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falque prepared for its reception. All day and all night long the streets of that quiet town resounded with the footsteps of the thousands who came to look upon the corpse of him they loved as a neighbor and friend, and whom they now revered as foremost among the mighty martyrs of the earth. In the morning minute-guns were fired—and, as a choir of two hundred and fifty voices sang "Peace, troubled soul," at ten o'clock the coffin was closed forever. The remains were then placed in the hearse, the procession moved, under command of MajorGeneral Hooker, to Oak Ridge Cemetery, and there, while the choir sang "Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb,' the sepulchre received to its final rest all that was mortal of Abraham Lincoln. Religious exercises were then held, Bishop Simpson pronouncing an eloquent and appropriate funeral oration, and Rev. Dr. Gurley, of Washington, making a closing prayer.

Thus closed the life and public services of Abraham Lincoln. As the condition of the country during his Administration made him the most conspicuous figure in American history, so did the circumstances of his death give him a sad and terrible isolation. It was the first time that assassination had sought to aid, or avenge, a political cause in the United States, and nothing but the terrible fever of civil war could have engendered a crime so abhorrent to the American character and the genius of republican institutions. The investigation which the Government at once set on foot, and prosecuted with the utmost vigor, proved that the abduction and assassination of Mr. Lincoln had been the topic of speculative conversation, in various portions of the rebel States, for some months previous to its execution. It did not appear, however, that the deed was done by direct procurement of the rebel authorities, though it was made more than probable that the agents whom they kept in Canada, and supplied with large sums of money, for what they styled “detached service"-meaning by that phrase enterprises of robbery, murder, and arson, over which they vainly

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sought to throw the protection of the laws of war—were at least acquainted with the horrible plot, and lent it their sanction, if not their aid. But it seems to have originated mainly, if not exclusively, with the man who played the leading part in its execution. Booth was a son of the most distinguished actor of that name, and inherited something of his passionate and peculiar nature. He had been, from the outbreak of the rebellion, one of its most fanatical devotees; and, as its strength and prospects of success began to grow less and less, his mind was absorbed in desperate schemes for reviving its fortunes and securing its triumph. Papers which he left behind him show that he had deliberately dedicated himself to this service, long before the surrender of Lee and the virtual overthrow of the rebel cause; and what was then a desire to aid the rebellion, became, after this was hopeless, a desperate determination to avenge its downfall. He plotted the murder of Mr. Lincoln, and of the leading members of the Government, with the utmost care and deliberation, selecting for his assistants men better fitted to be tools than confederates, and assuming himself entire charge of the enterprise. The meetings of the conspirators were held at the house of one Mrs. Surratt, in Washington; and detailed arrangements had been made, with her assistance, for effecting an escape. Booth accordingly, after shooting the President, and escaping across the eastern branch of the Potomac River, found temporary shelter and aid among the rebel sympathizers of Lower Maryland. His movements, however, were greatly embarrassed and retarded by the fracture of his leg, caused by his fall as he leaped upon the stage after committing the murder; and the agents whom the Government had sent in pursuit soon came upon his track, and on the night of the 26th of April found him, with one of his accomplices, a lad named Harold, who had also been the companion of his flight, in the barn of a farmer named Garrett, near Port Royal, on the south side of the Rappahannock, and about ninety miles from Washington. Harold surrendered. Booth refusing to do so, and

menacing his captors with fire-arms, was shot by a ser geant of the troop, named Corbett. Several persons, implicated more or less directly in the plot, were afterwards apprehended, and tried before a military commission in the City of Washington. Mrs. Surratt, Harold, a man named Atzerott, who was to have killed Vice-President Johnson, and Payne, the assailant of Secretary Seward, were executed on the 6th of July, and several others were sentenced to imprisonment for life or a term of years, for their share in the conspiracy. As these events had nothing to do with the Administration of Mr. Lincoln, it does not fall within the scope of this work to narrate them in greater detail.

As might naturally be expected, the horrid crime aroused the most intense indignation throughout the country. No man, in either section, ventured to become its apologist; and public sentiment, overlooking every thing that was irregular and inconclusive in the proceedings of the military commission by whose sentence the parties accused of complicity in the murder were convicted and hung, applauded the execution, and gave it the sanction of a general and emphatic approval.

The murder of the President gave still another evidence of the stability of our institutions, and of the capacity of our people to meet any possible emergency in the conduct of their affairs. It occasioned not the slightest pause in the stately march of the Government. The Constitution had provided that, in the event of the President's death, the functions of his office should devolve upon the VicePresident. Accordingly, at ten o'clock on the morning of President Lincoln's decease, Andrew Johnson took the oath of office, and entered upon the discharge of his duties as President of the United States. Not a word was uttered, nor a hand lifted, against his accession; and thus, with the silent and cordial acquiescence of the great body of the people, a crisis was passed which, in other countries and in other times, would have shaken governments to their foundation; and the world saw with astonishment and admiration, that, in war as in peace, in

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