LINCOLN DECIDED TO RETURN from Virginia to Washington on the morning of April 9, 1865, when he was informed that William Seward had been seriously injured in a carriage accident. Upon his return on the River Queen, he was informed by Secretary of War Stanton that Lee had surrendered to Grant earlier in the day. Lincoln made his way through surging crowds to visit Seward, who had suffered a fractured jaw, a broken arm, and facial lacerations.
On the morning of April 10, 1865, all of Washington learned the war was over when Secretary of War Stanton ordered the firing of five hundred cannons, which broke windows on Lafayette Square. In the afternoon, three thousand people marched to the White House to serenade the president. They called for a speech. He thanked them for coming, but unprepared to speak spontaneously, asked them to return the following evening. He asked the military band to play “Dixie,” a song he said that now belonged to the whole country.
April 11, 1865, became an official day of celebration. Government offices closed. Across the Potomac in Arlington, thousands of African-Americans gathered on the lawn of Robert E. Lee’s former home to sing “The Year of Jubilee.” In the evening, public buildings and private homes were illuminated.
An even larger crowd walked to the White House to hear the president speak. Noah Brooks stood behind the president with a candle to help illuminate the pages from Lincoln’s prepared remarks. Tad, crouching below the window, delighted in picking up the pages as they fell from his father’s hands. Lincoln focused his remarks not on the past but on the future. Avoiding the contentious debate about whether the seceded states had been in or out of the Union the past four years, Lincoln declared, “Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper relations between these states and the Union.” He devoted the bulk of his speech to speaking about Louisiana, admitting that he had been severely criticized for his Reconstruction plan for the state. Secretary of War Stanton, Chief Justice Chase, and Republican Senate radicals complained that without granting Southern blacks suffrage, they would remain under the control of their former masters. Lincoln, who was not yet certain of his ideas on suffrage, said he preferred that “very intelligent blacks,” and the nearly two hundred thousand who had served in the military, be granted the right to vote.
Lincoln called for everyone to exercise flexibility in navigating the whole new territory of Reconstruction. He tipped his hat to Congress, saying they had a rightful role to play, but declared that “no exclusive, and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals” at this time. Lincoln concluded, “In the present ‘situation,’ as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act, when satisfied that action will be proper.”
The response to Lincoln’s address was polite but muted. The crowd came expecting a rousing speech praising the Union and the courageous efforts of soldiers, not a rather technical defense of Lincoln’s Reconstruction policies. Some people, disappointed, left before Lincoln finished his remarks. The president sensed the cool response of the crowd.
The response of one man, however, was far from muted. When the Civil War had first erupted, John Wilkes Booth continued to work in the North, making no effort to cover up his Southern sympathies, including his support for slavery. Booth, taking pride in himself as a cultured actor, held Lincoln in disdain as a man of low culture and coarse jokes.
Booth had become despondent when Lincoln was reelected in November and the fortunes of the South shrank in the winter and early spring of 1865. Now that the war was over, he resolved that stronger measures were needed. He was in touch with the Southern secret service as he sought to do something “heroic” for the South. When Lincoln spoke about the possibility of voting rights for some African-Americans, Booth turned to a friend and snapped, “That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”
ON GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, April 14, 1865, Lincoln arose feeling well. He had enjoyed a good night’s sleep after many nights of restlessness. He had had once again a recurrent dream. He found himself on a ship traveling to a distant, unknown shore. He told Mary of the dream, but said he was not concerned because he had experienced a similar dream several times before, always before a significant Union victory, at Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. He hoped that the dream meant favorable news this day. Perhaps Johnston, in North Carolina, had surrendered to Sherman.
He enjoyed breakfast with Mary and Tad; Robert arrived later. He had invited Mary for a carriage ride in the afternoon. In the evening he was looking forward to going to Ford’s Theatre to see Our American Cousin, an English comedy starring the celebrated English actress Laura Keene. Lincoln invited Ulysses and Julia Grant to join them.
At 11 a.m. Grant, who had arrived in the city the night before, joined Lincoln for a cabinet meeting. Grant shared news of the last drive in Virginia and the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court House. Lincoln asked about news from Sherman in North Carolina. He told everyone that the news would surely be that Johnston had surrendered because he had had a dream the night before that had always preceded military victories. When the discussion turned to how to deal with the defeated South, Lincoln spoke sympathetically of Lee. The president then spoke with discouragement that men in his own party “possess feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which I do not sympathize and cannot participate.”
Grant lingered after the cabinet meeting to tell Lincoln that they would not be accompanying him that evening to Ford’s Theatre. The Grants were going to take the evening train to Philadelphia as they were anxious to see their sons in Long Branch, New Jersey.
Lincoln ate an apple for lunch and, back at his office, signed another pardon, this time for a man accused as a Confederate spy. “Well, I think the boy can do us more good above ground than under ground.” After dealing patiently with a number of callers, Lincoln went to get Mary for their four o’clock carriage ride.
Lincoln did his best to try to calm Mary. At City Point she had embarrassed him by claiming loudly that he was flirting with an officer’s wife. She had even accosted Julia Grant and upbraided her for wanting to succeed her in the White House. Now, on this Good Friday afternoon, he told Mary, “We must both be more cheerful in the future.” He acknowledged that “between the war & the loss of our darling Willie—we have both been very miserable.” But the conversation turned happier when they spoke of the future. Lincoln said he wanted to visit Europe, perhaps even Jerusalem. One day he wanted to travel out west—to California.
Returning to the White House, Lincoln endured more callers. Mary, who complained of a headache, said she would rather stay home. Lincoln knew their plan had been announced in the newspapers and said they must attend, and so they dressed for the evening. She wore a lovely gray silk dress and he a black suit, overcoat, white kid gloves, and top hat. As they were about to go, Congressman Isaac Arnold came by to see Lincoln. The president told him, “I am going to the theatre. Come by and see me in the morning.”
Finally, after a quick walk to the War Department, Abraham and Mary prepared to leave. William H. Crook, a White House guard, wanted to accompany the president, but Lincoln told Crook he knew he had had a long day and he should take the night off. On their way to the theater, they stopped at Senator Ira Harris’s house to pick up Major Henry R. Rathbone and Harris’s daughter Clara, whom Lincoln invited when the Grants declined. On a foggy Washington evening, the Lincolns finally arrived at Ford’s at eight-thirty, late for the play.
When the Lincolns entered their flag-draped box, the play stopped and the audience cheered. Major Rathbone and Miss Harris took the front seats while Abraham and Mary sat in the rear. John F. Parker, another White House guard, who was to stand in front of the door to the Lincolns’ box, instead decided to find a seat in order to see the play.
As the farcical comedy rollicked forward, Mary had to point out to her exhausted husband what was happening onstage. Lincoln found i
t difficult to get his mind off the myriad of problems with Reconstruction. Mary slipped her hand into his.
During the third act, John Wilkes Booth entered the unguarded box. He aimed a small derringer pistol at the back of Lincoln’s head, and, from a distance of six inches, fired one shot. Lincoln slumped ahead in his chair. Mary screamed in terror. Rathbone rose to confront the intruder, but Booth, dagger in hand, slashed the young major before leaping from the box to the stage. He yelled in defiance, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus ever to tyrants.”)
The audience was stunned. Bedlam erupted and people rushed for the exits. Lincoln’s limp body was carried across the street to the modest home of William Peterson, a tailor. The doctor who examined the president knew that he could not live. The bullet had entered his head on the left side and lodged near his right eye.
As Mary Lincoln sobbed inconsolably, Secretary of War Stanton took charge. Welles arrived and observed, “The giant sufferer lay extended diagonally across the bed, which was not long enough for him.” House Speaker Colfax, Senator Sumner, and prominent members of the cabinet gathered in the small back room of the Peterson home. Lincoln’s pastor, Phineas Gurley, arrived. Rumors circulated that assassins had also attacked Vice President Johnson and General Grant. A further report said Secretary of State Seward was assaulted but survived.
Throughout the long night, Washington officials came and went. Robert Lincoln arrived and broke down when he saw his father. Mary tried to speak to her husband, kissed his face, and told him to speak to their departed children. She recalled his dream he told her of the phantom ship traveling to the distant shore.
Finally, Lincoln’s pulse weakened, and he died at 7:22 a.m. on Saturday, April 15, 1865. Stanton asked Pastor Gurley to offer a prayer. Then the secretary of war, who had come to such a deep appreciation of Lincoln, said simply, “Now, he belongs to the ages.”
GRIEF FOR THE DEAD PRESIDENT spread quickly across the country. Many well-known people spoke in impromptu meetings in cities large and small. In Rochester, New York, Mayor Daniel David Tompkins hastily called a meeting at the city hall. He invited three of the leading citizens of Rochester to speak of their appreciation for Abraham Lincoln. Frederick Douglass took a seat toward the back of the auditorium. After the scheduled speakers delivered their eulogies, attendees called for Douglass to speak. He walked to the platform to offer his spontaneous eulogy, focusing his remarks on words from Lincoln’s second inaugural address. He quoted two sentences from the address.
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another, drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said, that the judgments of the Lord are righteous altogether.
Douglass spoke the words from memory, declaring that “those memorable words—words which will live immortal in history,” will “be read with increasing admiration from age to age.”
The day after Lincoln’s death, Easter Sunday, hundreds of ministers and preachers offered a new definition of Abraham Lincoln. In sermons across the North they interpreted the president’s death as a sacrifice for the nation’s sins. They declared him the Civil War’s final casualty.
In the subsequent days and weeks, in general stores and schools and churches across the country, others attempted to define the meaning of Lincoln’s life. Their first instinct was to look backward, from the vantage point of the end of the Civil War, to see with new appreciation what Lincoln had accomplished in holding the Union together and declaring freedom for the slaves. Some pondered what might have been in Lincoln’s second term as the nation suddenly faced the uncertainty of reconciliation and reconstruction. They wondered what role Lincoln might have played in healing the country after so many years of violence. They wondered what new designation he might have earned.
In the years that have followed, each generation of Americans, indeed citizens around the world, has attempted to define and redefine Lincoln from their own historical vantage point, asking new questions relevant to their day. One reason we have never settled on one definition of Lincoln, and, indeed, never will, is that Lincoln never stopped asking questions of himself. Painfully aware of the shortcomings of his early education, Lincoln—whether as schoolboy, Illinois legislator, prairie lawyer, or as president—always continued his self-study, growing in wisdom and self-knowledge with each passing year. He read, discussed, and pondered the great ideas not only of his time, but of those of the generations before him. He also thought into the future, anticipating the moral questions of subsequent generations. And Lincoln underwent a religious odyssey that deepened as he aged, inquiring about everlasting truths until his last day.
In the days after Lincoln’s death, preparations began for a vast public mourning. Arrangements were made for the long train ride home to the prairies of Illinois. Lincoln’s casket would retrace the exact route where cheering crowds had greeted the president-elect on his way to Washington four years before. On Tuesday, April 18, it seemed that all of Washington stood in line outside the White House to pay their respects to the dead president. After waiting hours they entered the East Room to pass the president’s open casket, finding him dressed in the black suit he had worn at his Second Inaugural. Three days after the assassination, some of the mourners may have offered the most accurate characterization of the man behind the signature “A. Lincoln.” As was the custom of the time, many people wore silk mourning badges. One badge, seen everywhere in Washington during those sad days, said what was in people’s hearts: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”
Acknowledgments
N WRITING A BIOGRAPHY of Abraham Lincoln, I have been conscious at every moment of being supported by a community of scholars, friends, and institutions. I am privileged to do research and writing as a Fellow at the incomparable Huntington Library in San Marino, California. I wish to thank Steven Koblik, president; Robert C. Ritchie, W. M. Keck director of research; and David S. Zeidberg, Avery director of the library. Special thanks go to the Readers Services Department, especially Christopher J. S. Adde, Jill Cogan, and Barbara Quinn.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, is a treasure trove of manuscripts and people. From the beginning of my journey with Mr. Lincoln, Illinois state historian Tom Schwartz, always willing to answer any query, has generously shared his vast knowledge of Lincoln. Daniel W. Stowell, director and editor of the Lincoln Papers, has offered his friendship and counsel, as well as early admission to the manuscript versions of the Lincoln Legal Papers published by the University of Virginia Press in 2008. Stowell and his excellent team of editors also provided access to their massive project of collecting and annotating the Abraham Lincoln Papers, which, unlike the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln published in the 1950s, will include all of the incoming correspondence to Lincoln. I also thank James M. Cornelius, curator of the Henry Hoerner Lincoln Collection, and Cheryl Schnirring, director of the Manuscripts Division. Tim Town-send, National Park Service historian for the Abraham Lincoln home in Springfield, guided me through the home and answered innumerable questions in succeeding years.
At the Library of Congress, John Sellers, historical specialist for the Civil War and Reconstruction, has been a resource and sounding board for all things Lincoln. Clark Evans, director, Rare Books Division, and Mary Ison, head of the Photography and Prints Division, have, again, rendered valuable assistance.
I wish to thank the staffs of the John Hay Collection at Brown University, the Chicago History Museum, and the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for their help during research visits.
I am grateful to President George W. Bush for his invitation to Cynthia and me to meet with him and to explore firsthand Lincoln’s White House. Mr. Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to the preside
nt and director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives, coordinated our visit. William G. Allman, White House curator, provided us an extensive tour of the White House, including the upstairs living quarters, and spoke with us about how this great house functioned in Lincoln’s time. It is one thing to read about the White House; it is another to meander through its rooms and imagine where Abraham, Mary, Tad, Willie, and secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay lived and worked. We appreciated seeing the marvelous George P. A. Healey portrait of Lincoln in the White House state dining room.
Jim McPherson generously shared with me Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief while still in manuscript form. Catherine Clinton kindly allowed me to read an early draft of her new book, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life.
I am indebted to friends who read parts or all of the manuscript. Tom Schwartz read an early version of the Illinois portion of the manuscript. Huntington colleagues Jack Rogers and Paul Zall provided me their seasoned insights. Douglas Wilson and Daniel Howe read parts of the manuscript and offered both critical questions and critical insights. Gary Gallagher, Jim McPherson, and Richard Wightman Fox deserve full thanks for reading the full manuscript.
Karen Needles, director of the Lincolnarchives Digital Project (www.lincolnarchives.us), tirelessly assisted me in searching the Library of Congress, National Archives, and other repositories for texts, photographs, illustrations, and cartoons. Annie Russell, a former Ph.D. student, both offered her own critical reading of the manuscript and helped organize the notes and the bibliography. Nancy Macky, a dear friend and Huntington reader, offered her enthusiastic help at a timely moment toward the end of the project.
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