The tremendous outpouring of dignified grief led to the virtual standstill of New York’s commerce and financial transactions for nearly two weeks. The editors of the New York Times regarded this cessation of business-as-usual as “a prompt, spontaneous and deliberate sacrifice by the industrious, the frugal, the pecuniarily responsible body of the people” which “raises the character of the whole nation far above the imputation of sordidness, of persistent and unchangeable devotion to Mammon, so falsely urged against it by outside commentators.” Moreover, they concluded, “in the presence of the ready self-sacrifice which our present bereavement has illustrated, the theory that republics are ungrateful may at least bear revision.”162 In New York, copies of Lincoln’s second inaugural sold briskly and appeared in many store windows, framed by black crepe or flowers. Copies of his farewell address to Springfield also found many buyers.
As the train moved westward, one of the dignitaries aboard noted that mourners seemed “more wrought up,” for in the Midwest “there were not only expressions of deep sorrow, but of vengeance as well, especially toward the South.”163 In fact, anger at the South pervaded the East as well as the West. In countless funeral sermons and editorials, Northerners denounced the states lately in rebellion and demanded that Confederate leaders be executed.
At Chicago, a man observing the thousands of mourners passing through the courthouse remarked: “I have seen three deceased Kings of England lying in state, but have never witnessed a demonstration so vast in its proportions, so unanimous and spontaneous, as that which has been evoked by the arrival in the city of the remains of the fallen President.”164 The Chicago Tribune noted that as the coffin was conveyed through the city, “there were no downcast countenances, but none that were not sad and pitiful. There were no loud voices in the unnumbered throngs. Men expressed themselves in subdued tones, and often nothing would be heard but the indescribable murmur of ten thousand voices, modulated to a whisper, and the careful tread of countless feet on the damp pavement of the streets.”165
Officials on the train, astounded by the intense outpouring of grief, feared that authorities in Springfield might not have made adequate preparations. (It was estimated that 5 million people saw the funeral car and casket in the various cities where it was displayed.) So at Albany, a member of the Illinois delegation was dispatched to the Prairie State capital to help with arrangements, which went smoothly.
For twenty-four hours, Springfield mourners streamed by the casket, before it was closed and placed in a receiving vault at Oak Ridge cemetery, 2 miles from the center of town on May 4. In the procession to the cemetery, immediately following the hearse was a black man, the Rev. Mr. Henry Brown, who led Lincoln’s horse, Old Bob. Brown had worked for the Lincolns as a handyman. Other Springfield blacks, including Lincoln’s friend and barber, William Florville, brought up the rear of the procession. Among Lincoln’s black friends and acquaintances in Springfield were Spencer Donnegan, Jameson Jenkins, and Mariah Vance; they, too, may well have been in the rear guard.
At Oak Ridge, the most eminent Methodist in the country, Bishop Matthew Simpson of Evanston, delivered a eulogy, during which he mistakenly identified a passage from Lincoln’s 1839 speech about banking as a condemnation of slavery. Commenting on the funeral train journey, he declared: “Among the events of history there have been great processions of mourners. There was one for the patriarch Jacob, which went up from Egypt, and the Egyptians wondered at the evidences of reverence and filial affection which came from the hearts of the Israelites. There was mourning when Moses fell upon the heights of Pisgah and was hid from human view. There have been mournings in the kingdoms of the earth when kings and princes have fallen, but never was there, in the history of man, such mourning as that which has accompanied this funeral procession, and has gathered around the mortal remains of him who was our loved one.” Like many other observers, the bishop paid tribute to Lincoln’s uniqueness: “he made all men feel a sense of himself—a recognition of individuality—a self-relying power. They saw in him a man whom they believed would do what is right, regardless of all consequences. It was this moral feeling which gave him the greatest hold on the people, and made his utterances almost oracular.”166
Controversy over a Location for the Tomb and Monument
The selection of the gravesite proved controversial. Springfield’s civic leaders had purchased a 6-acre lot, known as the Mather Block, near the statehouse for Lincoln’s final resting place, but Mary Lincoln objected, insisting “that it was her desire to be laid by the side of her husband when she died, and that such would be out of the question in a public place of the kind.”167 (Nine years later, she gave a different reason, arguing that Lincoln wanted to be buried in a quiet place.)
On April 28, Secretary of War Stanton informed the Springfield committee, headed by Illinois Governor Richard J. Oglesby, that Mrs. Lincoln’s “final and positive determination is that the remains must be placed in Oakridge Cemetery—and nowhere else.” Two more peremptory messages of similar import quickly followed.168 On May 1, Robert Todd Lincoln told Oglesby in no uncertain terms that he and his mother “demand that our wishes be consulted.”169
Mary Lincoln’s decision did not sit well. “The people are in a rage about it and all the hard stories that ever were told about her are told over again,” wrote Lincoln’s friend H. P. H. Bromwell from Springfield. “She has no friends here.”170 In June, a visitor echoed that judgment, observing that “I have not heard one person speak well of Mrs. Lincoln since I came here.”171 The previous month, Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, who had delivered the benediction at Lincoln’s funeral, reported from the Illinois capital that everyone there “loved Mr. Lincoln, but as for Mrs. L., I cannot say as much. Hard things are said of her by all classes of people, and when I got to know how she was regarded by her old neighbors and even by her relatives in S[pringfield], I did not wonder that she had decided to make her future home in Chicago. … The ladies of Springfield say that Mr. Lincoln’s death hurt her ambition more than her affections—a hard speech, but many people think so who do not say so.”172
(Mary Lincoln decided to settle in Chicago in part because she had fallen out with her sisters. “I can never go back to Springfield!” she exclaimed to her closest confidante, Elizabeth Keckly.173 She resented Frances Todd Wallace’s failure to express thanks for the appointment her husband had received as paymaster. In addition, Frances seemed insufficiently pleased by Mary and Abraham’s success, and had resisted Mrs. Lincoln’s appeals to have her daughter stay at the White House after Willie’s death. The relative who did serve that function, Elizabeth Todd Edwards, was also estranged from Mary. Evidently the sisters had quarreled over Ninian Edwards’s conservative politics and misconduct in the office to which Lincoln had appointed him. Moreover, Mary Lincoln resented some unflattering comments about her in a letter by Elizabeth’s daughter Julia. Like many another critic of the First Lady’s regal ways, Ann Todd Smith had spoken disparagingly of “Queen Victoria’s court” at Washington. When word of this criticism reached her, Mary Lincoln wrote witheringly of Ann’s “malice,” “wrath,” “vindictiveness,” and “envious feeling.”)174
Mrs. Lincoln also clashed with the Lincoln National Monument Association, formed in May with Governor Oglesby at its head. When she learned of their plan to erect a memorial at the Mather Block, she peppered Oglesby with imperious ultimatums. On June 5, she wrote: “unless I receive within the next ten days, an Official assurance that the Monument will be erected over the Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, in accordance with my oft expressed wishes, I shall yield my consent, to the request of the National Monument association in Washington & that of numerous other friends in the Eastern States & have the sacred remains deposited, in the vault, prepared for Washington, under the Dome of the National Capitol.” Five days later, she reiterated her threat, insisting that her decision was “unalterable” and demanding written assurances that only she, Lincoln, their sons, and their sons’ families would be bu
ried in the tomb. The next day, she assured Oglesby that her wishes “will meet the approval of the whole civilized world.” Haughtily, she added: “It is very painful to me, to be treated in this manner, by some of those I considered my friends, such conduct, will not add, very much, to the honor of our state.”175
Although it was clearly the widow’s prerogative to determine the burial site of her husband, it was not her right to dictate the location of a memorial honoring his memory. But what was the association to do? One observer of the controversy advised Oglesby that “Mrs. L is a vain woman and vanity will decide the matter tho she may think that there are other and higher motives.”176 So the board of directors of the National Lincoln Monument Association decided by a one-vote majority to acquiesce.
Indignation at Mary Lincoln might have been even greater if the public had learned that a few weeks after the assassination she sold her husband’s shirts to a shady character for $84. Ward Hill Lamon sent an emissary to retrieve them. When she left the White House in late May, she took with her several dozen boxes and twenty trunks. Some journalists believed that she “stole a great deal of Government silver, spoons[,] forks[,] etc[.,] and a large quantity of linen and stuffs.”177 Early in 1866, the New York Daily News commented that “[n]o one would have said a word against a few souvenirs having been taken away. But to despoil the whole house of the best of everything; to send off by railroad more than seventy large packing-cases filled with the newest carpets, curtains, and works of art which have been provided for the adornment of the house, and not for the use of any one family; this was felt to be not exactly in good taste. It is not longer any wonder that the [White] house looks empty, dingy, and shabby.”178 At that same time, the New York World reported that “[f]or the $100,00 appropriated in the last four years for alleged repairs and furniture for the White House, there is now actually nothing to show on the premises; the Republican officer can be named who says that he furnished ninety boxes to pack up the removed traps. Another prominent Republican says that it required fifteen carts to remove the luggage from the White House; and in addition to this expenditure and these removals, it is a notorious fact that the thirty thousand dollars lately appropriated to furnish the Executive Mansion will nearly all be absorbed by the creditors for the persons who occupied the house ten months ago.”179 Republican Senator Benjamin F. Wade stated that Mary Lincoln “took a hundred boxes … away with her, and the Commissioner of Public Buildings swore there were fifteen other boxes that she wanted to carry off and he had to interfere to prevent her. At any rate she cleaned out the White House. I didn’t know but she was going to run a big hotel with all she carried off.”180
Mary Lincoln heatedly denied such charges, but the statement of Supreme Court Justice David Davis, a close friend of Lincoln and the executor of his estate, lends credence to the allegations. On July 3, 1873, when Orville H. Browning told Davis “that all the charges against her of having pilfered from the White House were false,” the judge replied “that the proofs were too many and too strong against her to admit of doubt of her guilt; that she was a natural born thief; that stealing was a sort of insanity with her, and that she carried away, from the White House, many things that were of no value to her after she had taken them, and that she had carried them away only in obedience to her irresistable propensity to steal.”181 As noted above, Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, covered up the scandal and got Congress to pay for refurnishing the White House.
When philanthropists attempted to raise a fund for Mary Lincoln’s support shortly after the assassination, she apparently wrote three letters to an agent (probably Alexander Williamson, Tad’s tutor) soliciting money on her behalf in which she urged him “to secure subscriptions when the tragedy is fresh and feeling most poignant” and telling him he could “subtract 25 per cent from all moneys collected” as a fee.182
National Mourning for a Lost Father
The nation’s enormous outpouring of grief testified to the profound love and respect that Lincoln inspired, an emotional bond like the one between a child and a nurturing, wise parent. In 1866, J. G. Holland of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican wrote that Lincoln “[m]ore than any of his predecessors was … regarded as the father of his people.”183 The Unitarian divine James Freeman Clarke noted in a sermon on April 16 (a day which came to be known as Black Easter) that Booth’s act “was not only assassination … it was parricide; for Abraham Lincoln was as a father to the whole nation. The nation felt orphaned yesterday morning.”184 Another Massachusetts minister, the Congregationalist Elias Nason, likened the pain caused by Lincoln’s death to the “profound personal grief we feel, as when a dear old father, a beloved mother, or a brother is torn relentlessly from breast.” To Nason, the widespread grieving “is not mourning for some great national loss only.” It was instead “lamentation for one who has been very near and very dear to us; for one who seemed to be of the immediate circle of our own familiar friends and acquaintances; for one who had so identified himself with our own views and feelings that he seemed to be an elementary part of our own being,—bone of our bone, blood of our blood; for one so entirely with us in sympathy, in genius, in love, in action, in aspiration, that he must ever bear the august appellation of the People’s Own Beloved President. Even the little children looked upon him as their own kind-hearted ruler.”185 Yet other Bay State ministers noted that “[s]trong men have wept, and been convulsed with grief, as if they had lost a father or brother,” and that “[w]e all seemed to have lost a father, a brother, a dear bosom-friend.”186 A Baptist preacher in Philadelphia lamented that the “nation’s Father has been struck down in all his gentle kingliness.”187 In Illinois, a college president told his students and faculty that Lincoln “was endeared to every individual of the loyal millions of this people. … Each feels as if the dastardly blow … had been struck at a member of his own household. We mourn not merely for a public man, but for a dearly-beloved friend and brother.”188
On April 16, a preacher in Maine told his parishioners: “Our Father … has fallen and we feel ourselves orphans.” Three days later he remarked that it would seem strange “to one who did not know the circumstances of the case, to hear how often the word ‘Father,’ has fallen from trembling lips these last few days. ‘I feel,’ says one, and another, and another, ‘as if I had lost my Father,’ or, ‘as I did when my Father died.’ Such is the common feeling and the common word.”189
Many other clergy echoed this paternal theme. Back in Illinois, a Presbyterian in Freeport noted that the country loved Lincoln “as it never loved another. He was the best and greatest, the greatest because the best, the most loving, the most lovable, the most brotherly, the most fatherly man of all our rulers. … How remarkable the affection of the people for this man!”190 Other eulogists noted that “we have lost our noblest son, our bravest brother, our kindest father” and “a friend who was a father to the humblest in the land.”191 As a member of the Christian Commission, Theodore L. Cuyler had gotten to know Lincoln; he was so distraught by the assassination of the man he called a “dear departed father” that he could not write out a sermon. He therefore spoke extemporaneously to his New York congregation, saying that the “plain homespun kind-voiced President was so near to every one of us—so like our own relative that we were wont to call him ‘Uncle Abe’ and ‘Father Abraham.’ There was no disrespect in this; but rather a respect so deep and honest that it could afford to be familiar.” Cuyler concluded that “[o]ur father died at the right time; for his mighty work was done.”192 Andrew Leete Stone predicted that generations to come “shall speak his name as our fathers spoke to us the name of Washington, and shall grow up revering and guarding the hallowed memory of this second Father of his country; whom History will write, also, the Father of a race.”193
Many blacks did in fact regard Lincoln as a father. In Troy, New York, a black preacher mourned Lincoln as “the Father of our nation.” Another black minister there elaborated:
“We, as a people, feel more than all others that we are bereaved. We had learned to love Mr. Lincoln as we have never loved man before. We idolized his very name. We looked up to him as our saviour, our deliverer. His name was familiar with our children, and our prayers ascended to God in his behalf. He had taught us to love him. The interest he manifested in behalf of the oppressed, the weak and those who had none to help them, had won for him a large place in our heart. It was something so new to us to see such sentiments manifested by the chief magistrate of the United State that we could not help but love him.”194 The congregation of the Zion Baptist Church in Cincinnati heard its pastor proclaim that if Lincoln’s assassin had “given us [blacks] the choice to deliver him or ourselves to death, we would have said, take me; take father or mother, sister, brother; but do not take the life of the father of this people.” He noted that “[e]very freedman wept” at “the death of our father, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”195
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