The Darkest Dawn

by Thomas Goodrich

  “Then I solemnly believe that for four or five minutes there was not the slightest noise or movement in that awful presence,” the Reverend Dr. Gurley recalled.

  We all stood transfixed in our positions, speechless, breathless, around the dead body of that great and good man. At length the Secretary of War, who was standing at my left, broke the silence and said, “Doctor, will you say anything?” I replied, “I will speak to God.” Said he, “Do it just now.” And there, by the side of our fallen chief, God put into my heart to utter this petition, that from that hour we and the whole nation might become more than ever united in our devotion to the cause of our beloved, imperiled country. When I ceased, there arose from the lips of the entire company a fervid and spontanious [sic] “Amen.”62

  “Mr. Stanton raised his head, the tears streaming down his face,” noted James Tanner. “A more agonized expression I never saw on a human countenance as he sobbed out the words: ‘He belongs to the angels now.’”63

  Following the prayer, Reverend Gurley went to console Mary Lincoln.

  “Oh why did you not tell me he was dying,” the woman burst out.64

  Maunsell Field was standing in the hallway while Gurley sought to comfort those in the parlor:

  The prayer was continually interrupted by Mrs. Lincoln’s sobs. Soon after its conclusion, I went into the parlor, and found her in a chair, supported by her son Robert. Presently her carriage came up and she was removed to it. She was in a state of tolerable composure at that time, until she reached the door, when, glancing at the theater opposite, she repeated three or four times: “That dreadful house!—that dreadful house!”65

  Returning to the bedroom, Field continues:

  The President’s eyes after death were not, particularly the right one, entirely closed. I closed them myself with my fingers, and one [of] the surgeons brought pennies and placed them on the eyes, and subsequently substituted for them silver half-dollars. In a very short time the jaw commenced slightly falling, although the body was still warm. . . . The expression immediately after death was purely negative, but in fifteen minutes there came over the mouth, the nostrils, and the chin, a smile that seemed almost an effort of life. . . . The body grew cold very gradually, and I left the room before it had entirely stiffened.66

  As Lincoln’s body was being placed in a coffin, one by one, those who had maintained the horrible vigil while he yet lived now made their sorrowful way home with his death. “I felt as though I had been engaged all night in a terrible battle and had just strength enough left to drag myself off the field,” said a weary Reverend Gurley.67 James Tanner, also thoroughly drained by the ordeal, nevertheless hobbled to his apartment next door and set to work writing another copy of the testimony taken earlier.

  I had been thus engaged but a brief time, when hearing some commotion on the street, I stepped to the window and saw a coffin containing the body of the dead President being placed in a hearse . . . escorted by a lieutenant and 10 privates. As they passed with measured tread and arms reversed, my hand involuntarily went to my head in salute as they started on their long, long journey back to the prairies and the hearts he knew and loved so well.68

  When the hearse and its escort reached the crowds beyond the military cordon, large numbers of citizens joined the procession on its rainy trip to the White House.69

  His duty now done, a weary and dejected Dr. Charles Leale closed the door on the suddenly quiet, empty Petersen home.

  I left the house in deep meditation. In my lonely walk I was aroused from my reveries by the cold drizzling rain dropping on my bare head, my hat I had left in my seat at the theater. My clothing was stained with blood, I had not once been seated since I first sprang to the President’s aid; I was cold, weary and sad. The dawn of peace was again clouded, the most cruel war in history had not completely ended.70

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HEMP AND HELL

  IRONICALLY, THE ONE MAN IN AMERICA whose job it was to have known of the tragic developments in the capital was one of the last to learn. While events swirled madly about him, newsman Noah Brooks lay in his room, oblivious to all, bedridden by a violent bout of flu. During the night, he and his roommate were aroused by the clatter of cavalry in the streets. Other than a dry joke about rebel raids and the capture of his friend Abraham Lincoln, Brooks paid no mind to the commotion and quickly dozed off again.

