The President’s Reception of Negroes--The South opens
Negotiations for Peace--Proposals--Lincoln’s Second
Inauguration--The Last Battle--Davis Captured--End of the
War--Death of Lincoln--Public Mourning.
The political year of 1865 began with the assemblage of Congress
(December 5th, 1864). The following day, Mr. Lincoln sent in his
Message. After setting forth the state of American relations with
foreign Governments, he announced that the ports of Fernandina,
Norfolk, and Pensacola had been opened. In 1863, a Spaniard named
Arguelles, who had been guilty of stealing and selling slaves, had
been handed over to the Cuban Government by President Lincoln, and
for this the President had been subjected to very severe criticism.
In the Message he vindicated himself, declaring that he had no doubt
of the power and duty of the Executive under the law of nations to
exclude enemies of the human race from an asylum in the United States.
He showed an enormous increase in industry and revenue, a great
expansion of population, and other indications of material progress;
thus practically refuting General Fremont’s shameless declaration that
Lincoln’s “administration had been, politically and financially, a
failure.” On New Year’s Day, 1865, the President, as was usual, held
a reception. The negroes--who waited round the door in crowds to see
their great benefactor, whom they literally worshipped as a superior
being, and to whom many attributed supernatural or divine power--had
never yet been admitted into the White House, except as servants. But
as the crowd of white visitors diminished, a few of the most confident
ventured timidly to enter the hall of reception, and, to their extreme
joy and astonishment, were made welcome by the President. Then many
came in. An eye-witness wrote of this scene as follows--“For nearly two
hours Mr. Lincoln had been shaking the hands of the white ‘sovereigns,’
and had become excessively weary--but here his nerves rallied at the
unwonted sight, and he welcomed this motley crowd with a heartiness
that made them wild with exceeding joy. They laughed and wept, and wept
and laughed, exclaiming through their blinding tears, ‘God bless you!’
‘God bless Abraham Lincoln!’ ‘God bress Massa Linkum!’”
It was usual with Louis the XI. to begin important State negotiations
by means of vagabonds of no faith or credibility, that they might be
easily disowned if unsuccessful; and this was precisely the course
adopted by Davis and his Government when they employed Jewett and
Saunders to sound Lincoln as to peace. A more reputable effort was
made in February, 1865, towards the same object. On December 28th,
1864, Mr. Lincoln had furnished Secretary F. P. Blair with a pass to
enter the Southern lines and return, stipulating, however, that he
should in no way treat politically with the rebels. But Mr. Blair
returned with a message from Jefferson Davis, in which the latter
declared his willingness to enter into negotiations to secure peace
to _the two countries_. To which Mr. Lincoln replied that he would
be happy to receive any agent with a view to securing peace to _our
common country_. On January 29th, the Federal Government received an
application from A. H. Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President, R.
M. T. Hunter, President of the rebel Senate, and A. J. Campbell, the
rebel Secretary of War, to enter the lines as _quasi_-commissioners,
to confer with the President. This was a great advance in dignity
beyond Saunders and Jewett. Permission was given for the parties
to hold a conference on the condition that they were not to land,
which caused great annoyance to the rebel agents, who made no secret
of their desire to visit Washington. They were received on board
a steamboat off Fortress Monroe. By suggestion of General Grant,
Mr. Lincoln was personally present at the interview. The President
insisted that three conditions were indispensable--1. Restoration
of the national authority in all the states; 2. Emancipation of
the slaves; and 3. Disbanding of the forces hostile to Government.
The Confederate Commissioners suggested that if hostilities could
be suspended while the two Governments united in driving the French
out of Mexico, or in a war with France, the result would be a better
feeling between the South and North, and the restoration of the Union.
This proposition--which, to say the least, indicated a lamentable
want of gratitude to the French Emperor, who had been anxious from
the beginning to recognise the South and destroy the Union, and who
would have done so but for the English Government--was rejected by Mr.
Lincoln as too vague. During this conference, Mr. Hunter insisted that
a constitutional ruler could confer with rebels, and adduced as an
instance the correspondence of Charles I. with his Parliament. To which
Mr. Lincoln replied that he did not pretend to be versed in questions
of history, but that he distinctly recollected that Charles I. _lost
his head_. Nothing was agreed upon. But, as Mr. Stephens declared,
Jefferson Davis coloured the report of this meeting so as to crush the
great Southern peace-party. He began by stating that he had received
a written notification which satisfied him that Mr. Lincoln wished to
confer as to peace, when the truth was that Lincoln had forbidden Mr.
Blair to open any such negotiation. And having, by an inflammatory
report, stirred up many people to hold “blackflag” meetings and
“fire the Southern heart,” he said of the Northern men in a public
speech--“We will teach them that, when they talk to us, they talk to
their masters.”[31] Or, as it was expressed by a leading Confederate
journal--“A respectful attitude, _cap in hand_, is that which befits a
Yankee when speaking to a Southerner.”
On January 31st, the House of Representatives passed a resolution
submitting to the Legislatures of all the states a constitutional
amendment entirely abolishing slavery, which had already passed the
Senate (April 8th, 1864). On the 4th March, 1865, Mr. Lincoln was
inaugurated for a second time. Four years before, when the same
ceremony was performed, he was the least known and the most hated
man who had ever been made President. Since then a tremendous storm
had darkened the land, and now the sky, growing blue again, let the
sunlight fall on his head, and the world saw what manner of man he was.
And such a day this 4th of March literally was, for it began with so
great a tempest that it was supposed the address must be delivered in
the Senate Chamber instead of the open air. But, as Raymond writes,
“the people had gathered in immense numbers before the Capitol, in
spite of the storm, and just before noon the rain ceased, the clouds
broke away, and, as the President took the oath of office, the blue sky
appeared, a small white cloud, like a hovering bird, seemed to hang
above his head, and the sunlight broke through the clouds, and fell
upon him with a glory afterwards felt to have been an emblem of the
martyr’s crown which was so soon to rest upon his head.” Arnold and
many others declare that, at this moment, a brilliant star made its
appearance in broad daylight, and the incident was regarded by many as
an omen of peace. As I have myself seen in America a star at noon-day
for two days in succession, I do not doubt the occurrence, though I do
not remember it on this 4th of March. The inaugural address was short,
but remarkable for vigour and a very conciliatory spirit. He said--
“On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war.
All dreaded it--all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural
address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether
to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in
the city seeking to destroy it without war.... Both parties
deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than
let the nation survive, and the other would accept war
rather than let it perish--and the war came. One-eighth of
the population were slaves, who constituted a peculiar and
powerful interest. All knew that this interest was the cause
of the war. To strengthen and perpetuate this interest was the
object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war,
while the Government claimed right to no more than restrict
the territorial enlargement of it.... Both parties read the
same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid
against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare
to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from
the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we
be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That
of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own
purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must
needs be that offences come, but woe unto the man by whom the
offence cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is
one of these offences which, in the providence of God, must
needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed
time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North
and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom
the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from
those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God
always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray,
that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the
bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be requited by
another drawn with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago, so
it must still be said the judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether. With malice toward no one, with charity
for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to
bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all nations.”
If there was ever a sincere utterance on earth expressive of deeply
religious faith, in spirit and in truth, it was in this address. And at
this time not only President Lincoln, but an extraordinary number of
people were inspired by a deeply earnest faith and feelings which few
can _now_ realise. Men who had never known serious or elevated thoughts
before, now became fanatical. The death of relatives in the war, the
enormous outrages inflicted by the rebels on prisoners, the system
of terrorism and cruelty which they advocated, had produced on the
Northern mind feelings once foreign to it, and they were now resolved
to go on, “in God’s name, and for this cause,” to the bitter end.
With the feeling of duty to God and the Constitution and the Union,
scores on scores of thousands of men laid down their lives on the
battle-field. And it was characteristic of the South that, having from
the beginning all the means at their command of cajoling, managing, and
ruling the North, as easily as ever a shepherd managed sheep, they,
with most exemplary arrogance, took precisely the course to provoke all
its resistance. Soldiers who had not these earnest feelings generally
turned into bounty-jumpers--men who took the premium for enlisting, and
deserted to enlist again--or else into marauders or stragglers. But the
great mass were animated by firm enthusiasm. I have been in several
countries during wild times, and have seen in a French revolution
courage amounting to delirium, but never have I seen anything like the
zeal which burned in every Union heart during the last two years of the
war of Emancipation.
On the 6th March, 1865, Mr. Fessenden, the Secretary of the Treasury,
voluntarily resigned, and Mr. Hugh M‘Culloch was appointed in his
place. This was the only change in the Cabinet. On the 11th March,
the President issued a proclamation, pardoning all deserters from the
army, on condition that they would at once return to duty. This had the
effect of bringing in several thousands, who materially aided the draft
for 300,000, which was begun on the 15th March, 1865.
And now the Southern Confederacy was rapidly hurrying down a darkening
road to ruin--nor was it even destined to perish with honour, and
true to its main principle; for, in their agony, its leaders even
looked to the despised negro for help. It was proposed to the rebel
Congress--and the measure was defeated by only one vote--that every
negro who would fight for the Confederacy should be set free; which
amounted, as Raymond declares, and as many rebels admitted, to a
practical abandonment of those ideas of slavery for whose supremacy the
rebellion had been set on foot. Of this proposition President Lincoln
said--“I have in my life heard many arguments why the negroes ought
to be slaves, but if they will fight for those who would keep them in
slavery, it will be a better argument than any I have yet heard. He who
would fight for that, ought to be a slave.”
The beginning of the end was now approaching. Early in February, Grant
advanced in person with four corps, with the object of establishing his
position near the Weldon road. After several days’ fighting, the Union
forces were in a position four miles in advance. On the 25th March,
1865, the rebels desperately assaulted and captured Fort Stedman,
a very important position near Petersburg; but the Union reserves
speedily retook it. General Grant was now afraid lest Lee should
escape, “and combine with Johnston, in which case a long campaign,
consuming most of the summer, might become necessary.”
On the 30th March, 1865, Grant attacked Lee, “with the army of the
Potomac, in front, while the army of the James forced the enemy’s right
flank, and Sheridan, with a large cavalry force, distracting Lee’s
attention by a blow at the junction of the South-side, Richmond, and
Danville railroads, suddenly wheeled, struck the South-side railroad
within ten miles of Petersburg, and, tearing it up as he went, fell
upon the rebel left flank.” During this time, and the four days which
ensued, there was much resolute and brilliant strategy, desperate
and rapid flanking, hard fighting, and personal heroism. It was the
perfection of war, and it was well done by both adversaries. Now
Petersburg was completely at the mercy of the national armies. During
the tremendous cannonading of Saturday night, April 1st, 1865, Lee,
in dire need, called for Longstreet to aid him. “Then,” in the words
of Arnold, “the bells of Richmond tolled, and the drums beat, calling
militia, citizens, clerks, everybody who could carry arms, to man the
lines from which Longstreet’s troops were retiring.” At early dawn
on Sunday, April 2nd, 1865, Grant ordered a general assault along
the entire line, and this, the last grand charge of the war, carried
everything decisively before it. Away the rebel lines rushed in full
retreat. At eleven a.m. of that eventful Sunday, Jefferson Davis, in
church, received a despatch from Lee, saying Petersburg and Richmond
could no longer be held. He ran in haste from church, and left the city
by the Danville railroad. During the night, Richmond and Petersburg
were both evacuated, the rebels first setting fire to the principal
buildings in Richmond, being urged by the desperate intention of making
another Moscow of their last city. The flames were, with difficulty,
put out by Weitzel’s cavalry. His regiment of black troops was the
first to enter the stronghold of slavery, its band playing “John
Brown’s Body.”
Lee, who had lost 18,000 prisoners and 10,000 in killed and wounded,
or half his force, fled with the remainder, in the utmost disorder,
toward Lynchburg. But he had not the merciful Meade in command after
him this time, but a man of blood and iron, “who was determined then
and there to make an end of it.” “Grant’s object,” says Raymond, “in
the whole campaign, had been, not Richmond, but Lee’s army; for that he
pushed forward, regardless of the captured cities which lay behind him,
showing himself as relentless in pursuit as he had been undaunted in
attack.”[32]
President Lincoln immediately went to the front and to Richmond the
day after it was taken. He entered quietly without a military guard,
accompanied only by his son, Admiral Porter, and the sailors who had
rowed him up. But the negroes soon found out that he was there, and
came rushing, with wild cries of delight, to welcome him. This scene
has been described as inexpressibly touching. The poor creatures, now
knowing, for the first time, that they were really free, came, their
eyes streaming with tears, weeping aloud for joy, shouting or dancing
with delight, and crying, without exception, in long chorus, “Glory,
glory, glory to God!” These people, who had acquired, as it were, in an
instant that freedom which they prized far above wealth, or aught else
on earth, found only in religious enthusiasm vent for their feelings.
It was at Grant’s suggestion that President Lincoln had so promptly
visited Richmond, to which he again returned on April 6th, 1865.
Meanwhile, the entire North and West was in a frenzy of delight. Those
who can recall it will always speak of it as such an outburst of joyful
excitement as they can hardly expect to take part in again. Cannon
roared and bells were rung from the Atlantic to the Pacific; drums beat
and trumpets sounded, no longer for war, but for gladness of peace.
There was such gratulation and hurrahing for happiness, and such kindly
greeting among strangers, that it seemed as if all the world were one
family at a merry-making. And, in every family, relatives and friends
began to get ready for husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, or lovers,
for all knew that, in a few days, more than a million of Union soldiers
would return home. For, at last, _the war was over_. The four years of
sorrow and suspense were at an end.
Meanwhile, Grant was hunting Lee with headlong haste. The rebel army
was cut off from its supplies and starving, its cattle falling dead,
“its men falling out of the ranks by thousands, from hunger and
fatigue.” Fighting desperately, flanked at every turn, on April 6th,
1865, Lee was overtaken by Sheridan and Meade at Deatonville, and met
with a crushing defeat. On Sunday, April 9th, 1865, he was compelled
to surrender to Grant on terms which, as Arnold rightly states, were
very liberal, magnanimous, and generous. The whole of Lee’s army were
allowed to return home on condition that they would not take up arms
again against the United States--not a difficult condition for an
enemy which made no scruple of immediately putting its paroled men
into the field, without regard to pledge or promise, as had happened
with the 37,000 Vicksburg prisoners. This stipulation gave much
dissatisfaction to the Union army. On the 26th April, 1865, General
Johnston surrendered his army to Sherman, not before the latter had
blundered sadly in offering terms on conditions which were entirely
beyond his powers to grant. Johnston finally obtained the same
conditions as Lee. The other rebel forces soon yielded--General Howell
Cobb surrendering to General Wilson in Georgia, on the 20th April; Dick
Taylor surrendering all the forces west of the Mississippi to General
Canby, to whom General Kirby Smith also surrendered on May 26th. On the
11th day of May, Jefferson Davis, flying in terror towards the sea, was
captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, by the 4th Michigan Regiment. He was
attired at the time as a woman, wearing his wife’s waterproof cloak,
and with a woman’s shawl drawn over his head. Those who captured him
say he was carrying a water-bucket. A rebel officer who was with him
admits that he was in a loose wrapper, and that a Miss Howell fastened
the shawl on to disguise him, but declares he was followed by a servant
with a bucket.[33] It has been vigorously denied that Davis was thus
disguised as a woman; but the affidavit of the colonel who captured
him, and the clumsy attempt of the rebel officer to establish the
contrary, effectually prove it. On the 4th October, 1864, Mr. Davis,
speaking of “the Yankees,” declared that “the only way to make spaniels
civil is to whip them.” A few months only had elapsed, and this man who
spoke of Northerners as of dogs, was caught by them running away as an
old woman with a tin pail. This was the end of the Great Rebellion.
Mr. Raymond declares that “the people had been borne on the top of
a lofty wave of joy ever since Sheridan’s victory; and the news of
Lee’s surrender, with Lincoln’s return to Washington, intensified
the universal exultation.” On the 10th April, 1865, an immense crowd
assembled at the White House, which was illuminated, as “the whole city
also was a-blaze with bonfires and waving with flags.” And on this
occasion, so inspired with joy soon to be turned to the deepest grief
which ever fell on the nation, Lincoln delivered his last address.
Hitherto he had always spoken with hope, but never without pain; after
he had for once lifted his voice in joy he never spoke again. In this
address he did not exult over the fallen, but discussed the best method
of reconstruction, or how to bring the revolted states again into the
Union as speedily and as kindly as possible.
