Mourning Lincoln

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Mourning Lincoln Page 36

by Martha Hodes


  6. Meigs: Minerva Rodgers to Robert Rodgers, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, Denison-Rodgers Family Papers, Mystic; hospital: [M. S. Tilton?] to Georgina Lowell, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, Francis Cabot Lowell Papers, MHS.

  7. infantry and cavalry: J. Thoman to “Henrietta,” Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, in Thomas F. Schwartz, “Grief, Souvenirs, and Enterprise Following Lincoln’s Assassination,” Illinois Historical Journal 83 (1990), 260; [M. S. Tilton?] to Georgina Lowell, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, Francis Cabot Lowell Papers, MHS; commotion: Augustus Clark to S. M. Allen, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, accompanying scrap of bloodstained towel used for Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, Special Collections, MHS; cavalry, crowd: Julia Adelaide Shepard to father, near Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, in “Lincoln’s Assassination,” 918; crowd: Charles F. Conant to “Hattie,” Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, ML; James S. Knox to father, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, ser. 3: General Correspondence, Abraham Lincoln Papers, LC, available at memory.loc. gov/ammem/alhtml/alser.html; black residents: Gideon Welles diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Welles Papers, LC; Charles A. Sanford to Edward Payson Goodrich, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, in “Two Letters,” n.p.

  8. good president, finish war: Jane Swisshelm to St. Cloud Democrat, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 1865 (published Apr. 27, 1865), in Crusader and Feminist: Letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm, 1858–1865, ed. Arthur J. Larsen (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1934), 287.

  9. dead, intense, painfully: Gideon Welles diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Welles Papers, LC.

  10. preparations, horror: Benjamin Brown French to Frank O. French, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 24, 1865, French Papers, LC. See also Benjamin Brown French, Witness to the Young Republic: A Yankee’s Journal, 1828–1870, ed. Donald B. Cole and John J. McDonough (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1989), 469–70 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry).

  11. telegraph: George B. Todd to Henry P. Todd, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, McClellan Lincoln Collection, Brown; Ellen Kean to Mary Kean, New York, Apr. 16, 1865, in Death and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln … in Two Long Descriptive Letters from Mrs. Ellen Kean, the Actress, whilst Touring the United States in 1865 (London: Privately printed, 1921), 14; Caroline Dunstan diary, Apr. 15, 1865, NYPL; terrible news: Berkshire Courier, Apr. 15, 1865.

  12. ma’am: Ellen Kean to “Miss Sherritt,” Baltimore, May 13ff., 1865, in Death and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln, 21; Mr. Clapp: William Warland Clapp diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Clapp Diaries and Correspondence, HLH; Mrs. Dall: Caroline Dall to “John,” Boston, Apr. 20, 1865, Dall Papers, SL, and Caroline Dall journal, Apr. 22, 1865, vol. J27, Dall Papers, MHS; for transmission by servants, see also Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS (a servant “said there were bad news afloat”); “Carrie” to sister, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, box 2, fol. 27, Richard John Levy and Sally Waldman Sweet Collection, NYPL (“The news of the President’s Murder by J. Wilkes Booth was brought me by the Servants before daylight yesterday morning”); and Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, Apr. 15, 1865, box 6, Hale Papers, NYSL (“The news was brought into our house by the man who makes the fire”); telegraphic column: “Rebecca” to Jane Wigglesworth Grew, Boston, Apr. 16, 1865, Grew Correspondence, MHS; bells: Amos A. Lawrence diary, Apr. 14, 1865, MHS; Sarah Hale to children, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, box 10, Hale Family Papers, SSC; Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS.

  13. neighbors: Mrs. Bardwell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Helen Temple Cooke Papers, SL; Emily Watkins to Abiathar Watkins, Jersey City, N.J., Apr. 16, 1865, Watkins Papers, NYPL; window: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS.

  For a rare example of staying inside, see Mary Dreer diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Edwin Greble Papers, LC.

  14. terrible: Charles H. Mallory diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Mallory Family Collection, GWBW; horrible: Lucy McKim to Wendell Phillips Garrison, Philadelphia, Apr. 17, 1865, box 49, Garrison Family Papers, SSC.

