Mourning Lincoln (47 page)

19
.
farmer:
Nimrod Porter diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Porter Papers, SHC;
lady:
Caroline Curtis diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Cary Family Papers III, MHS.

For continued skirmishing after surrender, see E. B. Long and Barbara Long,
The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971), 675–91.

20
.
road:
James Herbert George to “My dear home,” Appomattox, Va., Apr. 14, 1865, George Letters, HL;
impossible:
Chester dispatch, Richmond, Va., Apr. 10, 1865, in Blackett,
Thomas Morris Chester
, 303–4;
promenade:
Thomas Day Seymour to Nathan Seymour, Richmond, Va., Apr. 10, 1865, and Thomas Day Seymour to Sarah Parsons, Richmond, Va., Apr. 12, 1865, Seymour Family Papers, Yale-Sterling;
clothing, John Brown, children:
Lucy Muse (Walton) Fletcher diary, Apr. 25, 1865, Fletcher Papers, Duke;
shouts:
Chesson and Roberts,
Exile in Richmond
, 375 (Apr. 9, 1865, entry);
Roanoke:
P. B. S. Nichuston [?] to George Whipple, Roanoke Island, N.C., Apr. 22, 1865, #100001, reel 169, AMA;
Charleston:
Gerald Schwartz, ed.,
A Woman Doctor’s Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1984), 129 (Apr. 12, 1865, entry).

21
.
throats:
John S. Sanford to mother, Appomattox Court House, Va., Apr. 10, 1865, Sanford Papers, Duke;
toasts:
James Herbert George to “My dear home,” Appomattox, Va., Apr. 14, 1865, George Letters, HL;
Meade:
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer to W. P. Van Rensselaer, City Point, Va., Apr. 23, 1865, ts., Erving-King Papers, NYHS;
row:
Peter Eltinge to Edmund Eltinge, Goldsboro, N.C., Apr. 14, 1865, ts., Eltinge-Lord Family Papers (Peter Eltinge Papers), Duke;
newspapers:
Hastell P. Lyons to “Dear Friends at Home,” Kinston, N.C., Apr. 8–12, 1865, Lyons Papers, GWBW.

22
.
kicked, hurrahed:
James Otis Moore to sister, near Petersburg, Va., Apr. 15, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke;
handstands, mud:
Lucius F. Hubbard to aunt, Montgomery, Ala., May 3, 1865, in N. B. Martin, “Letters of a Union Officer: L. F. Hubbard and the Civil War,”
Minnesota History
35 (1957), 318;
mud:
Manning Ferguson Force to “Mr. Kebler” [?], Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 16, 1865 (letters copied into journal), Force Papers, LC;
liquor:
Thomas S. Howland to sister, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 16, 1865, Howland Papers, MHS; John Swift to sister, White River, Ark., Apr. 21, 1865, in “Letters from a Sailor on a Tinclad,” ed. Lester L. Swift,
Civil War History
7 (1961), 62;
double-shuffle
John Payson Slocum diary, Apr. 9, 1865, Slocum Family Papers, NYSL;
musicians:
John B. Burrud to Ocena Burrud, Winchester, Va., Apr. 10, 1865 (part of Apr. 9 letter), Burrud Papers, HL;
tree:
R. P. Tanner to Charles A. Tanner, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 14, 1865, Tanner Papers, SHC;
battle:
John Wesley Marshall diary, Apr. 10, 1865, LC;
hospital:
Rose Pickard to family, Alexandria, Va., Apr. 10, 1865, Pickard Papers, LC;
incredible:
James J. Higginson to Anne E. Heath, Burkeville, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, Heath Family Papers, MHS;
impression:
Stephen Minot
Weld to Hannah Weld, City Point, Va., Apr. 24, 1865, in
War Diary and Letters of Stephen Minot Weld, 1861–1865
(Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1912), 396;
whipping post:
Rufus Mead Jr. diary, Apr. 12, 1865, Mead Papers, LC.

23
.
thunderbolt:
David Gregg McIntosh diary, Apr. 9, 1865, McIntosh Papers, ser. A, reel 25, VHS-CMM;
gloom:
Heartsill,
Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days
, 240 (Apr. 23, 1865, entry), ACWLD;
intense:
Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, Apr. 11, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM;
hearts:
E. L. Cox diary, Apr. 10, 1865, ser. A, reel 13, VHS-CMM;
sinking:
Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, Apr. 11, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM;
saddest:
Kena King Chapman diary, Apr. 9, 1865, SHC;
minutes, sick:
John Johnston, “Personal Reminiscence of the Civil War, 1861–1865,” diary transcriptions, May 4, Apr. 28, 1865, Johnston Papers, SHC;
rivers:
Junius Newport Bragg to Anna J. G. Bragg, near Marshall, Tex., Apr. 23, 1865, in Bragg,
Letters of a Confederate Surgeon, 1861–65
, ed. Helen Bragg Gaughan (Camden, Ark.: Hurley, 1960), 272, ACWLD;
ain’t:
John L. Smith to Hannah Smith, near Burkeville, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, Smith Papers, HSP;
bitter:
Henry A. Chambers diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Chambers Papers, SHC.

