^f7 1 eOlJRNING FOR II 1 ^ \..4 ^lOjT ^1>AMU \''. Z.BARRETT iiiMiilthJhl'.i. .-.-.nw ill ililiiipbiiflll; ■llii Class __Z.4^_i£^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr MOURNING FOR LINCOLN Q •^^ By FRANK W. Z. BARREl 1 1909 The John C. Winston Company PHILADELPHIA Copyright, 1909 by F. W. Z. BARRETT LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two CoDles Received MAY n 100^ CopyriKnt sintr, CLASS y A xxc. i^C. No. ^ DeOicatcO to tbc best ot motbera bs bet son "And nuhen the sixth hour ivas come, there nvas darkness o'ver the luhole land until the ninth hour. " — Saint Mark. INTRODUCTION. The year Nineteen Hundred and Nine is memorial year for Abraham Lincoln, in which many phases of his- tory concerning him and his times will he considered, and the nation s sorrow at his untimely death may justly claim a place. We read his speeches with pleasure, laugh at his jokes, take pride in his statesmanship, glory in his man- hood, marvel at his patience, and are glad to honor his memory, while we almost forget the somber mountings from which the gems gleam. During the period when the Ameri- can public is, specifically, reviving the Lincoln memories, it is proper to attempt, in a slight degree at least, an appreciation of the colossal sorrow which culminated in the death of the Emancipator. No more touching trih- 7 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN ute can be paid to the veterans and the loyal supporters of the Civil War than to carefully and seriously note the great grief which followed the assassination of their beloved leader. But the study of Lincoln and his movements among the multitudes will no more cease with the ending of the year 1909 than will the worship of Christ end with Christ- mas. We are learning, little by little, how much it cost America to make a Lincoln, and the price a President paid to maintain a republic. Lincoln and his labors glow in an ever-deepening light, for they were laved and cleansed in very many righteous tears. Philadelphia, Pa, Slmrnltt ^Frnwrtt? Pn^m O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloudi A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around and together be laid ; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall molder to dust and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved, The mother that infant's affection who proved, The husband that mother and infant who blessed, £ach, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. The maid, on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure — her triumphs are by ; And the memory of those who loved her and praised. Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 9 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne, The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn, The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman, who climbed with his goats to the steep. The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread. Have faded aw^ay like the grass that w^e tread. The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just. Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed. That wither away to let others succeed ; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that hath often been told. For we are the same our fathers have been ; We see the same sights our fathers have seen — We drink the same stream and view the same sun — And run the same course that our fathers have run. 10 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think ; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink ; To the life we are clinging they also would cling, But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. They loved, but the story we cannot unfold ; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold ; They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come ; They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. They died ! aye, they died ; we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pil- grimage road. Yea I hope and despondency, pleasure and pain. We mingle together in sunshine and rain ; And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. II MOURNING FOR LINCOLN 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tia the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death ; From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud ; O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? William Knox. J^"^: 12 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN. Longfellow in 1850 wrote "The Building of the Ship." In the original di'aft of the writing he left the ship ^Tecked upon the shoals, but when the printed proof was put into his hands he could not bear to read of his beauti- ful ship shattered by wind and rock; so, although the poem was. already in press, he destroyed tha'l fatal ending and -v^Tote the a-Dostrophe with which we are all familial: . Thou, too, sail on, O^Sfeip of State! Sail o^j|D tJnlQli,:;stl'ong and great! At times* during his administration, jMr. Lincoln was greatly depressed ; the smile faded from his lip, and the sparkle died out of his eye. During one of those periods he read the speech of a Union orator in which the latter quoted the apostrophe from "The Building of 13 MOURNING FOE LINCOLN the Ship." The speech was in the morning papers, and as JNIr. Noah Brooks called on the President that day- he found him reading the speech. Lincoln nodded to his caller and said: "Before business, let me read you this," and with deep feeling he read the mem- orable passage. Having finished, he leaned back in his chair and asked who wrote the poem, if there were more stanzas of it, and where it could be found. Mr. Brooks told him the author's name, and offered to recite the poem to him. Lincoln requested him to do so, and listened with great earn- estness to his visitor. The poem seemed to dispel the President's gloom, for he declared that he believed in the ship. On Friday, April 14, 1865, the members of the Cabinet and General Grant were summoned to an official meeting at 11 o'clock. The President 14 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN asked Grant if he had heard anything from Sherman; to which Grant repHed that he had not, but he was hourly expecting dispatches announcing Johns- ton's surrender. The President replied to this opinion with firmness: "Well, you will hear very soon now, and the news will be important." General Grant, out of curiosity, inquired: "Why do you think so?" "Because," said Lincoln, "I had a dream last night, and ever since the M^ar began I have invariably had the same dream before any very important military event." He said further that the dream had come to him just before the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg and other great conflicts. "The dream," continued he, "is that I saw a ship sailing very rapidly ; and I am sure that it portends some important event." The dream ship of the President was one with the poet's Ship of State. IS MOURNING FOR LINCOLN President Lincoln was at City Point, Virginia, when Robert E. Lee surren- dered his army, on Palm Sunday, April 9th, to General Grant. Soon after the glad news was heard, he went on board the "River Queen" returning to Wash- ington. The boat was thoroughly searched to see that no enemies who might do him an injury were on board. A guard went with him — Lieutenant Commander John Barnes, and two ensigns, who were never for a moment, not even at meal time, to leave the Presi- dent alone. No precaution which might insure his safety was omitted. Admiral Porter had charge of the arrangements for the safe return of the President to Washington. But after the President had started homeward the Admiral became exceedingly anxious concerning the Chief Executive, and, although the special escort returned