The biggest story gripping Chicago this May morning is the dramatic capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis — caught while disguised as a woman! The Tribune delights in describing 'Jeff Davis, in gown and bonnet, covering up his whiskers with his hand, with a bucket on his arm, going to the spring to get some water' before a sharp-eyed Union sergeant lifted his dress and discovered 'those No. 13 calfskins' (size 13 boots). Davis and his entourage, including Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens and cavalry raider General Wheeler, have been delivered to Fortress Monroe prison. Meanwhile, the conspiracy trial for Lincoln's assassination continues in Washington, with testimony about cipher letters found on assassin John Wilkes Booth's body that match codes captured from the rebel State Department in Richmond. The paper also reports on racial tensions in Charleston, where white citizens walked out of a meeting when 'a considerable number of negroes' showed up, and Chief Justice Chase told crowds that colored people should have voting rights in forming new state constitutions.

This front page captures America in the chaotic aftermath of Lincoln's assassination and the Confederacy's collapse. The Union is simultaneously pursuing justice (trying the conspirators), rounding up rebel leaders (Davis, Stephens, Governor Vance), and grappling with Reconstruction's thorniest question: what rights will freed slaves have? The racial tensions in Charleston and Chief Justice Chase's support for Black voting rights foreshadow the bitter political battles ahead over the 14th and 15th Amendments. With Confederate armies surrendering across the South and rebel governors being arrested for treason, the federal government faces the monumental task of rebuilding a shattered nation while determining how to reintegrate both former rebels and four million newly freed slaves into American democracy.

• Belle Boyd, the notorious Confederate spy from the Shenandoah Valley, has been 'turned penniless out of her hotel in Liverpool,' with the landlord keeping her baggage as security for unpaid bills — she's now 'suffering from extreme destitution'
• A distillery tax dispute in Iowa involves staggering sums — Jaeger & Co. owed about $14,000 in taxes, but with penalties and interest, their total debt has ballooned to $28,000, while another firm faces a $33,000 claim
• When Davis's party received President Johnson's proclamation offering a $100,000 reward for Davis, 'Davis read it and trembled, his hands dropped to his side, and, with a groan, he dropped the paper. His wife picked it up and read it aloud, and the whole party burst into tears'
• Tennessee's constitution under military governor Andrew Johnson didn't give voting rights to colored people 'or even right to testify in a court of justice,' yet it was still accepted by the federal government

• That $100,000 bounty on Jefferson Davis mentioned in the paper would be worth about $1.7 million today — making him one of the most wanted fugitives in American history
• The 4th Michigan Cavalry regiment that captured Davis was led by Colonel Benjamin Pritchard, who was only 24 years old when he bagged the Confederate president
• Alexander Stephens, the Confederate Vice President now imprisoned with Davis, was so frail he weighed only 90 pounds — he would later serve in Congress and as Georgia's governor after being pardoned
• Those size 13 boots that gave away Davis's disguise were enormous for the era — the average man's shoe size in 1865 was about size 8, making Davis's feet truly distinctive
• The cipher codes found on Booth's body that matched Richmond rebel documents suggest the assassination plot had direct Confederate government backing — a conspiracy theory that would persist for decades