The Darkest Dawn

by Thomas Goodrich

  With such angry words issuing from respected Christians and “men of God,” it is small wonder that the already excited public was goaded into further madness. Even while preachers throughout the North were pounding their pulpits for revenge, mobs continued the violent purge. Nowhere was this more evident than in the nation’s capital.

  Because the whereabouts of the assassins and the extent of the conspiracy were still nebulous, Washington in effect had become a closed city, with all roads picketed and no one allowed to come and go.14 With the city secure, the hunt for suspects was simplified. One report stated that officials were going to search every room in every building of the capital to flush out the culprits.15 Anyone associated with Booth was, of course, under immediate suspicion. Hundreds were questioned about the popular young actor, and scores were tossed into the Old Capitol Prison.16 After her recovery, Booth’s paramour, Ella Turner, was arrested, as was everyone else in the home, “from the mistress to the cook.”17 Actors, and anyone associated with the stage, were rounded up and examined closely. A hapless Kansan who somehow blundered into town was arrested and roughly treated because he resembled the famous thespian.18

  Some persistent rumors hinted that the assassin was still at large in the city disguised as a female. As a result, all men dressed as women were arrested; four such suspects were plucked from the streets of Georgetown alone. Another man caught in skirts was attacked by a brick-throwing mob when it was rumored that he was the assailant of Secretary Seward.19

  Prostitutes were also jailed. Many, including a black woman, were arrested for “frisking” over Lincoln’s death. One strumpet shouted with glee that Booth “deserves a crown.” Under the assumption that they were celebrating, common drunks and drug addicts were taken away as well. Even halfwits and gibbering idiots were watched closely.20

  Self-appointed vigilantes, or “street rangers,” also scoured the city. Homeowners who had not illuminated during the victory celebrations and now displayed no symbols of mourning were ordered to do so within fifteen minutes or face the consequences. Likewise, those who failed to don black or dress plainly were viewed suspiciously as Southern sympathizers when they appeared in gay colors. Well-intentioned men who had urged restraint during the riots of Friday and Saturday were now pointed out and hurled into the Old Capitol Prison. In such a climate of fear and suspicion, even a smile or a jest could be construed as seditious and summon the wrath of a mob or the federal government.21

  “No man could utter a word not of grief without proclaiming himself a partisan of the assassin,” recorded one observer in the prison-like city.22

  “Anybody and everybody was arrested on sight, if they showed the least suspicious sign,” another witness wrote.23

  Many men were reportedly beaten and killed before they reached prison. Some victims were found floating in the Potomac.24 Once ubiquitous, paroled soldiers in Confederate uniforms now wisely sought hiding places. Those who showed themselves faced almost certain violence. When a rebel general and two aides were led through the streets Sunday by federal guards, a mob of several thousand followed close behind, chanting “Hang them up! Hang them!!” Hustling the prisoners into the provost marshal’s office, troops tried to quell the riot, to no effect. Fearing that the doors would soon be forced, the men were quickly ushered out the back and ensconced in Old Capitol.25 Later, a larger group of prisoners were led along the back streets of the city. Word soon spread, and again a rock- and brick-throwing mob attacked. When the guards themselves were hit, they halted and leveled their muskets as if to fire. As soon as the column tried to move, again the rioters pressed forward.26 One of the rebel prisoners describes the scene:

  An angry and mongrel crowd, composed mostly of negroes and bummers, was gathering around us, uttering all kinds of threats. . . . [W]e were everywhere greeted with yells, etc., of “damned assassins,” “kill them,” etc. Some officer in our party seeing the situation of himself and us all, told the sergeant of the guard that “we” (the Confederate) prisoners, did not propose to stand there and be mobbed, and that if he and his guard could not protect us, we would be forced to take their muskets and protect ourselves. . . . To the Confederate officer’s request or demand, the negro sergeant replied, “Stand back dar white man. I’se gwine to pertect you.” Fortunately, before the mob could find a leader, the authorities sent down some companies . . . who quickly and without any ceremony dispersed the mob.27

  Not only were heavy reinforcements placed in and around Old Capitol, but military hospitals were patrolled to prevent the savage mobs from dragging out and murdering the Confederate wounded.28

  Although some Americans, such as Horace Greeley, were aghast at the Jacobin spirit scourging the North, most were not. Indeed, many were elated at this settling of accounts with traitors and “home-grown rebels” in the rear. While Northern mobs were dealing out “justice” with a bloody hand, no one in the victorious Union forgot where the real roots of trouble lay. In many ways, the death of Lincoln sealed the final awful fate of the defeated Confederacy. “With malice toward none, with charity for all” died at Ford’s Theater.

