The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

STATE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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church, and, making a hasty preparation for delpartur,,
left that niglht by the Danville Railroad. Richmlond and
Petersburg were both abandoned during the night. At
half-past eight the President sent the following dispatch
to Secretary Stanton:/ This morning Lieutenant-General Grant reports Petersburg evacuated,
and he is confident that Richmond also is.
He is pushing forward to cut off, if possible, the retreating rebel army.
A. LINCOLN.
Fifteen minutes before this dispatch was sent, Richmond
had been occupied by our troops. The second brigade
of the Tllird Division of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps,
under Major-General Weitzel, were the first to enter tlhe
city. They found that the rebel authorities had not only
carried off whatever they could, but had set fire to
tobacco warehouses, Government workshops, and other
buildings, till there was great danger that the whole city
would be consumed. General. eitzel at once set the
men to work to put out the fires, and re-established as
much order as was possible.
The President, immediately after sending the above
dispatch, went to the front, where all things had changed
at once from the terrors of the fierce assault to the exultation of eager pursuit. General Grant's objective in
the whole campaign had been, not Richmond, but Lee's
army; and for that he pushed forward, regardless of the
captured cities which lay behind him, showing himself as
relentless in pursuit as he had been undaunted in attack.
The President did not, indeed, follow the army in its
forced march to cut off Lee's retreat, but he did what
would be almost as incredible, if we did not know how
difficult he found it to attribute to others hatred of
which he felt no impulse himself-he went to Richmond
on the day after it was taken.
Nothing could be more characteristic or more striking
than his entrance into the rebel capital. He came up in
a man-of-war, about two P. M., to the landing called the