Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

safely out of its breastworks, and in order to follow me the enemy must abandon his lines and can derive no further benefits from his railroads or James River,” he notes with relief.
     
     

    Grant’s army is sliding west en masse, racing to block the road, even as Lee feels relief in the morning air. Lee suspects this. But his confidence in his army and in his own generalship is such that he firmly believes he can defeat Grant on open ground.
    Everything depends on getting to Amelia Court House. Without food Lee’s men cannot march. Without food they cannot fight. Without food, they might as well have surrendered in Petersburg.
    Lee’s newfound optimism slowly filters down into the ranks. Against all odds, his men regain their confidence as the trenches of Petersburg recede further and further into memory and distance. By the time they reach Amelia Court House, on April 4, after almost two consecutive days on the march, electricity sizzles through the ranks. The men speak of hope and are confident of victory as they wonder where and when they will fight the Yankees once again.
    It’s just before noon. The long hours in the saddle are hard on the fifty-eight-year-old general. Lee has long struggled with rheumatism and all its crippling agonies. Now it flares anew. Yet he presses on, knowing that any sign of personal weakness will be immediately noticed by his men. As much as any soldier, he looks forward to a good meal and a few hours of sleep. He can see the waiting railroad cars, neatly parked on a siding. He quietly gives the order to unload the food and distribute it in an organized fashion. The last thing Lee wants is for his army to give in to their hunger and rush the train. Composure and propriety are crucial for any effective fighting force.
    The train doors are yanked open. Inside, great wooden crates are stacked floor to ceiling. Lee’s excited men hurriedly jerk the boxes down onto the ground and pry them open.
    Then, horror!
    This is what those boxes contain: 200 crates of ammunition, 164 cartons of artillery harnesses, and 96 carts to carry ammunition.
    There is no food.

CHAPTER SIX
    TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1865
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
     
    W hile John Wilkes Booth is still in Newport, a hungry Robert E. Lee is in Amelia Court House, Ulysses S. Grant is racing to block Lee’s path, and Abraham Lincoln stands on the deck of USS Malvern as the warship chugs slowly and cautiously up the James River toward Richmond. The channel is choked with burning warships and the floating corpses of dead draft horses. Deadly anti-ship mines known as “torpedoes” bob on the surface, drifting with the current, ready to explode the instant they come into contact with a vessel. If just one torpedo bounces against the Malvern’s hull, ship and precious cargo alike will be reduced to fragments of varnished wood and human tissue.
    Again Lincoln sets aside his concerns. For the Malvern is sailing into Richmond, of all places. The Confederate capital is now in Union hands. The president has waited an eternity for this moment. Lincoln can clearly see that Richmond—or what’s left of it—hardly resembles a genteel southern bastion. The sunken ships and torpedoes in the harbor tell only part of the story. Richmond is gone, burned to the ground. And it was not a Union artillery bombardment that did the job, but the people of Richmond themselves.
    When it becomes too dangerous for the Malvern to go any farther, Lincoln is rowed to shore. “We passed so close to torpedoes that we
could have put out our hands and touched them,” bodyguard William Crook will later write. His affection for Lincoln is enormous, and of all the bodyguards, Crook fusses most over the president, treating him like a child who must be protected.
    It is Crook who is fearful, while Lincoln bursts with amazement and joy that this day has finally come. Finally, he steps from the barge and up onto the landing.
    But what Lincoln sees now can only be described as