  “[T]he South must be literally swept with the sword, all the fiends ought to be driven out or hanged,” argued one leading radical to Senator Charles Sumner.29 On this account most Northerners, high and low, generally agreed. The South and slavery had killed Abraham Lincoln, and now the South and slavery would pay.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A DOUBLE DISASTER

  WITH MUCH OF THE SOUTH’S INFRASTRUCTURE smashed by war, communications throughout the region were slowed to a crawl. News of Lincoln’s death took days, even weeks, to reach many in the fast-shrinking Confederacy. As a rule, federal-held territory along waterways was first to hear. In Virginia, a steamer on the James River spread the word to both shores by displaying a huge placard on an upper deck which read: “President Lincoln Assassinated!”1 On the Mississippi, with its whistle screaming and the unmistakable black draped from its decks, the Sultana carried the grim news from Kentucky to Louisiana.2 For the most part, though, the same news that had raced across the North with the lightning speed of the telegraph now crept through the South on the slow, weary footfalls of returning rebel soldiers.

  Like those in the North, most men and women in the South were stunned by the news. Unlike Northerners, however, most of those in Dixie were elated by the sudden turn of events. In fact, many Confederates felt the report was merely another false rumor stirred to keep their morale up. After four years of bloody persecution, after the deaths of husbands, fathers, and sons, most thought the news of Lincoln’s death simply too good to be true. When the rumors became fact, a majority of Southerners were overjoyed.3

  “Lincoln, Lincoln the oppressor, is dead! actually dead!” Catherine Edmondston of North Carolina excitedly jotted in her journal.4

  “Could there have been a fitter death for such a man?” echoed Emma LeConte of Columbia, South Carolina.

  Our spirits had been so low that the least good news elevated them wonderfully and this was so utterly unlooked-for, took us so completely by surprise. I actually flew home and for the first time in oh, so long, I was trembling and my heart beating with excitement. I stopped in at Aunt Josie’s to talk it over. As soon as I reached the head of the stairs, they all cried, “What do you think of the news?” “Isn’t it splendid,” etc. We were all in a tremor of excitement. . . . The man we hated has met his proper fate.5

  Often startled by the intensity of their hatred, most Southern women nevertheless felt in their hearts that Lincoln’s death was the work of an avenging angel. Explained a Virginian:

  We could not be expected to grieve . . . for Mr. Lincoln, whom we had seen only in the position of an implacable foe at the head of a power invading and devastating our land. . . . I remember how one poor woman took the news. She was half-crazed by her losses and troubles; one son had been killed in battle, another had died in prison, of another she could not hear if he were living or dead; her house had been
burned; her young daughter, turned out with her in the night, had died of fright and exposure. She ran in, crying: “Lincoln has been killed! Thank God!”

  I’m not glad. But, somehow, I can’t be sorry. I believe it was the vengeance of the Lord.6

  “We were desperate and vindictive, and whosoever denies it forgets or is false,” one man candidly admitted.7

  Intensifying Southern satisfaction was the knowledge that federal officers had received orders to murder Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his entire cabinet during an aborted cavalry raid on Richmond in 1864.8 Most of the South felt that even if Lincoln had not signed the death papers, he had countenanced it in principle. Hence, his demise at the hand of an assassin seemed especially appropriate.9

  In those areas of the former Confederacy occupied by federal troops, much of the celebration was understandably furtive, confined largely to parlors and diaries.10 In regions still free of Yankee rule, emotions ran wild.