No time was lost in relieving the nation from the annoyances attendant
on war. Between the 11th April, 1865, and the 15th, proclamations
were issued, declaring all drafting and recruiting to be stopped,
with all purchases of arms and supplies, removing all military
restrictions upon trade and commerce, and opening the blockaded ports.
The promptness with which the army returned to peaceful pursuits was,
considering its magnitude, unprecedented in history. The grand army
mustered over 1,200,000 men. The population of the twenty-three loyal
states, including Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland--which latter state
furnished soldiers for both sides, from a population of 3,025,745--was
22,046,472, and this supplied the aggregate, reduced to a three years’
standard, of 2,129,041 men, or fourteen and a-half per cent. of the
whole population. Ninety-six thousand and eighty-nine died from wounds,
184,331 from disease--total, 280,420--the actual number being more.
The cost of the war to the United States was 3,098,233,078 dollars,
while the States expended in bounties, or premiums to recruits,
500,000,000 dollars. The blacks furnished their fair proportion of
soldiers, and, if suffering and death be a test of courage, a much
greater proportion of bravery than the whites, as of 178,975 black
troops, 68,178 perished.
Mr. Lincoln’s last speech was entirely devoted to a kind consideration
of the means by which he might restore their privileges to the rebels;
and his last story was a kindly excuse for letting one escape. It was
known that Jacob Thompson, a notorious Confederate, meant to escape
in disguise. The President, as usual, was disposed to be merciful,
and to permit the arch-rebel to pass unmolested, but his Secretary
urged that he should be arrested as a traitor. “By permitting him
to escape the penalties of treason,” remarked the Secretary, “you
sanction it.” “Well,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “that puts me in mind of a
little story. There was an Irish soldier last summer who stopped at a
chemist’s, where he saw a soda-fountain. ‘Misther Doctor,’ he said,
‘give me, plase, a glass ov soda-wather--and if ye can put in a few
drops of whiskey unbeknown to anyone, I’ll be obleeged till yees.’
Now,” continued Mr. Lincoln, “if Jake Thompson is permitted to go away
unknown to anyone, where’s the harm? _Don’t_ have him arrested.”
And now the end was drawing near. As the taper which has burned almost
away flashes upwards, as if it would cast its fire-life to heaven, so
Abraham Lincoln, when his heart was for once, and once only, glad and
light, perished suddenly. During the whole war he had been hearing from
many sources that his life was threatened. There were always forming,
in the South, Devoted Bands and Brotherhoods of Death, sanctioned by
the Confederate Congress, whose object was simply arson, robbery, and
murder in the North. Many have forgotten, but I have not, what appeared
in the rebel newspapers of those days, or with what the detective
police of the North were continually busy. The deeds of Beal and
Kennedy,[34] men holding commissions from the authorities of Richmond
for the purpose, showed that a government could stoop to attempt to
burn hundreds of women and children alive, and throw railway trains
full of peaceable citizens off the track. It is to the credit of the
North that, in their desire for reconciliation, the question as to
who were the instigators and authorisers of Lincoln’s death was never
pushed very far. The world was satisfied with being told that the
murderer was a crazy actor, and the rebels eagerly caught at the idea.
But years have now passed, and it is time that the truth should be
known. As Dr. Brockett declares, a plot, the extent and ramifications
of which have never yet been fully made known, had long been formed to
assassinate the President and the prominent members of the Cabinet.
“Originating in the Confederate Government, this act, with others, such
as the attempt to fire New York, ... was confided to an association
of army officers, who, when sent on these errands, were said to be
on ‘detached service.’” There is _direct proof_ of Booth’s actual
consultation with officers known to belong to this organisation, during
Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg. The assassination of the President was
a thing so commonly talked of in the South as to excite no surprise.
A reward was actually offered in one of the Southern papers for “the
murder of the President, Vice-President, and Secretary Seward.” Now
when such an offer is followed by such an attempt, few persons would
deny the connection. It is true that there were, even among the most
zealous Union-men at this time, some whose desire to acquire political
influence in the South, and be regarded as conciliators, was so great,
that they hastened to protest, as zealously as any rebels, that the
Confederate Government had no knowledge of the plot. Perhaps from the
depths of Mr. Jefferson Davis’s inner conscience there may yet come
forth some tardy avowal of the truth. When that gentleman was arrested,
he protested that he had done nothing for which he could be punished;
but when he heard, in answer, that he might be held accountable for
complicity in the murder of President Lincoln, he was silent and seemed
alarmed. But the almost conclusive proof that the murder was carried
out under the sanction and influence of high authorities, may be found
in the great number of people who were engaged in it, and the utter
absence among them of those guiding minds which invariably direct
conspiracies. When on one night a great number of hotels were fired in
New York, the Copperhead press declared that it was done by thieves.
