The news of the President's assassination flashed rapidly over the
country, everywhere causing the greatest consternation and grief. The
revulsion from the joy which had filled all loyal hearts at the
prospects of peace was sudden and profound. All business ceased, and
gave way to mourning and lamentation. The flags, so lately unfurled in
exultation, were now dropped at half-mast, and emblems of sorrow were
hung from every door and window. Men walked with a dejected air. They
gathered together in groups in the street, and spoke of the murder of
the President as of a personal calamity. The nation's heart was smitten
sorely, and signs of woe were in every face and movement.
A scene which transpired in Philadelphia, the morning after the murder,
reflects the picture presented in every city and town in the United
States. "We had taken our seats," says the delineator, "in the early car
to ride down town, men and boys going to work. The morning papers had
come up from town as usual, and the men unrolled them to read as the car
started. The eye fell on the black border and ominous column-lines.
Before we could speak, a good Quaker at the head of the car broke out in
horror: 'My God! What's this? _Lincoln is assassinated._' The driver
stopped the car, and came in to hear the awful tidings. There stood the
car, mid-street, as the heavy news was read in the gray dawn of that
ill-fated day. Men bowed their faces in their hands, and on the
straw-covered floor hot tears fell fast. Silently the driver took the
bells from his horses, and we started like a hearse cityward. What a
changed city since the day before! Then all was joy over the end of the
war; now we were plunged in a deeper gulf of woe. The sun rose on a city
smitten and weeping. All traffic stood still; the icy hand of death lay
flat on the heart of commerce, and it gave not a throb. Men stood by
their open stores saying, with hands on each other's shoulders, 'Our
President is dead.' Over and over, in a dazed way, they said the fateful
syllables, as if the bullet that tore through the weary brain at
Washington had palsied the nation. The mute news-boy on the corner said
never a word as he handed to the speechless buyers the damp sheets from
the press; only he brushed, with unwashed hand, the tears from his dirty
cheeks. Groups stood listening on the pavement with faces to the earth,
while one, in choking voice, read the telegrams; then with a look they
departed in unworded woe, each cursing bitterly in his breast the 'deep
damnation of his taking off.' Mill operatives, clerks, workers, school
children, all came home, the faltering voice of the teacher telling the
wondering children to 'go home, there will be no school to-day.' The
housewife looked up amazed to see husband and children coming home so
soon. The father's face frightened her and she cried, 'What is wrong,
husband?' He could not speak the news, but the wee girl with the
school-books said, 'Mamma, they've killed the President.' Ere noon every
house wore crape; it was as if there lay a dead son in every home. For
hours a sad group hung around the bulletins, hoping against hope; then,
when the last hope died, turned sullenly homeward, saying, 'When all was
won, and all was done, then to strike him down!' The flags in the harbor
fell to half-mast; the streets were rivers of inky streamers; from
door-knobs floated crape; and even the unbelled car-horses seemed to
draw the black-robed cars more quietly than before."
On Saturday the remains were borne to the White House, where they were
embalmed and placed on a grand catafalque in the East Room. Little "Tad"
was overcome with grief. All day Saturday he was inconsolable, but on
Sunday morning the sun rose bright and beautiful and into his childish
heart came the thought that all was well with his father. He said to a
gentleman who called upon Mrs. Lincoln, "Do you think, sir, that my
father has gone to heaven?" "I have not a doubt of it," was the reply.