  “Abe Lincoln . . . the political mountebank and professional joker, whom nature intended for the ring of a circus . . . has fallen,” a Selma, Alabama, editor told his readers. “His career was as short as it was bloody and infamous.”11

  Upon receiving the news at a store in Georgia, everyone hurrahed and tossed their hats in the air.12 In Kentucky, William Quantrill’s guerrillas, still active and full of fight, set up a cheer, then galloped their horses to a nearby still house, where they celebrated “for a day or two.”13 Others throughout the hard-pressed Confederacy tied hemp on their doorknobs in mock mourning.14 Many appreciative rebels were mad to learn more of their hero and obtain his photograph. “All honor to J. Wilkes Booth, who has rid the world of a tyrant and made himself famous for generations,” cheered one woman.15

  In the Trans-Mississippi Department, Texans were even more demonstrative. “It is certainly a matter of congratulation that Lincoln is dead,” cheered a Marshall editor, “because the world is happily rid of a monster that disgraced the form of humanity.”16 On the Rio Grande, several hundred rebels in Matamoras toasted Lincoln’s demise with champagne and beer, then fashioned a grave from sand and scrawled on a head-board: “To the memory of the damned Ape Lincoln.”17

  Increasingly though, the jubilation over Lincoln’s death was crowded out by visions of the future. With almost certain defeat at hand, occupation could not be far behind—occupation by a wrathful enemy thirsting to avenge its fallen leader. For those joyous only a moment before, the thought was sobering indeed.18

  Eliza Andrews was sitting on a train at a Georgia railroad station when the word from Washington arrived. “Some fools laughed and applauded,” the young woman recorded, “but wise people looked grave and held their peace. It is a terrible blow to the South, for it places that vulgar renegade, Andy Johnson, in power, and will give the Yankees an excuse for charging us with a crime which was in reality only the deed of an irresponsible madman.”19

  As Eliza noted, it was now that many Confederates came to the grim realization that the vindictive “drunken ass,” Andrew Johnson, had replaced the much more charitable, conciliatory Abraham Lincoln. It was also now that many Southerners began distancing themselves from their true emotions.

  “We do not believe there is one intelligent citizen in Hancock County who does not deeply denounce his murder and sincerely mourn his loss,” insisted one Kentuckian with a straight face.20 From Lexington, another man announced that “every countenance was sad—even the Secessionists lamented the sad event.”21

  Though greatly exaggerated, there were indeed some Southerners who genuinely mourned Lincoln’s loss. Blacks, both free and slave, felt the president’s death as deeply as any. Many were uncertain of their fate now that Father Abraham was gone. “Uncle Sam is dead; have I got to go back to massa?” a little black boy asked a white lady.22

  “Thousands of negroes were wringing their hands and in indescribable wailings were giving expression to their great grief,” wrote a witness in Virginia. “[N]o one could doubt the genuiness [or] the depth of grief.”23

  Even white Southerners—Unionists in the border states, disgruntled Confederates in the mountains—were truly saddened by the death of a man who had risen from nothing to greatness.24 “[O]ld Abe with all his apeishness was a kindhearted man disposed to treat us generously and mercifully,” one North Carolinian confided.25

  Although a majority of rebels could not force themselves to write or utter such sentiments even for self-preservation, the fear of prying eyes and certain retribution made many circumspect, even in journal entries. “Heard that Lincoln had been assassinated,” scratched one secretive Virginia diarist on April 20. “Cool in the morning, pleasant day.”26 And whatever joy Mary Ford of Georgetown, Kentucky, may have felt when word arrived, little was evident in her journal entry: “Lincoln & Seward were both massacred at the theater last night. Dr. here after tea—rainy nearly all day—cleared off cooler.”27

  While the cryptic indifference of average Southern whites said much while saying nothing, the true consequences of Lincoln’s murder were clearly understood by the handful of Confederate leaders.28 “We should have regarded Mr. Lincoln’s death as a calamity, even if it had come about by natural means,” wrote George Cary Eggleston, “[but] coming as it did through a crime committed in our name, it seemed doubly a disaster.”29

  The fugitive Confederate president Jefferson Davis first learned of the events at Ford’s Theater when he was handed an urgent telegram as he stood on the steps of a home in Charlotte, North Carolina. When the yet defiant rebel soldiers around him began to raise a cheer at the unexpected glad tidings, the somber statesman raised his hands. “It is sad news,” muttered Davis. “I certainly had no special regard for Mr. Lincoln, but there are a great many men whose end I would much rather have heard than his. I fear it will be disastrous to our people, and I regret it deeply.”30

  Another Confederate leader who had real cause to rue events in Washington was Joseph Johnston. Receiving the startling news during surrender negotiations with Major General William T. Sherman near Raleigh, North Carolina, Johnston visibly reddened, broke into a cold sweat, then denounced the murder as a “disgrace to the age.” While Sherman knew that neither Johnston nor his ragged army had had a hand in the assassination, the Union general also realized what the reaction of his own men would be when they heard the news. Prudently opting to withhold the information as long as possible, Sherman was determined to prevent death and destruction when the word became official.31 By the morning of April 18, the news could no longer be held back.