  15. heads: Caroline Dall to “John,” Boston, Apr. 20, 1865, Dall Papers, SL, and Caroline Dall journal, Apr. 22, 1865, vol. J27, Dall Papers, MHS; could see, true: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; businessmen: Otis Norcross diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; visitors: see, e.g., Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 15, 1865, White Papers, AAS.

  16. northern New England: John Wolcott Phelps commonplace book, Apr. 15, 1865, Phelps Papers, NYPL; Mid-Atlantic: Henry Wirt Shriver diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Shriver Family Papers, MDHS; Chicago: “H.H.” to cousin, Freeport, Ill., Apr. 15, 1865, Jefferson Hartman Correspondence, Duke; Kansas: Susan B. Anthony diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Anthony Papers, LC; Salt Lake City: Patty Bartlett Sessions diary, Apr. 15, 1865, ts., reel 15, Utah-AWD-West; Sacramento: Frederick G. Niles diary, Apr. 15, 1865, HL; mining town: Franklin Augustus Buck to Mary Sewall Bradley, Weaverville, Calif., Apr. 27, 1865, Buck Papers, HL; Ohio: Henry W. Pearce to “Lena,” Marietta, Ohio, Apr. 16, 1865, #00066.150, GLC-NYHS; Wisconsin: C. R. Tolles to uncle, Kenosha, Wis., Apr. 16, 1865, Myron Tolles Papers, Duke; Minnesota: Eugene Marshall diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Marshall Papers, Duke; Santa Fe: “President Lincoln’s Assassination,” letter from Santa Fe, N.Mex., May 8, 1865, New York Anglo-African, published June 17, 1865; Utah: Charles Lowell Walker diary, May 8, 1865, HL; small town: Nimrod Porter diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Porter Papers, SHC; New Orleans: C. Orrez and Patrick Shields, file OO934, RG153-NARA; Texas: William Williston Heartsill, Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army, ed. Bell Irvin Wiley (1876; reprint, Jackson, Tenn.: McCowat-Mercer, 1954), 240 (Apr. 23, 1865, entry), ACWLD; Alabama: Charles Oscar Torrey diary, Apr. 29, 1865, Torrey Papers, LC; freedpeople: Gerald Schwartz, ed., A Woman Doctor’s Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1984), 133 (Apr. 19, 1865, entry); flag-lowering: J. Harry Keyes to Sarah Ogden, City Point, Va., Apr. 30, 1865, #06559.060, GLC-NYHS; Thomas Day Seymour to Nathan Seymour, Richmond, Va., Apr. 17, 1865, Seymour Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; newspapers: Julius Ramsdell diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Ramsdell Papers, SHC; Thomas J. Kessler diary, Apr. 16, 19, 1865, #04562, GLC-NYHS; William Kauffman Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin: A Dream Shattered, June, 1863–June, 1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 852, 853 (Apr. 18, 19, 1865, entries); Samuel A. Agnew diary, Apr. 29, 1865, SHC, available at www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/a/Agnew,Samuel_A.html#; letters: [illegible] to “Bliss,” Morrisville, N.C., Apr. 18, 1865, Bancroft-Bliss Families Papers, LC.

  17. ships: Thomas Day Seymour to Nathan Seymour, Richmond, Va., Apr. 17, 1865, Seymour Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; Spain: William Benjamin Gould diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; London: Benjamin Moran diary, Apr. 19, 24, 1865, Moran Papers, LC; Jamaica: T. B. Penfield to George Whipple, Brainerd, Jamaica, Apr. 28, 1865, #F1-3841, reel 231, AMA; awful: William Benjamin Gould diary, May 6, 1865, MHS; Sierra Leone: H. H. Himman to George Whipple, Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone, West Africa, June 16, 1865 (part of June 3 letter), #F1-9664, reel 242, AMA; China: Martha Green journal, July 13, 1865, MHS; Australia: Lowell H. Harrison, “An Australian Reaction to Lincoln’s Death,” Lincoln Herald 78 (1976), 12–17.

