by Howard Pyle
“What has happened?”
He looked at us in amazement, not recognizing Mr. Lincoln:
“Why, where have you been? Lee has surrendered.”
There is one point which is not understood, I think, about the President’s trip to City Point and Richmond. I would like to tell here what my experience has made me believe. The expedition has been spoken of almost as if it were a pleasure trip. Some one says of it, “It was the first recreation the President had known.” Of course in one sense this was true. He did get away from the routine of office work. He had pleasant associations with General Grant and General Sherman and enjoyed genial talks in the open over the camp-fire. But to give the impression that it was a sort of holiday excursion is a mistake. It was a matter of executive duty, and a very trying and saddening duty in many of its features. The President’s suspense during the days when he knew the battle of Petersburg was imminent, his agony when the thunder of the cannon told him that men were being cut down like grass, his sight of the poor torn bodies of the dead and dying on the field of Petersburg, his painful sympathy with the forlorn rebel prisoners, the revelation of the devastation of a noble people in ruined Richmond — these things may have been compensated for by his exultation when he first knew the long struggle was over. But I think not. These things wore new furrows in his face. Mr. Lincoln never looked sadder in his life than when he walked through the streets of Richmond and knew it saved to the Union, and himself victorious.
Although I reported early at the White House on the morning after our return from City Point, I found the President already at his desk. He was looking over his mail, but as I came in he looked up and said pleasantly:
“Good morning. Crook. How do you feel?”
I answered: “First rate, Mr. President. How are you?”
“I am well, but rather tired,” he said.
Then I noticed that he did look tired. His worn face made me understand, more clearly than I had done before, what a strain the experiences at Petersburg and Richmond had been. Now that the excitement was over, the reaction allowed it to be seen.
I was on duty near the President all that day. We settled back into the usual routine. It seemed odd to go on as if nothing had happened; the trip had been such a great event. It was a particularly busy day. Correspondence had been held for Mr. Lincoln’s attention during the seventeen days of absence; besides that, his office was thronged with visitors. Some of them had come to congratulate him on the successful outcome of the war; others had come to advise him what course to pursue toward the conquered Confederacy; still others wanted appointments. One gentleman, who was bold enough to ask aloud what everybody was asking privately, said,
“Mr. President, what will you do with Jeff Davis when he is caught?”
Mr. Lincoln sat up straight and crossed his legs, as he always did when he was going to tell a story.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “that reminds me” — at the familiar words every one settled back and waited for the story— “that reminds me of an incident which occurred in a little town in Illinois where I once practised law. One morning I was on my way to the office, when I saw a boy standing on the street corner crying. I felt sorry for the woebegone little fellow. So I stopped and questioned him as to the cause of his griefs. He looked into my face, the tears running down his cheeks, and said, ‘Mister, do you see that coon? — pointing to a very poor specimen of the coon family which glared at us from the end of the string. ‘Well, sir, that coon has given me a heap of trouble. He has nearly gnawed the string in two — I just wish he would finish it. Then I could go home and say he had got away.’”
Everybody laughed. They all knew quite well what the President would like to do with Jeff Davis — when Jeff Davis was caught.
Later in the morning a great crowd came marching into the White House grounds. Every man was cheering and a band was playing patriotic airs. The workmen at the Navy-Yard had started the procession, and by the time it had reached us it was over two thousand strong. Of course they called for the President, and he stepped to the window to see his guests. When the cheering had subsided he spoke to them very kindly and good-naturedly, begging that they would not ask him for a serious speech.
“I am going to make a formal address this evening,” he said, “and if I dribble it out to you now, my speech to-night will be spoiled.” Then, with his humorous smile, he spoke to the band:
“I think it would be a good plan for you to play ‘Dixie.’ I always thought that it was the most beautiful of our songs. I have submitted the question of its ownership to the Attorney-General, and he has given it as his legal opinion that we have fairly earned the right to have it back.” As the opening bars of “Dixie” burst out, Mr. Lincoln disappeared from the window. The crowd went off in high good humor, marching to the infectious rhythm of the hard-won tune.
On the afternoon of the same day, about six o’clock, a deputation of fifteen men called. Mr. Lincoln met them in the corridor just after they had entered the main door. They were presented to the President, and then the gentleman who had introduced them made a speech. It was a very pretty speech, full of loyal sentiments and praise for the man who had safely guided the country through the great crisis. Mr. Lincoln listened to them pleasantly. Then a picture was put into his hands. When he saw his own rugged features facing him from an elaborate silver frame a smile broadened his face.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I thank you for this token of your esteem. You did your best. It wasn’t your fault that the frame is so much more rare than the picture.”