  I was awakened in the early dawn by a loud and hurried knocking on my chamber door, and the voice of Mr. Gardner, the landlord, crying “Wake, wake, Mr. Brooks! I have dreadful news.” I slipped out, turned the key of the door, and Mr. Gardner came in, pale, trembling . . . and told his awful story. . . . I sank back into my bed, cold and shivering with horror, and for a time it seemed as though the end of all things had come. I was aroused by the loud weeping of my comrade, who had not left his bed in another part of the room.

  When we had sufficiently collected ourselves to dress and go out of doors in the bleak and cheerless April morning, we found in the streets an extraordinary spectacle. They were suddenly crowded with people—men, women, and children thronging the pavements and darkening the thoroughfares. It seemed as if everybody was in tears. Pale faces, streaming eyes . . . were on every side. Men and women who were strangers accosted one another with distressed looks and tearful inquiries.1

  For Noah Brooks—indeed, for millions more—the shock was too great, the transition too brief, the human mind too weak and simple to calculate the sudden change. With the speed of a burning bullet, the people of the North had been hurled down from the mountaintop of hope and happiness to the abyss of sorrow and despair. Around Washington, colorful flags and banners hung soaked and motionless. Slowly, sadly, these tokens of victory were taken down, and the black of mourning was hung in their place.2

  “From lip to lip the tale of horror flew,” Noah Brooks continued:

  [M]en and women went weeping about the streets; no loud voice was anywhere heard; even children’s prattle was hushed; gloom, sadness, mourning sat on every countenance. . . . All shops, Government departments, and private offices were closed, and everywhere, on the most pretentious residences and on the humblest hovels, were the black badges of grief. Nature seemed to sympathize in the general lamentation, and tears of rain fell from the moist and somber sky. The wind sighed mournfully through the streets crowded with sad-faced people, and broad folds of funeral drapery flapped heavily in the wind over the decorations of the day before.3

  As was the case in Washington, when the shattering news reached the rest of the country via the telegraph there initially was only shock and silence.

  Chicago Tribune

  Boston Herald, April 15, 1865

  April 15, 1865

  GREAT NATIONAL

  TERRIBLE NEWS

  CALAMITY

  ************

  **********

  President Lincoln Assassinated

  ASSASSINATION OF

  at Ford’s Theater

  PRESIDENT LINCOLN

  ************

  **********

  A Rebel Desperado Shoots Him

  THE FIENDISH ACT COMMITTED

  Through the Head and Escapes

  AT FORD’S THEATER

  ***************

  ***********

  Secretary Seward and Major Fred

  Escape of the Assassin

  Seward Stabbed by Another

  Desperado

  Ran the Saint Louis Dispatch of April 15:

  Many of our readers awoke this morning with a shudder, for the hoarse cry of the newsboy, as it was borne to them on the damp, chilly air, announced the “assassination of President Lincoln.” . . . Even the voices of the vivacious, devil-may-care newsboys seemed hushed as they announced the sorrowful tidings.

  “Men hold their breath, and turn pale at the appalling words,” noted a Boston clergyman:

  Citizens meet, and shake hands, and part in silence. Words express nothing when uttered. All attempt to express the nation’s grie
f is utterly commonplace and insignificant. . . . [A] smile seems irrelevant and sacrilegious. Even the fresh, green grass, just coming forth to meet the return of spring and the singing of birds, seems to wear the shadows of twilight at noonday. The sun is less bright than before, and the very atmosphere seems . . . a strange ethereal element of gloom.4

  In Hartford, Connecticut, St. Joseph, Missouri, and countless American cities, sidewalks were packed with people milling about, mostly silent and staring, each looking desperately from face to face for an explanation.5 In New York City, men and women passed uncertainly through the streets like sleepwalkers, stunned and speechless. When reality began to sink in, even total strangers stopped on Broadway, then “sobbed like children” with one another. “My heart is so broken . . . that I can hardly think or write or speak,” admitted Ohio congressman and future U.S. president James A. Garfield, who was in the city on business.6 None in the metropolis felt the shock and pain more deeply than Walt Whitman.

