But again, the crazed woman returned. “At one time, while sitting by his bedside,” recounted a viewer, “she kept saying, ‘Kill me! kill me! kill me, too! shoot me, too!’ At another time I heard her exclaim in the most piteous tones, ‘Do live! do speak to me! Do live and speak to me, won’t you?’”16
Among the few women present in the home was Elizabeth Dixon, daughter of a U.S. senator. Although Elizabeth sought to comfort Mary Lincoln repeatedly, the first lady was far beyond comforting.17 Himself on the verge of emotional breakdown, Robert Lincoln also tried mightily to aid his afflicted mother. Gently, though firmly, the son soothed Mary and begged her to place her faith in God. At other times, Robert’s reserves gave out. “Occasionally,” a witness remembered, “being entirely overcome, he would retire into the hall and give vent to the most heartrending lamentations.”18 But then, continued the narrator, “he would recover himself and return to his mother, and with remarkable self-possession try to cheer her broken spirits and lighten her load of sorrow. His conduct was a most remarkable exhibition of calmness in the most trying hour that I have ever seen.”19
Despite the efforts of Robert and others, as well as sedatives, nothing seemed to ease the woman’s grief and pain.20 Almost involuntarily, Mary limped again and again to her husband’s bedside, screaming and moaning.21
When Edwin Stanton finally fled the room, there was little doubt in anyone’s mind that it was to escape the ear-piercing shrieks of Mary Lincoln, a woman whom he thoroughly despised. Establishing a makeshift office in a nearby room, Stanton and Attorney General James Speed began orchestrating search efforts for the assassins and taking testimony from a number of witnesses.22 Quickly realizing that normal transcriptions could never handle the great weight of messages and testimony, Stanton ordered Major General Christopher Auger to find someone who took shorthand. Stepping onto the stoop, the officer shouted for anyone in the huge crowd who might help to come forward.
Like everyone else, James Tanner and the others on his balcony were curious about the strange summons. Whether Tanner might have volunteered on his own or not would remain unknown. Before he had a chance, an acquaintance on the balcony yelled back, then pointed at Tanner.23 Easing slowly down the stairs on his wood and steel legs, the handsome young man at last reached the Petersen home. He continues:
Entering the house, I accompanied General Augur down the hallway to the rear parlor. As we passed the door of the front parlor, the moans and sobs of Mrs. Lincoln struck painfully upon our ears. . . . I took my seat on one side of a small library table opposite Mr. Stanton. . . . Various witnesses were brought in who had either been in Ford’s Theater or up in the vicinity of Mr. Seward’s residence. Among them were Harry Hawk. . . . As I took down the statements they made, we were distracted by the distress of Mrs. Lincoln, for though the folding doors between the two parlors were closed, her frantic sorrow was distressingly audible to us. . . .
Through all the testimony given by those who had been in Ford’s Theater that night there was an undertone of horror which held the witnesses back from positively identifying the assassin as Booth. Said Harry Hawk, “I believe to the best of my knowledge that it was John Wilkes Booth. Still I am not positive that it was him.”24
If Hawk and others had reservations, many more had no doubts whatsoever. “In fifteen minutes,” said Tanner, “I had testimony enough to hang Wilkes Booth, the assassin, higher than ever Haman hung.”25
The young man continues:
Our task was interrupted very many times during the night, sometimes by reports or dispatches for Secretary Stanton but more often by him for the purpose of issuing orders to enmesh Booth in his flight. ‘Guard the Potomac from the city down!’ was his repeated direction. ‘He will try to get south.’ . . . Several times Mr. Stanton left us a few moments and passed back to the room . . . where the President lay. The doors were open and sometimes there would be a few seconds of absolute silence when we could hear plainly the stertorous breathing of the dying man. I think it was on his return from his third trip of this kind when, as he again took his seat opposite me, I looked earnestly at him, desiring, yet hesitating to ask if there was any chance of life. He understood and I saw a choke in his throat as he slowly forced the answer to my unspoken question, “There is no hope.” He had impressed me through those awful hours as being a man of steel, but I knew then that he was dangerously near a convulsive breakdown.26
While Tanner began to transcribe his shorthand, Charles Dana, the assistant secretary of war, continued writing dispatches. Like everyone else who saw Stanton that night, Dana was impressed by the secretary’s strength, especially when contrasted to others in the house.
