"I think it providential that this great rebellion is crushed just as Congress has adjourned and there are none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we are wise and discreet we shall reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation with order prevailing, and the Union reëstablished before Congress comes together in December. I hope there will be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these men. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish resentment if we expect harmony and Union. There is too great a disposition on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to these States, to treat the people not as fellow-citizens; there is too little respect for their rights." He made it plain that he meant the words of his second inaugural address, hardly six weeks before, when he promised that his mission should be "to bind up the wounds of the Nation." "Very cheerful and very hopeful," Mr. Stanton reported, "spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy, and of the establishment of the Government of Virginia." Also, he spoke of the state government in Louisiana, and that which he had mapped out for North Carolina. General Grant was uneasy about Sherman and Johnston. The President said: "I have no doubt that favourable news will come. I had a dream last night, my usual dream which has preceded every important event of the war. I seemed to be on a singular and indescribable vessel, always the same, moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore." [Illustration: MRS. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON (Lydia McLane, daughter of Senator McLane, of Delaware.)] He did not know that on that day Sherman was writing Johnston, "I am empowered to make terms of peace." But he knew he had so empowered Sherman. I can imagine that through his heart the refrain was beating: "There will be no more bloodshed, no more devastation. There shall be no more humiliations for this Southern people, and God will give it into my hands to reunite my country." He went for a long, quiet drive with his wife. "Mary," he said, "we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington; but the war is over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happiness. Then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our days in quiet." He longed for quiet. The Sabbath before, while driving along the banks of the James, he said: "Mary, when I die, I would like to lie in a quiet place like this," and related a dream which he felt to be presage of death. Sailing on the James, he read aloud twice, and in a manner that impressed Charles Sumner, who was present, this passage from Macbeth: