President Lincoln, who was at City Point during Grant’s final operations against Lee, went up to Richmond the next day after the city fell and held a levee in the house that had been occupied by Jeff Davis two days before. Thousands of black people crowded the streets to welcome and bless their emancipator, and it became necessary to use military force to clear the streets so that Lincoln could pass. His personal safety was feared for when he proposed the visit, but no insult was offered him, and two days later he repeated his visit, accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln, several United States senators and Vice-President Johnson. Eight days later he was assassinated in Washington, and the South lost the best friend they could have had in the pacification and reconstruction days that were to come, for the heart of the great Lincoln was free from all bitterness and resentment towards his erring brothers. BILL’S LAST FIGHT. William Slater and Eber Ponto were among the best soldiers of our company. Neither had ever shirked a duty and, having kept step side by side for three years, were the closest of comrades. In fact, I believe either would have walked into the jaws of death for the other. Ponto lived to see the end of the war and came home wearing a sergeant’s chevrons, while Slater was left sleeping on a hillside at Petersburg. Ponto was a Frenchman and in after years, at a reunion of the regiment, he told us the circumstances of Bill’s death in about the following words: “Remember dat charge at Petersburg, boys? ’Twas a beeg fight, I’ll never forget dat night when we wer’ lyin’ behind dat stone wall waitin’ for mornin’ to come.” “I don’t lak dat waitin’ round’ for a fight. Ze Frenchman he lak de word an’ de blow together. “Well, Bill and I were smokin’ our laurel root pipes and I notis Bill wer’ keepin’ mighty quiet lak he doin’ a heap of thinkin’--of course he never say much, tain’t his way. Fin’ly he look up an he say, Ebe, ole’ boy, dere goin’ to be a hot time in ze mornin’ an’ ’twill be my las’ fight.” “I say ’pshaw, Billee boy, guess you bin soke up too much dat air Chickahominy malaria over at Cole Harbor las’ week’--cause you know boys when you git dat in your bones it mak’ everything look blue even to your finger nails. “Bill he say, ‘no, I’m all right, but something tell me dat if you’re alive tomorrow night you’ll be smokin’ alone.’ “Then I say to Bill, ‘You just lay low in de mornin’ an’ I’ll tell them you’r sick an’ get you excuse from dis scrap.’ An’ Bill he say, ‘Ebe, you never knew me to ‘flunk’ did you? Well, I’m not goin’ to do it now. Where you an’ old Co. H go I’m goin’, but promis’ me, Ebe, that you’ll keep close to me and if I’m killed I want you to take my watch an’ always carry it,’ an’ I promis’, an’ we shake hands for I lak Bill and he lak me.