  Records Lieutenant John Janicke of the 4th Minnesota Infantry:

  [W]hile kneeling on the greensward around the breakfast dishes a newsboy came running into camp with a lot of Raleigh newspapers, shouting, “All about the assassination! President Lincoln assassinated! . . . “We drop knives and forks and rise, grief-stricken, and in solemn silence leave our breakfast. Lieutenant Dooley is standing behind an oak tree, the tears falling from his eyes. Before I get through reading I am overcome with painful emotion.32

  “[A] grapeshot through the heart would not have struck me more dumb,” echoed a stunned comrade.33

  Union soldiers elsewhere throughout the occupied South were no less shaken. Charles Deamude heard the “lamentible nuse” while his unit was in Cleveland, Tennessee. “I could not believe it all though it had been con firmed by fore telegrams,” the soldier wrote his father. “I thaught it was a camp rhumer.”34

  In Morganza, Louisiana, Major Charles Hawes and his hungry men were waiting for mess when the Sultana, that “dark angel of misfortune,” hove to clad in black.35 “[N]ot one of us could take our seats at the table,” the officer admitted upon hearing the ill tidings. “We all felt too deeply.”36

  “Regiments were seen to weep—not a single man, here and there—but whole regiments,” reported a correspondent in Mobile.37

  As with their civilian counterparts, after the soldiers’ shock and sadness had passed, rage rushed in.38 As Sherman had righ
tly feared, once his men had been aroused, revenge on anyone at hand would be the response. “The army is crazy for vengeance,” admitted an Illinois soldier.39 When thousands of inflamed troops, bent on murder and mayhem, marched on Raleigh, only the superhuman efforts of Sherman’s lieutenant, General John Logan, and his threat to sweep the mutineers with grape and canister prevented the destruction of the North Carolina capital and a wholesale massacre.40

  Not every Yankee commander was as conscientious as Sherman and Logan. In northern Alabama, Brig. Gen. R. S. Granger ordered the summary execution of anyone “who in any manner” found favor with the assassination.41 And elsewhere throughout the occupied South, the emotions of Union soldiers were fully as explosive as they had been in North Carolina. “I say hang every one of them from Jeff Davis down,” Lieutenant Holiday Ames wrote to his wife in Ohio. “I would be in favour of raising the black flag and not give one of them any quarters.”42 Added to the average soldier’s genuine sense of sorrow and fury at the deed was the understandable outrage that the war might be lengthened as a consequence. Such was the intense anger of Lieutenant Ames, however, that more war was actually welcomed. “I feel now like staying in the army three years more and fighting for reveng, yes fighting until every Cursed Rebble is exterminated,” wrote the grim officer in his diary.43

  When the “offle News” reached Hoosier Ivan Barr in Mississippi, his bloodlust was almost boundless. “If we had Old Jeff and his Cabanet hear [we] could cut them in mints meat[.] I could cut there heart out with my knife and lick the Blud of with my mouth. . . . I would like to get a shot at Some of them Copperheads that is rejoicing there at home[.] I could kill one of them as easy as a Hog.”44

  Unfortunately, in countless instances throughout the South, the bloody fantasies of many soldiers were more than fulfilled. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, paroled Confederate officers were chased through the town by howling Yankee soldiers.45 Federal troops, muskets in hand, roamed the deserted streets of Memphis, anxious to slay any and all Southerners encountered.46 In Goldsboro, North Carolina, a citizen was shot dead by an angry Union soldier.47 Others were reportedly killed in Kentucky.48 Perhaps as many as nine men were murdered in New Orleans alone, some for exhibiting mere “indifference” to Lincoln’s death.49