Mourning Lincoln

by Martha Hodes

  21. hopeless: Gideon Welles diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Welles Papers, LC; consolation: “Cosmorama,” letter to the editor, San Francisco Elevator, May 12, 1865, #4999, BAP; more: Thomas, “Sermon Preached in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church,” in Tribute of Respect, 46; hope: Philip Alexander Bell et al., [no title], San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4828, BAP; Liberty: Chauncey Leonard to Lorenzo Thomas, Alexandria, Va., Apr. 30, 1865, Letters Received, #287L, M619, roll 374, RG94-NARA.

  22. all: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, Apr. 23, 1865, MHS; doeth, permitted: William J. Gould diary, Apr. 21, 1865, Gould Papers, LC; wise: James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, “Chapel Pt.,” May 7, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; unfathomable: Richard G. Lay to Carrie Lay, “Burks station,” Va., Apr. 19, 1865, Lay Letters, NYPL; everybody: Abigail Williams May to Eleanor Goddard May, Boston, Apr. 16, 1865, May and Goddard Family Papers, SL.

  23. may be: Douglass, “Our Martyred President,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:78; some way: W. T. Richardson to George Whipple, Beaufort, S.C., Apr. 21, 1865, #H5576, reel 187, AMA; doubtless: Gail Hamilton to “My Dear,” Hamilton, Mass., Apr. 15, 1865, in Gail Hamilton’s Life in Letters, 2 vols., ed. H. August Dodge (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1901), 1:495; cloud: J. H. Elliot to Robert Anderson, Brattleboro, Vt., Apr. 25, 1865, Anderson Papers, LC.

  24. stricken: Minute Book, Apr. 18, 1865, in “Mourning Observance for Abraham Lincoln by the B’nai B’rith Lodge of Marysville, California,” Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 1 (1967), 172; must be: Mary Ann Starkey to “My dear Friend,” New Bern, N.C., Apr. 20, 1865, Edward W. Kinsley Papers, Duke; view: “Rebecca” to Jane Wigglesworth Grew, Boston, Apr. 18, 1865 (part of Apr. 16 letter), Grew Correspondence, MHS; understand: Charlotte A. Blech notebook, Apr. 16, 1865, Blech-Meyer-Dowd Papers, SL; seems: Georgia Treadway to Newton Perkins, New Haven, Conn., Apr. 16, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC.

  25. triumph: Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, Apr. 15, 1865, box 6, Hale Papers, NYSL; dawn: James Thomas Ward diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Ward Papers, LC.

  26. expressed: Mattie Smith diary, Apr. 16, 1865, CHM.

  27. where: Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, 6; O why: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 15, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; Why did God, O God: Lindsley, “Maggie!,” 86, 83 (Apr. 23, 15, 1865, entries).

  28. God knows: Henry S. Thacher diary, Apr. 23, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS; sinfully, lived: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 15, 1865, and James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, Washington, D.C., Apr. 20, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; trust: Henry W. Pearce to “Lena,” Marietta, Ohio, Apr. 16, 1865, #00066.150, GLC-NYHS; save: H. C. Percy to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., May 7, 1865, #H1-7112-16, reel 210, AMA.

  29. freedom: “Cosmorama,” letter to the editor, San Francisco Elevator, May 12, 1865, #4999, BAP; nation: Douglass, “Our Martyred President,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:76; inspire: Montgomery Blair to Samuel L. M. Barlow, Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, 1865, box 56, Barlow Papers, HL; seal: Wendell Phillips, “The Lesson of President Lincoln’s Death: A Speech of Wendell Phillips at the Tremont Temple, on Sunday Evening, April 23, 1865,” in Universal Suffrage, and Complete Equality in Citizenship, the Safeguards of Democratic Institutions (Boston: Rand and Avery, 1865), 14.

  30. killed: Harriet Anne Severance diary, Apr. 16, 1865, SL; who: Elizabeth Rogers Mason Cabot diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; why: “Em” to Lewis J. Nettleton, Milford, Conn., Apr. 19, 1865, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; reconcile: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 16, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; slight: Edgar Dinsmore to Carrie Drayton, Saint Andrews Parish, S.C., May 29, 1865, Dinsmore Papers, Duke.

