God for the end of the great civil war. No more would our friends be sent to us in boxes, no more would hearts be broken, and homes desolated. The sword would be sheathed, the battle flags furled, and Belmont, Henry, Donelson, Shiloh, Perryville, Corinth, Stone River, Vicksburg, Atlanta, Dallas, Alatoona, Kenesaw, Jonesboro', Rome, Macon, Milledgeville, and the thousand other places of the dead were to be left as so many charnel houses of the past, and to the beautiful gardens of northern homes the great army was now to disperse.

April 14th-Mr. Lincoln's kindness towards the Rebels - Ford's Theatre Booth's Plan - No Excuse for the Crime - Seward Stabbed Stanton laid in wait for-Grant's noble treatment of Lee Lincoln's entrance to Richmond - Effect of the Assassination on the People Illinois Demands his Remains - Funeral Route - Arrival in Chicago Rest at the Court House Deposit at Springfield — Grant is Coming and the People are Consoled.

BUT alas! all hopes are as shadows, the joy of a nation was soon turned to mourning. The ball and the knife of the assassin lay in wait to strike the final blow of rebellion, to make the last futile resis tance to universal freedom. Suddenly and desperately they murdered our good President and convulsed the civilized world with horror. On the evening of April 13th, 1865, a young rebel shot President Lincoln, another of the band of assassins aimed a dagger at the heart of Secretary Seward, wounding him almost unto death, the life of General Grant, and Mr. Stanton were lain in ambush for, and were saved only through providential intervention. President Lincoln had been a great friend to the South, and his clemency towards error and treason had ever been such, that the vanquished South had every reason to believe he would be the same kind parent to her that he had been to the North. There certainly seemed no provocation for

this cruel, cruel deed, which was blood-thirsty in the

extreme.

Ford's Theatre at Washington was adorned with unusual care, the draperies all being in great taste, with furled flags and emblems of peace and loyalty. The play was announced as being something rare and recherche, and it was publicly and widely circulated that the President's party had consented to be present. They were each one strongly urged to do So. General Grant, Speaker Colfax, Mr. Stanton and others were to be of the party. But the little dutyloving General as usual had business to attend to and left the city. Mr. Colfax also was called elsewhere, and Mr. Stanton could not attend. So the kind, obliging Mr. Lincoln, fearing a popular disappointment, and knowing of the extra preparation, consented against his own inclinations. When the President's party entered, consisting of Mr. Lincoln and Lady, Miss Harris, Senator Harris and Major Rathbone, the President was greeted with hearty applause and prolonged cheers. He bowed and was seated. The box was a double one, containing three doors, and was easy of access and egress. The play opened and interest in it increased to keen intensity. The President occupied a high-backed chair and leaned forward holding back the curtains of the box. The assassin gained admittance by shewing a card to the President's messenger and without waiting an acknowledgment entered the box, closing the door behind him. By a secret fastening he made it secure. He then walked up to Mr. Lincoln whose head, in

clining forward, left the entire back of it exposed, and with diabolical coolness cocked a silver-mounted derringer pistol, and sent a ball crashing through the President's brain.

Major Rathbone sprang to his feet and seized the assassin, who dropped his pistol and struck the officer with a keen double-edged dagger wounding him severely in the arm and shoulder. The villain then parted the folds of the flag festooning the stage and sprang a distance of twelve feet, landing upon the platform, which he crossed, flourishing a dagger, and exclaiming "Sic semper tyrannis, the South is avenged," then, dashing through the excited crowd, he rushed to a side-door, mounted a horse he had got in readiness and rapidly rode away over the Anacosta Road. But in the leap the flag he had so grossly outraged clung to his spur, and checked him enough to break his limb. This interfered with his escape, and providential judgment speedily overtook his crime. In crossing the stage upon which he landed he was recognized as J. Wilkes Booth.

The audience, deeply absorbed in the play, for a time supposed the report of a pistol to be part of the tragedy.

The murderer had calculated on the audacity of the act as its security, and so it almost proved. The people were stunned.

The shot, the scene upon the stage, the escape were the work of a moment. Mr. Lincoln was immediately conducted to the house of Mr. Peterson on Tenth Street, and, wholly unconscious, survived until

the next morning at 7 o'clock 22 minutes, when death came. What a night of unspeakable horror was that, where, amid the wails of the wife so soon to be widowed, the tears and exclamations of Senate and Cabinet, the shrieks of women, the shouting of men for vengeance, and the grief-stricken multitude, our good President passed away.

There were circumstances attending this "cruel assassination" which made it unspeakably shocking. Mr. Lincoln had, it seems, a sort of personal regard for J. Wilkes Booth, and on that very night of the "dark deed" spoke to him kindly as he entered the Theatre. To be recognized by such a man was an honor, and one that he could hardly have expected to receive. When Booth first came to the Presidential box and looked upon the genial face of Mr. Lincoln his heart relented; he could not kill him; so he rushed out of the Theatre, and down to the saloon, where in a hurried and excited manner he cried out "brandy! brandy! brandy!" After drinking two full glasses of it, he returned to the fatal spot. Maddened by a power not his own, blurred and blinded, with conscience drowned in brandy, he could do the deed then, and he did it! What a world of conflicting feelings and emotions must have passed through his mind, between the could-not and the doing of it! In another part of the city of Washington assassination was darkly and desperately going on. At ten o'clock, within a few minutes of the time President Lincoln was murdered, Secretary Seward, who lay disabled from a recent accident, had