reporting their charge safe in the White i6 MOURNING FOa LINCOLN House, he at once boarded the steamer "Tristram Shandy," ordered the cap- tain to put on full head of steam and land him in Baltimore, by which route he could soonest reach Washington. He reached the wharf at Baltimore in the early morning and sent a mate to get a carriage to the depot. In twenty minutes the mate returned with ghastly face and trembling limbs. He tottered into the cabin but could not speak, and fell upon the sofa shaking like an aspen-leaf. "What is the matter with you?" demanded Admiral Porter. "Be a man and tell me; is the President dead?" At first the man could not answer; at last he stammered: "Assassinated!" The Admiral was too late, but he con- tinued his journey to Washington. When he looked once more at the Presi- dent, whose eyes would never open on him again, turning to a friend, he said; 17 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN "There lies the best man I ever knew, or expect to know; he was just to all men, and his heart was full to overflow- ing with kindness towards those who accomphshed his death." A few days before Lee's surrender, the President had instructed Sherman to offer the same favorable terms of peace to General Johnston that were made to Lee. General Sherman, in reply, declared that he was in a condi- tion to compel Johnston to accept what- ever terms he might offer. Lincoln replied: "Offer him the same terms that were given to Lee, and if not accepted, then drive him to it; only don't let us have any more bloodshed if it can be avoided." On the morning of April 17th, Gen- eral Sherman left camp on his way to confer with General Johnston concern- ing terms of capitulation. As he was i8 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN boarding the train, a telegraph operator hurriedly requested him to delay a few minutes until he should receive an important message just coming over the wire from Washington. This was Stanton's dispatch announcing the assassination of the President. Sher- man read the message, folded it as if nothing unusual had happened, and quietly put it into his pocket. "Have you told anj^one of the con- tents of this message?" he asked. "Xo," was the reply. "Then," commanded Sherman, "speak of it to no one till I return." And the train sped away. The two generals. Federal and Con- federate, with their respective staffs, came together that afternoon at the home of Mrs. Bennett, on the Raleigh Road, near Raleigh. When they met. General Sherman at once asked John- ston whether he had heard of Lincoln's 19 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN assassination. General Johnston replied that he had not. Sherman handed him the message. As he read the sad account, the Confederate was greatly moved, and after a moment's thought, he said solemnly: "The death of Lin- coln, in my opinion, is the greatest calamity that can happen to the South." During the war, those in rehellion called Lincoln robber, murderer, tyrant, and wished him all manner of evil; but by the time the struggle was drawing toward its close, they had begun to understand that he was their earnest friend and that he would grant them as favorable terms as he could. There was no man of the nation who longed more earnestly for a reconciliation with the people in secession than the Presi- dent ; and there was now no one remain- ing who had so earned and won their confidence. Now that they were con- quered, those of them who knew him 20 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN best, loved him as wayward and repent- ant children. So the South, as well as the North, mourned at the death of their truest friend. News of the assassination reached New York. The emporium stirs in an instant. Flags in the harbor drop to half-mast. The city rocks in a ter- rible rage. It seethes and boils; it hisses and curses. It calls down impre- cations upon the murderers. It impli- cates all the Confederates in the horrid crime, and calls with voice five hundred thousand strong: "No more compro- mise; no more dalljdng; no more for- giving; we take no prisoners; we give no quarter to the Rebel leaders; but one thing now — a dog's death by the gallows-tree ! Henceforth between them and us, war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt 1" 21 MOURNING FOE LINCOLN An officer in the Army of the Poto- mac received a telegram. It announced the murder of the President. He called a friend and said; "Read that!" The young man gasped ; he re-read ; his face grew livid; he rushed from the tent calling hoarsely: "Boys, Lincoln's dead; murdered by an assassin ; and the assas- sin has escaped I" The soldiers began to assemble. At first they were stunned and they refused to believe. But the message soon settled the terrible fact. What a scene followed, as they shout from tent to tent and regiment to regunent: "Boys, Father Abraham is killed! Boys, Lincoln is assassinated!" Then rose one mighty sweeping, swelling curse. They called for a judgment-day in which all Rebels were to stand before a fiery tribunal. "Oh, God, Thou Mighty One, as they have dealt with us, help us to deal with them and theirs!" The 22 MOURNING FOE LINCOLN cry was carried to every part of the army, and wherever it went anger and choler followed in its w^ake. "Now, now vre'-re in for war that w^ill wipe the Rebs, root and branch, from off the earth! General Grant, turn us loose, and we'll go down into the South and exterminate the vile horde! Give back to Lee his men and their arms; give back to the Rebels their forts and their rivers, their ships and their pris- oners ; aye, even the States we have torn from them; give them their horses and their guns, and their niggers to dig their trenches; give them a treaty with England and France; give them every- thing they possessed or could possess; only turn us loose on them! General Grant, turn us loose upon them! Let us go once more into the South, and we will leave standing not a tree nor an orchard, nor a cotton-field; not a city nor a town nor a village ; aye, w^e'U drive 23 MOUENING FOE LINCOLN the whole abominable race of murderers into the sea I No, that will be too good for them! We'll drive them into hell, where they belong, and then we'll furnish volunteers to keep the fires burning everlastingly! Turn us loose and we'll avenge the death of our good Father Abraham!" A Confederate had been with Robert E. Lee at Harper's Ferry when John Brown was seized. Later he became colonel of the First Virginia Regulars, and was captured, together with several hundred other Confederates, a few days before Lee surrendered. With some other officers he was confined in the old Capitol Prison in Washington. In the city he had influential friends who were completing arrangements for his libera- tion. A few hours before the assassin- ation they had visited him in prison and said: "Cheer up, old fellow, you'll 24 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN soon be out; the papers are ready and they will probably be signed to-mor- row." They left the colonel in a pleasant frame of mind. That night, as he and some of his companions were talking of their speedy release, they heard ominous sounds outside the prison walls. First there were a few voices speaking in undertones; then there were many voices swearing furi- ously: "Let's bring out the G d d Rebels and hang every one of them I" The prisoners did not know what had caused the uproar, but they understood by the tumult that some- thing fearful had happened. They could hear sounds of the guards being doubled; the mutterings of growing anger; likewise voices urging an onset upon the prison. The click of guns and the tread of guards became so con- stant that they watched to see the doors broken in, and they expected that at 25 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN any moment they might be dragged outside the prison and hanged by the infuriated mob. Still they did not know what had happened. The impre- cations and steady tread of the guards continued all night. In the morning the prison doors w^ere flung open and the prisoners beheld a startling sight. The streets were filled from curb to curb with citizens and soldiers, and the soldiers were keeping at bay a fierce crowd, whose faces were rigid in deter- mination and anger. Between rows of iron-visaged men whose bayonets were fixed for instant service, the prisoners were marched at quick-step to the rail- road station, where they were placed in box cars, the doors slammed shut, and the train started — for what place they knew not. Three days without light they traveled. When at last the doors were opened they found themselves at Sandusky, on Lake Erie, and on their 26 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN way to Johnson's Island, a Union Civil War prison from which no one was ever able to make his escape. The colonel leaves it on record that he was never so glad for any other thing in all his life as he was to get out of Washington when Lincoln was assassinated. Imprecations flew over the country hke whiffs from demons' nostrils. The fierceness of the soldiers' '^^Tath was beyond the power of language to express. Had the Federal Army then been turned loose against the foe, in its violent state of rage, it would literally have exterminated the people of the South. Doubtless that danger was in Johnston's mind when he said: "Lincoln's death is the greatest calam- ity which can happen to the South." Had Lee's surrender a short time before not placed him and his army under the protection of the North, they might have become the mop with which 27 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN to wipe out the infamous stain of the assassin's deed. But wiser judgment prevailed. The mingled anger and sorrow of the nation settled into a sullen roar of pain; pain all the more touching because with the anger and sorrow were mingled for- giving prayers. It soon became known that there was no concerted operation on the part of the Confederacy to murder the President. The mass of people in the South and soldiers in the Confed- erate army knew nothing of the plot. A few desperate characters had planned and executed the fiendish scheme which resulted in the death of the President and the serious wounding of Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State. It will be remembered that on April 14, 1861, Major Robert Anderson, of the United States Army, after firing a salute to the Union flag, surrendered 28 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN Fort Sumter to the Confederates. On the 14th day of April, 1865, exactly four years after his capitulation, Brigadier-General Robert Anderson is again at Charleston Harbor. With him are such orators as Henry Ward Beecher, Doctor Storrs, together with other great and brave men of the land, all assembled to hoist the identical flag which jNIajor Anderson had hauled down four years before. Promptly at noon, as the people shout and the guns boom from half a dozen batteries, and the bands play national airs. General Anderson with his own hand pulls the flag into place. On the evening of the same day, a banquet is given at the Charleston Hotel; six or more promi- nent speakers eulogize Mr. Lincoln, praising him in such words as no ruler of a republic had ever before been praised. Finally, at the close of Gen- eral Anderson's toast, he lifts his glass 29 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN with the words: "I beg you now that you will join me in drinking the health of another man — one whom we all love to honor — the man who, when elected President of the United States, was compelled to reach the seat of govern- ment without an escort ; but a man who now could travel all over the country with millions of hands and hearts to sustain him, I give you the good, the great, the honest man, Abraham Lin- coln." On that very hour the President was assassinated. On Monday, April 10th, the Rev. Thomas Bowman, subsequently a bishop in the IMethodist Episcopal Church, but at the time Chaplain of the Senate, visited Lincoln to warn him of danger. He told the President how a few days before, as he was about to open a session of the Senate with 30 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN prayer, a man entered the hall, and hy his strange appearance had so impressed Dr. Bowman that he could not for several minutes proceed with the sacred services. Suhsequently he had seen this remarkable visitor prowling about the White House, and he was convinced by the man's actions that he was bent on some crime. ]Mr Lincoln, however, could not believe that anyone would injure him and, strange to relate, felt especially safe in the presence of the man whom the chaplain feared. Later events proved that the fear of Dr. Bow- man was well founded. On the evening of April 14th, Mr. Lincoln, accompanied by his wife and two young friends. Major Rathburn and jMiss Harris, attended, by special invitation of its manager. Ford's Thea- ter. The morning papers had announced that he would be present, and the house was packed by admirers, who cheered 31 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN loudly as he entered. Passing the door, he spoke kindly to an actor, J. Wilkes Booth, for whom he entertained a favorable regard. It was Booth whom Dr. Bowman feared. Booth belonged to a secret order which had as its object the assassination of the Chief Execu- tive, Mr. Seward, Vice-president John- son, Secretary Stanton, General Grant and Chief-Justice Chase. At the theater where he went to slioot the President, he was so kindly greeted by Mr. Lincoln that he was unnerved and his courage failed. So seriously was he affected that he v/as unable to perpe- trate the deed until he had rushed from the theater to a saloon near at hand, where he called in excited tones: "Brandy! brandy! brandy!" Hastily drinking two glasses of the stimulant, he returned directly to the theater. Entering the President's private box, he stood behind Lincoln, took deliberate Z2 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN aim, and sent a bullet through his vic- tim's brain. The President's head dropped upon his chest, he bent slightly forward, his body became motionless, he uttered no word nor sound. Booth had secured his man and played his part in the terrible tragedj^ Abbott, the historian, says: "The President was taken into a house near by and placed upon a bed. What a scene was here ! The chief of a mighty nation lay there senseless, drenched in blood, his brains oozing from the wound. Sumner and Farwell and Col- fax and- Stanton and many others were there, pallid with grief and consterna- tion. The surgeon, General Barnes, solemnly examined the wound. There w^as silence as of the grave. The life or death of a nation seemed dependent on the result. General Barnes looked up sadly and said: "The wound is mortal." "Oh, no! General, no! no!" 33 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN cried Secretary Stanton, and, sinking into a chair, he covered his face with his hands and wept hke a child. Senator Sumner tenderly holds the hand of the unconscious martyr. Though all unused to weep, he sobs as though his great heart would break. In his anguish his head falls upon the blood-stained pil- low, his black locks blend with those of the dying victim, which toil and care have rendered gray, and which blood has crimsoned. The following morning Secretary Stanton said, as he caressed and lifted the hand of the expired President: "Ah, dear friend, there is none now to do me justice; none to tell the world of the anxious hours we have spent together." And now the nation rapidly becomes an immense death chamber in which the citizens as children learn that they have 34 (***»-■■ :mouiining for Lincoln lost their well-beloved father. The depressed spirit which takes possession of those gathered about the body of Abraham Lincoln escapes through the door and spreads as a pall over the fair fields of a continent, and like a dread monster whom all fear, strikes terror and despair to the hearts of those who hear of the tragedj''. "Let us visit our pastor to-day," says a wife to her husband, and together they drive across the country. On their wsty they hear that JMr. Lincoln is dead. They continue their journey until they come to the minister's house ; but he can not see them, for the terrible nev/s has smitten him, and he is unable to arise from his bed. A traveler was in the eastern part of Iowa, and as his train was starting, a friend jumped to the platform and called to him: "News has just come from Washington that Lincoln is assas- 35 MOURNING FOE LINCOLN sinated." The train was moving so rapidly that no more could be said, and the informant leaped to the ground. On the train went, passing station after station, but no word was heard from the Capital. Agents were asked as to the truth or falsity of the report, but none of them knew. The traveler, after hours of anxiety, entered a stage coach and rode into the night. At last he came to a place called Newton, where fresh horses were hitched to the coach. Here was a small telegraph station, and around it were gathered the men of the place. They listened breathlessly as the operator slowly read from the line the account of the President's death. The night and the loneliness of the place were symbols of the gathering gloom. An Ohio regiment lay encamped on the Tombigbee River. They were a jolly set of boys, singing jolly songs. 36 .?mi»: :mourxixg for Lincoln Suddenly all mirth ceased, from one to the other went the rumor: "Lmcoln is assassinated." Drum ceased its beat- ing and fife its shrill note. Swift- mounted horsemen halted in their task of grooming or pulled the bit before setting off on another task. ]Men gath- ered in knots and whispered of the awful deed. Veterans, those who had marched, and fought, and slept, and ate with messmate for years, and had at last buried that military companion without shedding a tear, now sobbed like children. The funeral dirge rolls over the camp, and the saddest march of four long years has begun. An army is preparing to read its funeral ritual over its Chief Commander. Large numbers of the Fourth Corps of the Army of the Cumberland were stationed in Eastern Tennessee, thirty miles out from Greenville, North Caro- lina, where was located the nearest tele- MOURNING FOR LINCOLN graph station. They were to cut off the retreat of Lee should he escape with his army from Richmond. Their camp was on an elevation, and the road leading to it was for four miles in plain view. On the afternoon of the 15th of April, a courier riding a fleet-footed horse entered the four-mile stretch. He halted an instant at each sentry, and then raced along toward the camp. The attention of the officers was called to the peculiar behavior of the videttes, as one after the other listened to the horseman and allowed him to pass. The soldiers were accustomed to couriers, but never before had they seen such actions on the part of their videttes. The camp watched the rapidly approaching herald with wonder; but no one even guessed the contents of his message. The worse they dreamed of was another upheaval of the foe, for which they were prepared. But the 38 MOURNING i^Oii LINCOLN queer actions of the sentinels, what could they mean ? With foaming horse the messenger arrives in their midst and announces: "Lincoln is dead; killed by an assassin; Booth has escaped!" Strong men turned towards one another and without a word fell into each others arms and moaned outright. The evening was usually spent in song and story-telling and jollity. Now there was no song, no shout, no joy; nothing but fearful forebodings and prophecies as to the consequences of the crime. The Soldiers' Home, in Chicago, was arranging for a fair, and for the first time since ]Mr. Lincoln left for Wash- ington, his home State was to welcome him once more. The home was new — erected for the soldiers of the war now drawing to a close, and a great throng expected to attend the fair; multitudes of friends hoped to grasp the Presi- 39 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN dent's hand and say: "God bless you! We have prayed for you, we are proud of you, welcome home!" And in the busy preparations for breaking the ground where the fair was to be held was heard the hum of happy voices. Processions were ready for a splendid pageant — when lo ! at the very time the joyous people were beginning their task of love, they read: "Lincoln assas- sinated last night ; died this morning at 7.22 o'clock." Their songs of rejoicing turned into a mourning dirge; unut- terable woe smote the people, and none escaped the funeral wail. The proces- sion was abandoned, and the day prom- ising sunshine and joys became one of clouds and gloom. Loyal women who were to have worn adornments of roses, draped themselves with crepe, and emblems of mourning covered their heads. 40 :mourning for Lincoln The President breathed his last at twenty-two minutes past seven, on Saturday rnorning, April the 15th. During the night the country was noti- fied of the assassination and that the worst was to be expected. As the mes- sage of the nation's loss flashed through the land, a mightj^ and united move- ment takes place. People everjnvhere are astir. Some one in the rural dis- trict hears of the calamity and starts on foot or on horseback to the house of his next neighbor; arriving, he begins: "Have you heard?" — and he can go no farther; he breaks down and sobs. Again he begins: "Have you heard of the assassination? — oh!" And this man of sturdy build, whom no one has ever seen shed a tear, leans, as one mortally w^ounded, against a fence, or drops to a sitting posture on the ground, while great paroxysms shake his body and he mourns piteously. At last he calms 41 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN himself, and between sobs, says: "Presi- dent Lincoln is dead." The neighbor, all unprepared, staggers forward and gasps: "What? You don't mean that Father Abraham is dead? When, and where, and how?" These neighbors sit together as the first relates the appalling story; then messenger number two starts for his next neighbor, carrying with him the almost unbearable story. The news spreads over the country dis- tricts almost as rapidly as it does through the cities ; and knots of pastoral people gather and weep and sigh; they wring their hands and are comfortless. They moan: "Our President is deadl Why did they do it! The government cannot stand; it is going down. Good, kind, forgiving Father Abraham is killed!" And the moaning goes on. In the cities another movement takes place. First, there is great astonish- ment, followed by intense anger, which 42 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN in turn gives place to nameless gloom. Flags and banners are everywhere fly- ing in honor of the surrender of Lee, and in token of the rapidly-coming peace. Now a man sees a flag flying, and without a word runs to the staff and begins to lower the colors. A woman throws a light shawl over her head and starts for the store where she buys black; black crape, black ribbon, black cloth; and if she is poor and has but few pennies, or if she comes late, she has to be content with black paper; for in many of the cities black drapings from the looms were exhausted before 10 o'clock. All this blackness is for decorative purposes ; as though the dead could see! Thimble and needle and fingers work rapidly; and in an hour from the dipping of the flag, it is again hauled slowly into place at half-mast, and bordered on one or two or three or four sides by a wide band of crape. 43 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN And this work in blackness continued throughout that Saturday. Had angels from the black pit appeared they could have added nothing to the signs of despondency and despair. The next day was the Sabbath, in which multitudes were wont to meet in commemoration of the resurrection of their Lord. It was Easter Sunday, but preachers, for once, almost forgot the resurrection and its precious promises. For four years the land had seen death, but no resurrection. A coming back to life seemed unthinkable. Homes emp- tied of fathers and sons and brothers proved that all was death, death, death. Throughout the country on the follow- ing Wednesday funeral services were appointed for the departed President; but neither preachers nor people could wait; and this Resurrection Sabbath was a day of funerals continent-wide. The minds of the people were saturated 44 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN with the thought of death in the prison, death in the hospital, death on the skirmish-hne, death on the battle-field, death in the camp and, most horrible of all, death by the hand of the assassin I Immediately after the President ceased to breathe, Secretary Stanton called a Cabinet meeting in the room where the body lay. No minutes of the meeting were taken, and nothing is known of its results; its lips are like those of the dead, silent forever. The days that followed were those of silence almost supreme. At half past nine the body was removed to the White Plouse, where it was embalmed. The hearse which car- ried the dead was wrapped in the folds of an immense flag, and surrounded by military guards and officers on foot. Great crowds followed it to the White House, but they were excluded by mili- 45 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN tary orders. Here the martyr was pre- pared for public funeral. At first it was planned to have services in Wash- ington and then send the beloved dead direct to his home State for burial. But the nation would not have it so. The people of many States demanded, with myriad voices, that his body be sent to them, that they might take one last look into his homely, honest face. The nation decreed so to honor their dead father, and to meet their desire a funeral train of eight coaches was arranged to travel to Baltimore, to Harrisburg, to Philadelphia, to New York City, to Albany, to Buffalo, to Cleveland, to Columbus, to Indian- apolis, to Chicago, to Springfield, Illi- nois, where in Oak Ridge Cemetery the great President was to be entombed. At the White House, Lincoln's body, dressed in the suit he vv^ore at his second 46 'SB^ = MOURNING FOR LINCOLN inauguration, was first laid out in the guest room; but on Tuesday it was placed in the East Room that the public might view it for the last time. Here, on Wednesday, the funeral services were held, beginning at half past eleven. There were present the members of the Cabinet; the assistant secretaries of the Deputies; the State Senators; the mem- bers of the Diplomatic Corps, in full court suits; the wives of the Cabinet Ministers; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the new President, ]Mr. John- son; State Representatives; delegates from the clergy, from municipalities, from chambers of commerce, from com- mon councils, from union leagues, and from other organizations belonging to almost every loyal State in the Union. It was two o'clock when the service closed and the funeral cortege moved slowly along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building. At the head of 47 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN the procession, as guard of honor, walked a sj^lendidly equipped company of negro soldiers, recently emancipated by the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln. All the civil dignitaries rode in car- riages. There were the hoof-beats of cavalry and the stately tramp of infantry. The rattle of artillery sounded above the sad music of the mili- tary bands. On either side of the avenue were the people who were gath- ered to see their President as he passed on his last farewell. From nine o'clock in the morning until two in the after- noon do they wait; but they look upon the black catafalque at last as it slowly moves along. Multitudes of citizens join the procession and escort the dead to the Capitol. The whole nation seemed draped in black; one city is as another. Every- where the flags on the government buildings are at half-mast, and the MOURNING FOR LINCOLN numerous symbols of sorrow are wide- spread as the continent. At the hour of service the churches in every city, from ocean to ocean, are crowded with mourners. This seemed to be the funeral not of one man, but of a nation. This j)eople who, for almost a hundred years, had boasted of being the most independent, as they had tried to be the best of the earth, now seemed with- out a leader. The cities stood still ; the States moved not; and the nation was silent save for the innumerable voices in the undertones of woe. The flags of Europe and Asia and the isles of the seas drooped in the j)resence of such unexpected grief. And yet it was not the assassination of Lincoln alone that caused all this unheard-of emotion. His death was but the culmination of a four years' long tragedy, which directly involved, as actors on the stage, nearly three mil- 49 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN lion, five hundred thousand American soldiers. Of these, more than two mil- lion were from the loyal States ; and the remainder were from the South, which drove into its ranks, either as enlisted men, or as home guards, in that vast military camp, every able-bodied male, from the boy of fourteen and younger, to the snowy-haired grandfather who counted his age at three-score and ten. Of those in the Northern army act- ually engaged in warfare, one out of every five lay under the sod when peace was declared. There were in our land nearly four hundred thou- sand new-made graves in which were lying in unbroken slumber the heroes of as many Northern homes. If the proportion of deaths in the Confed- erate army were allowed to be a lit- tle less, still there were not fewer than two hundred and fifty thousand chairs forever vacant in the lovely 50 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN land of Dixie. Granting six feet to a grave, and placing the dead, head and foot together, in one long trench, that trench, beginning at Washington, would cross the Poto- mac River, the northern point of Virginia, go over the mountains and into the valleys across West Virginia, through the southern point of Ohio, over the northern crest of Kentucky, across the entire State of Indiana, into Illinois, through that commonwealth, and would terminate on the banks of the Mississippi River, a little north of St. Louis. This is the size of the grave which would hold the men who died in the rebellion from 1861 to 1865. Could this trench with its ghastly contents be transferred to Europe, it would reach from the city of Brest, on the northwest coast of France, diagonally the longest way across that republic, to the south- east, through the city of Nice, out into SI MOURNING FOE LINCOLN the Mediterranean Sea, and would ter- minate midway between the continent and the Island of Corsica; and the fathers and mothers of all these sons ' were ruthlessly summoned, by the act of Booth, to the funeral- feste. In 1861 there were in the United States of America thirty-six States. These States are divided into counties, of which there are about one thousand, four hundred and thirty-two; these are again subdivided into smaller tracts, or townships. Allowing twenty of these smaller divisions for each county, there are twenty-eight thousand, six hundred and forty townships in the thirty-six States. Of this number, there were thousands of townships in the frontiers , which were entirely without human inhabitants, while other thousands had but few. When the dead soldiers are distributed equally among the town- ships, for burial, there are twenty-one 52 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN graves to each, or an average in each of five funerals a year for the four years of the war. There was not a city nor a village, nor a community of any sort, nor yet a family, nor scarcely a single individual, that was not in recent sorrow for some dead soldier. Nor did the suffering stop at this ; for almost as large as the count of the dead was the number of maimed and diseased men who returned from the battle-fields to their homes, only to drag out a life-long misery. They were a living index of the horrors of war; they w^re constant and forceful reminders of the death- head at life's feast. Their stories were of suffering and pain, and of long marches and sudden and successful onslaught of the enemy; these they retold until a solemn, heroic, sorrow became the daily food upon which the nation fed. Still another cause there was for 53 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN mourning. Although the war was sup- posed to be over, dangers were yet pending. A million men were now away in the Federal army, and a million firesides were in deep solicitude; for no wife or mother knew at what moment might fly to her the words: "Husband dead; son shot through the heart; will send body at earliest possible date." So it was that the smiting of Lincoln made every home feel more insecure, and filled it with deeper loneliness and fear of the future. This feeling intensified, and anxiety multiplied, until human nature could no longer endure the strain. The whole nation collapsed; saturated itself in tears; covered itself over with sack- cloth, and beheld Lincoln as he passed them by in his chariot of an endless peace. Conspicuous among the mourners, especially in the East and in the South, 54 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN were the negroes. During four years tliey had been drifting into Washington and Baltimore by hundreds and thou- sands. They looked on the President as next, if not equal, to the Savior. It is said that an army colonel, happening to be in a colored meeting in North Carolina, heard some of them talk of Mr. Lincoln and tell their impressions of him. An old white-haired negro arose to reprove and instruct the assembly. "Brederin," he said, "bred- erin, you don't know nossen' what you'se talkin' 'bout. Now you jus' listen to me. ]Massa Linkum, he eberywhar; he know eberyting; he walk de earf like de Lord." The benighted people thought Lincoln could feed them and clothe them and care for them all their lives. When the Freedmen's Aid was organized and took them in hand, nat- urally enough, the emancipated negroes thought INIr. Lincoln was the author of 55 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN all their comforts. When the time came that their friend was carried from them to the tomb, their mourning passed all bomids; it was as deep as their deeply emotional natures. Their black features were distorted and made more homely; they groaned and cried aloud, and wailed above the wailing of the other multitudes: "Uncle Sam is dead; Uncle Sam is dead! Oh, Lo'd! Oh, Lo'd! Oh, Lo'd!" When questioned as to whom they meant, they responded in groans: "Mr. Linkum is dead, de man who signed 'Mancipation Proclimation is dead! De good man to poo-ah niggah is dead, an' we'll haf to go down to de old plantation as slaves agen! Oh, good Lo'd, hab mercy; Oh, good Lo'd, gib us help! Mr. Linkum is dead, the niggah's f ren' is dead !" The moaning of some of the negroes in the far South was even yet more melancholy. They were still under the heel of the master, 56 3I0URXIXG FOR LINCOLN and they felt that with the death of the President all hope was gone. There were four millions of the black race in densest ignorance, but ignorance did not lighten their burden; in their despair many of them rocked them- selves back and forth, calling all the time: "Oh, Lo'd, hab mercy! Oh, good Lo'd, hab mercy 1" The train of eight coaches, six for the mourners, one for the guard of honor, and one — the funeral car — draped within and without, sped at last on its way from Washington to Balti- more, its first stopping-place. That city which, four years earlier, had har- bored within its bosom a band of mis- creants having as their object the murder of Abraham Lincoln before he could be inaugurated, has learned the value of the man, and now receives him 57 MOUENING FOE LINCOLN in solemn reverence between its columns of countless citizens. At Philadelphia the President's body was taken to Independence Hall. In front of this historic building, on a spot now designated by a well-known tablet, four years before, at a flag-raising, INIr. Lincoln had declared concerning the principle of the Declaration of Inde- pendence: "I was about to say^ I would rather be assassinated upon this spot than surrender it." Within that hal- lowed edifice he now lies, while for him who dared to die, the walls were heavily hung with crape. The head of the coffin was placed near the old Inde- pendence Bell. That bell, broken now, was honored as never before ; there were floral festoons and garlands. One of the wreaths lying at the head of the casket contained a card bearing the inscription: "Before any great national event I always have the same dream. 58 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN I had it the other night. It was of a ship saihng rapidly." Aye, Lincohi's dream, Longfellow's Ship of State! The old Liberty Bell was heavily draped, as though it, too, were dead. What fitting and sympathetic com- panions, this bell and this departing spirit ! Thus might they have held con- verse : The Bell: "I rang the Union into existence." The Spirit: "I maintained the Union." The Bell: "I proclaimed liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhab- itants thereof." The Spirit: "I gave liberty through- out all the land, to all the people thereof." The Bell: "I am useless now; I am broken." The Spirit: "Having finished my work, my body is going to its burial." 59 MOURNING FOE LINCOLN The Bell: "The people remember me and greatly love me." The Spirit: "Oh, my God, wilt Thou help them to remember me and love me a little 1" Love him a little! Love him a lit- tle! Aye, they loved him so greatly that the States, during long days, remembered ; they stood clad in mourn- ing, and chanted funeral dirges. For this love the public obsequies began, not on the day appointed, but on the pre- ceding Saturday, and continued on Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and again through another week, and on into a third week, until Thursday, May the 4th. It was not the States and cities alone which gave public demonstration of their grief; the army was scattered from New York to Texas. Some 60 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN parts of the army heard of the calamity on the day following the fatal shot; some heard of it in a week ; some heard of it at the close of the twenty days' public parade. These soldier boys knew the President intimately, though they had never looked upon his face, yet they knew him. He was their Commander-in-Chief, and not a man of them could be persuaded that JNIr. Lin- coln was a stranger. They told his stories while on the march; when they were suiFering in prison, they talked of his goodness; they sang his praises as they went into battle; they enlisted in his army, shouting: "We're coming, Father Abraham, six hundred thousand strong!" Now, as the news of that awful crime reaches the different corps, there are at first anger and curs- ings, and then deepest sorrow. "They have killed our best friend; they have killed their best friend!" moaned the 6x MOURNING FOR LINCOLN soldiers. A million voices from as many enlisted men rose and fell with the cadence of the funeral march. Here was a line of mourners four thousand miles long. They march into camp to muffled drum; they bivouac for the night, dreaming of Lincoln as they sleep. Five thousand clergymen were in one way and another connected with the army, and many of these deliver funeral orations for the illustrious dead. The incubus of woe could not be shaken from this mighty mass of mourning men. Their chorus of grief was a deep bass, modulated to the deeper unspoken passion of love for their great com- mander. As the eight funeral coaches approached the JNIetropolis, the public uprising became more marked. This city, which, two years before, had to cope with a mob having as its object the cessation of the draft, arose now 62 :mouiinixg for Lincoln with its myriads and filled its streets with mourners. A few days before, as word arrived that Lee had surrendered, this throng sj)ontaneously burst forth sing- ing: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow ; Praise Him all creatures here below." But now the grand dox- ology has altogether ceased. The har- bor was decked with flags at half-mast; batteries fired their minute-guns; the society of affluence and culture, which was wont to ridicule the President for his uncouth ways, stands awed into rev- erence and love before this man on his triumphal tour to the tomb. Mr. Arnold, in his Life of Lincoln, tells of a remarkable scene which was enacted w^hile the funeral train moved slowly up the Hudson: "In one of the towTis near the Highlands, a tableau of touching beauty had been arranged. Just as the sun was sinking behind the CatskiUs, the train slowly approached 63 MOURNING FOE LINCOLN the place, and the mourners upon the train saw that thousands of the country people had gathered around an open space, near the bank of the river. This space was carpeted and draped with flags; slow, sad, pathetic music accom- panied the approach of the train, and a beautiful lady, representing the God- dess of Liberty, knelt over the grave of Lincoln, holding a drooping flag draped in mourning." Such was the devotion of people who knew that they could see no more than the passing of the great President. The railroads over which he was carried were lined with delegates from sur- rounding towns. Families were present from places five, fifteen, fifty miles away; they came just to look on a car. Children in the mother's arms were held with their faces towards the train, and told, as if it were possible not to forget : "Baby, look there! President Lincoln 64 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN is in that coach; he was shot the other night ; look now, for he will never again come this way!" Then the mother would bury her face in the folds of a black veil and sob aloud. Families so standing and waiting became friends while they stood; for had not each a boy in the army or the grave? So they talked of Tom and Joe and Harry, and of the storm which was sweeping the continent. At every station where the train stopped were floral gifts from women. JNIany were beautiful w^reaths to which were attached cards reading: "A lady's gift; can you find a place?" An old negro woman with a rudely-made T^Tcath in her hand, crowded herself into the presence of a decorating com- mittee, and with tears in her eyes begged that it might be placed on the coffin. The wreath bore the motto: "The nation mourns his loss. He still MOURNING FOR LINCOLN lives in the hearts of the people." Her offering was accepted. Three women entered Independence Hall at mid- night bearing a cross of milk-white flowers to which was attached a card bearing the inscription: "A tribute to our great and good President, who has fallen a martyr to the cause of human freedom. 'In my hand no price I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling.' " And these floral off'erings came from those who mourned greatest, the women. The man enters the swiftly-flowing stream of business and is carried along in its current, the woman tarries behind, alone; the man enters the army to fight gloriously for his country, the woman remains at home; the man rushes on to battle and is slain, the woman walks henceforth companionless ; with Lin- coln, four hundred thousand men of the North forgot in the tomb all pain 66 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN and sorrow, but with jNIrs. Lincoln, four hundred thousand women dropped amaranths and tears on the graves of the men whom they loved, and were comfortless. Behind this American movement of twenty days' mourning for the illus- trious, like the background of a picture, or the apex of a pyramid in a painting, or a mountain-range pouring its flood into already inundated valleys, were lifted above the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean the heads of European sympathizers. For months, and almost for years, during the Civil War, the textile mills of Great Britain were closed, the artisans thrown out of a livelihood, and laborers were without bread; the weaving enterprises of the empire turned not a wheel, and fortunes were sunk in unproductive plants. The cause of this stagnation in business was 67 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN said by the British manufacturer to be Mr. Lincoln. Cotton was grown in the Southern States, and Lincoln had blockaded every port from Hampton Roads to Galveston, and no cotton could be shipped to the trans- Atlantic consumer. Hence, there arose a mighty outcry against the President. The demand was loud that he speedily hft the blockade or end the war. He was despised as an agent who was ruining commerce, as well as defrauding the textile worker of his hire. But, be it said to the Briton's credit, he loved liberty ; he had freed his own slaves, and acknowledged their rights under the British Constitution. At last, Lincoln performed an act which won for him the admiration and love of the Briton. One day, the newspapers of London announced that the President of the United States had signed a notable document, the Emancipation Proclama- 68 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN tion. By this act, tlie President had proven himself, in British eyes, worthy of the position which he held as a leader in the Anglo-Saxon race; and, yes, he had so won the respect of those who were formerly his enemies in England, but who were now his friends, that Queen Victoria, disregarding the habit- ual reserve imposed on her by the House of Lords, with her own hand penned words of consolation and con- dolence to Lincoln's stricken wife. At Paris, the city which loves inde- pendence for the individual, a conven- tion of Sunday-schools, four thousand in numbers, was assembled in a great tent. The chairman arose and said: "iSIy children, I prepared a little speech for you, but a horrible fact has just been related to me. The President of the United States is dead. Abraham Lincoln has been shot." He then sat down and could say no more. Several 69 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN ladies could not restrain their weeping. An American gentleman whispered to one of them, asking her if she too was an American. "No," she replied, "I am French; but I have followed Mr. Lincoln's course from the beginning of the War, and now I feel that his death is a personal affliction." It was in Paris, too, that students marched en masse to the American Legation to express their sympathy. French Liberals started a two-cent sub- scription for the purchase of a massive gold medal. Their committee brought the gift to the American minister, who later was to send it to Mrs. Lincoln. They prayed him: "Tell her the heart of France is in that little box." The medal had this inscription: "Lincoln — the Honest ]\Ian — abolished Slavery, reestablished the Union, saved the Republic, without veiling the Statue of Liberty." 