476 



LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. 



surrendered, and Johnston was about to do so. 

 Davis was a fugitive, and his abdication had 

 been made, without leaving a successor. "War 

 had substantially ceased, and the national ban- 

 ner was to float from the walls of Fort Sumter 

 on the 14th of April, 1865, the anniversary of 

 the day, four years before, which witnessed its 

 humiliation. Pacilication was to be the future 

 work of the President. 



Amid these joyous anticipations of the future, 

 when the sad and wearied look which had so 

 long hovered over his face seemed about to 

 give place to one of serene satisfaction, the as- 

 sassin, creeping stealthily from behind, as he 

 sat with his family and friends in his box at the 

 theatre, on the night of the 14th of April, 1865, 

 fired, with fatal precision, the pistol-shot, which, 

 penetrating his brain, in a few hours terminated 

 his life. The immediate assassin was an actor, 

 by the name of John "Wilkes Booth, but the 

 assassination was a part of a conspiracy intended 

 to cripple the Government by the simultaneous 

 destruction of its principal executive officers, 

 and it involved, either as principals or accesso- 

 ries, a number of persons. Nine of the more 

 immediate actors suffered condign punishment, 

 Booth being shot in the act of arresting him ; 

 Harold, Payne, Atzerot, and Mrs. Surratt Imng ; 

 Arnold, Mudd, and McLaughlin imprisoned for 

 life, and Spangler for six years. The excite- 

 ment which the intelligence of his death caused 

 throughout the nation has never been parallel- 

 ed in human history. The whole people were 

 in tears; cities and villages were draped in 

 mourning ; all ranks and conditions lamented 

 him as a father, and everywhere were seen the 

 insignia of sorrow. 



The funeral honors paid to the deceased Chief 

 Magistrate surpassed in magnificence as well as 

 in their manifestation of the intensity of real 

 sorrow those ever bestowed on any President 

 who had deceased either in or out of office, and 

 have hardly been equalled in the funereal pomp 

 of the obsequies of any monarch of ancient or 

 modern times. 



The body, having been properly embalmed 

 and prepared for the grave, was laid in state in 

 the " Green Room " of the Presidential man- 

 sion in a splendid coffin and within a grand 

 catafalque. Here, surrounded by the sad em- 

 blems of woe, and covered with the costliest 

 and rarest floral tributes of affection, it rested 

 until noon of "Wednesday the 19th of April. 

 On that day, which by request of the Depart* 

 ment of State was observed as a day of mourn- 

 ing by the whole American people, appro- 

 priate funeral services were performed at the 

 White House, and the body removed, with an 

 imposing military procession, and attended by 

 an immense concourse of people to the rotunda 

 of the National Capitol. Here, reposing be- 

 neath its splendid catafalque, it again lay in 

 state, guarded by officers of tho army with 

 drawn swords. That day was observed through- 

 out the length and breadth of the land, with a 

 solemnity and genuine sadness of heart such as 



no previous day of mourning had ever witness- 

 ed. The cities of Canada, by request of their 

 municipal officers, all observed it by cessation 

 from business and public meetings of condo- 

 lence. In far-off San Francisco the citizens in 

 mourning array formed in a procession in honor 

 of the dead President, and in many of the cities 

 of the South there were all the manifestations 

 of grief. 



All day, during the 20th of April, the body 

 continued to lie in state in the rotunda, and 

 more than twenty-five thousand persons visited 

 it, many of them soldiers who left their beds in 

 the hospitals to take one last look at their de- 

 parted chief. At six o'clock in the morning of 

 the 21st, the members of the Cabinet, Lieut. - 

 Gen. Grant and his staff, several Senators, the 

 Illinois delegation, and a number of army offi- 

 cers, arrived at the Capitol and took their fare- 

 well look at the face of the deceased. Then, 

 after an impressive prayer by Rev. Dr. Gurley, 

 the remains were borne without music, but 

 accompanied by an escort, to the railroad 

 station and placed in the hearse car, to which 

 the remains of his son Willie had been pre- 

 viously removed. After a prayer and benedic- 

 tion, the train slowly moved from the depot, 

 the engine bell tolling, and the immense assem- 

 blage reverently uncovering their heads. The 

 funeral cortege was conveyed on a special 

 through train, on the same route (with one or 

 two exceptions) as that taken by Mr. Lincoln 

 on liis way to Washington in 1861. The car 

 also, which bore the body and its attendants, 

 was the same which had been especially con- 

 structed for the late President's especial use 

 when travelling over the military roads a 

 superb piece of construction, and now appro- 

 priately draped, as were also the other six cars 

 forming the train. To prevent accident?, the 

 rate of speed was limited. No stoppage was 

 made between Washington and Baltimore. In 

 out-of-the-way places, little villages, or single 

 farm-houses, people came out to the side of the 

 track and watched, with heads reverently un- 

 covered and faces full of genuine sadness, tho 

 passage of the car bearing the body of the late 

 President. Along the whole line were seen these 

 mourning groups, some on foot and some in car- 

 riages, wearing badges of sorrow, and many evi- 

 dently having come a long distance to pay this 

 little tribute of respect, the only one in their 

 power, to the memory of the murdered Chief 

 Magistrate. 



Baltimore, through which city, four years 

 before, the late President had hurried incognito, 

 on his inaugural trip, now received his honored 

 remains with every mark of reverence. Es- 

 corted by a splendid procession, the body was 

 conveyed to the rotunda of the Exchange, 

 where upon a gorgeous catafalque, and sur- 

 rounded by flowers, it rested for several hours, 

 receiving the silent homage of thousands who 

 crowded to take their last look at the features 

 of the illustrious patriot. 



As the cars passed along their route, entire 



