Day 46. April 15, 1862.
46
beware the people weeping….
April Tuesday 15 1862
Quite a pleasant morning. I was in camp helping Dr Church* to put up medicine for the sick. The day was fine and I think that we may have some good weather. Gen McGill from Alexandria is here this evening. Nothing new. The weather looks for some rain. It is cloudy
*Dr. William Church, assistant surgeon to Dr. Hays.
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 330
“April 15, 1865: Surgeons maintain constant observation through night. About 2A.M. Vice President pays call. Dawn finds Mrs. Lincoln and Robert still waiting in Petersen’s house. Dr. Charles S. Taft at bedside records his observations: President stops breathing “at 7:21 and 55 seconds in the morning of April 15th, and 7:22 and 10 seconds his pulse ceased to beat.” Silence follows and is broken by voice of Sec. Stanton: “Now he belongs to the ages.’”
Note: 1865:
The Most Fearful Ordeal: Original Coverage of the Civil War by Writers and Reporters of the New York Times Introduction and Notes by James McPherson P. 330-331
“CLOSING SCENES.
———
Particulars of His Last Moments—Record of His Condition
Before Death—His Death.
WASHINGTON, SATURDAY, APRIL 15 — 11 O’CLOCK A.M.
The Star Extra says:
“At 7:20 o’clock the President breathed his last, closing his eyes as if falling to sleep, and his countenance assuming an expression of perfect serenity. There were no indications of pain, and it was not known that he was dead until the gradually decreasing respiration ceased altogether.
Rev. Dr. GURLEY, of the New-York avenue Presbyterian Church, immediately on its being ascertained that life was extinct, knelt at the bedside and offered an impressive prayer, which was responded to by all present.
Dr. GURLEY then proceeded to the front parlor, where Mrs. LINCOLN, Capt. ROBERT LINCOLN, Mrs. JOHN HAY, the Private Secretary, and others, were waiting, where he again offered a prayer for the consolation of the family.
The following minutes, taken by DR. ABBOTT, show the condition of the late President throughout the night:
11 o’clock— Pulse 44.
11:05 o’clock— Pulse 45, and growing weaker.
11:10 o’clock— Pulse 45.
11:15 o’clock— Pulse 42.
11:20 o’clock— Pulse 44; respiration 27 to 29.
11:25 o’clock— Pulse 42.
11:32 o’clock— Pulse 48, and full.
11:40 o’clock— Pulse 45.
11:45 o’clock— Pulse 45; respiration 22.
12 o’clock— Pulse 48; respiration 22.
12:15 o’clock— Pulse 48; respiration 21– ecchymosis both eyes.
12:30 o’clock— Pulse 45.
12:32 o’clock— Pulse 60.
12:35 o’clock— Pulse 66.
12:40 o’clock— Pulse 69; right eye much swollen, and ecchymosis.
12:45 o’clock— Pulse 70.
12:55 o’clock— Pulse 80; struggling motion of arms.
1 o’clock— Pulse 86; respiration 30.
1:30 o’clock— Pulse 95; appearing easier.
1:45 o’clock— Pulse 86; very quiet, respiration regular.
Mrs. Lincoln present.
2:10 o’clock— Mrs. Lincoln retired with ROBERT LINCOLN to an adjoining room.
2:30 o’clock— President very quiet– pulse 54– respiration 28.
2:52 o’clock— Pulse 48– respiration 30.
3 o’clock— Visited again by Mrs. LINCOLN.
3:25 o’clock— Respiration 24 and regular.
3:35 o’clock— Prayer by Rev. Dr. GURLEY.
4 o’clock— Respiration 26 and regular.
4:15 o’clock— Pulse 60– respiration 25.
5:50 o’clock— Respiration 28– regular– sleeping.
6 o’clock— Pulse falling– respiration 28.
6:30 o’clock— Still falling and labored breathing.
7 o’clock— Symptoms of immediate dissolution.
7:22 o’clock— Death.
Surrounding the death-bed of the President were Secretaries STANTON, WELLES, USHER, Attorney-General SPEED, Postmaster-General DENNISON, M.B. FIELD, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Judge OTTO, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Gen. HALLECK, Gen. MIEGS, Senator SUMMER, R.F. ANDREWS, of New-York; Gen. TODD, of Dacotah; JOH HAY, Private Secretary; Gov. OGLESBY, of Illinois; Gen. FARNSWORTH, Mrs. And Miss KENNEY, Miss HARRIS, Capt. ROBERT LINCOLN, son of the President, and Doctors E.W. ABBOTT, B.K. STONE, C.D. GATCH, Neal HALL, and Mr. LIEBERMAN. Secretary MCCULLOCH remained with the President until about 5 o’clock, and Chief-Justice CHASE, after several hours’ attendance during the night, returned early this morning.”
Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War Elizabeth R. Varon P. 416
“Quoting Emilie Davis (in one of the few surviving diaries by a Black female; she was also free) of Philadelphia in her diary from today, 1865: “The President Was assasinated by Som Confederate villain the city is in the Deepest sorrow.’”
Note: It will take 12 days– roughly the same length of time it took for news of his election to cross most of America (16 days to reach the Territory of Washington)– for the news to reach Europe. This is the Associated Press report from the night of April 14, 1865, by AP reporter Lawrence Gobright, exactly as it appeared:
__
“WASHINGTON, APRIL 14 — President Lincoln and wife visited Ford’s Theatre this evening for the purpose of witnessing the performance of ‘The American Cousin.’ It was announced in the papers that Gen. Grant would also be present, but that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.
The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted with the scene before them. During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President’s box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, ‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the rear of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled.
The groans of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact that the President had been shot, when all present rose to their feet rushing towards the stage, many exclaiming, ‘Hang him, hang him!’ The excitement was of the wildest possible description…
There was a rush towards the President’s box, when cries were heard — ‘Stand back and give him air!’ ‘Has anyone stimulants?’ On a hasty examination it was found that the President had been shot through the head above and back of the temporal bone, and that some of his brain was oozing out. He was removed to a private house opposite the theatre, and the Surgeon General of the Army and other surgeons were sent for to attend to his condition.
On an examination of the private box, blood was discovered on the back of the cushioned rocking chair on which the President had been sitting; also on the partition and on the floor. A common single-barrelled pocket pistol was found on the carpet.
A military guard was placed in front of the private residence to which the President had been conveyed. An immense crowd was in front of it, all deeply anxious to learn the condition of the President.
It had been previously announced that the wound was mortal, but all hoped otherwise. …
At midnight the Cabinet, with Messrs. Sumner, Colfax and Farnsworth, Judge Curtis, Governor Oglesby, Gen. Meigs, Col. Hay, and a few personal friends, with Surgeon General Barnes and his immediate assistants, were around his bedside.
The President was in a state of syncope, totally insensible and breathing slowly. The blood oozed from the wound at the back of his head. The surgeons exhausted every effort of medical skill, but all hope was gone.
The parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for description.
The President and Mrs. Lincoln did not start for the theatre until 15 minutes after 8 o’clock. Speaker Colfax was at the White House at the time, and the President stated to him that he was going, although Mrs. Lincoln had not been well, because the papers had announced that he and General Grant were to be present, and as Gen. Grant had gone North he did not wish the audience to be disappointed. He went with apparent reluctance, and urged Mr. Colfax to go with him, but that gentleman had made other arrangements …
(Here follows a lengthy description of the simultaneous assassination attempt on Secretary of State William Seward that left him wounded.)
Secretaries Stanton and Welles and other prominent officers of the government called at Secretary Seward’s house to inquire into his condition, and there heard of the assassination of the President.
They then proceeded to the house where the President was lying, exhibiting, of course, intense anxiety and solicitude.
An immense crowd was gathered in front of the President’s house (the White House), and a strong guard was also stationed there, many persons supposing that he would be brought to his home.
The entire city to-night presents a scene of wild excitement, accompanied by violent expressions of the profoundest sorrow. Many shed tears.
The military authorities despatched mounted patrols in every direction, in order, if possible, to arrest the assassins. The whole metropolitan police are likewise vigilant for the same purpose. …
Vice President Johnson is in the city headquarters, and guarded by troops.”
Eyewitness to History Edited by John Carey (1987) P. 371-375
The Murder of President Lincoln, 14 April 1865 Walt Whitman
“That day, April 14, 1865, seems to have been a pleasant one throughout the whole land—the moral atmosphere pleasant too—the long storm, so dark, so fratricidal, full of blood and doubt and gloom, over and ended at last by the sunrise of such an absolute National victory, and utter breaking down of Secessionism—we almost doubted our own senses! Lee had capitulated beneath the apple-tree of Appomattox. The other armies, the flanges of the revolt, swiftly followed . . . And could it really be, then? Out of all the affairs of this world of woe and passion, of failure and disorder and dismay, was there really come the confirmed, unerring sign of plan, like a shaft of pure light—of rightful rule—of God? . . . So the day, as I say, was propitious. Early herbage, early flowers, were out. (I remember where I was stopping at the time, the season being advanced, there were many lilacs in full bloom. By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without being at all a part of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy of that day by the sight of and odour of these blossoms. It never fails.)