  31. anxiety: William Lloyd Garrison Jr. to Martha Coffin Wright, Boston, Apr. 25, 1865, box 56, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; providential: Evander C. Kennedy to mother, Petersburg, Va., May 1, 1865, Kennedy Letters, MHS; weak: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 16, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke.

  32. wonderful: Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Blake Shaw, [no place], Apr. [n.d.], 1865, Child Letters, SL; lenient: David Homer Bates diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Bates Papers, LC; policy: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; star: Phillips, “Lesson of President Lincoln’s Death,” 14–15.

  33. sometimes: editorial, San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4827, BAP; cast off: J. S. Smith to “My Dear Sir,” Buchanan, Liberia, Aug. 11, 1865, Incoming Correspondence, Letters from Liberia, box I: B13, reel 160, American Colonization Society Papers, LC; sorry, honest: Ellis Hughes diary, Apr. 23, 19, 1865, Hughes-Gray Family Papers, Duke.

  Robert S. Harper writes that northern newspapers “poured forth a torrent of adulation and eulogy” and that it was “no longer possible to determine the politics of a newspaper by what it said about Lincoln”; see Lincoln and the Press (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 352.

  34. prepared: John Glenn diary, Apr. 17, 1865, Glenn Papers, MDHS; disgusted: William Kauffman Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin: A Dream Shattered, June, 1863–June, 1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 859 (Apr. 21, 1865, entry); noble: Chauncey Welton to parents, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 19, 1865, Welton Papers, SHC.

  35. immortal: Henry S. Thacher diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS; statesman: Evander C. Kennedy to mother, Petersburg, Va., May 1, 1865, Kennedy Letters, MHS; memorial: J. N. Whitney to B. F. Whitten, Raymond, Me., Apr. 15, 1865, box 2, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; savior: John Greenleaf Whittier to F. W. Lincoln, Amesbury, Mass., May, 22, 1865, John Greenleaf Whittier Manuscript Collection, FHL; man: Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 23, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; liberty: Alonzo A. Carr to brother and sister, Beaufort, S.C., Apr. 21, 1865, Cynthia Anthonsen Foster Papers, SL; live on: James Williams to sister, New York, May 6, 1865, Simon Gratz Autograph Collection, HSP; Moses, elevation: Philip Alexander Bell et al., [no title], and editorial, both in San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4828, 4827, BAP; Moses: Thomas, “Sermon Preached in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church,” in Tribute of Respect, 45; beautiful: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 16, 1865, James Otis Moore Papers, Duke.

  36. degree: editorial, San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4827, BAP; more: P. B. S. Nichuston [?] to George Whipple, Roanoke Island, N.C., Apr. 22, 1865, #100001, reel 169, AMA; died: Laura Towne to unknown, Saint Helena Island, S.C., Apr. 29, 1865, in Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 1862–1884, ed. Rupert Sargent Holland (1912; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), 162; mankind: [illegible] to mother, “Potomac River,” Apr. 23, 1865, Nathaniel H. Harris Papers, SHC; no equal: Robert H. Williams to David and Carrie Thurber, City Point, Va., Apr. 29, 1865, Goff-Williams Papers, HL.

  37. benefit: “Our Domestic Correspondence,” letter from H. O. Waggner, Chicago, Apr. 16, 1865, New York Anglo-African, published Apr. 29, 1865; dark: James Freeman Clarke, “Who Hath Abolished Death,” in Sermons Preached in Boston on the Death of Abraham Lincoln (Boston: J. E. Tilton, 1865), 92, 100; crucifixion: Montgomery Blair to Samuel L. M. Barlow, Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, 1865, box 56, Barlow Papers, HL; killed: Cuyler, “Sermon IX,” in Our Martyr President, 171; dead: C. L. Woodworth to M. E. Strieby, Amherst, Mass., Apr. 17, 1865, #57681, reel 91, AMA.

  38. 250: John Wesley Marshall diary, Apr. 20, 1865, LC; jumping: William J. Gould diary, Apr. 22, 25, 1865, Gould Papers, LC; hope: Garland H. White to William H. Seward, City Point, Va., Apr. [n.d.], 1865, William H. Seward Papers, University of Rochester (I thank Christopher Hager, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., for transcribing and sharing this document); aside: George Gaskell to sister, Plaquemine, La., Apr. 23, 1865, ts. box 86, fol. 9, Materials Unrelated to Spanish American War, Spanish-American War Veterans Survey Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.; though: Douglass, “Our Martyred President,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:76.

  39. calamity: John B. Burrud to Ocena Burrud, Washin
gton, D.C., Apr. 25–27, 1865, Burrud Papers, HL; full: Samuel Foster Haven to Caroline Dall, Worcester, Mass., May 2, 1865, box 4, Dall Papers, MHS; nation: William Boardman Richards diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Richards Family Papers, MHS.

  40. headache: Edward Everett Hale diary, Apr. 24, 1865, box 54, Hale Papers, NYSL; tired, heart: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 18, 23, 1865, MHS; not: Rudolph Rey to Lizzie DeVoe, near Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 29, 1865, Rey Letters, NYHS; hang: Elizabeth Blackwell to Barbara Bodichon, New York, May 23, 1865, Blackwell Letters, Columbia.

  41. bow: M. R. Delany, “Monument to President Lincoln,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 20, 1865, Christian Recorder, published May 20, 1865; even: Lydia Maria Child to John Greenleaf Whittier, May 1865, fragment, Child Letters, SL.

  Interlude: Love

  1. never: Henry J. Peck to Mary Peck, Burkeville Junction, Va., Apr. 20, 1865, Peck Correspondence, NYSL; good: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS.

  2. fought: Theodore Lyman diary, Apr. 15, 1865, ts., Lyman Papers, MHS; no man: 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; raised: Josephine E. Strong to M. E. Strieby, Portsmouth, Va., May 3, 1865, #8853, reel 15 (misfiled with Connecticut), AMA.

  3. personally: Anne Baldwin to Charlotte Nettleton, New York, Apr. 16, 1865, Nettle-ton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; dear: Annie P. Chadwick diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Chadwick Family Papers, NYSL; beloved: “New York,” letter to the editor, San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 28, 1865, #4917, BAP; us of: George Gaskell to sister, Plaquemine, La., Apr. 23, 1865, ts., box 86, fol. 9, Materials Unrelated to Spanish American War, Spanish-American War Veterans Survey Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.; kindred: “From the Regiments,” letter from “M.F.,” 11th U.S. Heavy Artillery, Fort Banks, La., Apr. 12 [sic], 1865, New York Anglo-African, published May 20, 1865; could not: J. Harry Keyes to Sarah Ogden, City Point, Va., Apr. 30, 1865, #06559.060, GLC-NYHS; everywhere: Lucy McKim to Wendell Phillips Garrison, Philadelphia, Apr. 17, 1865, box 49, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; private: William Lloyd Garrison Jr. to Martha Coffin Wright, Roxbury, Mass., Apr. 16, 1865, box 56, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; almost: Mattie Smith diary, Apr. 16, 1865, CHM.

  4. mighty: Charles Barnard Fox, Record of the Service of the Fifty-Fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Cambridge, Mass.: John Wilson, 1868), 75 (Apr. 19, 1865, diary entry); claimed: Franklin Boyts to Hiram Boyts, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 1865, in Boyts diary, HSP; orphans: Caroline Barrett White diary, May 14, 1865, White Papers, AAS; could not: Harry S. Rimhold to George W. Hensel, Philadelphia, Apr. 15, 1865, box 2, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; sorrowfully: Mary Ingham Emerson diary, May 28, 1865, Emerson Family Papers, NYPL; father and mother: P. B. S. Nichuston [?] to George Whipple, Roanoke Island, N.C., Apr. 22, 1865, #100001, reel 169, AMA.

  5. rather die: Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 362; Thomas writes, “Surrender was death raised to an enormous power” (366); illustrious: William H. Ellis diary, Apr. 12, 1865, Ellis Papers, ser. B, reel 5, LSU-CMM; dear: Mary (Cabell) Early diary, Apr. 9, 1865, Early Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 14, VHS-SWF.

  Chapter 5. Blame

  1. Sarah Browne diary, Apr. 15, 1865 (unparalleled); Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865 (enough, fathers), both BFP.

  2. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 21, 1865 (dastardly, tree, savage, serpent, heap); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” off Georgetown, S.C., Apr. 25, 1865 (deluded, extermination), both BFP.

  3. Dorman diary, May 6 (molest), 7 (beshit; this is an oft-repeated phrase in the diary), July 10 (Booth), 1865.

  4. Dorman diary, May 7 (benevolent, instances, barbarity, force, double), 12 (servants, blaming abolitionists), 23 (beyond); on blaming abolitionists, see also Apr. 16, May 16, 1865.

  5. wrath: Manning Ferguson Force diary, Apr. 17, 1865, Force Papers, LC.

  6. honor: Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865, one of two letters of this date, BFP; mixed: J. Madison Bell, “Poem: In commemoration of the death of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the great Public Meeting of Colored Citizens,” San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4831 BAP; amazement: “Rebecca” to Jane Wigglesworth Grew, Boston, Apr. 16, 1865, Grew Correspondence, MHS; fired: Lucy Pierce Hedge to Charlotte Hedge, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, Poor Family Papers, SL; crushed: Mary Butler Reeves to Caroline Butler Laing, Germantown, Pa., Apr. 16, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS; wild: David Homer Bates diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Bates Papers, LC; hatred: Alfred Neafie to Anne Neafie, Savannah, Ga., Apr. 19, 1865, Neafie Papers, NYSL.

  7. oath: Joseph Warren Keifer to Eliza Keifer, Burkeville, Va. Apr. 15, 1865, Keifer Papers, LC; forgiven: A. J. Hamilton, A Fort Delaware Journal: The Diary of a Yankee Private, ed. W. Emerson Wilson (Wilmington: Fort Delaware Society, 1981), 79 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); preparing: Mary Bushnell Cheney to Francis Louise Bushnell, [Hartford, Conn.?], Apr. 15, 1865, ts., Cheney Family Papers, SSC; murderous: Henry Cornwall to Lewis J. Nettleton, Milford, Conn., Apr. 16, 1865, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; infernal: James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, “Potomac River,” Apr. 19, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; caps: Heber Painter to Rebecca Frick, Richmond, Va., Apr. 17, 1865 (part of Apr. 16 letter), #02016.082, GLC-NYHS.

  8. a man: John N. Ferguson diary, Apr. 17, 1865, LC; spirit: Newton Perkins to mother, New York, Apr. 16, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC; butchered: anonymous Union soldier to parents, Burkeville, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, #08618, GLC-NYHS; kill: Samuel Miller Quincy [no salutation], New Orleans, Apr. 20, 1865 (part of Apr. 19 letter), Quincy, Wendell, Holmes, Upham Family Papers, MHS.

  9. just: Jane Swisshelm to St. Cloud Democrat, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 1865 (published Apr. 27, 1865), in Crusader and Feminist: Letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm, 1858–1865, ed. Arthur J. Larsen (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1934), 287; forgotten, don’t let: Manning Ferguson Force diary, Apr. 18, 1865; Manning Ferguson Force to “Mr. Kebler” [?], Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 20, 1865; Manning Ferguson Force to “Mrs. Perkins,” Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 21, 1865 (letters copied into journal), Force Papers, LC; wish: 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), 1:253; surrender: “Tom” to mother, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 19, 1865, box 2, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; prolonged: anonymous Union soldier to parents, Burkeville, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, #08618, GLC-NYHS; better: Franklin Augustus Buck to Mary Sewall Bradley, Weaverville, Calif., Apr. 27, 1865, Buck Papers, HL.

  10. driven: “From the Regiments,” letter from Richard H. Black, 3rd U.S.C.T., Fernandina, Fla., New York Anglo-African, May 27, 1865; burn: Edward J. Bartlett to Martha Bartlett, South Side Railroad, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, Bartlett Letters, MHS; sory: Chauncey Welton to parents, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 19, 1865, Welton Papers, SHC; slay: Newton Perkins to mother, New York, Apr. 16, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC; Attila: Carl Schurz to wife, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 18, 1865, in Bancroft, Speeches, Correspondence, 1:253.

  11. extirminate: George W. Squier to Ellen Squier, Chattanooga, Tenn., Apr. 15, 1865, in This Wilderness of War: The Civil War Letters of George W. Squier, Hoosier Volunteer, ed. Julie A. Doyle et al. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), 104; no more: H. Worthey Hooper to William Schouler, Georgetown, S.C., Apr. 27, 1865, vol. 1, Letters Sent, Records of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (Colored), M1659, roll 1, RG94-NARA; badly: Henry J. Peck to Mary Peck, Richmond, Va., May 1, 1865, Peck Correspondence, NYSL; extermination: Alonzo Pickard to Byron Flagg, Alexandria, Va., Apr. 17, 1865, part of Rose Pickard to Byron Flagg, Apr. 14, 1865, Pickard Papers, LC; shoot: William E. Park to “Mr. Newton” (addendum to cousin), Fort Spanish, Ala., Apr. 21, 1865, #01545.05, GLC-NYHS; willing: Fran
cis G. Barnes to Frances M. Barnes, near Mobile, Ala., May 19, 1865, ts., p. 365, Barnes Letters, NYSL.

  12. mutterings: J. Thoman to “Henrietta,” Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, in Thomas F. Schwartz, “Grief, Souvenirs, and Enterprise following Lincoln’s Assassination,” Illinois Historical Journal 83 (1990), 261; lieutenant: Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM; very hard: Allen H. Babcock diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Babcock Papers, NYSL; get up: Marmaduke Shannon to Emma M. Crutcher, Vicksburg, Miss., Apr. 18, 1865 (part of Apr. 14 letter), Crutcher-Shannon Family Papers, ser. F, reel 30, UTA-SWF; guards: Edward W. Benham to Jennie Benham, Goldsboro, N.C., Apr. 20, 1865, ts., Benham Papers, Duke; vent: Carl Schurz to wife, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 18, 1865, in Bancroft, Speeches, Correspondence, 1:253, and on this incident, see also Chauncey Welton to parents, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 19, 1865, Welton Papers, SHC, and Henry Hitchcock to Mary Hitchcock, “Chesapeake Bay,” Apr. 22, 1865, Hitchcock Papers, LC.

  13. hardly: Franklin Boyts to Hiram Boyts, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 1865, in Boyts diary, HSP; burn: Newton T. Colby to Merrill Colby, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, in The Civil War Papers of Lt. Colonel Newton T. Colby, New York Infantry, ed. William E. Hughes (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003), 293; earnest: Benjamin Brown French to Frank O. French, Washington, D.C., Apr. 15, 1865, French Papers, LC; lynch: Annie G. Dudley Davis diary, Apr. 15, 1865, HL; exterminate: J. Madison Bell, “Poem: In commemoration of the death of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the great Public Meeting of Colored Citizens,” San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4831, BAP; feeling: George Comfort to Samuel Comfort, Morrisville, Pa., Apr. 16, 1865, Comfort Papers, Princeton; actually: Alfred W. Ellet to “Mary,” Union Grove, Ill., May 8, 1865, Cabell-Ellet Papers, ser. D, part 1, reel 8, UVA-CMM; clemency: Anne Neafie to Alfred Neafie, Ellenville, N.Y., Apr. 20, 1865, Neafie Papers, NYSL; crushed: Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865, BFP; death: Mary Butler Reeves to Caroline Butler Laing, Germantown, Pa., Apr. 16, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS.