The Day Lincoln Was Shot (7 page)

Stanton wanted his department to do a memorable thing and so, shortly after sunset, men were stationed in each window of the War Department's eleven buildings, armed with matches. At twilight, an army band crashed into “The Star-Spangled Banner” and, in an instant, the buildings swam in a pool of yellow flame. At the far end of Pennsylvania Avenue, for the first time, the Capitol was lighted from basement to dome by gas, and, across the front, in letters two stories high, blazed the message:

THIS IS THE LORD'S DOING; IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES.

The cheerful flicker of candles could be seen in almost every home on every street. Except at Mrs. Surratt's boardinghouse. Here the shades were drawn and the owner wept.

The celebrants were on all streets in rollicking bands. In front of the Patent Office, a crowd saw the Vice President and someone yelled “Speech! Speech!” Andrew Johnson, red of face and angry, said that the leader of the rebellion was Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate who had plunged the sword given to him by his country into his mother's bosom. There were cries of “Hang him! Hang him!” and Johnson roared back: “Yes, hang him twenty times because treason is the greatest of the crimes!”

The glee of the people was reflected in the newspapers, which, in stories never wider than one column, made the news gladsome and official. The New York
Herald
was radiant in diminishing sizes of type:

GRANT

R
ICHMOND
O
URS

Weitzel Entered the Rebel Capital Yesterday Morning

M
ANY
G
UNS
C
APTURED

Our Troops Received With Enthusiasm

An editorial, probably written by editor James Gordon Bennett, fed the dream of power politics to the people: “The end of our great Civil War is close at hand,” it said. “It is very easy to see that with the return of peace, this country will be the greatest in the world. Midway between Europe and Asia, geographically, we shall hold the balance of power politically, commercially and financially. As our resources are developed we shall produce the gold, silver, iron, petroleum, corn and cotton for the use of all
mankind. We are the center of the world, and we shall move everything by our immense central force. In creating this nation, Providence created the acme of strength and civilization. It is our manifest destiny to lead and rule all other nations.”

On Wednesday, April 5, Mrs. Lincoln left Washington to rejoin her husband at the front. With her aboard the steamer were a party of friends. The war, within a few days, had taken on the aura of a sport, a hunt. Shipboard life was happily expectant. The steamer was barely past Indian Point when State Secretary William H. Seward, who had planned to join Lincoln to “sell” him on the idea of closing Southern ports to all but Northern traders, was out riding in his carriage. His matched blacks cut a corner too sharply and ran away. The front right wheel of the vehicle was smashed, and it screeched over the paving stones, acting as sled and brake at the same time. Seward pitched out and sustained a broken arm, a broken jaw, multiple contusions of face and head, and concussion of the brain. He was sixty-four.

A small thing occurred on April 6, a week and a day before
the
day. John Surratt, son of the boardinghouse widow, arrived in Montreal with dispatches from the Confederate Secretary of State, Mr. Judah Benjamin. For the next week, Surratt would be busy with Southern General Edwin G. Lee.

Now there was a period of quiet. From Thursday until Sunday, nothing of moment occurred except that General Robert E. Lee made a final, masterful attempt to haul his tired army southwestward to join General Johnston. Coming out of a small valley, his lead regiments saw horsemen on a ridge ahead.

General Philip Sheridan was calling check.

On Palm Sunday—April 9—the
River Queen
came upstream in the afternoon and docked with the President, Mrs. Lincoln,
and a party of friends. Mr. Lincoln had heard about Seward's accident and, begging leave of the others, hurried on alone to his Secretary of State.

At the “Old Clubhouse”—the Seward home—Lincoln stood hat in hand in the lower hallway and listened to Frederick Seward retell the story of the accident and the grievous injuries. The President heard that Surgeon General Barnes had pronounced that, now that Seward had survived the initial shock, he would live. Lincoln walked up the two flights of stairs, and went to the bedroom at the front of the building on the left side. He tiptoed into the darkened room and, standing a moment, saw the secretary.

Seward was on the side of the bed away from the door. His face, the small part of it that was visible, was unrecognizable with swelling and discoloration. Bandages and dressings covered the entire head except for the purple eyes and the cruelly ripped mouth. Without moving the twice-broken jaw, he whispered:

“You are back from Richmond?”

“Yes,” said the President, “and I think we are near the end, at last.”

Without invitation, the President did something rare and impulsive. He sprawled, on his stomach, across the empty side of the bed, and he told his secretary all that had happened in Virginia in the past week. Lincoln was still talking, a half hour later, when he studied Seward's eyes and saw that he was sleeping. The President arose softly, in stages, and tiptoed from the room.

At 9
P.M.
on that Palm Sunday night, Secretary of War Stanton was dozing on a downstairs couch in his home. An army messenger yanked the pull bell, found that it was broken, and drummed his fist on the front door. The secretary was awakened, and was given a dispatch:

Headquarters, Appomattox Ct. H. Va.

April 9, 1865 4:30 p.m.

 

The iron man of the administration read it again. He was close to tears. While the messenger waited, he went to his desk, sat, and penned a reply:

It was too late in the evening for a celebration. Mr. Stanton did the next best thing. He dressed and hurried to the White House with the most momentous news of his career. The President was in the Red Room with Mrs. Lincoln and some friends, and Lincoln was standing with his back to the coal grate, flicking his coattails as the dispatch was read. It was greeted with stunned silence. Now that it had happened, it was beyond the capacity of these people to comprehend. All faces seemed blank; the expressions were almost the same as though the news had been bad.

Around this time—it may have been this night—Stanton
asked to see the President alone and handed a paper to him on which was written the War Secretary's resignation. Lincoln read it through, took the paper between his hands and tore it slowly, dropping the fragments into a basket, and placed his big hands on Stanton's shoulders.

“You cannot go,” he said. “Reconstruction is more difficult and dangerous than construction or destruction. You have been our main reliance. You must help us through the final act. The bag is filled. It must be tied and tied securely. Some knots slip. Yours do not. You understand the situation better than anyone else, and it is my wish and the country's that you remain.”

Washington City, tired and hungover from almost a week of celebrating, awakened on the morning of Monday, April 10, to the crashing of cannon. The people listened, and wondered what further good news was possible. Lee, they learned, had surrendered to Grant. The celebrating started all over again.

A big battery was firing in Massachusetts Square, near Scott Circle and, between basso blasts, the treble tinkle of window glass could be heard. The morning newspapers, hawked up and down the streets, told of the dramatic meeting between the generals, how Grant had permitted the Southern officers to be paroled and to retain their sidearms, and of how he permitted the defeated army to keep its mules and horses for plowing old ground. The editorial pages speculated that, with Lee out of the way, Joseph Johnston commanded the only sizable force left to the Confederate states and, caught between Grant and Sherman, it must capitulate within a few days.

That afternoon, the flags in the capital drooped in rain. People huddled before the White House in damp expectancy. Now and then, a cry of “Speech!” went up. The President sent word
out that, because of his recent trip, he was behind in his work and he advised the people to disperse. One of the things he did on this bleak Monday was to sit for Gardner, the photographer. While the pictures were being taken, Tad frolicked around the room, bouncing on and off his father's lap, distracting Mr. Lincoln to the point that, for the first time, he smiled faintly in a picture.

Twice, the President went to the front windows of the White House, pulled back the curtain, and waved to the crowd below. He was waving when he saw Tad run out on the porch with a captured Rebel flag and race up and down in the dampness, trying to make the banner snap in the breeze. The crowd laughed when it saw the President of the United States, slightly harassed and embarrassed, come out to retrieve his son.

There was no way that the President could get back inside gracefully without saying something, and so, informally, he turned to the crowd, hanging on to Tad, and said that he supposed there would be some formal celebration, and that he would save his words for that occasion. There was scattered applause. The Navy Yard band was standing under the eaves and Lincoln asked the leader to please play a song for the people; “Dixie,” he thought, would be appropriate because it could now be considered the lawful property of the United States.

When he returned to his desk, Lincoln found a message from the Department of State advising him that the formal celebration of Lee's surrender would be held on the evening of Tuesday, April 11 (tomorrow), and that there would be another grand illumination of the city with speeches, parades, etc.

The city was quiet on Tuesday. The people husbanded their strength for the evening and, shortly after 6
P.M.
when the sun set, the festivities began. It was as spectacular as the earlier illumination and, when darkness had dusted the final alley, the Lee mansion in the hills across the river was aglow with
lights, and freed slaves danced on the lawns before it, humming “The Year of Jubilee.” The city swam in light and the people were as festive as though there had been no celebration like this in years.

The weather was warm and misty. The crowd before the White House had changed personnel two or three times and was now much larger. The people filled Pennsylvania Avenue and trampled the shrubs of the grounds. Small sections of the people were coned by the gas lamps and an observant reporter wrote: “There is something terrible in their enthusiasm.”

A hanging mob had come to listen to a man of mercy.

The Marine band played marches. The crowd chanted “Lincoln! Lincoln!” The people undulated, those in back pressing forward, those in front holding the line. Two who pressed forward and managed to achieve a good position beside a tall tree were John Wilkes Booth and his friend Lewis Paine. Booth was impelled to hear the man he hated.

The people were becoming impatient when a French window was opened and the curtains pulled back on both sides. In silhouette, the President could be seen, waving both hands over his head. The cheers were frenzied. It was as though the people had not believed, until now, that this man could win. He waited gravely until he had near silence and then he unrolled a sheaf of foolscap and then rolled it in the opposite direction so that, as he held the pages, they would lie flat.

An arm appeared beside him, holding a lamp with a china shade. Mr. Lincoln adjusted his metal-rimmed spectacles and then began to read, so softly at first that the crowd heard but a whispering sound, then louder as he sensed the need for it until, after a few minutes, his voice was plain to all except those on the far side of the street.

They listened for exultation, and there was none. They strained for eloquence, and there was none. They waited patiently for vengeance, and there was none.

The President talked about Reconstruction. He talked soberly about postwar problems, as he saw them. He told them about the voting situation in Louisiana, where the lists were down from forty thousand to twelve thousand, arithmetic which only proved that Southerners would stay home from Yankee-sponsored elections. To cure this, Lincoln prescribed strong medicine.

“It is also unsatisfactory to some,” he said slowly, “that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man.” The crowd was quiet. “I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who served our cause as soldiers. . . .”

John Wilkes Booth sucked in a long breath. He tapped Lewis Paine on the arm. “That's the last speech he will ever make,” the actor said. The two men edged out of the crowd.

Lincoln finished his talk and the applause was restrained and respectful. He bowed and stepped back from the window. The second speaker was Senator James Harlan of Iowa, now Secretary-designate of the Department of the Interior. One day in the future, his daughter would marry Robert Lincoln.

Mr. Harlan had excellent intentions, but he did not know that a good speaker never asks an explosive mob a question.

“What,” he said with arms outstretched, with silvery syllables echoing in the trees, “shall be done with these brethren of ours?”