Mourning Lincoln

by Martha Hodes

  30. exile: Martha Coffin Wright to William P. Wright, Auburn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, box 268, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 16, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; “H.H.” to cousin, Freeport, Ill., Apr. 15, 1865, Jefferson Hartman Correspondence, Duke; Sarah Gould to Charles A. Gould, Lexington, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, Gould Papers, Duke; recant: John Wolcott Phelps commonplace book, Apr. 15, 1865, Phelps Papers, NYPL; tarred: Maria Lydig Daly, Diary of a Union Lady, 1861–1865, ed. Harold Earl Hammond (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1962), 357 (Apr. 25, 1865, entry); swore: Mary Butler Reeves to Caroline Butler Laing, Germantown, Pa., Apr. 16, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS; police: William Gray Brooks diary, May 6, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; threatened: Gayle Thornbrough and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher, vol. 9 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1983), 68 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); attacked: Frederick Law Olmstead to father, Bear Valley, Calif., Apr. 29, 1865, Olmsted Papers, LC.

  31. store: Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 15, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; tarred, roughly: William Gray Brooks diary, Apr. 16, 15, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; factory, brain: Lucy Pierce Hedge to Charlotte Hedge, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 25, 1865, Poor Family Papers, SL; violent: Francis R. Rives to unknown, New York, Apr. 15, 1865, William Cabell Rives Papers, LC; boy: John Glenn diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Glenn Papers, MDHS; almost dead: “Albert” [?] to mother, New York, Apr. 17, 1865, box 2, Civil War Collection, AAS; crushed: George Comfort to Samuel Comfort, Morrisville, Pa., Apr. 16, 1865, Comfort Papers, Princeton; good enough: John Henry Wilson to wife, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, in “A Letter on the Death of Abraham Lincoln, April 16, 1865,” ed. Frederick C. Drake, Lincoln Herald 84 (1982), 237; shot: Elon N. Lee diary, Apr. 15, 1865, ts., Lee and Bastin Papers, Chicago; warning: Eugene Marshall diary, Apr. 20, 1865, Marshall Papers, Duke.

  32. all: Saran Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865, BFP; served right: “Albert” [?] to mother, New York, Apr. 17, 1865, box 2, Civil War Collection, AAS; John Henry Wilson to wife, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, in Drake, “Letter on the Death of Abraham Lincoln,” 237; mob law: Martha Coffin Wright to William P. Wright, Auburn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, box 268, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; purged: Henry W. Pearce to “Lena,” Marietta, Ohio, Apr. 16, 1865, #00066.150, GLC-NYHS; sane: Frederick A. Sawyer, “Account of what I saw of the Death of Mr. Lincoln written

  April 15, 1865,” in “An Eyewitness Account of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination,” ed. Ronald D. Rietveld, Civil War History 22 (1976), 68.

  33. Stanton: David McMurtrie Gregg journal, Apr. 21, 1865, Gregg Papers, Yale-Beinecke; building: Samuel White, files MM2092 and NN3708, RG153-NARA; damned: Samuel Peacock, file NN3708, RG153-NARA; few more: Robert Brown, file MM2110, RG153-NARA; walk, ignorant: Chat Helms, May 29, 1865, Union Provost Marshal Citizens File, entry 213, “Various States, Bonds, Oaths of Allegiance, Miscellaneous Amnesty Papers,” box 14, RG109-NARA; General Order No. 27: Matthew P. Deady, Reports of Cases Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States of Oregon and California, 1859–1869 (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1872), 236–37.

  34. expressed: John W. Haley, The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah: The Civil War Journal of a Maine Volunteer, ed. Ruth L. Silliker (Camden, Me.: Down East Books, 1985), 269 (Apr. 16, 1865, entry); searved: Holiday Ames to wife, Decatur, Ala., Apr. 23, 1865, in “Waiting for the War’s End: The Letter of an Ohio Soldier in Alabama,” ed. Louis Filler, Ohio History 74 (1965), 55–62 (quotation, 58).

  35. profound: Edwin M. Stanton, General Orders No. 66, War Department, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, in B. F. Morris, Memorial Record of the Nation’s Tribute to Abraham Lincoln (Washington, D.C.: W. H. and O. H. Morrison, 1865), 111; Fifth Article: Articles of War, Military Laws, and Rules and Regulations for the Army of the United States ([Washington, D.C.]: Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, 1817), 9–10; crape: Marshall Mortimer Miller to family, New Bern, N.C., Apr. 28, 1865, ts. (p. 114 out of order), Miller Papers, LC; not sad: Barney Lowrie, file MM2190, RG153-NARA; small loss: William E. Dinan, file OO1191, RG153-NARA; suffer: Nicholas Dale, file OO1076, RG153-NA; sight: Elijah Chapman, file MM1936, RG153-NARA; good: James Corner, file MM2379, RG153-NARA; celebrate: Patrick O’Donnell, file OO1191, RG153-NARA; laughter: Thomas Jackson, #3920, vol. 133, M273, roll 142, RG125-NARA; cheering, cap: Frederick Bodmer, file MM1997, RG153-NARA; joviality: Patrick O’Donnell, file OO1191, RG153-NARA; ditties: Eli Smith, file OO1173, RG153-NARA; hurrah: Max Puhan, file OO1277, RG153-NARA.

  36. damned: John W. Nash, file MM2531, RG153-NARA; hell: John H. Casey, file OO908, RG153-NARA; cur: Henry Lopshire, file MM2145, RG153-NARA; son of a bitch: John McCarty, file MM2226, RG153-NARA; damned son of a bitch: Eli Smith, file OO1173, RG153-NARA; slab-sided: James Walker, file MM2771, RG153-NARA; whoremaster: John Ryman, file OO1129, RG153-NARA; shit: Thomas Smith, #4082, vol. 146, M273, roll 155, RG125-NARA; bold: Thomas Jackson, #3920, vol. 133, M273, roll 142, RG125-NARA; right: John Largest, file MM2047, RG153-NARA; sorry: Daniel Couilard, #3961, vol. 135, M273, roll 144, RG125-NARA; target: Daniel Heeden, file MM2145, RG153-NARA.

  37. Johnny fashion: James Tozier, #4103, vol. 147, M273, roll 156, RG125-NARA. For an unusually harsh ten-year sentence for verbal insults, see John McCarty, file MM2226, RG153-NARA.

  38. loyal: “Meeting of Colored Citizens,” and Kentucky and Missouri tributes, all in Morris, Memorial Record, 153, 137, 141; think: John Worthington to Mary Worthington, Cooperstown, N.Y., Apr. 15, 1865, Autograph File, HLH; few: Henry S. Thacher diary, Apr. 17, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS.

  39. leaders, universal: “George W. Julian’s Journal—The Assassination of Lincoln,” Indiana Magazine of History 11 (1915), 335 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); as long: Zachariah Chandler to Letitia Chandler, Washington, D.C., Apr. 23, 1865, Chandler Papers, LC.

  Interlude: Public Condolences

  1. condolences: Charles Francis Adams diary, Apr. 27, 28, 1865, Adams Papers, MHS; Jews, Mauritian: Charles Francis Adams to William Hunter, London, May 4, Letter-books, Adams Papers, MHS; cried, bores: Benjamin Moran diary, Apr. 27, May 2, 1865, Moran Papers, LC; boor, ogre: Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams Jr., London, Apr. 28, 1865, Chronological Papers, Adams Papers, MHS; returned: Charles Francis Adams to William Hunter, London, May 11, 1865, Letterbooks, Adams Papers, MHS; somersault: Benjamin Moran diary, May 5, 1865, Moran Papers, LC.

  2. secret: Benjamin Moran diary, Apr. 26, 1865, Moran Papers, LC; Hull: J. T. Upton to Charles Francis Adams, Hull, England, Apr. 29, 1865, Chronological Papers, Adams Papers, MHS; swallow: Adeline Tyler to Charles Francis Adams, “Westbourne Grove,” Apr. 25, 1865, Chronological Papers, Adams Papers, MHS; my dear: Benjamin Moran diary, Apr. 29, 1865, Moran Papers, LC; crocodile: Henry S. Thacher diary, May 8, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS; bootlicking: Charles Woodward Hutson to “My dear friend,” Paris, [day illegible], 1865, Hutson Papers, SHC.

  3. regret, kingdom: Charles Francis Adams to British Consuls, London, May 2, 1865, and Charles Francis Adams to Mary Lincoln, London, May 19, 1865, Letterbooks, Adams Papers, MHS.

  4. tributes: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Late President of the United States of America … Expressions of Condolence and Sympathy Inspired by These Events (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1867), 75 (Creoles), 736 (Polish); French, Italian, Hanseatic, German: B. F. Morris, Memorial Record of the Nation’s Tribute to Abraham Lincoln (Washington, D.C.: W. H. and O. H. Morrison, 1865), 245, 254, 253, 152. And see Morris, Memorial Record, 123–54, and C. C. Carrington, “Assassination and Funeral of President Lincoln,” scrapbook, 2 vols., 1865–71, section entitled “Round the World,” compilation of international responses, 2:123–77, McLellan Lincoln Collection, Brown.

  Chapter 4. God

  1. Dorman diary, Apr. 23 (time), 25 (what, perverted, tremble), 1865.

  2. Dorman diary, May 26 (ministers, ill-shapen), 30 (prayer), June 27 (swallowed), 1865.

  3. Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass.
, Apr. 20, 1865, BFP.

  4. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 15, 1865 (God); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 24, 1865 (sparrow, believe, gloomy); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Hilton Head, S.C., Apr. 18, 1865 (shadow); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 21, 1865 (reproach), all BFP.

  5. royal: Clara Dargan MacLean diary, Apr. 20, 1865, MacLean Papers, Duke; at last: “Maggie!”: Maggie Lindsley’s Journal, Nashville, Tennessee, 1864, Washington, D.C., 1865 (Southbury, Conn.: Muriel Davies Mackenzie, 1977), 86 (Apr. 23, 1865, entry); very day: Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 52, VHS-SWF.

  6. alarm: unknown to Harriet Powell, Richmond, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, Powell Family Papers, ser. C, reel 6, WM-SWF; foes: Eleanor H. Cohen diary, Apr. 30, 1865, in Memoirs of American Jews, 1775–1865, 3 vols., ed. Jacob Rader Marcus (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955), 3:366, NAWLD; use: Cloe (Whittle) Greene diary, Apr. 15, 1865, reel 4, WM-AWD-South; work out: Eliza (French) Smith diary, Apr. 19, 1865, ts., Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 54, VHS-SWF; judgment: Francis R. Rives to unknown, New York, Apr. 15, 1865, William Cabell Rives Papers, LC; side: Franklin Augustus Buck to Mary Sewall Bradley, Weaverville, Calif., Apr. 27, 1865, Buck Papers, HL.

  7. trouble: Dorman diary, May 20, 26, 1865; bitter: Thomas Day Seymour to Nathan Seymour, Richmond, Va., Apr. 30, 1865, Seymour Family Papers, Yale-Sterling.

  8. cushions, bells: Thomas Day Seymour to Nathan Seymour, Richmond, Va., Apr. 17, 1865, Seymour Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; sunny: Kate Cumming, Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse, ed. Richard Barksdale Harwell (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 269 (Apr. 16, 1865, entry), NAWLD; what: Dorman diary, Apr. 25, 1865.

  9. glorious: Mrs. Samuel Batchelder to Mary (Batchelder) James, Cambridge, Mass., Apr. 17, 1865, James Family Papers, SL.

  10. aisles, choir: Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 585 (Apr. 16, 1865, entry); settees: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 16, 1865, MHS; pews, settees: Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 16, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; settees, galleries, entries: Clara Allen to Walter Allen, Worcester, Mass., Apr. 16, 1865, Weston-Allen Papers, SSC; army: Edward Williams Morley to Sardis Morley, Fortress Monroe, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, Morley Papers, LC.

  For much less common examples of those who preferred to be alone, see Annie G. Dudley Davis diary, Apr. 16, 1865, HL; William G. Wise to James Perkins Walker, Auburn, N.Y., Apr. 24, 1865, Walker Papers, Princeton; and Joanita Kant, ed., Maggie: The Civil War Diary of Margaret Wylie Mellette (Watertown, S.Dak.: Mellette Memorial Association, 1983), 18 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry).

  11. all: M. J. Gonsalves to Mary (Goodridge) Gilbert, Baton Rouge, La., May 27, 1865, Gilbert-Cheever Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; people: Eugene Marshall diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Marshall Papers, Duke; saddest: Mary Ingham Emerson diary, Apr. 27, 1865, Emerson Family Papers, NYPL; threw: “James H.” to William P. Corthell, Goldsboro, N.C., Apr. 24, 1865, box 1, Civil War Collection, AAS; struck down, crest fallen: Heber Painter to Rebecca Frick, Richmond, Va., Apr. 17, 1865 (part of Apr. 16 letter), #02016.082, GLC-NYHS; defeat: Bela T. St. John to J. and J. H. St. John, Mobile, Ala., Apr. 23, 1865, St. John Papers, LC, and see Franklin Boyts to Hiram Boyts, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 1865, in Boyts diary, HSP (“The loss of our armies would not have been so great”); weeping: William H. Gilbert diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Gilbert-Cheever Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; sunshine: Samuel Miller Quincy [no salutation], New Orleans, Apr. 19, 1865, Quincy, Wendell, Holmes, Upham Family Papers, MHS; trees: Fourteenth Annual Report of the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society (Rochester, N.Y., 1865), 6.

  12. heartfelt: Hope R. Daggett to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., Apr. [n.d.], 1865, #H1-7058, reel 210, AMA; troubled, cried: E. P. Worthington to George Whipple, Portsmouth, Va., May 1, 1865, #H1-7072, reel 210, AMA; very great: W. T. Richardson to S. S. Jocelyn, Beaufort, S.C., Apr. 21, 1865, #H5575, reel 187, AMA; wept: Gerald Schwartz, ed., A Woman Doctor’s Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1984), 133 (Apr. 19, 1865, entry); numb: Martha L. Kellogg to George Whipple, Portsmouth, Va., May 2, 1865, #H1-7087, reel 210, AMA; deranged: P. B. S. Nichuston [?] to George Whipple, Roanoke Island, N.C., Apr. 22, 1865, #100001, reel 169, AMA; loss: Edgar Dinsmore to Carrie Drayton, Saint Andrews Parish, S.C., May 29, 1865, Dinsmore Papers, Duke; half: “From the Regiments,” letter from Charles Davis, 108th U.S.C.T., Rock Island Barracks, Ill., Apr. 23, 1865, New York Anglo-African, published May 13, 1865; sad, impossibility: James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, Washington, D.C., Apr. 20, 1865, and James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, “Potomac River,” Apr. 19, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; unfeigned, undisguised: Chester dispatches, Petersburg, Va., Apr. 19, 1865, in Thomas Morris Chester: Black Civil War Correspondent—His Dispatches from the Virginia Front, ed. R. J. M. Blackett (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 312, 318; slaves: Mary S. Pond to George Whipple, Portsmouth, Va., May 13, 1865, #H1-7147, reel 210, AMA.

  13. deeper: Henry Baker, “An Expression by the Colored People of New Orleans,” in Louisiana’s Tribute to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln … April 22, 1865 (New Orleans: Picayune, 1881), 37; keenly: Joseph A. Prime, “Sermon Preached in the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church (Colored),” in A Tribute of Respect by the Citizens of Troy to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln (Troy, N.Y.: Young and Benson, 1865), 155; more than: Jacob Thomas, “Sermon Preached in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church,” in Tribute of Respect, 44; dusky: “From Baltimore,” New York Anglo-African, May 6, 1865; people: “From the Regiments,” letter from Richard H. Black, 3rd U.S.C.T., Fernandina, Fla., New York Anglo-African, May 27, 1865; personal: Frederick Douglass, “Our Martyred President: An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 15 April 1865,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:76; colored: Gideon Welles diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Welles Papers, LC; white: J. G. Holland, The Nation Weeping for Its Dead: Observances at Springfield, Massachusetts, on President Lincoln’s Funeral Day (Springfield, Mass.: Samuel Bowles, 1865), 25; intense: Theodore L. Cuyler, “Sermon IX,” in Our Martyr President, Abraham Lincoln: Voices from the Pulpit of New York and Brooklyn. Oration by Hon. Geo. Bancroft, Oration at the Burial, by Bishop Simpson (New York: Tibbals and Whiting, 1865), 170; pity: S. H. Fowler to “Mr. Whiting,” Headley, Mass., Apr. 21, 1865, #57688, reel 91, AMA; see also M. M. Hutchins to “Mr. Whiting,” Dover, N.H., Apr. 17, 1865, #75762, reel 117, AMA (“How the poor Freed-men will mourn”).

  14. smudging: Julia Anna Hartness Lay diary, Apr. 16, 1865, NYPL; sorrowful: Emily Watkins to Abiathar Watkins, Jersey City, N.J., Apr. 16, 1865, Watkins Papers, NYPL; horror: Lindsley, “Maggie!,” 83 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); broke down: John Worthington to Mary Worthington, Cooperstown, N.Y., Apr. 15, 1865, Autograph File, HLH; teachers: Grenville H. Norcross diary, Apr. 16, 1865, AAS; boys: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 16, 1865, MHS.

  15. scarcely: Douglass, “Our Martyred President,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:76; none: “From the Regiments,” letter from Richard H. Black, 3rd U.S.C.T., Fernandina, Fla., New York Anglo-African, May 27, 1865; sign: Baker, “An Expression by the Colored People of New Orleans,” in Louisiana’s Tribute, 37; express: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 15, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; describe: William L. Mead to Louisa White, Charleston, S.C., Apr. 19, 1865, ts., George Cornwell Correspondence, MDHS; dull: Nicholas B. Wainwright, ed., A Philadelphia Perspective: The Diary of Sidney George Fisher …, 1834–1871 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1967), 492 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); wildly: Edward Peacock to Caroline Dall, [England], Apr. 27, 1865, box 4, Dall Papers, MHS.

  16. heard: “Mary” to mother, Norton, Mass., Apr. 16, 1865, Nye Family Papers, Duke; shake: Carl Schurz to wife, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 18, 1865, in Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, 6 vols., ed. Frederic Bancroft (New York: G. P
. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 1:252; awful: George E. Ellis diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Ellis Papers, MHS; Fanny, sad: Elizabeth R. Child diary, Apr. 3, 16, 1865, Richards-Child Family Papers, MHS.

  17. not feel: Margaret B. Howell diary, Apr. 17, 1865, HSP; so bad: Holiday Ames to wife, Decatur, Ala., Apr. 23, 1865, in “Waiting for the War’s End: The Letter of an Ohio Soldier in Alabama,” ed. Louis Filler, Ohio History 74 (1965), 56; sleep: Susannah A. Milner-Gibson to Jane Poultney Bigelow, Folkestone, England, Apr. 28, 1865, Bigelow Family Papers, NYPL; lightheaded: John Langdon Sibley diary, Apr. 15, 1865, in “Harvard and the Tragedy of 1865,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin 42 (1940), 900; headache: Winthrop Henry Phelps diary, Apr. 18, 1865, LC; trembling: Horace O. Gilmore to Lucy Gilmore, Petersburg, Va., Apr. [15], 1865, Gilmore Papers, NYSL; prostration: Edwin Emerson diary, Apr. 27, 1865, Emerson Family Papers, NYPL; indefinable: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., May 4, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; surgeon: Moses A. Cleveland diary, Apr. 17, 21, 1865, MHS; forget: Henry Gawthrop diary, Apr. 16, 1865, DHS.

  18. new birth: Abraham Lincoln, “Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg,” Nov. 19, 1863, CWL, 7:23.

  19. Almighty: Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” Mar. 4, 1865, CWL, 8:333.

  20. cannot: Newton Perkins to mother, New York, Apr. 16, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC; drifting: Levi S. Graybill diary, Apr. 17, 1865, Graybill Papers, HL; atrocity: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; not shake: Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Blake Shaw, [no place], Apr. [n.d.], 1865, Child Letters, SL.