They seemed to be almost as paralyzed as the unconscious sufferer within the little chamber. Mr. Stanton alone was in full activity. . . . It seemed as if Stanton thought of everything. . . . The safety of Washington must be looked after. Commanders all over the country had to be ordered to take extra precautions. The people must be notified of the tragedy. The assassins must be captured. The coolness and clearheadedness of Mr. Stanton under the circumstances were most remarkable.27
“He was then the Master, and in reality Acting President of the United States,” Dr. Leale accurately observed.28
In large part because of Stanton’s efforts, much of the country quickly learned of the horrible events in Washington. During the early morning hours of April 15, Ulysses and Julia Grant stepped down from their car when it reached the banks of the Delaware. After an exhausting, though uneventful, train trip up from the capital, the Grants paused in Philadelphia for a quick meal before ferrying across the river to New Jersey. As always, and despite the late hour, a curious crowd awaited Grant’s appearance at the restaurant.29 After the usual handshakes and comments, the famished couple at last were seated.
“The General ordered some oysters, as he had had nothing to eat since nine o’clock in the morning,” remembered Julia. “Before they were ready for him, a telegram was handed him, and almost before he could open this, another was handed him, and then a third.”30 Grant scanned the first telegram:
April 15, 12:30 A.M.
On night Train to Burlington
The President was assassinated at Fords Theater at 10 30 tonight & cannot live. The wound is a Pistol shot through the head. Secretary Seward & his son Frederick, were also assassinated at their residence & are in a dangerous condition. The Secretary of War desires that you return to Washington immediately. Please answer on receipt of this.
Maj. Thomas T. Eckert31
Stunned by the words, the general opened a second message, this from Charles Dana:
Permit me to suggest to you to Keep a close watch on all persons who come near you in the cars or otherwise, also that an Engine be sent in front of the train to guard against anything being on the track.32
Julia goes on:
The General looked very pale. “Is there anything the matter?” I inquired: “You look startled.” “Yes,” he answered, “something very serious has happened. Do not exclaim. Be quiet and I will tell you. The President has been assassinated at the theater, and I must go back at once. I will take you to Burlington (an hour away), see the children, order a special train, and return as soon as it is ready.”33
On the brief trip up through New Jersey, Grant was silent and lost in thought.34 “This is the darkest day of my life,” the general at last muttered. “I do not know what it means. Here was the Rebellion put down in the field, and it is reasserting itself in the gutter. We had fought it as war, we have now to fight it as murder.”35
Others were hardly less startled than Grant.
Leonard Grover was on a business trip to New York City when a sharp rap on his hotel door rudely awakened him. Leaving his partner in Washington to manage affairs at the famous theater that bore his name, Grover did not anticipate trouble of any sort now that the war was over.
[S]ome one called, “Mr. Grover, here’s a telegram for you.” Thinking it was the usual message from o
ne of the theaters (for I was then managing a Philadelphia theater as well) which would simply convey the amount of the receipts of the house, I called back: “Stick it under the door.” But the rapping continued with vigor, and there were calls, “Mr. Grover, Mr. Grover, please come to the door!”
I arose, hastily opened the door, when the light disclosed the long hall compactly crowded with people. Naturally, I was astonished. A message was handed to me with the request: “Please open that telegram and tell us if it’s true.” I opened it and read: “President Lincoln shot to-night at Ford’s Theater. Thank God it wasn’t ours. C. D. Hess.36
I have just visited the dying couch of Abraham Lincoln. He is now in the agonies of death, and his physicians say he cannot live more than an hour. He is surrounded by the members of his Cabinet, all of whom are bathed in tears. Senator Sumner is seated on the right of the couch on which he is lying, the tears streaming down his cheeks, and sobbing like a child. All around him are his physicians. . . . The President is unconscious, and the only sign of life he exhibits is by the movements of his right hand, which he raises feebly.37
Thus wrote a correspondent to the Chicago Tribune at 1:30 A.M. on April 15. So labored was Lincoln’s breathing and so ghastly was the blackening of the face and the bulging of the eyes, that all, like the reporter, felt the end was nigh. Indeed, twice during the night those present knelt on the floor while the president’s pastor, Dr. Phineas Gurley, prayed.38 And yet, the life force in the tall, strong Illinoisan refused to surrender.
An early end would have been merciful for Mary Lincoln. Prior to every visit she made to the death chamber, someone hurriedly replaced the bloody pillows with clean ones. Nevertheless, each time Mary entered the little room and beheld her husband’s hideous condition, the woman screamed and cried. On two occasions she collapsed.39 When the woman was revived and helped toward the front parlor, her ear-splitting shrieks and sobs again rattled the house.40 Nearby, with his nerves ready to shatter, Edwin Stanton somehow managed to keep the wheels of government rolling.
“[I] dictated orders one after another, which I wrote out and sent swiftly to the telegraph,” said Charles Dana. “All those orders were designed to keep the business of the government in full motion till the crisis should be over. It was perhaps two o’clock in the morning before he said, ‘That’s enough. Now you can go home.’”41
Also in the early morning hours, Andrew Johnson arrived at the home. Wisely refraining from venturing out earlier for fear of assassination, the vice president now made his belated appearance. Johnson had been in the building only a few minutes when Charles Sumner, knowing full well how much Mary loathed the Tennessean, urged him to leave. Fearing his presence would indeed ignite even uglier scenes, the man destined to be president at any moment meekly left as suggested.42
In a house already rocked to its foundation by screams and terror, another disturbance occurred when William Petersen returned to his home. Outraged that his locked doors had been smashed to pieces to accommodate Mary Lincoln and others, furious that his carpets had been destroyed by mud and blood, Petersen was also angered that dozens of pillows, towels, and sheets had been totally ruined. Additionally, souvenir-seekers who had managed to slip into the home were dismantling the building one piece at a time. With no hope of compensation in sight, the furious homeowner grabbed one of the many bloody pillows lying about and angrily flung it into the yard.43
As the interminable nightmare continued, Gideon Welles decided to briefly flee the stuffy building to find a quiet place where his ears would no longer be assailed by Mary’s shrieks or her husband’s deep groans. And so, at 6 A.M., the navy secretary walked outdoors into the dark and misty morning. As the large, white-bearded cabinet member reached the military cordon, he was instantly recognized by the waiting crowds. Wrote Welles in his diary:
Large groups of people were gathered every few rods, all anxious and solicitous. Some one or more from each group stepped forward as I passed, to inquire into the condition of the President, and to ask if there was no hope. Intense grief was on every countenance when I replied that the President could survive but a short time. The colored people especially—and there were at this time more of these persons than of whites—were overwhelmed with grief.44
The navy secretary returned after only a fifteen-minute walk. Rain began to fall on him as he passed back through the military cordon.45 One of the troopers on guard that morning was twenty-two-year-old Smith Stimmel. Awakened from a deep sleep earlier that night by the horrible news, then ordered to saddle up for duty, the young Ohio cavalryman, like everyone else, remained in a state of shock. In Stimmel’s words:
All night I rode slowly up and down the street in front of that house. Sometimes it seemed to me like an awful nightmare, and that I must be dreaming; sometimes I would . . . wonder if I was really awake and on duty, so hard was it for me to realize the fact that President Lincoln was lying in that house in a dying condition.46
As the gray pall from the east spread slowly over rainy Washington, and as the city bells tolled seven, Abraham Lincoln began to lose his struggle with death.
