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CHAPTER XVI

THE MOURNING PAGEANT

CHAP. XVI.

1865.

ECOUNTING the fate of these wretched malefactors has led us far afield. We will now return to the morning of the 15th of April and sketch, in brief and wholly inadequate words, the honors which the nation paid to its dead. The appalling news spread quickly over the country; millions of citizens learned at their breakfast tables that the President had been shot and was dying; and two hours after his death, when a squad of soldiers were escorting his mortal remains to the Executive Mansion, the dreadful fact was known at all the great centers of population. This was the first time the telegraph had been called upon to spread over the world tidings of such deep and mournful significance; it was therefore the first time the entire people of the United States had been called to deplore the passing away of an idolized leader even before his body was cold in death. The news fell with peculiar severity upon the hearts which were glowing with the joy of a great victory. For the last four days, in every city and hamlet of the land, the people were breaking forth into unusual and fantastic expressions of gaiety and content; bonfires flamed through the nights;

the days were uproarious with the firing of guns; CHAP. XVI. the streets were hung with flags and wreaths, and whatever decorations could be on the instant improvised by a people not especially gifted with the scenic sense; and committees were everywhere forming to arrange for elaborate and official functions of joy.

Upon this mirth and expansion the awful in- April, 1865. telligence from Washington fell with the crushing and stunning effect of an unspeakable calamity. In the sudden rigor of this unexpected misfortune the country lost sight of the vast national success of the past week; and it thus came to pass that there was never any organized expression of the general exultation or rejoicing in the North over the downfall of the rebellion. It was unquestionably best that it should be so; and Lincoln himself would not have had it otherwise. He hated the arrogance of triumph; and even in his cruel death he would have been glad to know that his passage to eternity would prevent too loud an exultation over the vanquished. As it was, the South could take no umbrage at a grief so genuine and so legitimate; the people of that section even shared, to a certain degree, in the lamentations over the bier of one whom in their inmost hearts they knew to have wished them well.

There was one exception to the general grief too remarkable to be passed over in silence. Among the extreme radicals in Congress Mr. Lincoln's determined clemency and liberality towards the Southern people had made an impression so unfavorable that, though they were naturally shocked at his murder, they did not among themselves con

CHAP. XVI. ceal their gratification that he was no longer in their way. In a political caucus, held a few hours after the President's death, they resolved on an entire change of the Cabinet, and a "line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln; . . . the feeling was nearly universal "- we are using the George W. language of one of their most prominent representaRecollectives" that the accession of Johnson to the Presi

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tions," p. 255.

dency would prove a godsend to the country." The next day the Committee on the Conduct of the War called on the new President, and Senator Wade bluntly expressed to him the feeling of his associates: "Johnson, we have faith in you. By the gods, there will be no trouble now in running Ibid., p. 257. the Government." Before many months passed away they had opportunity to learn that violence of speech was no guarantee of political consistency.

In Washington, with this singular exception, the manifestation of the public grief was immediate and demonstrative. The insignia of rejoicing at once disappeared, and within an hour after the body of the President was taken to the White House the town was shrouded in black. Not only the public buildings, the stores and shops, and the better class of residences were draped in funeral decorations, but a still more touching proof of the affection with which the dead man was regarded was seen in the poorest class of houses, where the laboring men of both colors found means in their penury to afford some scanty show of mourning. The interest and the veneration of the people still centered in the White House, where, under a tall catafalque in the east room, the late chief of the state lay in the majesty of death, and not at the

modest tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue, where CHAP. XVI. the new President had his lodging. At eleven Apl. 15, 1865. o'clock Chief-Justice Chase administered the oath of office to Andrew Johnson in the presence of a few witnesses. He immediately summoned the Cabinet for a brief meeting. William Hunter was appointed Acting Secretary of State during the interim of the disability of Mr. Seward and his son, and directed to communicate to the country and the world the change in the head of the Government brought about by the last night's crime. It was determined that the funeral ceremonies in Washington should be celebrated on Wednesday, the 19th of April, and all the churches throughout the country were invited to join at the same time "in solemnizing the occasion" by appropriate observances. All of the pomp and circumstance which the Government could command was employed to give a fitting escort from the White House to the Capitol, where the body of the President was to lie in state. A splendidly appointed force of cavalry, artillery, and infantry formed the greater part of the procession, which was completed by delegations from Illinois and Kentucky as mourners, the new President, the Cabinet, the ministers of foreign powers, and all the high officers of the nation, legislative, judicial, and executive. The pall-bearers comprised the leading members of both Houses of Congress and the officers of the highest rank in the army and navy.

The ceremonies in the east room were brief and simple. The Rev. Dr. Hall of the Church of the Epiphany read the burial service. Bishop Simpson of the Methodist Church, distinguished equally

CHAP. XVI. for his eloquence and his patriotism, offered a prayer, and the Rev. Dr. P. D. Gurley, at whose church the President and his family habitually attended worship, delivered a short address, commemorating, in language notably free from courtly flattery, the qualities of courage, purity, and sublime faith which had made the dead man great and

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useful. The coffin was carried to the funeral car, and the vast procession moved to the Capitol amid the tolling of all the bells in Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, and the booming of minuteguns at Lafayette Square, at the City Hall, and on Capitol hill. To associate the pomp of the day with the greatest work of Lincoln's life, a detachment of colored troops marched at the head of the line. In the rotunda, under the soaring dome of the Capitol, the coffin rested during the April, 1865. day and night of the 19th and until the evening of the next day. The people passed by in thousands to gaze on the face of the liberator - which had taken on in death an expression of profound happiness and repose, like that so often seen on the features of soldiers shot dead in battle.

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