  18. Egypt: Charles Hale to Sarah Hale, Ramallah, Egypt, May 8, 1865, box 22, and Charles Hale to Edward Everett Hale, Alexandria, Egypt, May 13, 1865, box 19, Hale Family Papers, SSC.

  19. astonished: Alexander Randall diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MDHS; Bruno Trombley diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Civil War Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, Schomburg; astounding: Samuel A. Harrison journal, Apr. 16, 1865, MDHS; astounded, calamity: George Comfort to Samuel Comfort, Morrisville, Pa., Apr. 16, 1865, Comfort Papers, Princeton; startled: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; stupefied: George Bedson to Ichabod Washburn, Manchester, England, Apr. 29, 1865, Washburn Family Papers, AAS; thunderstruck: William E. Fisher to James C. Parker, [no city], N.C., Apr. 30, 1865, Fisher Letters, NYSL; Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 15, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; Charles H. Mallory diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Mallory Family Collection, GWBW; calamity: Edwin Greble Sr. to Susan Greble, Baltimore, Apr. 16, 1865, Greble
Papers, LC; William Gray Brooks diary, Apr. 15, 17, 18, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; “Nannie” to Charles E. Snyder, [no place], Apr. 16, 1865, box 1, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; catastrophe: John G. Nicolay to Therena Bates, “Chesapeake Bay,” Apr. 17, 1865, Nicolay Papers, LC; dagger: Charles Oscar Torrey to Mira Torrey, Montgomery, Ala., May 1, 1865, Torrey Papers, LC; thunderbolt: Julia Anna Hartness Lay diary, Apr. 15, 1865, NYPL; “Albert” [?] to mother, New York, Apr. 17, 1865, box 2, Civil War Collection, AAS; unknown writer, Apr. 15, 1865, #193, Thomas B. Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, LC; thunderclap: Carl Schurz to wife, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 18, 1865, in Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, 6 vols., ed. Frederic Bancroft (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 1:253; blue sky: Henry W. Pearce to “Lena,” Marietta, Ohio, Apr. 16, 1865, #00066.150, GLCNYHS; horrible: Lydia Stark to Franklin W. Fuller, Baldwinsville, N.Y., Apr. 23, 1865, #03523.42.56, GLC-NYHS; terrible: Sophia E. Perry diary, Apr. 15, 1865, CP; scarcely: Edwin Greble Sr. to Susan Greble, Baltimore, Apr. 16, 1865, Greble Papers, LC; cannot, must not: “Em” to Lewis J. Nettleton, Milford, Conn., Apr. 19, 1865, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; but how: Ruth Anne Hillborn journal, Apr. 15, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL.

  20. could not: Laura Towne to unknown, Saint Helena Island, S.C., Apr. 29, 1865, in Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 1862–1884, ed. Rupert Sargent Holland (1912; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), 162; overwhelming: John Ritchie journal, Apr. 23, 1865, Records of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, MHS; refused: Enock K. Miller, “A Good Letter from a Chaplain in the Army,” Fort Barrancas, Fla., May 17, 1865, Christian Recorder, published June 10, 1865; agitated, worried: Testimony of Elizabeth Clark and Mary Jones, in Patrick Shields, file OO934, RG153-NARA; electric: Mattie J. Jackson, The Story of Mattie J. Jackson (Lawrence, Mass.: Sentinel, 1866), in Six Women’s Slave Narratives, ed. William L. Andrews (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 30; distress: B.L.D. to editor, Louisville, Ky., Apr. 24, 1865, Christian Recorder, published May 6, 1865.

  21. secesh lie: Mary S. Pond to George Whipple, Portsmouth, Va., May 13, 1865, #H1-7147, reel 210, AMA; canard: Edwin Greble Sr. to Susan Greble, Baltimore, Apr. 16, 1865, Greble Papers, LC; getup: Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 15, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; dreadful: Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 19, 1865, White Papers, AAS; horrible: Helen Lansing Grinnell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, NYPL; play: [M. S. Tilton?] to Georgina Lowell, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, Francis Cabot Lowell Papers, MHS; last scene: Elizabeth Cary Agassiz to mother, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 18, 1865, Agassiz Papers, SL; stunning: Susan B. Anthony diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Anthony Papers, LC; dream: Walt Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain!” in Sequel to Drum-Taps (Washington, D.C., 1865–66), 13, available at whitmanarchive.org/published/other/DrumTapsSequel.html.