"Then," said the little fellow in broken voice, "I am glad he has gone
there, for he was never happy after he came here. This was not a good
place for him!" Tuesday the White House was thrown open to admit friends
who desired to look upon the still form as it lay in death. Wednesday,
the 19th, the funeral services took place. Mrs. Lincoln was too ill to
be present; but her two sons sat near the coffin in the East Room. Next
in order were ranged Andrew Johnson (now President) and the members of
the Cabinet, and after them the foreign representatives, the chief men
of the nation, and a large body of mourning citizens. The services were
conducted jointly by the Rev. Dr. Hall, Bishop Simpson, Dr. Gray, and
the Rev. Dr. Gurley, the latter delivering the discourse. At two o'clock
the funeral cortege started for the Capitol, where the remains were to
lie in state until the following morning. The procession was long and
imposing. "There were no truer mourners," says Secretary Welles, "than
the poor colored people who crowded the streets, joined the procession,
and exhibited their woe, bewailing the loss of him whom they regarded as
a benefactor and father. Women as well as men, with their little
children, thronged the streets, sorrow and trouble and distress depicted
on their countenances and in their bearing. The vacant holiday
expression had given way to real grief." The body was borne into the
rotunda, amidst funeral dirges and military salutes; and the religious
exercises of the occasion were concluded. A guard was stationed near the
coffin, and the public were again admitted to take their farewell of the
dead. While these obsequies were being performed at Washington, similar
ceremonies were observed in every part of the country. It had been
decided to convey the remains of Lincoln to the home which he left four
years before with such solemn and affectionate words of parting. The
funeral train left Washington on the 21st. Its passage through the
principal Eastern States and cities of the Union was a most mournful and
impressive spectacle. The heavily craped train, its sombre engine
swathed in black, moved through the land like an eclipse. At every point
vast crowds assembled to gain a tearful glimpse as it sped past.
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the
violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the
gray debris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes,
passing the endless grass,
Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from
its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the
orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening
the land,
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags, with the cities
draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd
women standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus
of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of
faces and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the
sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand
voices rising strong and solemn,
With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd
around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang.
At the principal cities delays were made to enable the people to pay
their tribute of respect to the remains of their beloved President.
Through Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, the train passed to New
York City, where a magnificent funeral was held; thence along the shore
of the Hudson river to Albany, thence westward through the principal
cities of New York, Ohio, and Northern Indiana, the cortege wended its
solemn way, reaching, on the 1st of May, the city of Chicago. Here very
extensive preparations for funeral obsequies had been made by the
thousands who had known him in his life, and other thousands who had
learned to love him and now mourned his death.
On the 3d of May the funeral train reached Springfield, where old
friends and neighbors tenderly received the dust of their beloved dead.
Funeral services were held, and for twenty-four hours the catafalque
remained in the hall of the House, where thousands of tear-dimmed eyes
gazed for the last time upon the familiar face. Then, on the morning of
the 4th of May, a sorrowing procession escorted the remains to the
beautiful grounds of Oak Ridge Cemetery, to rest at last from the care
and tumult of a troubled life. To this hallowed spot have come the
gray-haired soldiers of that stormy war, reverently to salute their
great commander's tomb. Here shall long be paid the loving homage of the
dusky race that he redeemed. And pilgrims from every land, who value
human worth and human liberty, bring here their tributes of respect. And
here, while the Government that he saved endures, shall throng his
patriot countrymen, not idly to lament his loss, but to resolve _that
from this honored dead they take increased devotion to that cause for
which he gave the last full measure of devotion; that the dead shall not
have died in vain; that the nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth_.
NOTES
[A] The popular vote was as follows: Lincoln, 1,857,610; Douglas,
1,291,574; Breckenridge, 850,082; Bell, 646,124. Of the electoral
votes, Lincoln had 180; Breckenridge, 72; Bell, 39; and Douglas,
12.
[B] On the very day of Lincoln's arrival in Washington, he said to
some prominent men who had called upon him at his hotel, "As the
country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I'll try to steer
her through."
[C] This first call for troops was supplemented a month later (May
16) by a call for 42,034 volunteers for three years, for 22,114
officers and men for the regular army, and 18,000 seamen for the
navy.
[D] Orpheus C. Kerr (_Office Seeker_) was the pseudonymn of Robert
H. Newell, a popular humorist of the war period, who dealt
particularly with the comic aspects of Washington and army life.
[E] Lincoln never lost his interest in exhibitions of physical
strength, and involuntarily he always compared its possessor with
himself. On one occasion--it was in 1859--he was asked to make an
address at the State Fair of Wisconsin, which was held at
Milwaukee. Among the attractions was a "strong man" who went
through the usual performance of tossing iron balls and letting
them roll back down his arms, lifting heavy weights, etc.
Apparently Lincoln had never seen such a combination of strength
and agility before. He was greatly interested. Every now and then
he gave vent to the ejaculation, "By George! By George!" After the
speech was over, Governor Hoyt introduced him to the athlete; and
as Lincoln stood looking down at him from his great height,
evidently pondering that one so small could be so strong, he
suddenly gave utterance to one of his quaint speeches. "Why," he
said, "I could lick salt off the top of your hat!"
[F] Hon. George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts stated Lincoln said to
him personally: "When Lee came over the river, I made a resolution
that if McClellan drove him back I would send the proclamation
after him. The battle of Antietam was fought Wednesday, and until
Saturday I could not find out whether we had gained a victory or
lost a battle. It was then too late to issue the proclamation that
day; and the fact is, I fixed it up a little on Sunday, and Monday
I let them have it."
[G] The cause of General Hooker's seeming stupefaction at the
critical point of the Chancellorsville battle has been much
discussed but never satisfactorily explained. It has been thought
that he was disabled by the shock of a cannon-ball striking a post
or pillar of the house where he had his headquarters. An
interesting entry in Welles's Diary, made soon after the battle,
reflects somewhat the feeling at the time. "Sumner expresses an
absolute want of confidence in Hooker; says he knows him to be a
blasphemous wretch; that after crossing the Rappahannock and
reaching Centreville, Hooker exultingly exclaimed, 'The enemy are
in my power, and God Almighty cannot deprive me of them.' I have
heard before of this, but not so direct and positive. The sudden
paralysis that followed, when the army in the midst of a successful
career was suddenly checked and commenced its retreat, has never
been explained. Whiskey is said by Sumner to have done the work.
The President said that if Hooker had been killed by the shot which
knocked over the pillar that stunned him, we should have been
successful."
[H] General T.R. Tannatt, a graduate of West Point in 1858, is now
(1913) an active and honored citizen of Spokane, Washington.
[I] The criticism of Meade for not attacking Lee before he
recrossed the Potomac is based on the assumption that the attack
must be successful. On this point Meade's words to Halleck, written
in reply to the latter's conciliatory letter of July 28, can hardly
be ignored. "Had I attacked Lee the day I proposed to do so, and in
the ignorance that then existed of his position, I have every
reason to believe the attack would have been unsuccessful, and
would have resulted disastrously. This opinion is founded on the
judgment of a number of distinguished officers after inspecting
Lee's vacated works and position. Among these officers I could name
Generals Sedgwick, Wright, Slocum, Hays, Sykes, and others." In
other words the attack which Meade has been so severely blamed for
not making might have ended in reversing the results at Gettysburg,
losing all we had gained at such terrible cost, placed Washington
and other Northern cities in far more deadly peril, and changing
the whole subsequent issues of the war.
[J] A curious revelation of the estimate of General Halleck held by
at least one member of the Cabinet, and of the relations between
Halleck and the President, is found in Welles's Diary in the record
of a rather free conversation with the President during the anxious
period about the time of the battle of Gettysburg. Says Mr. Welles:
"I stated I had observed the inertness if not the incapacity of the
General-in-Chief, and had hoped that he [the President], who had
better and more correct views, would issue peremptory orders. The
President immediately softened his tone, and said, 'Halleck knows
better than I what to do. He is a military man, has had a military
education. I brought him here to give me military advice. His views
and mine are widely different. It is better that I, who am not a
military man, should defer to him, rather than he to me.' This,"
continues Mr. Welles, "is the President's error. His own
convictions and conclusions are infinitely superior to Halleck's;
even in military operations, more sensible and more correct
always.... Halleck has no activity; never exhibits sagacity or
foresight." And in another place in the same Diary we are given
this singular picture by a Cabinet minister of the man who was at
that moment the General-in-Chief of the Union armies and the
military adviser of the President: "Halleck sits and smokes, and
swears, and scratches his arm, but exhibits little military
capacity or intelligence; is obfuscated, muddy, uncertain, stupid
as to what is doing or to be done."
INDEX
_[The abbreviation "L.," as used in this index, refers in every case to
the subject of this biography_.]
Abolitionists,
Bloomington convention, 165-169;
crusade against slavery, 244-245;
"Boston set" visits L., 482-484
Adams, Charles Francis, 343
Adams, John Quincy, 100, 549
Agassiz, Louis, visits L., 475-476
Alabama, secedes, 261
Allen, Robert, L's letter to, 59
Ames, Dr., 232
Ames, Oakes, 482
Anderson, Robert,
meetings with L., 39-40;
holds Fort Sumter, 262
Andrew, John A.,
mentioned, 234, 342, 466;
impression of L., 235 |
|
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기