70 JNIOURNING i^OIl LINCOLN Garibaldi, whose battle-cry was, "Rome or death!" and who, with seven- teen thousand "Chasseurs of the Alps," began that movement which enabled him to crown Victor Emmanuel King of Italy, now hearing of the assas- sination exclaimed: "It is horrible! Half of my soul has been taken away from me I" And the States through which the funeral moved had all sent tlieir bravest and best sons to strengthen the hands of the President while he was alive. 'New York had contributed twelve per cent of her population; Pennsylvania, twelve and six-tenths ; Ohio, thirteen per cent; Indiana, fourteen; Illinois, fif- teen, — all to Lincoln's cause. Over a distance of sixteen hundred and fifty miles, the train glided through avenues of mourners. They who stand, hour after hour, by the side of the railroads 71 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN or in the streets of the great cities, as the cortege rolls along, realize more and more that the best beloved of the sons of men is among them for the last time. They are in the presence, not of a con- queror only, but of a man who believed in his brother-man ; they longingly gaze, not upon a warrior, though he was in war, but upon the face of a giver of peace. At the Crucifixion of that other, greater Emancipator, centuries before, few mourned, and millions jeered; at the death of this eman- cipator, the mourners were millions, the scoffers few; thus hath the spirit of brotherliness broadened and deepened. The army and the navy mourned; statesmen and politicians, churchmen and educators, societies and everybody mourned. History has left no other picture like this on the canvas of the world; a plain man from the common people, stand- 72 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN ing, a figure of love, and wisdom, and patience, during four years of fratri- cidal war, sustains a Union, the object of which was and is liberty and equality to all, becomes so great that he fills the century. The whole world looks, and beholds — a ^MAN. And America has been so well- favored; there had been no assassina- tion of her chief executives — assassina- tions belonged to monarchies; there was no place for such crime where the people ruled ; regicide was a term appli- cable only in a land where kings were on the throne. A government of the people and for the people and by the people was God's own government. Providence had seemed to guard the republic and its chief executive. At first this was especially true of Mr. Lincoln ; for at Cincinnati, on the train which carried him eastward toward Washington, for his first inaugural, n MOURNING FOU LINCOLN hand grenades were found. Provi- dence had protected its own. In Phila- delphia, where on the following day he was to raise the stars and stripes over Independence Hall, a messenger arrives from Baltimore announcing that a plot to murder him as he passed through the latter city had been discovered. To avoid these dangers, he went in the night, unheralded and unknown, through Baltimore; he was unharmed. Again Providence had smiled. In Washington rum.ors flew thick and fast that Mr. Lincoln would never be inaugurated. Desperate parties, so says report, are to set upon him and slay him before he reaches the Capitol. At his inauguration, all the loyal troops, six hundred and fifty-three in number, that have been or can be secured for his protection, march in front and rear and on the flanks of the Presidential party, so that in peace he vows to protect 74 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN the Union. Truly, Providence has now taken him by the hand. Later, attempts are made to poison him, but they fail. Providence enfolds him. It is rumored that enemies are prepared to kidnap him and hand him over to the Con- federates, or hold him for a ransom ; but all these treacherous schemers fail in their reckonings. Before enemies at home and abroad he does not flinch. Cartoonists, foreign and domestic, ridi- cule him as a man, as a statesman, as a leader. Providence strengthens him and gives him courage. Newspapers sting him relentlessly and ceaselessly; but he remains the man of Providence, plodding upward. Political opponents attempt to overthrow him when his task is only half finished, but Providence will not permit them. He becomes like the head of a comet raised to the nth power, sweeping in omnipotence through the combined oppositions of 75 MOURNING FOR LINCOLN friend and foe. With the help of the Infinite, in which he claimed to trust, he passes triumphantly through the National Republican Nominating Con- vention, and through the national elec- tions. Underneath the Man of Provi- dence are the Everlasting Arms. There streams from behind this comet-head innumerable radiations which are con- vergent upon him and which are irre- sistibly drawn after him — voters, friends, entire families, uprisen socie- ties, hallowed sanctuaries, loyal States, the combined North in military proces- sion; there are offered prayers for his safety, petitions for his success, conse- crations of 3^outh for his cause, collec- tions of money for his hand, train-loads of provisions for his soldiers, acres of lint — hand-made — for his wounded, square miles of tents for his hospitals, thousands of physicians for his sick, and as many more thousands of nurses ; MOURNING FOll LINCOLN the earth is devoted upon the altar of this man. There is a flash of red sweeping across the sky; he was elected to declare war, and he has declared it; there is an appalling scene of grandeur ; armies are advancing for the encounter ; there is an overwhelming movement of fire — villages are burned, and entire valleys are wrapped in conflagrations. Unswervingly he leads the procession of stars; they feel his pull and answer to his call; they swing into right lines, and the sweep of the whole becomes graceful, beautiful, powerful, over- whelming. This man is God's man; God has not mistaken His man. This life a charmed life, which charms other lives; it is love, light, heat, motion, triumph. The Man of Providence was elected to declare war, and he declared it; reelected to proclaim peace, and he proclaimed it — all danger is now over. Lo, in an instant, everything is changed MOURNING FOE LINCOLN ■ — there is no "pull," no light, no life; there is, — death. The Man of Provi- dence has ceased to be, the head of the comet is snuffed out, and the comet breaks into chaos. The disorganized multitudes look — instead of light, behold night; they seek a sphere which shall pull, and lo, a dismal void! For the first time in our history murder has smitten America's Chief Executive; Murder has said to Providence: "Begone; I will rule in your stead." The more you try to become recon- ciled to first calamities, the more con- fused and depressed you are — you do not and cannot understand them. At last, the dead President reaches his home State, Illinois — that great commonwealth which sent him, her first, in the line of our presidents. How she loved him! For a fortnight she had talked of nothing but his home- 78 -