But the Fire Marshal of Philadelphia, who was an old detective, said
that common incendiaries like burglars never worked in large parties.
It was directed by higher authority. Everything in the murder of
President Lincoln indicated that the assassin and his accomplices were
tools in stronger hands. The rebellion had failed, but the last blow of
revenge was struck with unerring Southern vindictiveness. After all,
as a question of mere morality, the exploits of Beal and Kennedy show
that the Confederate Government had authorised deeds a hundred times
more detestable than the simple murder of President Lincoln. Political
enthusiasm might have induced thousands to regard Lincoln as a tyrant
and Booth as a Brutus; but the most fervent madness of faction can
never apologise for burning women and children alive, or killing them
on railways.
[Illustration: FORD’S THEATRE, WHERE PRESIDENT LINCOLN WAS
ASSASSINATED.]
It was on Good Friday, the 14th of April, the anniversary of Major
Anderson’s evacuation of Fort Sumter, “the opening scene of the
terrible four years’ civil war,” that President Lincoln was murdered
while sitting in a box at a theatre in Washington. The assassin, John
Wilkes Booth, was the son of the celebrated actor. He was twenty-seven
years of age, and utterly dissipated and eccentric. He was a thorough
rebel, and had often exhibited a nickel bullet with which he declared
he meant to shoot Lincoln, but his wild and unsteady character had
prevented those who heard the threats from attaching importance to
them. It had been advertised that President Lincoln and many prominent
men would be present at a performance. General Grant, who was to have
been of their number, had left that afternoon for Philadelphia. During
the day, the assassin and his accomplices, who were all perfectly
familiar with the theatre, had carefully made every preparation for the
murder. The entrance to the President’s box was commanded by a door,
and in order to close this, a piece of wood was provided, which would
brace against it so firmly that no one could enter. In order to obtain
admission, the spring-locks of the doors were weakened by partially
withdrawing the screws; so that, even if locked, they could present no
resistance. Many other details were most carefully arranged, including
those for Booth’s escape. He had hired a fine horse, and employed one
Spangler, the stage carpenter, to watch it. This man had also prepared
the scenes so that he could readily reach the door. In the afternoon he
called on Vice-President Johnson, sending up his card, but was denied
admission, as that gentleman was busy. It is supposed to have been an
act intended to cast suspicion upon Mr. Johnson, who would be Lincoln’s
successor. At seven o’clock, Booth, with five of his accomplices,
entered a saloon, where they drank together in such a manner as to
attract attention. All was ready.
President Lincoln had, during the day, held interviews with many
distinguished men, and discussed great measures. He had consulted with
Colfax, the Speaker of the House, as to his future policy towards the
South, and had seen the Minister to Spain, with several senators. At
eleven o’clock he had met the Cabinet and General Grant, and held a
most important conference. “When it adjourned, Secretary Stanton said
he felt that the Government was stronger than it had ever been;” and
after this meeting he again conversed with Mr. Colfax and several
leading citizens of his own state. His last remarks in reference to
public affairs expressed an interest in the development of California,
and he promised to send a telegram in reference to it to Mr. Colfax
when he should be in San Francisco. As I have, however, stated with
reference to Jacob Thompson, his own last act was to save the life,
as he supposed, of a rebel, while the last act of the rebellion was to
take his own.
