THE LAST ACT.
Interview with Mr. Colfax--Cabinet Meeting--Incident--Evening
Conversation--Possibility of Assassination--Leaves for the
Theatre--In the Theatre--Precautions for the Murder--The Pistol
Shot--Escape of the Assassin--Death of the President--Pledges
Redeemed--Situation of the Country--Effect of the Murder--
Obsequies at Washington--Borne Home--Grief of the People--At
Rest.
On the morning of Friday, April fourteenth, 1865, after an interesting
conversation with his eldest son, Robert, a captain on General Grant’s
staff, relative to the surrender of Lee, with the details of which the
son was familiar, the President, hearing that Schuyler Colfax, Speaker
of the House of Representatives, was in the Executive Mansion, invited
the latter to a chat in the reception-room, and during the following
hour the talk turned upon his future policy toward the rebellion--a
matter which he was about to submit to his Cabinet.
After an interview with John P. Hale, then recently appointed Minister
to Spain, as well as with several Senators and Representatives, a
Cabinet meeting was held, at eleven o’clock, General Grant being
present, which proved to be one of the most satisfactory and important
consultations held since his first inauguration. The future policy
of the Administration was harmoniously and unanimously agreed upon,
and upon the adjournment of the meeting the Secretary of War remarked
that the Government was then stronger than at any period since the
commencement of the rebellion.
It was afterwards remembered that at this meeting the President turned
to General Grant and asked him if he had heard from General Sherman.
General Grant replied that he had not, but was in hourly expectation of
receiving dispatches from him, announcing the surrender of Johnston.
“Well,” said the President, “you will hear very soon now and the news
will be important.”
“Why do you think so?” said the General.
“Because,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I had a dream last night, and ever since
the war began I have invariably had the same dream before any very
important military event has occurred.” He then instanced Bull Run,
Antietam, Gettysburg, etc., and said that before each of these events
he had had the same dream, and turning to Secretary Welles, said:
“It is in your line, too, Mr. Welles. The dream is that I saw a ship
sailing very rapidly, and I am sure that it portends some important
national event.”
In the afternoon, a long and pleasant conversation was held with
eminent citizens from Illinois.
In the evening, during a talk with Messrs. Colfax and Ashman--the
latter of whom presided at the Chicago Convention, in 1860--speaking
about his trip to Richmond, when the suggestion was made that there
was much uneasiness at the North while he was at what had been the
rebel capital, for fear that some traitor might shoot him, Mr. Lincoln
reportively replied, that he would have been alarmed himself, if any
other person had been President and gone there, but that, as for
himself, he did not feel in any danger whatever.
This possibility of an assassination had been presented before to the
President’s mind, but it had not occasioned him a moment’s uneasiness.
A member of his Cabinet one day said to him, “Mr. Lincoln, you are not
sufficiently careful of yourself. There are bad men in Washington. Did
it never occur to you that there are rebels among us who are bad enough
to attempt your life?” The President stepped to a desk and drew from a
pigeon-hole a package of letters. “There,” said he, “every one of these
contains a threat to assassinate me. I might be nervous, if I were to
dwell upon the subject, but I have come to this conclusion: there are
opportunities to kill me every day of my life, if there are persons
disposed to do it. It is not possible to avoid exposure to such a fate,
and I shall not trouble myself about it.”
Upon the evening alluded to, while conversing upon a matter of business
with Mr. Ashman, he saw that the latter was surprised at a remark which
he had made, when, prompted by his well-known desire to avoid any thing
offensive, he immediately said, “You did not understand me, Ashman:
I did not mean what you inferred, and I will take it all back, and
apologize for it.” He afterward gave Mr. A. a card, admitting himself
and friend for a further conversation early in the morning.
Turning to Mr. Colfax, he said, “You are going with Mrs. Lincoln and me
to the theatre, I hope.” The President and General Grant had previously
accepted an invitation to be present that evening at Ford’s Theatre,
but the General had been obliged to leave for the North. Mr. Lincoln
did not like to entirely disappoint the audience, as the announcement
had been publicly made, and had determined to fulfil his acceptance.
Mr. Colfax, however, declining on account of other engagements, Mr.
Lincoln said to him, “Mr. Sumner has the gavel of the Confederate
Congress, which he got at Richmond to hand to the Secretary of War.
But I insisted then that he must give it to you; and you tell him for
me to hand it over.” Mr. Ashman alluded to the gavel, still in his
possession, which he had used at Chicago; and about half an hour after
the time they had intended to leave for the theatre, the President and
Mrs. Lincoln rose to depart, the former reluctant and speaking about
remaining at home a half hour longer.
At the door he stopped and said, “Colfax, do not forget to tell
the people in the mining regions, as you pass through them, what I
told you this morning about the development when peace comes, and I
will telegraph you at San Francisco.” Having shaken hands with both
gentlemen and bidden them a pleasant good-bye, the President with his
party left for the theatre.
The box occupied by them was on the second tier above the stage, at
the right of the audience, the entrance to it being by a door from the
adjoining gallery. One, who had planned Mr. Lincoln’s assassination
with extraordinary precautions against any failure, having effected
an entrance by deceiving the guard, found himself in a dark corridor,
of which the wall made an acute angle with the door. The assassin had
previously gouged a channel from the plaster and placed near by a stout
piece of board, which he next inserted between the wall and the panel
of the door.
Ingress then being rendered impossible, he next turned toward the
entrances to the President’s box, two in number, as the box by a
sliding partition could, at pleasure, be converted into two. The door
at the bottom of the passage was open; that nearer the assassin was
closed. Both had spring-locks, but their screws had been carefully
loosened so as to yield to a slight pressure, if necessary.
Resort was had to the hither door, in which a small hole had been
bored, for the purpose of securing a view of the interior of the box,
the door first described having first been fastened, and the discovery
made that the occupants had taken seats as follows: the President in
the arm-chair nearest the audience, Mrs. Lincoln next, then, after
a considerable space, a Miss Clara Harris in the corner nearest the
stage, and a Major H. R. Rathbone on a lounge along the further wall.
The play was, “Our American Cousin.” While all were intent upon its
representation, the report of a pistol first announced the presence
of the assassin, who uttered the word “Freedom!” and advanced toward
the front. The Major having discerned the murderer through the smoke,
and grappled with him, the latter dropped his pistol and aimed with a
knife at the breast of his antagonist, who caught the blow in the upper
part of his left arm, but was unable to detain the desperado, though he
immediately seized him again. The villain, however, leaped some twelve
feet down upon the open stage, tangling his spur in the draped flag
below the box and stumbling in his fall.
Recovering himself immediately, he flourished his dagger, shouted “_Sic
semper tyrannis_” and “_The South is avenged_,” retreated successfully
through the labyrinth of the theatre--perfectly familiar to him--to his
horse in waiting below. Between the deed of blood and the escape there
was not the lapse of a minute. The hour was about half-past ten. There
was but one pursuer, and he from the audience, but he was outstripped.
The meaning of the pistol-shot was soon ascertained. Mr. Lincoln had
been shot in the back of the head, behind the left ear, the ball
traversing an oblique line to the right ear. He was rendered instantly
unconscious, and never knew friends or pain again. Having been conveyed
as soon as possible to a house opposite the theatre, he expired there
the next morning, April fifteenth, 1865, at twenty-two minutes past
seven o’clock, attended by the principal members of his Cabinet and
other friends, from all of whom the heart-rending spectacle drew
copious tears of sorrow. Mrs. Lincoln and her son Robert were in an
adjoining apartment--the former bowed down with anguish, the latter
strong enough to sustain and console her. A disconsolate widow and two
sons now constituted the entire family. Soon after nine o’clock, the
body was removed to the White House under military escort.
Thus ended the earthly career of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President
of the United States, on the threshold of his fifty-seventh year and
second Presidential term.
“_Sic semper tyrannis!_” And this the justification for the murder of a
ruler who had
“---- borne his faculties so meek, had been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off.”
“The South avenged!” And by the cold-blooded murder of the best friend
that repentant rebels ever had--of one who had long withstood the
pressing appeals of his warmest personal and political friends for less
lenity and more rigor in dealing with traitors.
It was written in the decrees of the Immutable that he should fall by
the bullet--not, indeed, on the battle-field, whose sad suggestings
he had so often, and so tenderly, lovingly heeded--but in the midst
of his family, while seeking relief from the cares of state--and by a
murderer’s hand!--the first President to meet such a fate--thenceforth
our martyr-chief!