  “Mother prepared breakfast—and other meals afterwards—as usual, but not a mouthful was eaten all day by either of us,” the poet reminisced. “We each drank half a cup of coffee; that was all. Little was said. We got every newspaper morning and evening, and the frequent extras . . . and pass’d them silently to each other.”7

  Later, when rain poured from leaden skies, Whitman put pen to paper to vent his own dark and dismal emotions: “Black clouds driving overhead. Lincoln’s death—black, black, black—as you look toward the sky—long broad black like great serpents.”8

  Across the continent, when the news reached California at 10 A.M. on April 15, the residents were no less startled than their eastern counterparts.9 Elkan Cohn was just about to deliver his sermon to Saturday morning worshipers at his San Francisco church when a note was handed to him at the pulpit. As the congregation watched in suspense, the Reverend Cohn soon burst into tears, then collapsed. After recovering somewhat, Cohn announced the grim news to the gathering. His words were received “like a thunderbolt,” and with sobs and groans the entire crowd was overcome with sadness.10

  “At first,” admitted an editor in the same city, “few could believe it.”11 When the truth was accepted, however, the impact on Westerners was fully as devastating as that on Easterners.12 “Hard, stern-featured men weeping like women,” wrote one witness as he walked the streets of San Francisco. “Every voice hushed to a whisper.”13

  At her home in Iowa, Marjorie Rogers first heard the incredible news when an elderly friend dropped by. “I was dumb with fear and astonishment,” the Des Moines woman admitted, “we could not talk about it. . . . [E]verything looked like an eclipse of the sun, our light and hope was gone. . . . Our old friend weeping like a child rose and left me alone. I wandered listlessly about, could not realize the awfulness of the situation.”14

  When Governor Oliver Morton tried to console a large crowd gathered at the statehouse in Indianapolis, he found he could not even console himself. “[H]is grief choked his utterance so that he was obliged to sit down,” said a sad witness.”15

  “And only yesterday,” sighed Maggie Lindsley from the same state,

  everything was so bright and beautiful—Nature too was rejoicing in the happiness and glory of this great Nation. . . . Richmond taken! Lee surrendered! A Mighty Nation saved, purged and purified! . . . Only yesterday! And today? Alas! The terrible stroke in the midst of the Nation’s triumph! O God! Our God! What does it mean? Why are we thus stricken in the midst of our paeans of praise? . . . Tears are in all eyes—sobs in every voice—old men and children—rich and poor, white and black—all feel it a personal loss. . . . God in Heaven! How hard it is to realize.16

  Nowhere was the news from Ford’s Theater more devastating than in Lincoln’s hometown. To one Springfield reporter, it seemed as if the entire city was prostrated to the ground upon hearing the word—”as if,” he said, “the Death Angel had taken a member from every family.”17

  “The news of his going struck me dumb,” confessed Lincoln’s former law partner, William Herndon, “the deed being so infernally wicked . . . so huge in consequences, that it was too large to enter my brain.”18

  Indeed, for some the awful words were simply too enormous, too terrifying to be understood and dealt with sanely. In New York City, when an unstable German heard the news and saw the horrified reaction of those around him, he drew a razor and attempted to cut his own throat.19 In the same city, a young boy had more success. Already subject to fits, the agitated child announced to his parents that he would join Lincoln in death. Before the screaming mother could react, her son slit his throat.20 At New Haven, Connecticut, another man dropped dead when he heard the news, and in the same state a young woman reportedly became a raving maniac.21 After hearing of the assassination, a man in Michigan collapsed and rolled back and forth on the street in a fit. Another individual, utterly unhinged by the news, roamed the sidewalks of Detroit with a large stone in his grip. When asked his purpose, the man replied that he was going to kill two people he knew.22

  As was the case in the nation’s capital, horror and shock soon gave way to anger and violence. “Such passion, such sorrow, such indignation, I never saw before,” a federal judge wrote in his journal after observing an Indiana crowd. “Every man seemed full of fury.”23