But I must not dwell on accessories. The deed hastens. The popular afternoon paper of Washington, the little Evening Star, had spattered all over its third page, divided among the advertisements in a sensational manner in a hundred different places, The President and his Lady will be at the Theatre this evening . . . (Lincoln was fond of the theatre. I have myself seen him there several times. I remember thinking how funny it was that He, in some respects, the leading actor in the greatest and stormiest drama known to real history’s stage, through centuries, should sit there and be so completely interested and absorbed in those human jackstraws, moving about with their silly little gestures, foreign spirit, and flatulent text.)
On this occasion, the theatre was crowded, many ladies in rich and gay costumes, officers in their uniforms, many well-known citizens, young folks, the usual clusters of gas-lights, the usual magnetism of so many people, cheerful, with perfumes, music of violins and flutes—(and over all, and saturating all, that vast vague wonder, Victory, the Nation’s Victory, the triumph of the Union, filling the air, the thought, the sense, the exhilaration more than all perfumes.)
The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witnessed the play, from the large stage-boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one, and profusely draped with the National flag. The acts and scenes of the piece—one of those singularly written compositions which have at least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, aesthetic, or spiritual nature—a piece, (Our American Cousin) in which, among other characters, so called, a Yankee, certainly such a one as was never seen, or the least like it ever seen, in North America, is introduced in England, with a varied fol-del-rol of talk, plot, scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to make up a modern popular drama—had progressed through perhaps a couple of its acts, when in the midst of this comedy, or tragedy, or non-such, or whatever it is to be called, and to off-set it or finish it out, as if in Nature’s and the Great Muse’s mockery of those poor mimes, comes interpolated that Scene, not really or exactly to be described at all (for on the many hundreds who were there it seems to this hour to have left little but a passing blur, a dream, a blotch)—and yet partially to be described as I now proceed to give it . . . There is a scene in the play representing a modern parlour, in which two unprecedented English ladies are informed by the unprecedented and impossible Yankee that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore undesirable for marriage-catching purposes; after which, the comments being finished, the dramatic trio make exit, leaving the stage clear for a moment. There was a pause, a hush as it were. At this period came the murder of Abraham Lincoln. Great as that was, with all its manifold train, circling round it, and stretching into the future for many a century, in the politics, history, art, of the New World, in point of fact the main thing, the actual murder, transpired with the quiet and simplicity of any commonest occurrence—the bursting of a bud or pod in the growth of vegetation, for instance. Through the general hum following the stage hum, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol shot, which not one hundredth part of the audience heard at the time—and yet a moment’s hush—somehow, surely a vague startled thrill—and then, through the ornamented draperied, starred and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the stage (a distance of perhaps fourteen or fifteen feet) falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the copious drapery (the American flag), falls on one knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happened (he really sprains his ankle, but unfelt then)—and so the figure, Booth, the murderer, dressed in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, with a full head of glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some mad animal’s flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words, Sic semper tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears . . . (Had not all this terrible scene—making the mimic ones preposterous—had it not all been rehearsed, in blank, by Booth, beforehand?)
A moment’s hush, incredulous—a scream—the cry of Murder—Mrs Lincoln leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry, pointing to the retreating figure, He has killed the President . . . And still a moment’s strange, incredulous suspense—and then the deluge!—then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty—(the sound, somewhere back, of a horse’s hoofs clattering with speed)—the people burst through chairs and railings, and break them up—that noise adds to the queerness of the scene—there is inextricable confusion and terror—women faint—quite feeble persons fall, and are trampled on—many cries of agony are heard—the broad stage suddenly fills to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some horrible carnival—the actors and actresses are all there in their play costumes and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the rouge, some trambling—some in tears—two or three manage to pass up water from the stage to the President’s box—others try to clamber up—etc., etc., etc.
In the midst of all this, the soldiers of the President’s Guard, with others, suddenly drawn to the scene—burst in—(some two hundred altogether)—they storm the house, through all the tiers, especially with fixed bayonets, muskets and pistols, shouting Clear out! clear out! you sons of— . . . Such the wild scene, or a suggestion of it rather, inside the playhouse that night.
Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, crowds of people, filled with frenzy, ready to seize any outlet for it, come near committing murder several times on innocent individuals. One such case was especially exciting. The infuriated crowd, through some chance, got started against one man, either for words he uttered, or perhaps without any cause at all, and were proceeding at once to actually hang him on a neighbouring lamp-post when he was rescued by a few heroic policemen, who placed him in their midst and fought their way slowly and amid great peril toward the Station House . . . It was a fitting episode of the whole affair. The crowd rushing and eddying to and fro—the night, the yells, the pale faces, many frightened people trying in vain to extricate themselves—the attacked man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse—the silent resolute half-dozen policemen, with no weapons but their little clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying swarms—made indeed a fitting side-scene to the grand tragedy of the muder . . . They gained the Station House with the protected man, whom they placed in security for the night, and discharged him in the morning.
And in the midst of that night-pandemonium of senseless hate, infuriated soldiers, the audience and the crowd—the stage, and all its actors and actresses, its paint-pots, spangles, and gas-lights—the life-blood from those veins, the best and sweetest of the land, drips slowly down, and death’s ooze already begins its little bubbles on the lips . . . Such, hurriedly sketched, were the accompaniments of the death of President Lincoln. So suddenly and in murder and horror unsurpassed he was taken from us. But his death was painless.”
Above left: “Rare photo of President Lincoln in his White House Office. It now serves as the Lincoln bedroom.” Image & context courtesy of frontrank2 on Civil War Talk.
Middle: Nov. 8, 1863, Washington DC, by photographer Alexander Gardner. Gettysburg Address 11 days later.
Right: 1861.
Lincoln: I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.
Herman Melville’s 1866 book of poems Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War is dedicated: “TO THE MEMORY OF THE THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND WHO IN THE WAR FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THE UNION FELL DEVOTEDLY UNDER THE FLAG OF THEIR FATHERS.”
“THE MARTYR.
INDICATIVE OF THE PASSION OF THE PEOPLE ON THE 15TH OF APRIL, 1865.
Good Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him in his prime
Of clemency and calm–
When with yearning he was filled
To redeem the evil-willed,
And, though conqueror, be kind;
But they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
and they killed him from behind.
There is a sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the people in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the people weeping
When they bare the iron hand.
He lieth in his blood–
The father in his face;
They have killed him, the Forgiver–
The Avenger takes his place,
The Avenger wisely stern,
Who in righteousness shall do
What the heavens call him to,
And the parricides remand;
For they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And his blood is on their hand.
There is a sobbing
of the strong,
And a pall upon
the land;
But the People in
their weeping
Bare the iron hand;
Beware the people weeping
When they bare the iron hand.”
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years Carl Sandburg 1954 P. 738-739
“On this morning of April 26, hunted like a wild beast and cornered like a rat, his broken shinbone betraying him, J. Wilkes Booth met his end. Near Bowling Green, Virginia, in a burning barn set afire, from the outside, a bullet drove through his neck bone “perforating both sides of the collar,” and he was dragged away from reaching flames and laid under a tree. Water was given him. He revived, to murmur from parched lips, “Tell my mother– I died– for my country.” He was carried to a home veranda, there muttering, “I thought I did for the best.” He lingered for a time. A doctor came. Wilkes Booth asked that his hands might be raised so that he could look at them. So it was told. And as he looked on his hands, he mumbled hoarsely, “Useless! useless!” And those were his last words.”
Note: Booth’s last diary entry excerpt: “I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted Sic semper before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced Union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me.”
Note: The wound will be on the left side, from behind, in Lincoln’s head, three inches from the left ear. The ball is found embedded in the anterior of the west hemisphere of the brain a ½ inch in diameter. They put pennies first over his eyes to keep them closed but took them off, then placed silver half-dollars which worked because, imagine it, he kept trying to look through the pennies, tilting the coins at various angles, as if some version of his future face was already on it, his future face had already begun arising, bits of face emerging on his own coin, 1/100th, called the “Devil’s penny,” the smallest denomination within the U.S. currency system. His likeness from 1909 through now, 130 billion worth which, were they lined up, would encircle Earth 137 times, & now the Confederates get to see him each and every day, a man for whom just 130 known pictures exist. A man who was martyred for the Union. But we’re still here, despite that cross-draw.
This is the bullet lodged behind Lincoln’s right eye.
White House Historical Association: “The bullet that killed President Lincoln was marked with the initials A. L. by Dr. Stone who described it as a “leaden-hand made ball flattened somewhat in its passage through the skull.” It measures 43.75 mm and is composed of a mixture of antimony, tin, copper, and soft lead.” Bruce White, photographer.
Nothing new….
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