At nine o’clock, Lincoln and his wife reached the crowded theatre,
and were received with great applause. Then the murderer went to his
work. Through the crowd in the rear of the dress circle, patiently
and softly, he made his way to the door opening into the dark narrow
passage leading to the President’s box. Here he showed a card to the
servant in attendance, saying that Mr. Lincoln had sent for him, and
the man, nothing doubting, admitted him. He entered the vestibule,
and secured the door behind him by bracing against it the piece of
board already mentioned. He then drew a small silver-mounted Derringer
pistol, which he held in his right hand, having a long double-edged
dagger in his left. All in the box were absorbed in watching the actors
on the stage, except President Lincoln, who was leaning forward,
holding aside the flag-curtain of the box with his left hand, with
his head slightly turned towards the audience. At this instant Booth
passed by the inner door into the box, and stepping softly behind the
President, holding the pistol over the chair, shot him through the back
of the head. The ball entered on the left side behind the ear, through
the brain, and lodged just behind the right eye. President Lincoln
made no great movement--his head fell slightly forward, and his eyes
closed. He seemed stunned.
As the report of the pistol rang through the house, many of the
audience supposed it was part of some new incident introduced into
the play. Major Rathbone, who was in the box, saw at once what had
occurred, and threw himself on Booth, who dropped the pistol, and freed
himself by stabbing his assailant in the arm, near the shoulder. The
murderer then rushed to the front of the box, and, in a sharp loud
voice, exclaiming, _Sic semper tyrannis_--the motto of Virginia--leaped
on the stage below. As he went over, his spur caught in the American
flag which Mr. Lincoln had grasped, and he fell, breaking his leg; but,
recovering himself, he rose, brandishing the dagger theatrically, and,
facing the audience, cried in stage-style, “The South is avenged,” and
rushed from the theatre. He pushed Miss Laura Keene, the actress, out
of his way, ran down a dark passage, pursued by Mr. Stewart, sprung to
his saddle, and escaped. Mrs. Lincoln had fainted, the excited audience
behaved like lunatics, some attempting to climb up the pillars into the
box. Through Miss Keene’s presence of mind, the gas was turned down,
and the crowd was turned out. And in a minute after, the telegraph had
shot all over the United States the news of the murder.
[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE THE PRESIDENT DIED.]
The President never spoke again. He was taken to his home, and died
at twenty minutes after seven the next morning. He was unconscious from
the moment he was shot.
As the vast crowd, mad with grief, poured forth, weeping and lamenting,
they met with another multitude bringing the news that Secretary
Seward, lying on his sick-bed, had been nearly murdered. A few days
before, he had fractured his arm and jaw by falling from a carriage.
While in this condition, an accomplice of Booth’s, named John Payne
Powell, tried to enter the room, but was repulsed by Mr. Seward’s son,
who was at once knocked down with the butt of a pistol. Rushing into
the room, Payne Powell stabbed Mr. Seward three times, and escaped, but
not before he had wounded, while fighting desperately, five people in
all.
During the night, there was fearful excitement in Washington. Rumours
were abroad that the President was murdered--that all the members of
the Cabinet had perished, or were wounded--that General Grant had
barely escaped with his life--that the rebels had risen, and were
seizing on Washington--and that all was confusion. The reality was
enough to warrant any degree of doubt and terror. There had been,
indeed, a conspiracy to murder all the leading members of Government.
General Grant had escaped by going to Philadelphia. It is said that
this most immovable of men, when he heard that President Lincoln was
dead, gravely took the cigar from his mouth and quietly said, “Then I
must go at once to Washington. I shall yet have time to take my family
to Bordertown, and catch the eleven o’clock train.”
Efforts have been made by both parties to confine all the guilt of this
murder to Booth alone, and to speak of him as a half-crazed lunatic
actor. As the facts stand, the murder had long been threatened by the
Southern press, and was apprehended by many people. Booth had so many
accomplices, that they expected between them to kill the President,
Vice-President, and all the Cabinet. And yet, with every evidence of a
widespread conspiracy which had numbers of ready and shrewd agents in
the theatre, on the road, and far and wide, even the most zealous Union
writers have declared that all this plot had its beginning and end in
the brain of a lunatic! It so happened that, just at this time, the
North, weary of war and willing to pardon every enemy, had no desire
to be vindictive. When Jefferson Davis was tried, Mr. Greeley eagerly
stepped forward to be his bail, and there were many more looking to
reconstruction and reconciliation--or to office--and averse to drive
the foe to extremes. Perhaps they were right; for in great emergencies
minor interests must be forgotten. It was the Union-men and the victors
who were now nobly calling for peace at any price and forgiveness. But
one thing is at least certain. From a letter found April 15th, 1865,
in Booth’s trunk, it was shown that the murder was planned before the
4th of March, but fell through then because the accomplices refused to
go further _until Richmond could be heard from_. So it appears that,
though Booth was regarded as the beginning and end of the plot, and
solely accountable, yet his tools actually refused to obey him until
they had heard from Richmond, the seat of the Rebel Government. This
was written by Secretary Stanton to General Dix on April 15th, in
the interval between the attack on Lincoln and his death. The entire
execution of the plot evidently depended upon _news from Richmond_, and
not upon Booth’s orders.