  Viewing from his office window a boiling, angry crowd, an enraged editor in Bangor, Maine, gave vent to his own explosive emotions. “Let the vengeance of an outraged people have full sway,” urged the journalist. “Smite from off the earth all instigators, perpetrators—all their sympathizers. Let them die a dog’s death.”24

  With prompting like the above, it is not surprising that the more excitable and unstable among the population quickly translated violent words into violent deeds. When a man on the Brooklyn ferry was overheard muttering “disloyal” sentiments, he was seized by fellow passengers and flung headfirst over the railing. The struggling victim was soon swept under the craft and smashed to death by the paddles.25

  “Served him right!” shouted those watching from the boat.26

  At a butcher shop in Ohio, another man clapped in elation when he heard the welcome news from Washington. According to a Cleveland newspaper:

  The shop man had raised his cleaver to strike asunder a bone in the meat as the words of levity and insane joy fell on his ears. He turned on his heels and made a pass at the man with a downward stroke of the cleaver. He sprang aside, but the corner of the blade made a gash in his face. As he was jumping out of the door he received another blow in his shoulder, the axe inflicting a savage wound.27

  When two strangers fishing on the same stream in Connecticut first learned of Ford’s Theater, one yelled that he was “damned glad he’s dead.” Furious, the other angler dropped his pole, beat the man senseless, then tied him to a tree far from help.28

  For similar comments, several were reportedly slain in Boston and Chicago.29 In the politically divided city of St. Louis, according to one account, many men were shot down like dogs for making similar remarks. Outside a saloon in the same city, several were wounded and the Jewish owner killed when federal soldiers opened fire.30 In Indiana and Illinois, even in the president’s hometown, those who celebrated the news from Washington were shot down on the spot. One man was literally cut to ribbons by fifteen balls.31

  Other victims in Iowa, California, and Colorado Territory “escaped up trees” after shouting mobs threw ropes around their necks.32 In New York City, one cursing celebrant exclaimed, “Old Abe, that son of a bitch, is dead, and he ought to have been killed long ago.” His joy was short-lived. A nearby policeman knocked the man cold with his club, then hauled the culprit to court, where he was promptly sentenced to six months in jail.33 At South Camden in nearby New Jersey, police narrowly saved a black man from lynching at the hands of other blacks after a similar comment.34

  Numerous “suicides” also were reported. Some victims were found floating in creeks, rivers, and bays. More than one victim was found mangled on railro
ad tracks. Others were discovered with multiple stab wounds to the heart or several bullet holes to the head. All these victims supposedly died by their own hands.35

  When one or two boisterous individuals rashly exhibited elation at Lincoln’s death, they were easily and unmercifully dealt with by snarling neighbors. When entire communities celebrated, it was another matter. At Marietta, Indiana, the unexpected news from Ford’s Theater propelled everyone from their homes, “crazy with joy.” Reported a shocked journalist:

  In the absence of a cannon, they loaded and fired an anvil repeatedly, shouted, danced, sang, and in every possible manner gave expression to their demoniac joy, after which they constructed an effigy of President Lincoln, with a rude representation of the bullet-hole in his head, which they carried about the streets, a big ruffian following, and ringing a bell. The effigy was afterward burnt.36

  Though numbers and distance might insulate some anti-Lincoln communities, those areas with federal troops nearby who celebrated the president’s death did so at their peril. In Green Valley, California, a full-scale battle broke out when angry soldiers moved in to suppress disloyal demonstrations following the assassination. When the smoke had cleared, several lay wounded and nearly a dozen were arrested. Elsewhere in California, scores of suspicious men either committed “suicide” or were hurled into Fort Alcatraz on San Francisco Bay.37

  Like their civilian counterparts, federal soldiers who foolishly made public their true sentiments on Lincoln could expect short shrift from grieving comrades. One soldier at a camp near Indianapolis declared that he would “have a hoe-down” on Lincoln’s grave and thereupon began dancing deliriously. Outraged onlookers seized the man and quickly strung him up. Only when the victim’s face turned black did his comrades cut him down. Five other soldiers at Indianapolis were treated similarly.38