notified by their secret call-two short sharp raps, thrice repeated-and these men held themselves ready for duty.

To the Cabinet assembled in the Petersen house in the room adjacent to that in which the president was dying, the explanation of the events of that night appeared evident. The assassination was believed to be the signal for a new uprising of the Confederacy. The Confederate Government, though represented by a fugitive president and a scattered and fleeing Congress, was believed to have struck a desperate blow for life in a deliberate attempt to wipe out the entire leadership of the Union Government. This attack, it was believed, was to have been followed by a new uprising of the paroled Rebel Armies. How many

murders the morning would show to have been committed, or in how many and how widely separated. places, no one dared to predict. All awaited in terror the relevations of that fateful night.

Stanton sent for Chief Justice David K. Carter of the District of Columbia, who arrived at once and began in an adjoining room to take testimony concerning the tragedy. This required further stenographic assistance, which, fortunately, was secured next door in the person of James Tanner. At the outset it was not known who had committed the murder, but very soon evidence was secured from those who had been present at the theater, including some of the employees who knew Booth, which disclosed the name of the assassin.

Stanton issued orders for the arrest of Booth. He sent a telegram to General Grant at Philadelphia, informing him that the president had been shot, and directing him to return to Washington. He directed the Assistant Adjutant General, Thomas M. Vincent, to take charge of the Petersen house, guarding the door and limiting the admittance. He telegraped the chief of police in New York to send his best detectives. He gave directions to the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company to intercept General Grant at Philadelphia, and bring him to the capital at once, preceding his special train by a pilot locomotive.

Mrs. Lincoln had followed the prostrate form of her husband when it was borne across the street from the theater to the Petersen house. She was in a frenzy of grief. General Vincent wrote concerning her:

I cannot recall a more pitiful picture than that of poor Mrs. Lincoln, almost insane with sudden agony, moaning and sobbing out that terrible night. Mr. Stanton attempted to soothe her, but he was full of business, and knew, moreover, that in a few hours at the most she must be a widow. She entered the room where her husband lay motionless but once before the surgeon announced that death was fast descending, and then fainted and was practically helpless.

When, about half past one in the morning, Stanton came out of the death chamber bearing in his hand the notification he had written of the death of Lincoln, and gave it to General Vincent with directions to have a fair copy made for presentation to the vice-president, Mrs. Lincoln, whose eyes that night followed Stanton's every move, sprang forward with a terrible scream, "Is he dead? Oh, is he dead?" Stanton informed her that the president still lived, and did his best to speak some reassuring words, but his manner told beyond any power of deception what he regarded as the inevitable end of their vigil. The poor griefstricken woman moaned out her sorrow that was beyond all human comfort.

Lincoln had believed that some tragic end awaited him, but he appears to have had no apprehension of this on his last day. On the last Sunday of his life, as he was returning from City Point upon the steamer, he read from Shakespeare. Senator Charles Sumner records that as he read a particular passage from Macbeth, his attention was arrested, and he repeated these lines:

Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.

These lines seemed so significant that after his assassination those who knew of Lincoln's use of them could not refrain from adding as their own expression of their application to Lincoln and the tragedy of his death, these additional lines from the same play:

This Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off.

The room where the president lay was small* and the ceiling was low. The group about the president's bed changed from time to time during the night. The various pictures that were made of the death-bed scene show more people than were present at any one moment, but most of those whom the pictures portray were in the room at some time during the night. Mrs. Lincoln was the only woman present. She came at intervals, and was led away and sat in the adjoining room pouring out the agony of her grief in uncontrollable sorrow. Lincoln's pastor, Reverend Phineas D. Gurley, came and offered prayer, and remained to the end. There was little change in the president's condition during the night. As morning dawned, his heavy breathing grew more quiet and the pulse grew weaker. Bulletins announced the nearer approach of death. At twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock on Saturday morning, April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died. Those present at the time of his death included Mrs. Lincoln, Secretaries Stanton, Welles and Usher, Senator Charles Sumner, Robert T. Lincoln, the Reverend Doctor Phineas D. Gurley, John Hay, the physicians and a few other friends. The moment came when the breathing ceased, and the surgeons could feel no pulse. The president was dead. The silence that followed was broken by the prayer of Doctor Gurley and the memorable words of Stanton: "Now, HE BELONGS TO THE AGES."

*The room has been enlarged by the removal of a partition.

CHAPTER XXV

THE GOVERNMENT STILL LIVES

"GOD reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives." So said James A. Garfield, when the tragic news of the assassination of Lincoln reached the horrified nation. The fact that the government could live through a long civil war and the assassination of its president as the war was ending, may justly be regarded as one of the strongest tests of the stability of American institutions.

As soon as it was evident that the president was dead, the company that had watched over him through the long night dispersed, some to rest and others to continue their official duties through a day as laborious as the night had been. There was a sense of relief when the several commanding generals were heard from, and it was found that none of these had been assassinated; and the morning brought hope of recovery of the secretary and assistant secretary of state, which hope was ultimately fulfilled. Warning telegrams were sent to leading officers in the army, reminding them of the danger that they also might be assassinated, and the members of the Cabinet also took precautions.

No coroner's inquest was held over the body of Abraham Lincoln. No official inquiry was ever made by any civil court, concerning the occasion of his death or the person or persons responsible for it.

Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President, was sworn into office on Saturday, April 15, 1865, immediately following the death of the president. There was no ceremony. The time and circumstances admitted of nothing but stern and swift action. There was,

however, strong hope among those less patient and kindly than Lincoln had been, that the new president would prove a Joshua succeeding the dead Moses, at a time when more stern leadership was demanded than Lincoln would have brought.

The time has not yet come for complete justice to be done to the memory of Andrew Johnson. He did not fulfill the expectations of his friends and he narrowly escaped removal from his high office on impeachment. His was a difficult position; how much he deserved of the reproach which he received, some future historian will declare.

Of Andrew Johnson's inaugural as vice-president and Lincoln's second inaugural, on the fourth of March preceding, Gideon Welles wrote in his diary:

The inauguration took place to-day. There was great want of arrangement and completeness in the ceremonies. All was confusion and without order-a jumble. The vice-president elect made a rambling and strange harangue, which was listened to with pain and mortification by all his friends. My impressions were that he was under the influence of stimulants, yet I know not that he drinks. He has been sick and is feeble; perhaps may have taken some medicine, or stimulants, or his brain from sickness may have been over-active in these new responsibilities. Whatever the cause, it was all in very bad taste.

The delivery of the inaugural address, the administration of the oath, and the whole deportment of the president, were well done, and the retiring vice-president appeared to advantage when contrasted with his successor, who has humiliated his friends. Speed, who sat on my left, whispered to me that "All this is in very bad taste," and very soon he said, "The man is certainly deranged." I said to Stanton, who sat on my right, "Johnson is either drunk or crazy." Stanton replied, "There is evidently something wrong." Seward says it was his emotion on returning and revisiting the Senate; that he can appreciate Johnson's feelings, who was much overcome. I hope Seward is right, but don't entirely concur with him. There is, as Stanton says, something wrong. I hope it is sickness.*

*Diary of Gideon Welles, vol. ii, pp. 241-2.