  22. frantic: Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865, BFP; Norfolk: L. D. Burnett to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., May 1, 1865, #H1-7068, reel 210, AMA; Nashville: Martha J. Patterson to Andrew Johnson, Nashville, Tenn., Apr. 15, 1865, PAJ, 7:560 (gala); Richard M. Williams to Robert H. Williams, Nashville, Tenn., Apr. 19, 1865, Goff-Williams Papers, HL (crash); New Bern: Mary Ann Starkey to “My dear Friend,” New Bern, N.C., Apr. 20, 1865, Edward W. Kinsley Papers, Duke; Charleston: Charles Barnard Fox, Record of the Service of the Fifty-Fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Cambridge, Mass.: John Wilson, 1868), 74 (Apr. 19, 1865, diary entry); Virginia: L. R. Hyslop to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., Apr. 28, 1865, #H1-7034, reel 209, AMA.

  23. news: William A. Spicer diary, re: Apr. 18, 1865, Spicer Papers, Duke.

  24. Chicago: Elon N. Lee to family, Chicago, Apr. 19, 1865, ts., Lee and Bastin Papers, Chicago; chiming: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 15, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; dreadful: Henry W. Pearce to “Lena,” Marietta, Ohio, Apr. 16, 1865, #00066.150, GLC-NYHS; darker: “Eliz.” to “Geo.,” Cambridge, Mass., Apr. 16, 1865, Wigglesworth Family Papers, MHS; sun: Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 15, 1865, White Papers, AAS; same: Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, Apr. 15, 1865, box 6, Hale Papers, NYSL; while: David F. Cushman to Caroline D. Cushman, Martinsburg, Va., Apr. 15, 1865, #250, octavo vol. 1, Civil War Collection, AAS; shot: George H. Mellish to parents, near Burkeville Junction, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, Mellish Papers, HL.

  25. navy yard: Michael Shiner diary, Apr. 15, 1865, LC, available at history.navy.mil/library/online/shinerdiary.html; saddest: James Thomas Ward diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Ward Papers, LC; face: Sarah G. Putnam diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS.

  26. shot: William H. Lightner diary, Apr. 14, 1865, MDHS; killed: Shirley Brooks diary, Apr. 14, 26, 1865, ML; send: Caroline Dall to “John,” Boston, Apr. 20, 1865, Dall Papers, SL.

  27. lines: Samuel Canby diary, Apr. 15, 1865, DHS; box: Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 14–15, 1865, White Papers, AAS; calligraphy: Ruth Anne Hillborn journal, Apr. 15, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL; Pres.: anonymous account book, Apr. 19, 1865, Anonymous Diaries and Account Books, SL.

  28. shot: Grenville H. Norcross diary, Apr. 15, 1865, AAS; laughed, rouse: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; three inches: Mrs. Bardwell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Helen Temple Cooke Papers, SL; dress circle: Horatio Nelson Taft diary, Apr. 30, 1865, LC, available at memory.loc.gov/ammem/tafthtml/; specifics: Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 15, 17, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS.

  29. poor: M. M. Hutchins to “Mr. Whiting,” Dover, N.H., Apr. 17, 1865, #75762, reel 117, AMA.

  30. greatest: Heber Painter to Rebecca Frick, Richmond, Va., Apr. 17, 1865 (part of Apr. 16 letter), #02016.082, GLC-NYHS; startling: Margaret B. Howell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, HSP.

  31. excite: v., definition #5, Oxford English Dictionary; everybody: Gertrude Dunn to [illegible], [no place], Apr. 20, 1865, on “Memoranda” pages of Dunn diary, Diaries Box, NYPL; thrown: J. N. Smith to brother, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, box 2, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; state: Alfred Goldsborough Jones journal, Apr. 15, 1865, NYPL; most: Simon Newcomb diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Newcomb Papers, LC; so excited: Sawyer, “Account,” 62.

  32. gloom: n., definition #2, Oxford English Dictionary; dreadful: S. L. Daffin to George Whipple, Wilmington, N.C., Apr. 30, 1865, #100009, reel 169, AMA; dismay: Lucy Pierce Hedge to Charlotte Hedge, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 25, 1865, Poor Family Papers, SL; heavy: John G. Nicolay to Therena Bates, Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, 1865, Nicolay Papers, LC; every thing: Edward J. Bartlett to Martha Bartlett, South Side Railroad, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, Bartlett Letters, MHS; silent: W. Springer Menge and J. August Shimrak, eds., The Civil War Notebook of Daniel Chisholm: A Chronicle of Daily Life in the Union Army, 1864–1865 (New York: Orion, 1989), 81–82 (Apr. 17, 18, 1865, entries).

  33. businesses closing: John Worthington to Mary Worthington, Cooperstown, N.Y., Apr. 15, 1865, Autograph File, HLH; Ruth Anne Hillborn journal, Apr. 15, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL; Frank O. French to Benjamin Brown French, Reading, Mass., Apr. 23, 1865, French Papers, LC; $100,000: Anne Baldwin to Charlotte Nettleton, New York, Apr. 17, 1865 (part of Apr. 16 letter), Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; badges: Abigail Williams May to Eleanor Goddard May, Washington, D.C., Apr. 22, 1865, May and Goddard Family Papers, SL; Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 19, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS.

  Crape is the nineteenth-century spelling.

  34. if you: Edwin Greble Sr. to Susan Greble, Baltimore, Apr. 16, 1865, Greble Papers, LC; buildings, miles: Charles A. Sanford to Edward Payson Goodrich, Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, 1865, in “Two Letters” n.p.; I had: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jean Laas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 495; posh, poor: Gideon Welles diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Welles Papers, LC; African Americans: Jane Swisshelm to St. Cloud Democrat, Washin
gton, D.C., Apr. 17, 1865 (published Apr. 27, 1865), in Larsen, Crusader and Feminist, 288; on and on: Julia Adelaide Shepard to father, near Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, in “Lincoln’s Assassination,” 918.

  35. flags: Otis Norcross diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; Edwin Greble Sr. to Susan Greble, Baltimore, Apr. 16, 1865, Greble Papers, LC; half yard: Asa Fitch diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Fitch Papers, Yale-Sterling; shawl: Elizabeth Rogers Mason Cabot diary, Apr. 18, 1865, MHS; widows: John Wolcott Phelps to John Hickman, Brattleboro, Vt., Apr. 24, 1865, Phelps Papers, NYPL; lace: Elon N. Lee to family, Chicago, Apr. 19, 1865, ts., Lee and Bastin Papers, Chicago; rags: Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 588 (Apr. 18, 1865, entry); servants: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 18, 1865, MHS; Winter Garden: Ellen Kean to Mary Kean, New York, Apr. 16, 1865, in Death and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln, 17; hammers: “Cornelia” to parent(s), New York, Apr. 17–19, 1865, Lincoln Miscellaneous Manuscripts, NYHS; fringed: Emmeline Yelland to Albert Yelland, Galena, Ill., May 1, 1865, Yelland Family Correspondence, Duke.

  36. Charleston: Fox, Record of the Service of the Fifty-Fifth Regiment, 74–75 (Apr. 19, 1865, diary entry); New Orleans: Testimony of Susan Jones and Eliza Spriggs, in Patrick Shields, file OO934, RG153-NARA; bit, badges: S. W. Magill to “Secretaries A.M.A.,” Savannah, Ga., May 8, 1865, #19368, reel 30, AMA; rosettes: Schwartz, Woman Doctor’s Civil War, 134 (Apr. 19, 1865, entry); bonnet: Laura Towne to unknown, Saint Helena Island, S.C., Apr. 29, 1865, in Holland, Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne, 162; travel: Manning Ferguson Force diary, Apr. 23, 1865, Force Papers, LC; trade: Rose Pickard to Byron Flagg, Alexandria, Va., Apr. 15, 1865 (part of Apr. 14 letter), Pickard Papers, LC.

 

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