Wanderlust World Wanderlust World From March to April 1865, President Lincoln navigated the war's end and the nation's uncertain future.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all..." — Lincoln framed the war as divine judgment on slavery, urging binding up the nation's wounds. The speech is now carved in the Lincoln Memorial.
Lincoln visited Grant's headquarters at City Point, VA, then entered fallen Richmond on April 4—walking streets still smoldering, greeted by freedpeople. He sat at Jefferson Davis's desk in the Confederate White House.
News of Appomattox reached Washington. Lincoln requested "Dixie" be played at the White House celebration—"I have always thought 'Dixie' one of the best tunes I ever heard... we have fairly captured it."
From the White House window, Lincoln endorsed limited Black suffrage ("very intelligent" veterans) and outlined Louisiana's reconstruction as a model. John Wilkes Booth attended, muttering, "That means n***** citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through."
At Ford's Theatre, Booth shot Lincoln during Our American Cousin. Lincoln died 7:22 AM, April 15. Secretary Stanton: "Now he belongs to the ages."
Lincoln's 10% Plan for reconstruction, the 13th Amendment (ratified Dec 1865), and his vision of malice toward none became his legacy—unfulfilled in life, contested in death.