“The face of the dying had changed to a more ashy paleness,” recorded a witness. “The dark patch around his right eye had spread. His breathing had become shorter and less labored. That dreadful sound had given place to a kind of wild gurgling. Occasionally for a few seconds it would entirely cease, and I would think that all was over. Then it would resume; and thus these intervals would continue.”47
Lincoln, a correspondent of the Chicago Tribune added more graphically, was “breathing with great difficulty. . . . His eyes were protruding from their sockets, and suffused with blood.”48
The president’s respiration, noted Dr. Taft, would sometimes stop altogether for as long as a minute. Then, a sudden jolt from Lincoln’s chest would restart the lungs, startling everyone who imagined him dead. And thus the pattern would continue. Wrote Taft:
At these times the death-like stillness and suspense were thrilling. The Cabinet ministers, and others surrounding the death-bed, watching, with suspended breath, the last feeble inspiration, and as the unbroken quiet would seem to prove that life had fled, turn their eyes to their watches; then as the struggling life within would force another fluttering respiration, heave deep sighs of relief, and fix their eyes once more upon the face of their dying chief.49
Shortly after 7 A.M., Mary Lincoln, assisted by Elizabeth Dixon, walked down the hallway to visit her suffering husband. “At that hour,” Elizabeth recalled, “just as the day was struggling with the dim candles in the room, we went in again. Mrs. Lincoln must have noticed a change, for the moment she looked at him she fainted and fell upon the floor. I caught her in my arms and held her to the window which was open, the rain falling heavily.”50
After stimulants were administered, the woman was again helped to the bedside. “‘Love,’ she begged, ‘live but one moment to speak to me once—to speak to our children.’”51
While Mary sat kissing and touching her husband’s face, trying with tears to will the words from him, surgeons around the woman noted that Lincoln’s breathing was growing less and less.52 One of those watching was Dr. Charles Leale:
As Mrs. Lincoln sat on a chair by the side of the bed with her face to her husband’s his breathing became very stertorous and the loud, unnatural noise frightened her in her exhausted, agonized condition. She sprang up suddenly with a piercing cry and fell fainting to the floor. Secretary Stanton hearing her cry came in from the adjoining room and with raised arms called out loudly: “Take that woman out and do not let her in again.” Mrs. Lincoln was helped up kindly and assisted in a fainting condition from the room.53
When his notes were finally finished, young James Tanner stepped next door to gaze upon the president:
It was very evident that he could not last long. There was quite a crowd in the room . . . but I approached quite near the bed on which so much greatness lay, fast loosing its hold on this world. . . . At the
head [of the bed] stood Captain Robert Lincoln, weeping on the shoulder of Senator Sumner. . . . Stanton was there, trying every way to be calm and yet he was very much moved. The utmost silence pervaded, broken only by the sounds of strong men’s tears. It was a solemn time, I assure you.54
As was obvious to Tanner and everyone else in the room, the last moments of Abraham Lincoln were at hand. “His face, which had been quite pale,” wrote a journalist, “began to assume a waxen transparency, the jaw slowly fell, and the teeth became exposed.”55
The president’s respirations grew farther and farther apart. Several times, when the interval between breaths was longer than usual, doctors searched for a pulse.56
“Such was the solemn stillness for the space of five minutes that the ticking of watches could be heard in the room,” one man noted.57
Returning to James Tanner:
The Surgeon General [Joseph Barnes] was near the head of the bed, sometimes sitting on the edge thereof, his finger on the pulse of the dying man. Occasionally he put his ear down to catch the lessening beats of his heart. . . . [I] had full view of Mr. Stanton across the President’s body. . . . [His] gaze was fixed intently on the countenance of his dying chief. He had, as I said, been a man of steel throughout the night, but as I looked at his face across the corner of the bed and saw the twitching of the muscles I knew that it was only by a powerful effort that he restrained himself.58
Finally, it was over. The long agony ended. After his heart “fluttered” for ten seconds or so, Abraham Lincoln was no more.59
“The first indication that the dreaded end had come,” Tanner revealed, “was at 22 minutes past 7, when the Surgeon General gently crossed the pulseless hands of Lincoln across the motionless breast and rose to his feet.”60
“He is gone,” said Barnes simply.61
No one spoke. No one stirred. No one cried.
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