With utterances so just and fair, so firm and hopeful, so penitent and humble, so benignant and charitable, so mournfully tender and sweetly solemn, so full of the fervor of true piety and the very pathos of patriotism, small wonder is it that among those numberless thousands who, on this memorable occasion, gazed upon the tall, gaunt form of Abraham Lincoln, and heard his clear, sad voice, were some who almost imagined they saw the form and heard the voice of one of the great prophets and leaders of Israel; while others were more reminded of one of the Holy Apostles of the later Dispensation who preached the glorious Gospel "On Earth, Peace, good will toward Men," and received in the end the crown of Christian martyrdom. But not one soul of those present --unless his own felt such presentiment--dreamed for a moment that, all too soon, the light of those brave and kindly eyes was fated to go out in darkness, that sad voice to be hushed forever, that form to lie bleeding and dead, a martyred sacrifice indeed, upon the altar of his Country! CHAPTER XXX. COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED CONSPIRACY. Meantime, Sherman's Armies were pressing along upward, toward Raleigh, from Columbia, marching through swamps and over quicksands and across swollen streams--cold, wet, hungry, tired--often up to their armpits in water, yet keeping their powder dry, and silencing opposing batteries or driving the Enemy, who doggedly retired before them, through the drenching rains which poured down unceasingly for days, and even weeks, at a time. On the 16th of March, 1865, a part of Sherman's Forces met the Enemy, under General Joe Johnston, at Averysboro, N. C., and forced him to retire. On the 19th and 20th of March, occurred the series of engagements, about Mill Creek and the Bentonville and Smithfield cross-roads, which culminated in the attack upon the Enemy, of the 21st of March, and his evacuation, that night, of his entire line of works, and retreat upon Smithfield. This was known as the Battle of Bentonville, and was the last battle fought between the rival Forces under Sherman and Johnston. The Armies of Sherman, now swollen by having formed a junction with the troops under Schofield and Terry, which had come from Newbern and Wilmington, went into camp at Goldsboro, North Carolina, to await the rebuilding of the railroads from those two points on the coast, and the arrival of badly needed clothing, provision, and other supplies, after which the march would be resumed to Burksville, Virginia. By the 25th of March, the railroad from Newbern was in running order, and General Sherman, leaving General Schofield in command of his eighty thousand troops, went to Newbern and Morehead City, and thence by steamer to City Point, for a personal interview with General Grant. On the same day, Lee made a desperate but useless assault, with twenty thousand (of his seventy thousand) men upon Fort