CHAPTER XLIV.
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, AND END OF THE WAR.
Another Western Trip. Delivering Despatches to Quantrell's Courier. A Stoppage at Columbus, Ohio. News of the Assassination of President Lincoln. Return to New York. Derangement of Plans caused by the Assassination. I again go West. Mr. Lincoln's Body lying in State at Columbus. Return to Washington, and Interview with Baker. I meet a Confederate Officer, and get him to take a Mes sage for me to the South. An aged Admirer. Colonel Baker proposes that I shall start on an Expedition in search of Myself. A Letter from my Brother, and a Request to meet him in New York. A Determination to visit Europe. I accept Baker's Commission, and start for New York.
S I did not know, and certainly did not appreciate the full extent, or full importance, of the great disaster that had befallen the Confederate cause, so soon as my business in Wall Street was brought to a conclusion I
sought a conference with the agents with whom I had been co-operating. They were inclined to take the gloomiest possible view of the situation. With the fall of Richmond, and the surrender of Lee's army, the people of the North seemed to have concluded that the long contest with the South was over, to all intents and purposes. It was but natural, perhaps, in view of the intense excitement which prevailed, and the unanimity of public opinion, that the Confederate agents should have regarded the future of the contest in a great degree from a Northern standpoint, and should have been largely influenced by the opinions which they heard expressed on every side.
I, however, was not disposed to give up while a Southern
soldier remained in the field, and, after a full discussion of the condition of affairs, I persuaded my companions to view matters as I did. Richmond was our capital, but it was not the whole South; and Lee's army, important as it was, was far from being the whole Confederate force. General Joe John-
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