On the evening of the 11th the President made the speech which he had promised the day before. Had we only known it, this was to be his last public utterance. The whole city was brilliantly illuminated that night. The public buildings were decorated and, from the Capitol to the Treasury, the whole length of Pennsylvania Avenue bore witness, with flags and lights, to the joy everybody felt because the war was over. Streaming up Pennsylvania Avenue, which was the one great thoroughfare then, the only paved street, and from every other quarter of the city, came the people. In spite of the unpleasant drizzle which fell the whole evening and the mud through which every one had to wade, a great crowd cheered Mr. Lincoln when he appeared at an upper window. From another window Mrs. Lincoln bowed to the people and was greeted enthusiastically. The President immediately began his speech, which had been in preparation ever since his return from City Point. The care which he had taken to express himself accurately was shown from the fact that the whole address was written out. Inside, little Tad was running around the room while “papa-day” was speaking. As the President let the sheets of manuscript fall, Taddie gathered them up and begged his father to let them go faster.
The President spoke with reverence of the cause for thanksgiving that the long struggle was over. He passed rapidly to that question which he knew the whole nation was debating — the future policy toward the South. In discussing his already much-debated “Louisiana Policy” he expressed the two great principles which were embodied in it: the mass of the Southern people should be restored to their citizenship as soon as it was evident that they desired it; punishment, if punishment there be, should fall upon those who had been proved to be chiefly instrumental in leading the South into rebellion. These principles were reiterated by Senator Harlan, the Secretary of the Interior to be, who spoke after the President; they were reiterated, of course, by the President’s desire. During President Andrew Johnson’s long struggle with a bitter Northern Congress, I have often recalled the simplicity and kindliness of Abraham Lincoln’s theory.
During the next three days — as, in fact, since the fall of Richmond — Washington was a little delirious. Everybody was celebrating. The kind of celebration depended on the kind of person. It was merely a question of whether the intoxication was mental or physical. Every day there was a stream of callers who came to congratulate the President, to tell how loyal they had been, and how they had always been sure he would be victorious. Ther
e were serenades; there were deputations of leading citizens; on the evening of the 13th there was another illumination. The city became disorderly with the men who were celebrating too hilariously. Those about the President lost somewhat of the feeling, usually present, that his life was not safe. It did not seem possible that, now that the war was over and the government — glad to follow General Grant’s splendid initiative — had been so magnanimous in its treatment of General Lee, after President Lincoln had offered himself a target for Southern bullets in the streets of Richmond and had come out unscathed, there could be danger. For my part, I had drawn a full breath of relief after we got out of Richmond and had forgotten to be anxious since.
Because of the general joyousness, I was surprised when, late on the afternoon of the 14th, I accompanied Mr. Lincoln on a hurried visit to the War Department, I found that the President was more depressed than I had ever seen him and his step unusually slow. Afterward Mrs. Lincoln told me that when he drove with her to the Soldiers’ Home earlier in the afternoon he had been extremely cheerful, even buoyant. She said that he had talked of the calm future that was in store for them, of the ease which they had never known, when, his term over, they would go back to their home in Illinois. He longed, a little wistfully, for that time to come with its promise of peace. The depression I noticed may have been due to one of the sudden changes of mood to which I have been told the President was subject. I had heard of the transitions from almost wild spirits to abject melancholy which marked him. I had never seen anything of the sort, and had concluded that all this must have belonged to his earlier days. In the time when I knew him his mood, when there was no outside sorrow to disturb him, was one of settled calm. I wondered at him that day and felt uneasy.
In crossing over to the War Department we passed some drunken men. Possibly their violence suggested the thought to the President. After we had passed them, Mr. Lincoln said to me:
“Crook, do you know, I believe there are men who want to take my life?” Then, after a pause, he said, half to himself, “And I have no doubt they will do it.”
The conviction with which he spoke dismayed me. I wanted to protest, but his tone had been so calm and sure that I found myself saying instead, “Why do you think so, Mr. President?”
“Other men have been assassinated,” was his reply, still in that manner of stating something to himself.
All I could say was, “I hope you are mistaken, Mr. President.”
We walked a few paces in silence. Then he said, in a more ordinary tone:
“I have perfect confidence in those who are around me, in every one of you men. I know no one could do it and escape alive. But if it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it.”
By this time we were at the War Department, and he went in to his conference with Secretary Stanton. It was shorter than usual that evening. Mr. Lincoln was belated. When Mrs. Lincoln and he came home from their drive he had found friends awaiting him. He had slipped away from dinner, and there were more people waiting to talk to him when he got back. He came out of the Secretary’s office in a short time. Then I saw that every trace of the depression, or perhaps I should say intense seriousness, which had surprised me before had vanished. He talked to me as usual. He said that Mrs. Lincoln and he, with a party, were going to the theatre to see Our American Cousin.
“It has been advertised that we will be there,” he said, “and I cannot disappoint the people. Otherwise I would not go. I do not want to go.”
I remember particularly that he said this, because it surprised me. The President’s love for the theatre was well known. He went often when it was announced that he would be there; but more often he would slip away, alone or with Tad, get into the theatre, unobserved if he could, watch the play from the back of the house for a short time, and then go back to his work. Mr. Buckingham, the doorkeeper of Ford’s Theatre, used to say that he went in just to “take a laugh.” So it seemed unusual to hear him say he did not want to go. When we had reached the White House and he had climbed the steps he turned and stood there a moment before he went in. Then he said,
“Good-by, Crook.”