But sorrow was tempered with mercy. He did not fall until a benignant
Providence had permitted him to enjoy a foretaste, at least, of the
blessings which he had been instrumental in conferring upon the land he
loved so well.
The pledges of his first Inaugural Address had been amply
redeemed--those pledges which so many declared impossible of
fulfilment, which not a few mocked as beyond human power to accomplish.
The power confided to him had been successfully used “to hold, occupy,
and possess the property and places belonging to the Government.” No
United States fort at the time of his fall flaunted treason in the eyes
of the land. The day of his murder the old flag had been flung to the
breeze from Sumter with ceremonies befitting the joyous occasion, by
the very hands that four years before had been compelled to lower it
to arrogant traitors; and friends of freedom for man, irrespective of
color or race, walked the streets of Charleston--a city of desolation,
a skeleton of its former self--jubilant that, since God so willed it,
in His own good time, Freedom was National and Slavery but a thing of
the past.
When he fell, the Nation, brought by the stern necessities of direful
war to the discharge of duties befitting a better manhood, passing by
all projects for an emancipation of slaves, which should be merely
gradual, not content even that such emancipation had been proclaimed
as a measure of military necessity, had spoken in favor of such an
amendment of the Constitution as should forever prohibit any claim of
property in man. Though the final consummation of that great measure
had not been reached when our President was removed, it was given him
to feel assured that the end was not distant, was even then close at
hand.
When he fell, that body of traitors which had assumed to be a
Government had fled, one scarcely knew whither, with whatever
of ill-gotten gains their greedy hands could grasp--their main
army captive, the residue of their military force on the point of
surrendering. From what had been their capital, in the mansion
appropriated to the special use of the chiefest among the conspirators,
he had been permitted to send words of greeting to the nation.
When he fell, treason throughout the land lay gasping, dying.
It needed not that dismal, dreary, mid-April day to intensify the
sorrow. As on the wings of lightning the news sped through the
land--“the President is Shot”--“is dying”--“is dead”--men knew scarcely
how to credit the tale. When the fearful certainty came home to each,
strong men bowed themselves and wept--maid and matron joined in the
plaint. With no extraneous prompting, with no impulse save that of
the heart alone, the common grief took on a common garb. Houses were
draped--the flag of our country hung pensive at half-mast--portraitures
of the loved dead were found on all.
And dreary as was the day when first the tidings swept through the
country, patriot hearts were drearier still. It was past analysis. It
was as if chaos and dread night had come again.
Meanwhile the honored dead lay in state in the country’s capitol.
On that dreamy, hazy nineteenth of April--suggesting, were it not for
the early green leaves, the fresh springing grass, the glad spring
caroling of birds, “that sweet autumnal summer which the Indian loved
so well”--on that day when sleep wooed one even in the early morn, his
obsequies were celebrated in the country’s metropolis.
And throughout the land, minute guns were fired, bells tolled, business
suspended, and the thoughtful betook themselves to prayer, if so be
that what verily seemed a curse might pass from us.
Thence the funeral _cortege_ moved to the final resting-place--the
remains of a darling son, earlier called, accompanying those of the
father--by the route the President had taken when first he had been
summoned to the chair of State. Before half of the mournful task was
done, came tidings that the assassin had been sent to his final account
by the avenger’s hand, gurgling out, as his worthless life ebbed away,
“useless! useless!”
As the sad procession wended its way, where hundreds had gathered in
’61, impelled by mere curiosity or by partisan sympathy, thousands
gathered, four years later, through affection, through reverence,
through deep, abiding sorrow.
Flowers beautified the lifeless remains--dirges were sung--the people’s
great heart broke out into sobs and sighing.
And so, home to the prairie they bore him whom, when first he was
called, the Nation knew not--whom, mid the storms and ragings of those
years of civil war, they had learned, had loved, to call father and
friend.
In the Oak Ridge Cemetery, in his own Springfield, on the fourth of
May, 1865, they laid him to rest, at the foot of a knoll, in the most
beautiful part of the ground, over which forest trees--rare denizens of
the prairie--look lovingly.
There all that is mortal of ABRAHAM LINCOLN reposes.
“The immortal?” Hail, and farewell!