The walk
was a mile and a half long, and this gentleman says: "I never passed a
more anxious time than in this walk. In going up [the river] ... we ran
the risk of torpedoes and the obstructions; but I think the risk the
President ran in going through the streets of Richmond was even greater,
and shows him to have great courage. The streets of the city were filled
with drunken rebels, both officers and men, and all was confusion.... A
large portion of the city was still on fire." Probably enough the
impunity with which this great risk was run was due to the dazing and
bewildering effect of an occasion so confused and exciting. Meantime,
Lee, abandoning Petersburg, but by no means abandoning "the Cause,"
pushed his troops with the utmost expedition to gain that southwestern
route which was the slender thread whence all Confederate hope now
depended. His men traveled light and fast; for, poor fellows, they had
little enough to carry! But Grant was an eager pursuer. Until the sixth
day that desperate flight and chase continued. Lee soon saw that he
could not get to Danville, as he had hoped to do, and thereupon changed
his plan and struck nearly westward, for open country, via Appomattox
Court House. All the way, as he marched, Federal horsemen worried the
left flank of his columns, while the infantry came ever closer upon the
rear, and kept up a ceaseless skirmishing.
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