It startled me. As far as I remember he had never said anything but “Good night, Crook,” before. Of course it is possible that I may be mistaken. In looking back, every word that he said has significance. But I remember distinctly the shock of surprise and the impression, at the time, that he had never said it before.
By this time I felt queer and sad. I hated to leave him. But he had gone in, so I turned away and started on my walk home. I lived in a little house on “Rodbird’s Hill.” It was a long distance from the White House — it would be about on First Street now in the middle of the block between L and M streets. The whole tract from there to North Capitol Street belonged either to my father-in-law or to his family. He was an old retired sea-captain named Rodbird; he had the hull of his last sailing-vessel set up in his front yard.
The feeling of sadness with which I left the President lasted a long time, but after a while — I was young and healthy, I was going home to my wife and baby, and, the man who followed me on duty having been late for some reason, it was long past my usual dinner-time, and I was hungry. By the time I had had my dinner I was sleepy, so I went to bed early. I did not hear until early in the morning that the President had been shot. It seems incredible now, but it was so.
My first thought was — If I had been on duty at the theatre, I would be dead now. My next was to wonder whether Parker, who had gone to the theatre with the President, was dead. Then I remembered what the President had said the evening before. Then I went to the house on Tenth Street where they had taken him.
They would not let me in. The little room where he lay was crowded with the men who had been associated with the President during the war. They were gathered around the bed watching, while, long after the great spirit had flown, life, little by little, loosened its hold on the long, gaunt body. Among them, I knew, were men who had contended with him during his life or who had laughed. Charles Sumner stood at the very head of the bed. I know that it was to him that Robert Lincoln, who was only a boy for all his shoulder-straps, turned in the long strain of watching. And on Charles Sumner’s shoulder the son sobbed out his grief. But the room was full, and they would not let me in.
After the President had died they took him back to the White House. It was to the guest-room with its old four-poster bed that they carried him. I was in the room while the men prepared his body to be seen by his people when they came to take their leave. It was hard for me to be there. It seemed fitting that the body should be there, where he had never been in life. I am glad that his own room could be left to the memory of his living presence.
The days during which the President lay in state before they took him away for his long progress over the country he had saved were even more distressing than grief would have made them. Mrs. Lincoln was almost frantic with suffering. Some women spiritualists in some way gained access to her. They poured into her ears pretended messages from her dead husband. Mrs. Lincoln was so weakened that she had not force enough to resist the cruel cheat. These women nearly crazed her. Mr. Robert Lincoln, who had to take his place now as the head of the family, finally ordered them out of the house.
After the President’s remains were taken from the White House, the family began preparations for leaving, but they were delayed a month by Mrs. Lincoln’s illness. The shock of her husband’s death had brought about a nervous disorder. Her physician, Dr. Stone, refused to allow her to be moved until she was somewhat restored. During the whole of the time while she was shut up in her room Mrs. Gideon Welles, the wife of the Secretary of the Navy, was in almost daily attendance upon her. Mrs. Welles was Mrs. Lincoln’s friend, of all the women in official position, and she did much with her kindly ministrations to restore the President’s widow to her normal condition. It was not until the 23d of May, at six o’clock, that Mrs. Lincoln finally left for Chicago.
Captain Robert Lin
coln accompanied her, and a colored woman, a seamstress, in whom she had great confidence, went with the party to act as Mrs. Lincoln’s maid. They asked me to go with them to do what I could to help. But no one could do much for Mrs. Lincoln. During most of the fifty-four hours that we were on the way she was in a daze; it seemed almost a stupor. She hardly spoke. No one could get near enough to her grief to comfort her. But I could be of some use to Taddie. Being a child, he had been able to cry away some of his grief, and he could be distracted with the sights out of the car window. There was an observation-car at the end of our coach. Taddie and I spent a good deal of time there, looking at the scenes flying past. He began to ask questions.
It had been expected that Mrs. Lincoln would go back to her old home in Illinois. But she did not seem to be able to make up her mind to go there. She remained for some time in Chicago at the old Palmer House.
I went to a friend who had gone to Chicago to live from Washington and remained with him for the week I was in the city. I went to the hotel every day. Mrs. Lincoln I rarely saw. Taddie I took out for a walk almost every day and tried to interest him in the sights we saw. But he was a sad little fellow and mourned for his father.
At last I went back to Washington and to the White House. President Johnson had established his offices there when I got back.
Now that I have told the story of my three months’ association with Abraham Lincoln, there are two things of which I feel that I must speak. The first question relates to the circumstances of the assassination of President Lincoln. It has never been made public before.
I have often wondered why the negligence of the guard who accompanied the President to the theatre on the night of the 14th has never been divulged. So far as I know, it was never even investigated by the police department. Yet, had he done his duty, I believe President Lincoln might not have been murdered by Booth. The man was John Parker. He was a native of the District, and had volunteered, as I believe each of the other guards had done, in response to the President’s first call for troops from the District. He is dead now and, as far as I have been able to discover, all of his family. So it is no unkindness to speak of the costly mistake he made.