Booth himself, escaping across the Potomac, “found, for some days,
shelter and aid among the rebel sympathisers of Lower Maryland.” He
was, of course, pursued, and, having taken refuge in a barn, was
summoned to surrender. This he refused to do, and was then shot dead
by a soldier named Boston Corbett, whom I have heard described as a
fanatic of the old Puritan stamp. In the words of Arnold, Booth did not
live to betray the men who set him on. And I can testify that there was
nowhere much desire to push the inquiry _too_ far. Booth had been shot,
the leading Union politicians were busy at reconstruction, and the
war was at an end. But, as Arnold declares, Booth and his accomplices
were but the wretched tools of the real conspirators, and it remains
uncertain whether the conspirators themselves will ever in this world
be dragged to light.
The next day, April 15th, 1865, the whole nation knew the dreadful
news, and there was such universal sadness as had never been known
within the memory of man. All was gloom and mourning; men walked in
the public places, and wept aloud as if they had been alone; women sat
with children on the steps of houses, wailing and sobbing. Strangers
stopped to converse and cry. I saw in that day more of the human heart
than in all the rest of my life. I saw in Philadelphia a great mob
surging idly here and there between madness and grief, not knowing what
to do. Somebody suggested that the Copperheads were rejoicing over the
murder--as they indeed were--and so the mob attacked their houses, but
soon gave it over, out of very despondency. By common sympathy, every
family began to dress their houses in mourning, and to hang black stuff
in all the public places; “before night, the whole nation was shrouded
in black.” That day I went from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. This latter
town, owing to its factories and immense consumption of bituminous
coal, seems at any time as if in mourning; but on that Sunday
afternoon, completely swathed and hung in black, with all the world
weeping in a drizzling rain, its dolefulness was beyond description.
Among the soldiers, the grief was very great; but with the poor
negroes, it was absolute--I may say that to them the murder was in
reality a second crucifixion, since, in their religious enthusiasm,
they literally believed the President to be a Saviour appointed by
God to lead them forth to freedom. To this day there are negro huts,
especially in Cuba, where Lincoln’s portrait is preserved as a hidden
fetish, and as the picture of the Great Prophet who was not killed, but
only taken away, and who will come again, like King Arthur, to lead his
people to liberty. At Lincoln’s funeral, the weeping of the coloured
folk was very touching.
It was proposed that President Lincoln should be buried in the vault
originally constructed for Washington in the Capitol. This would have
been most appropriate; but the representatives from Illinois were very
urgent that his remains should be taken to his native state, and this
was finally done. So, after funeral services in Washington, the body
was borne with sad processions from city to city, through Maryland,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
At Philadelphia it lay in state in the hall where the Declaration
of Independence had been signed. “A half-million of people were in
the streets to do honour to all that was left of him who, in that
same hall, had declared, four years before, that he would sooner
be assassinated than give up the principles of the Declaration of
Independence. He _had_ been assassinated because he would not give
them up.”
This death-journey, with its incidents, was very touching. It showed
beyond all question that, during his Presidency, the Illinois
backwoodsman had found his way to the hearts of the people as no man
had ever done. He had been with them in their sorrows and their joys.
Those who had wept in the family circle for a son or father lost in the
war, now wept again the more because the great chief had also perished.
The last victim of the war was its leader.
The final interment of the body of President Lincoln took place at
Oak Ridge Cemetery, in Springfield, Illinois. Four years previously,
Abraham Lincoln had left a little humble home in that place, and gone
to be tried by the people in such a great national crisis as seldom
falls to any man to meet. He had indeed “crossed Fox River” in such a
turmoil of roaring waters as had never been dreamed of. And, having
done all things wisely and well, he passed away with the war, dying
with its last murmurs.
[Illustration: THE LINCOLN MONUMENT, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.]