As he rode forward and halted at the porch to make this inquiry, I had my wished-for opportunity, but my eyes sought his face in vain for any indication of what was passing in his mind. Whatever may have been there, as Colonel Newhall has well written, “not a muscle of his face told tales on his thoughts”; and if he felt any elation, neither his voice, features, nor his eyes betrayed it. Once out of the gate, General Grant, followed by his staff, turned to the left and moved off at a rapid trot. General Lee continued on his way towards his army at a walk, to be received by his devoted troops with cheers and tears, and to sit down and pen a farewell order that, to this day, no old soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia can read without moistening eyes and swelling throat. General Grant, on his way to his field headquarters on this eventful Sunday evening, dismounted, sat quietly down by the road-side, and wrote a short and simple despatch, which a galloping aide bore at full speed to the nearest telegraph station. On its reception in the nation’s capital this despatch was flashed over the wires to every hamlet in the country, causing every steeple in the North to rock to its foundation, and sending one tall, gaunt, sad-eyed, weary-hearted man in Washington to his knees, thanking God that he had lived to see the beginning of the end, and that he had at last been vouchsafed the assurance that he had led his people aright. THE END FOOTNOTE: [1] This explanation is interesting because it represents a view more prevalent at that time than this. But the historians of to-day would not give the conflict over slavery as the first and chief cause of the Civil War. [EDITOR.] TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.