24
.
broke down:
J. E. Whitehorne diary, Apr. 9, 1865, ts., SHC;
dry eye:
John Walters,
Norfolk Blues: The Civil War Diary of the Norfolk Light Artillery Blues
, ed. Kenneth Wiley (Shippensburg, Pa.: Burd Street Press, 1997), 223 (Apr. 9, 1865, entry); see also C. Vann Woodward, ed.,
Mary Chesnut’s Civil War
(1981; reprint, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 788 (Apr. 7, 1865, entry);
heart, ailments, unhappiness:
Chesson and Roberts,
Exile in Richmond
, 376, 381, 385 (Apr. 10, 18, 21, 1865, entries).

25
.
enjoying, nauseum, anxious:
Lucy Muse (Walton) Fletcher diary, Apr. 25, 9, 1865, Fletcher Papers, Duke;
wild:
Mary (Cabell) Early diary, Apr. 17, 10, 1865, Early Family Papers, ser. D,
part 3
, reel 14, VHS-SWF, and Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Wynne Family Papers, ser. D,
part 3
, reel 52, VHS-SWF. (“The past two or three weeks seem like a dream, & yet I feel as if they had been years”);
revulsion:
Eliza F. Andrews,
The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864–1865
(New York: D. Appleton, 1908), 171 (Apr. 21, 1865, entry), DocSouth, docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/andrews/menu.html;
give up:
Emma F. LeConte diary, Apr. 20, 1865, reel 22, SHC-AWD-South.

David Herbert Donald writes, “Nearly every Southern manuscript collection for the period echoes the note of unbelief that defeat had really happened”; see “A Generation of Defeat,” in
From the Old South to the New: Essays on the Transitional South
, ed. Walter J. Fraser Jr. and Winfred B. Moore Jr. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1981), 9.

On Confederates’ thoughts of suicide, see
chap. 7
, below.

26
.
thousand:
Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL;
Lexington:
Joseph Cabell Breckinridge diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Breckinridge Family Papers, LC;
Baltimore:
Thomas Francis Johnson diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Johnson Family Papers, MDHS; William Owner diary, Apr. 14, 1865, LC;
caboodles:
“Joe” to [Christian A. Fleetwood?], Baltimore, Apr. 9, 1865, Fleetwood Papers, LC.

27
.
victors:
see, e.g., Lucretia Hale to Charles Hale, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 14, 1865, box 50, Hale Family Papers, SSC (“everybody”);
light, midnight:
Julia Adelaide Shepard to father, near Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, in “Lincoln’s Assassination Told by an
Eye-Witness,”
Century Magazine
77 (1909), 918;
candles:
Henry I. Colyer to mother, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, in Justin G. Turner, “April 14, 1865: A Soldier’s View,”
American Book Collector
15 (1965), 9;
Chicago:
Stephen Thurston Farwell diary, Apr. 10, 11, 1865, Farwell Collection, Princeton;
Hartford:
Mary Bushnell Cheney to Francis Louise Bushnell, [Hartford, Conn.?], Apr. 15, 1865, ts., Cheney Family Papers, SSC;
New York:
Maria Lydig Daly,
Diary of a Union Lady, 1861–1865
, ed. Harold Earl Hammond (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1962), 351 (Apr. 10, 1865, entry).

28
.
victory:
Mary Peck to Henry J. Peck, Jonesville, N.Y., Apr. 12, 1865, Peck Correspondence, NYSL;
Cincinnati:
“From Cincinnati,”
New York Anglo-African
, Apr. 29, 1865;
Sacramento:
Frederick G. Niles diary, Apr. 12, 1865, HL;
horses:
Hattie Schenck to cousin, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Apr. 22, 1865, Schenck Family Papers, NYSL;
inanimate:
Henry S. Thacher diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS.

29
.
depended:
Daniel E. Sutherland, ed.,
A Very Violent Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Ellen Renshaw House
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996), 162 (Apr. 23, 1865, entry);
Bible, hard, measure:
Cloe (Whittle) Greene diary, Apr. 11, June 16, 1865, reel 4, WM-AWD-South.

