Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/361

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 291 in the mountains. Gen. Grant s only anxiety each morning was lest he should find the army of Gen. Lee moving away from him, and late in March he determined to strike the final blow at the rebel lion. Moving for the last time by the left flank, his forces under Sheridan fought and gained a bril liant victory over the Confederate left at Five Forks, and at the same time Gens. Humphreys, Wright, and Parke moved against the Confederate works, breaking their lines and capturing many prisoners and guns. Petersburg was evacuated on April 2. The Confederate government fled from Richmond the same afternoon and evening, and Grant, pursuing the broken and shattered remnant of Lee s army, received their surrender at Appo- mattox Court-House on April 9. About 28,000 Confederates signed the parole, and an equal number had been killed, captured, and dispersed in the operations immediately preceding the sur render. Gen. Sherman, a few days afterward, received the surrender of Johnston, and the last Confederate army, under Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, west of the Mississippi, laid down its arms. President Lincoln had himself accompanied the army in its last triumphant campaign, and had entered Richmond immediately after its surrender, receiving the cheers and benedictions not only of the negroes whom he had set free, but of a great number of white people, who were weary of the