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 1865] Lincoln with Grant at City Point. 537 "The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. Meanwhile you are to press to the utmost your military advantages." On March 20, 1865, General Grant invited President Lincoln to pay him a visit at City Point. The President accepted, and had an agreeable fortnight's sojourn at the General's headquarters. Lincoln was a fine horseman; and the reviews, the rides, the evenings by the camp-fire, above all the confidence and moral of officers and soldiers, which he witnessed, afforded him perhaps the most refreshing recreation he enjoyed during his whole official term. For several weeks Grant had been anxious, with good cause, lest Lee and his army should escape from the toils he was gradually winding about them. On the very day of the President's arrival at City Point, Grant wrote a com- prehensive order to his leading commanders, Meade before Petersburg, Ord before Richmond, and Sheridan at the head of the cavalry, to prepare for a movement to the left on March 29, to turn the enemy "out of his present position around Petersburg." Sheridan was not yet with him, but was daily expected to come in, after a cavalry raid, in which, leaving Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley on February 27, he had swept south-westward to Staunton, thence south-east to Columbia on the James river, forty miles to the rear of Richmond, and thence by an eccentric northward circle round Richmond to join Grant's army at City Point, where, according to expectation, he arrived on March 26. On his way he had defeated Early, capturing the remnant of his force, in all 1600 officers and men, and wrought great destruction to the James river canal and the railroad from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. As if to fill Grant's hand of winning cards to overflowing, General Sherman also arrived at City Point from North Carolina the day after Sheridan; and there occurred one or two meetings at which President Lincoln, General Grant, General Sherman, and Admiral Porter, who had taken part in January in the capture of Fort Fisher, and was then at City Point with his fleet, were present. The record of the conversations at these meetings is very meagre. The generals related their experiences, and expressed full confidence in their ability to prevent the junction of Lee and Johnston. The President wished the war might come to an end without another bloody battle, and intimated his hope that Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders might personally escape, and his willingness to deal liberally in restoring the subverted authority of the Union in the Southern States. When Sherman departed to rejoin his command in North Carolina, it was with the understanding that he would be ready by April 10 to resume his northward march to join Grant CH. XVI.