30
.
until:
Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” Mar. 4, 1865,
CWL
, 8:333;
hell-born:
Daniel Franklin Child diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Child Papers, MHS;
color:
Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 10, 1865, White Papers, AAS;
acquiescent:
Robert H. Williams to Ellen Williams, City Point, Va., Apr. 5, 1865, Goff-Williams Papers, HL;
eager:
Hallock Armstrong to Mary Armstrong, near Petersburg, Va., Apr. 15, 1865, in
Letters from a Pennsylvania Chaplain at the Siege of Petersburg: 1865
(N.p.: Privately published, 1961), 27, ACWLD;
cruel, magnanimity:
Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 3, 14, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL.

31
.
disposed:
“Lee’s Surrender—Peace,”
New York Anglo-African
, Apr. 15, 1865;
hereafter:
Frederick Douglass, “The Fall of Richmond: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 4 April 1865,”
FDP
, ser. 1, 4:73.

32
.
weary:
Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Blake Shaw, [no place], Apr. [n.d.], 1865, Child Letters, SL;
sidearms:
Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 10, 1865 (on Mary Putnam), MHS;
mortified:
Caroline Dunstan diary, Apr. 10, 1865, NYPL;
squirm:
William L. Dorr to Sarah Bradley Gamble, South Side Railroad, Va., Apr. 9, 1865, Gamble Papers, SL;
country:
John Wolcott Phelps commonplace book, Apr. 17, 1865, Phelps Papers, NYPL;
lay down:
“Lee’s Surrender—Peace,”
New York Anglo-African
, Apr. 15, 1865.

33
.
killed:
Sarah G. Putnam diary, Apr. 2 [sic], 1865, MHS;
baby, chores, news:
James C. Mohr and Richard E. Winslow, eds.,
The Cormany Diaries: A Northern Family in the Civil War
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), 542 (Apr. 4, 1865, entry);
surrender, furs:
Elizabeth Rogers Mason Cabot diary, Apr. 10, 1865, MHS;
wood:
John B. Orton diary, Apr. 14, 1865, NYSL;
marrage:
William Benjamin Gould diary, Apr. 21, 1865, MHS.

34
.
far less:
Sophia E. Perry diary, Apr. 10, 1865, CP.

35
.
heard, worked:
Alden Spooner Forbes diary, Apr. 15, 27, 1865, ts., ser. N, reel 10, MDAH-RSP.

36
.
speech:
Abraham Lincoln, “Last Public Address,” Apr. 11, 1865,
CWL
, 8:399–405. Lincoln had earlier discussed which black men should vote, writing to the governor of Louisiana; see Abraham Lincoln to Michael Hahn, Washington, D.C., Mar. 13, 1864,
CWL
, 7:243.

37
.
noble:
Franklin Boyts to Josiah Boyts, Washington, D.C., Apr. 12, 1865, in Boyts diary, HSP;
subjugation:
John Glenn diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Glenn Papers, MDHS.

38
.
citizenship:
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik,
Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life
, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1900), 2:289 (“Frederick Stone, counsel for Harold [sic] after Booth’s death, is authority for the statement”);
country:
John Wilkes Booth, “To Whom It May Concern,” Philadelphia, November 1864, in
“Right or Wrong, God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth
, ed. John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 125; on April 14, 1865, Booth wrote a letter to the
National Intelligencer
with a similar statement (147). On Booth’s white supremacy, see Michael Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 2:810–16.

39
.
alive:
R. B. Milliken to “Friend Byron,” Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, #54, Lincoln Room Miscellaneous Papers, HLH;
illumination:
Charles T. Cotton diary, Apr. 14, 1865, Columbia;
continuous:
“Carrie” to sister, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, box 2, fol. 27, Richard John Levy and Sally Waldman Sweet Collection, NYPL;
glory:
James Thomas Ward diary, Apr. 13, 1865, Ward Papers, LC;
blazing:
John B. Stonehouse to John B. Stonehouse Jr., Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, #00368, GLC-NYHS.

40
.
Sumter:
Programme of the Order of Exercises at the Re-Raising of the United States Flag, on Fort Sumter, Charleston, S.C., April 14th, 1865
(Port Royal, S.C.: New South Office, 1865);
Beecher:
Henry Ward Beecher,
Oration at the Raising of “The Old Flag” at Sumter; and Sermon on the Death of Abraham Lincoln
(Manchester: Alexander Ireland, 1865), 12, 19, 24, 25, 13, 14.