CHAPTER XXIV.

ASSASSINATION OF MR. LINCOLN.

The Conspirators and Crime-Their Trial and Punishment-Effect Upon the Nation-Testimonials of Respect and Grief-The Funeral Procession to Ilis Burial Place-Strange Tribute from the World's Great Caricaturist.

The relief of the South and the joy of the North, which have been spoken of, had not reached their height, for it was between the surrender of General Lee and the surrender of General Johnston, that the saddest and most critical event of the war occurred-the assassination of Mr. Lincoln.

The plot, the conspirators and the transaction, were as follows: It was proposed not only to kill the President, but all his Cabinet, and General Grant, who was expected to be with him at the time. It was to be done when General Grant's masterly conduct of the war was just being successfully finished, and when there was no other man in the land who had both at the South and at the North such confidence placed in his wisdom and kindness, as Mr. Lincoln. And then as General Sherman feared at Raleigh, that such an atrocity would demoralize his army, and lead to such ravages as would make the war break out afresh, and with more of personal vindictiveness; so we all stood aghast and cried more fervently than ever to heaven for help.

Booth, the leading conspirator, belonged to the distinguished family of actors of this name. He was an ardent Secessionist, and proud of the part he took in the arrest

and execution of John Brown. He had become "stage struck" about playing the part of another Brutus, and with "mock-heroic" acting, expected to fire the Southern heart with new desperation in their struggle, and appall the North by sweeping away at once, the President, the VicePresident, the Cabinet and the Commander-in-Chief of all our armies. After the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, so fatal to the success of the Secession movement, he visited Canada, to plan with sympathizers there, the capture of the President, and deliver him a prisoner at Richmond. On the 4th of March, when Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, Booth was there and created some disturbance because he was kept back in the crowd, where he said he lost an excellent chance of killing the President then. But when Lee surrendered, if anything was ever done to relieve the South, it could be delayed no longer. "For six months," he said, "we have worked to capture, but our cause being lost, something decisive and great must be done." So when the President had returned from the front, where he could be in conference with Grant during that critical period, and after he had visited the deserted and half-burnt Confederate capital, and it was found that, with his family and General Grant and a few friends, he was to divert himself from the cares of State by an evening at the theatre, the conspirators, who all had their several parts assigned them, were summoned to their work.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Lincoln occupied a box at Ford's theatre. There he was shot by Wilkes Booth, who entered the box, having previously fastened an outer door to guard against interruption. He fired from behind, placing the pistol almost against the head of the President, who fell forward unconscious. Booth dropped the pistol, and as Major Rathbone, one of the party in the box reached toward him, struck savagely at him with a knife, and leaped from the box to the stage. His spur

caught in the flag with which the box was draped, and he fell heavily, but recovering himself, stopped to cry: "Sic semper tyrannis," dashed across the stage, and out where a horse was waiting for him, and for the time escaped. In his fall he had broken his leg, but this hardly checked him. He was followed, overtaken in Maryland, and stood at bay in a barn. He refused to surrender, the barn was fired and he was shot by one of the soldiers. The plot miscarried as to the other intended victims, except Mr. Seward, who was dangerously wounded in the leg, as he lay sick in bed. The conspiracy was afterwards proved to the satisfaction of the court, and four persons were hanged, Herold, Atzerodt, Payne, and Mrs. Suratt. Four others were imprisoned for six years, or for life.

Mr. Lincoln was shot a few minutes after ten o'clock in the evening. He scarcely moved, his head drooped forward slightly, his eyes closed. He was carried to a house across the street, and laid upon a bed in a small room at the rear of the hall, on the ground floor. A hasty examination by the surgeons showed at once that his wound was mortal. A large derringer bullet had entered the back of his head on the left side, and passing through the brain had lodged just behind the left eye. Mrs. Lincoln soon reached him, and he was tenderly cared for, but there was no hope. He was unconscious, of course, from the first moment; but he breathed with slow and regular respiration throughout the night. As the dawn came, and the lamplight grew pale in the fresher beams, his pulse began to fail; but his face even then was scarcely more haggard than those of the sorrowing group of statesmen and generals around him. His automatic moaning, which had continued through the night, ceased; a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features. At twenty-two minutes after seven he died. Stanton broke the silence by saying, "Now he belongs to the ages." Dr. Gurley kneeled by the bedside and prayed

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fervently. The widow came in from the adjoining room, supported by her son, and cast herself with loud outcry on the dead body. ("History of Abraham Lincoln," Vol. X, pp. 289–302.).

So died our good President, without knowing who killed him. And his assassins no more realized that they were killing their best friend, than the Jews knew they were murdering their Saviour when they crucified Christ. Mr. Lincoln was one of the most tender-hearted and generous of men, even toward his bitterest enemies. He had just expressed, in his second inaugural address, what nobody could doubt, after his first administration of the government, were the real sentiments of his heart. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives me to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." When the terms of Lee's surrender were under consideration, Mr. Lincoln was for making them as easy as possible, and was constrained by his Cabinet to recall some of the concessions he was making to the Confederate States to reorganize themselves under their Confederate State governments. The very day of his death, when the reconstruction of the government was under consideration in the Cabinet, he was very desirous of avoiding the shedding any more blood, or the infliction of vindictive punishments. "No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off," he said, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. "Enough lives have been sacrificed, we must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”

When he fell, what a wave of awe and grief swept over the land. It was like some great convulsion of nature. What is to come next? And what shall we do without our trusted leader? The extent of the plot to break up the government by any violence was not known, and the repetition of it was to be feared any moment. This is illus trated by one of the incidents of the times, as connected with Governor Buckingham, and well remembered in Norwich, his home. When the news reached the place, and such a rumor flew abroad, the people, as they do in earthquake countries, instinctively rushed into the streets. There they met the Governor, and, flocking about him, asked, "What shall we do now?" Struggling with his own grief and wiping away his tears, he could only tell them, "God lives, and having so far helped us, we trust he will not forsake us now." And bethinking himself of what might be the danger at Washington, he called Colonel Selden, his secretary, and one of his military offi cers, and gave him the order to take a dozen or fifteen of the most reliable citizens, arm them, and convey Senator Foster safely to Washington. Senator Foster was president pro tem of the Senate, and if Vice-President Johnson had been assassinated as well as Mr. Lincoln, Senator Foster would have been sworn into the office of President. This order was faithfully carried out, though the Vice-President, having escaped with his life, was immediately inaugurated as Mr. Lincoln's successor.

Then the nation gave way to its lamentations, and made up that funeral train which bore its dead half across the continent and seemed more than anything else like Joseph's burial of his father, when he carried him down into Canaan with all the devotion of a child, and all the pomp of an Egyp tian funeral, and the Canaanites ever after called the place of his burial, "The mourning of the Egyptians.". After the funeral services at Washington, Mr. Lincoln's remains were