sixty-three, and on the 26th day of March, A. D. eighteen hundred and sixty-four, did, with the object to suppress the existing Rebellion, to induce all persons to return to their loyalty, and to restore the authority of the United States, issue proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to certain persons who had directly or by implication participated in the said Rebellion; and

"WHEREAS, Many persons who had so engaged in said Rebellion have since the issuance of said proclamations, failed or neglected to take the benefits offered thereby; and

"WHEREAS, Many persons who have been justly deprived of all claim to amnesty and pardon thereunder, by reason of their participation directly or by implication in said Rebellion, and continued hostility to the Government of the United States since the date of said proclamations, now desire to apply for and obtain amnesty and pardon:

"To the end, therefore, that the authority of the Government of the United States may be restored, and that peace, order, and freedom may be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons who have, directly or indirectly, participated in the existing Rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and except in cases where legal proceedings under the laws of the United States providing for the confiscation of property of persons engaged in rebellion, have been instituted; but upon the condition, nevertheless, that every such person shall take and subscribe the following oath (or affirmation), and thenceforward keep and maintain said. oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation, and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:

“'I,

do solemnly swear (or affirm), in

presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing Rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves. So help me God.'

"The following classes of persons are excepted from the benefits of this Proclamation: 1st. All who are or shall have been pretended civil or diplomatic officers or otherwise domestic or foreign agents of the pretended Confederate Government; 2d. All who left judicial stations under the United States to aid the Rebellion; 3d. All who shall have been military or naval officers of said pretended Confederate Government above the rank of colonel in the army, or lieutenant in the navy; 4th. All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to aid the Rebellion; 5th. All who resigned or tendered resignations of their commissions in the army or navy of the United States, to evade duty in resisting the Rebellion; 6th. All who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war persons found in the United States service as officers, soldiers, seamen, or in other capacities; 7th. All persons who have been or are absentees from the United States for the purpose of aiding the Rebellion; 8th. All military and naval officers in the rebel service, who were educated by the Government in the Military Academy at West Point or the United States Naval Academy; 8th. All persons who held the pretended offices of Governors of States in insurrection against the United States; 10th. All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and protection of the United States, and passed beyond the Federal military lines into the so-called Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the Rebellion; 11th. All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of the commerce of the United States upon the high

seas, and all persons who have made raids into the United States from Canada, or been engaged in destroying the commerce of the United States upon the lakes and rivers that separate the British provinces from the United States; 12th. All persons who at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed are in military, naval, or civil confinement or custody, or under bonds of the civil, military, or naval authorities, or agents of the United States as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind, either before or after conviction; 13th. All persons who have voluntarily participated in said Rebellion, and the estimated value of whose taxable property is over twenty thousand dollars; 14th. All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as prescribed in the President's Proclamation of December 8th, A. D. 1863, or an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States since the date of said Proclamation, and who have not thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate.

"Provided, That special application may be made to the President for pardon by any person belonging to the excepted classes; and such clemency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States.

"The Secretary of State will establish rules and regulations for administering and recording the said amnesty oath, so as to insure its benefit to the people, and guard the Government against fraud.

"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. "Done at the City of Washington, the twenty-ninth

day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth. "By the President: ANDREW JOHNSON.

"WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

CHAPTER X.

CLOSING SCENES OF THE REBELLION-SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON'S ARMY-ALL THE REBELS LAY DOWN THEIR ARMS-THE LAST TRICK OF THE

Ο

"CONFEDERACY "-GENERAL

SHERMAN.

N the 14th of April, 1865, General Sherman, by flag of truce, received a communication from Joseph E. Johnston, asking a temporary armistice for arranging terms for the surrender of the rebel army under him. Sherman answered at once that he was empowered to arrange terms, and notified him that the same conditions accorded Lee would be given to him. Sherman then wrote to General Grant, telling him what he had done; also that he had invited Governor Vance to return to Raleigh, and that the leading politicians whom he met were not backward in stating that the war was over, and nothing was left to the Southern people but to return to their allegiance to the Government. Not until late on the 16th did General Johnston make a reply; but the delay, not as had been erroneously suspected, was from no fault on his part. At noon on the next day the two generals met, and then Sherman discovered, for the first time, that he had overlooked the real point in Johnston's proposition for the suspension of hostilities, that the "civil

authorities of the two countries " might have an opportunity to negotiate for peace. It was natural enough that General Sherman should have overlooked such a piece of childish folly at that moment, or such an unreasonable trick on the part of a soldier, after all that had happened about the recognition of the "Southern Confederacy." Could any sane man have reasoned himself into the conclusion that, when the very life had been crushed out of the Rebellion, and its military power destroyed, the United States Government would go to negotiating for peace with the "Confederacy," as such, a thing it never had recognized in the darkest hour of the national cause? Nobody knew better than General Johnston the utter preposterousness of the purpose he had put forward. The air of insincerity attached to this matter must detract from the character of the man whom John William Draper, certainly one of the fairest and ablest writers on the war, boldly pronounces the first soldier of the Rebellion.

When General Johnston informed Sherman, at their meeting on the 17th, that this thing was in his mind, and even in the words he wrote asking the armistice, Sherman frankly told him that the Government did not recognize such a power or country as the "Southern Confederacy," and that he could not receive or transmit to Washington anything claiming to come from such "Confederacy." That day was spent in discussing the terms of surrender, without reaching a conclusion.

Soon after they met Sherman showed Johnston