“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do issue this my proclamation, as required by said act, ordering and requiring all deserters to return to their proper posts, and I do hereby notify them that all deserters who shall within sixty days from the date of this proclamation, viz.: on or before the tenth day of May, 1865, return to service, or report themselves to a provost-marshal, shall be pardoned, on condition that they return to their regiments and companies or such other organizations as they may be assigned to, and serve the remainder of their original terms of enlistment, and, in addition thereto, a period equal to the time lost by desertion. “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, this eleventh day of March, 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: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. “W. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.” CHAPTER XXIV. IN RICHMOND. President Visits City Point--Lee’s Failure--Grant’s Movement-- Abraham Lincoln in Richmond--Lee’s Surrender--President’s Impromptu Speech--Speech on Reconstruction--Proclamation Closing Certain Ports--Proclamation Relative to Maritime Rights-- Supplementary Proclamation--Orders from the War Department--The Traitor President. On the afternoon of the 23d of March, 1865, the President, accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln, his youngest son, and a few invited guests, left Washington for an excursion to City Point. The trip was taken under advice of his medical attendant, his health having become somewhat impaired by his unremitting attention to the pressing duties of his office. A desperate attempt had been made by Lee to break through the lines surrounding him. Assaulting our right centre, he had been repulsed with a severe loss. Shortly after, Grant determined that the moment had arrived for his advance. A movement was ordered along the entire line--Petersburg fell--Richmond was abandoned in hot haste--and Lee’s routed army “driven to the wall.” During the progress of the movement, the President forwarded, from time to time, the particulars--pressed on to the evacuated Capital--entered it, conspicuous amid the sweeping mass of men, women, and children, black, white, and yellow, running, shouting, dancing, swinging their caps, bonnets, and handkerchiefs--passed on to the deserted mansion of the rebel chief, cheer upon cheer going up from the excited multitude--there held a levee--left the same evening for City Point--and soon afterward returned to Washington. Lee, hemmed in on every side, soon after surrendered; the terms of capitulation, which were dictated by the magnanimous President, and dated Appomattox Court House, April ninth, 1865, being as follows: