimson wallpaper and cramped living quarters upstairs. He saw military maps that mirrored his own, pinned to the walls of the rebel cabinet room where the stars and stripes now stood.
As he walked out of the Confederate White House, Lincoln stopped on the front steps, flanked by Black soldiers in blue uniforms, and spoke to the crowd of freedmen and women. “Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called masters, you are now as free as I am… for God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
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