The next day, in the city "where Secession had its birth," Carleton walked amid the burning houses and the streets deserted of its citizens, saw the entrance of the black troops, and went into the empty slave-market, securing its dingy flag--the advertisement of sale of human bodies--as a relic. During several days he wrote letters, in which the notes of gratitude and exultation, mingled with pity and sympathy with the suffering, and full of scarcely restrainable joy in view of the speedy termination of the war, are discernible. CHAPTER XVI. WITH LINCOLN IN RICHMOND. Whither now should Carleton go? There were but few fields to conquer, for the slaveholders' rebellion was swiftly nearing its end, and Carleton felt his work with armies and amid war would soon and happily be over. He knew it was now time for Grant to deliver his blows, and make the anvil at Petersburg ring. Eager to be in at the death of treason, he hastened home, shortened his stay with wife and friends, and hurried on to City Point. As usual, he was present in the nick of time. He was able to write his first letter from the Army of the Potomac, descriptive of the attack on Fort Steadman, March 25th. On the 26th he saw again the sparkling-eyed Sheridan. Once more he began to use his whip of scorpions upon the editors and people who were bestowing all praises upon the Army of the West, with only criticism or niggardly commendation for the Armies of the Potomac and the James, with many a sneer and odious comparison. He witnessed the tremendous attack of the rebel host upon the Ninth Corps, hearing first the signal gun, next the rebel yell, then the rattling fire of musketry deepening into volleys, and finally the roar of the cannonade. Carleton, within three minutes after the firing of the first gun, took position with his glass and note-book, upon a hill. One hundred guns and mortars were in full play, surpassing in beauty and grandeur all other night scenes ever witnessed by him. In some moments he could count thirty shells at once in the air, which was filled with fiery arcs crossing each other at all angles. Between the flaming bases, at the muzzle and the explosion, making two ends of an arch, there were thousands of muskets flashing over the entrenchments. Yet, despite the awful noise and the spectacle so magnificent to the eye, there were few men hurt within the Union lines. After forty hours of rain, the wind blew from the northwest, and the mud rapidly disappeared. Then Carleton began to look out for the great event, in which such giants as Lee and Johnston on one hand, and Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Hancock on the other, were to finish the game of military mathematics which had been progressing during four years. Carleton wrote, March 31, 1865, "How inspiring to watch the close of such a game." He expected a great battle. "The last flicker of a candle is sometimes its brightest flame."