Virginia Governor Announces Removal of Robert E. Lee Statue

[David Lockmiller]

The following are excerpts from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, at pages 731-32.

Good Friday, April 14, 1865, was surely one of Lincoln’s happiest days. The morning began with a leisurely breakfast in the company of his son Robert, just arrived in Washington. . . . As the father imparted his advice, Elizabeth Keckley observed, “his face was more cheerful than [she] had seen it for a long while.”

At 11 a.m., Grant arrived at the White House to attend the regularly scheduled Friday cabinet meeting. He had hoped for word that Johnston’s army, the last substantial rebel force remaining, had surrendered to Sherman, but no news had yet arrived. Lincoln told Grant not to worry. [Note: Johnston followed the lead of General Lee; there would not be many years of guerilla warfare following the American Civil War. General Johnston signed the surrender of his army to General Sherman on April 26, 1865.] [Lincoln] predicted that the tidings would come soon, “for he had last night the usual dream which he had preceding nearly every great and important event of the War.” . . . Grant remarked that not all those great events had been victories, but Lincoln remained hopeful that this time this event would be favorable.

The complexities of reestablishing law and order in the Southern states dominated the conversation [of the subsequent cabinet meeting]. . . . Lincoln said that “he thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned,” since he and the cabinet were more likely to “accomplish more without them than with them” regarding Reconstruction. He noted that “there were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped that there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over.”

As for rebel leaders, Lincoln reiterated his resolve to perpetrate no further violence. “None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them.” While their continued presence on American soil might prove troublesome, he preferred to “frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off.” To illustrate his point, he shook “his hands as if scaring sheep,” and said, “Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”

Stanton later wrote that Lincoln seemed “more cheerful and happy” than at any previous cabinet meeting, thrilled by “the near prospect of firm and durable peace at home and abroad.” Throughout the discussion, Stanton recalled, Lincoln “spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy,” exhibiting in marked degree the kindness and humanity of his disposition, and the tender and forgiving spirit that so eminently distinguished him.”

I want to note that I changed the last paragraph of my previous post to read:

"I believe that General Lee’s statute should remain where it is, in order to honor his noble act of moral courage. I believe that President Abraham Lincoln would have agreed with this assessment."