Mourning Lincoln

by Martha Hodes

  11. vile: Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 589 (Apr. 19, 1865, entry).

  12. represent: James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, “Potomac River,” Apr. 19, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; on the 22nd U.S.C.T., see also Charles Griswold Gurley Merrill diary, Apr. 17, 19, Merrill Papers, Yale-Sterling; Levi S. Graybill Papers, Apr. 19, 1865, HL; negro & white: Harry Gibbons to Samuel Bancroft Jr., Washington, D.C., Apr. 19, 1865, Bird-Bancroft Collection, DHS; promiscuous: Ellis Hughes diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Hughes-Gray Family Papers, Duke.

  13. memorable: Nevins and Thomas, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 590 (Apr. 19, 1865, entry); splendid: Gertrude Dunn diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Diaries Box, NYPL; solemn: Selden Connor to sister, Washington, D.C., Apr. 19, 1865, Connor Papers, Brown; great: William Owner diary, Apr. 19, 1865, LC.

  14. biggest: Amory K. Allen to wife, Washington, D.C., Apr. 23, 1865, in “Civil War Letters of Amory K. Allen,” Indiana Magazine of History 31 (1935), 386; roasted: Simon Newcomb diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Newcomb Papers, LC; excellent: William H. Gilbert diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Gilbert-Cheever Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; dark: Sarah Browne diary, Apr. 19, 1865, BFP.

  15. serious: John Wolcott Phelps commonplace book, Apr. 19, 1865, Phelps Papers, NYPL; holy: editorial, San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4807, BAP; dreadful: Harriet Anne Severance diary, Apr. 19, 1865, SL; headache: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 19, 1865, MHS; faint: Caroline Dall journal, Apr. 22, 1865, vol. J27, Dall Papers, MHS; lovely: Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 19, 1865, White Papers, AAS.

  16. took: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 19, 1865, MHS; Cincinnati: Wallace Shelton, Discourse upon the Death of Abraham Lincoln … Delivered in Zion Baptist Church, Cincinnati, Wednesday, April 19, 1865 (Newport, Ky.: W. S. Baily, 1865), 3, 6; thy will: Lucy Pierce Hedge to Charlotte Hedge, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865 (part of Apr. 18 letter), Poor Family Papers, SL; God works: Martha Coffin Wright to William P. Wright, Auburn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, box 268, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; got over: “Em” to Lewis J. Nettleton, Milford, Conn., Apr. 19, 1865, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; felt: Caroline Butler Laing to Mary Butler Reeves, Brooklyn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS; too much: Kate Hunter journal, Apr. 19, 1865, Hunter Family Papers, ser. B, part 2, reel 27, NHS-NWF; delightful: Ruth Anne Hillborn journal, Apr. 19, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL.

  17. Altoona: Doug Phillips to Aaron S. Crosby, Fallen Timber, Pa., Apr. 23, 1865, box 1, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; San Francisco: “The Day of the Obsequies,” San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4812, BAP; camp: William H. Richards to “Anna,” Camp Lowell, Va., Apr. 20, 1865, Brown Family Papers, NYSL; marched: Zoe J. Campbell diary, Apr. 22, 1865, ser. E, reel 5, LSU-SWF (translation from French by Martha Hodes); rebeldom, claims: “From the Regiments,” letter from Richard H. Black, 3rd U.S.C.T., Fernandina, Fla., New York Anglo-African, May 27, 1865.

  18. worst: Caroline Butler Laing to Mary Butler Reeves, Brooklyn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS; universal: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; free states: Ezra Stiles Gannett daily journal, Gannett Papers, Apr. 19, 1865, MHS; Union: Henry S. Thacher diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS; dare: Mary Jane Church to Dennis Church, New York, Apr. 20, 1865, Church Letters, Cornell; trunk: Louisa G. Mason diary, Apr. 19, 1865, MDHS; ape: Kena King Chapman diary, Apr. 19, 1865, SHC; bristled: John V. L. Pruyn diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Pruyn Papers, NYSL; during: John Glenn diary, Apr. 21, 1865, Glenn Papers, MDHS; bitter: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 19, 1865, MHS; importens: diary fragments, “Point Lookout, Md.,” Apr. 19, 1865, Prison Papers, Confederate States of America Papers, Duke.

  19. notables: Charles Larrabee to Mary Ann Larrabee, [no place], Apr. 27, 1865, HM46981, HL; in-between stops: see, e.g., Jennie M. Smith to Mercy Schenck, Syracuse, N.Y., May 7, 1865, Schenck Family Papers, NYSL.

  20. lonesome: W. A. Barkalow to brother, Kokomo, Ind., Apr. 30, 1865, in Wanted—Correspondence: Women’s Letters to a Union Soldier, ed. Nancy L. Rhoades and Lucy E. Bailey (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009), 305; tide: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; 100,000: Samuel S. Halsey to Joseph J. Halsey, Morristown, N.J., May 1, 1865, Morton-Halsey Papers, ser. E, part 1, reel 37, UVA-RSP; faint: Asa Fitch diary, Apr. 26, 1865, Fitch Papers, Yale-Sterling; Springfield: see, e.g., Robert Steele to “Mrs. Wood,” Cairo, Ill., May 9, 1865, box 2, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH.

  21. Liberty Bell: Martin S. Nowak, The White House in Mourning: Deaths and Funerals of Presidents in Office (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010), 76; Lord and Taylor: James Williams to sister, New York, May 6, 1865, Simon Gratz Autograph Collection, HSP; nation, heart: “Funeral Honors on the Route from Washington to Springfield,” in Morris, Memorial Record, 195, 200, 183; death: “Notebook containing drawings and transcriptions of memorial tributes to Abraham Lincoln displayed in New York, N.Y. and other places in the aftermath of his assassination,” McLellan Lincoln Collection and Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown; see also Ted Widmer, “New York’s Lincoln Memorial,” Op-Archive: Lincoln Memorial Diary, New York Times, Apr. 17, 2009, available at nytimes. com/2009/04/17/opinion/17widmer.html.

  22. imposing: James Williams to sister, New York, May 6, 1865, Simon Gratz Autograph Collection, HSP; notable: Gayle Thornbrough and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher, vol. 9 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1983), 84 (May 2, 1865, entry); gratify: Ellen Kean to “Miss Sherritt,” Baltimore, May 13ff., 1865, in Death and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln … in Two Long Descriptive Letters from Mrs. Ellen Kean, the Actress, whilst Touring the United States in 1865 (London: Privately printed, 1921), 22; show: William M. Myers to William H. Henshaw, Danville, Ill., May 12, 1865, Ann Henshaw Gardiner Papers, Duke; baby: Nancy Ann (Atwood) Sprague diary, Apr. [n.d.], 1865, Sprague Papers, SL.

  23. twenty: Ellen Kean to “Miss Sherritt,” Baltimore, May 13ff., 1865, in Death and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln, 23; dark: Mary Dreer diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Edwin Greble Papers, LC; sea: Ruth Anne Hillborn journal, Apr. 22, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL; flash: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; beat: Alexander M. Thackara to Benjamin Thackara, Philadelphia, Apr. 24, 1865, Sherman Thackara Collection, available at digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:27010; fumbling: anonymous diary, Apr. 23, 1865, John L. Smith Papers, HSP; impersonal: Lucy McKim to Wendell Phillips Garrison, Philadelphia, Apr. 23, 1865, box 49, Garrison Family Papers, SSC.

  24. president, sight: Emilie Davis diary, Apr. 22, 23, 24, 1865, HSP, and davisdiaries.villa nova.edu; believe: Mattie J. Jackson, The Story of Mattie J. Jackson (Lawrence, Mass.: Sentinel, 1866), in Six Women’s Slave Narratives, ed. William L. Andrews (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 30.

  25. rushed: Bishop Crumrine to Boyd Crumrine, Fort Delaware, Del., May 1, 1865, in “Notes and Documents: Corporal Crumrine Goes to War,” ed. Walter S. Sanderlin, Topic 2 (1961), 64; ineffectual: James Williams to sister, New York, May 6, 1865, Simon Gratz Autograph Collection, HSP.

  26. wan: Helen Lansing Grinnell diary, Apr. 24, 1865, NYPL; shrunken: Saul Ames to mother, Brooklyn, N.Y., Apr. 25, 1865, letter pasted in C. C. Carrington, “Assassination and Funeral of President Lincoln,” scrapbook, 2 vols., 1865–71, 1:166, McLellan Lincoln Collection, Brown; lead: Asa Fitch diary, Apr. 25, 1865, Fitch Papers, Yale-Sterling; fancied: Elon N. Lee to family, Chicago, May 3, 1865, ts., Lee and Bastin Papers, Chicago; Sally: Mary Henry diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Smithsonian Institution Archives, available at siarchives.si.edu/history/exhibits/stories/death-abraham-lincoln-april-15-26-1865; funeral: Clara Barton diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Barton Papers, LC; glad: William S. C. Webster to Charles Webster, [no place], May 3, 1865, Webster Collection, Princeton.

  27. confounding: Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 24, 1865, White Papers, AAS.

  28. inglorious: Abram Verrick Parmenter diary,
Apr. 19, 1865, Parmenter Papers, LC; startling: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 23, 1865, MHS; hardly: Henry S. Thacher diary, Apr. 24, 1865, Thacher Family Papers, MHS; stupendous: Martha Coffin Wright to Frank Wright, Auburn, N.Y., Apr. 26, 1865, box 268, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; ass: Malcolm Canfield to Harriett Canfield, New York, Apr. 24, 1865, Canfield Papers, NYSL; ignoramus: Anne Neafie to Alfred Neafie, Ellenville, N.Y., Apr. 26, 1865, Neafie Papers, NYSL; woman: Francis Lieber to Henry W. Halleck, New York, Apr. 26, 1865, box 28, Lieber Papers, HL; language: Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Blake Shaw, [no place], Apr. [n.d.], 1865, Child Letters, SL.

  29. if Sherman: Robert H. Williams to David and Carrie Thurber, City Point, Va., Apr. 29, 1865, Goff-Williams Papers, HL; proclaimed: Charles Hale to Sarah Hale, Alexandria, Egypt, May 27, 1865, box 22, Hale Family Papers, SSC.

  30. shot: Shirley Brooks diary, May 11, 1865, ML; well done: Susan E. Parsons Brown Forbes diary, Apr. 27, 1865, AAS; die: William Gray Brooks diary, Apr. 28, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; tortured: “Lizzie” to “Charlie,” [no place], Apr. 30, 1865, box 1, Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Abraham Lincoln, HLH; cruel: Newton Perkins to mother, onboard Star of the South, Apr. 27, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC; same way: Elizabeth Bancroft to “Lou,” New York, Apr. 26, 1865, Bancroft-Bliss Families Papers, LC; dare: Sarah Hale to Charles Hale, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 28, 1865, box 11, Hale Family Papers, SSC; restless: Martha Coffin Wright to Marianna Pelham Mott, Auburn, N.Y., May 4, 1865, box 265, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; fanatical: Ambrose A. White to Thomas H. White, Baltimore, Apr. 27, 1865, Lucas-White Papers, MDHS; sorry: Lizzie Hamilton to Albert Batchelor, [no place], May 21, 1865, Batchelor Papers, ser. B, part 5, reel 1, LSURSPE.

  31. think: James Williams to sister, New York, May 6, 1865, Simon Gratz Autograph Collection, HSP; rested: Elon N. Lee to family, Chicago, May 3, 1865, ts., Lee and Bastin Papers, Chicago.

  32. ends: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, Apr. 30, 1865, MHS; so now: Frances Owens diary, May 2, 1865, ts., CHM.

  33. damned: James Flint, file MM2344, RG153-NARA; better: Henry Brainard, file MM2011, RG153-NARA; done right: James Hall, file MM2092, RG153-NARA; glad: John Craig, file OO893, RG153-NARA; sit: David J. Parsons, file OO940, RG153-NARA; added: Charles N. Niles to father, Baltimore, Apr. 22, 1865, Niles Family Papers, NYSL.

  34. leaned: “Reception of the Remains of Abraham Lincoln,” New York Daily Tribune, Apr. 25, 1865; Irish: “The Day of the Obsequies,” San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4812, BAP; Emancipation Proclamation: “Oration by the Hon. Geo. Bancroft,” in Morris, Memorial Record, 171; bar: J. Sella Martin, “Colored People Excluded from the Funeral Procession,” Liberator, May 5, 1865, #2863, BAP; curious: Ellen Kean to “Miss Sherritt,” Baltimore, May 13ff., 1865, in Death and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln, 23; utterly: John Glenn diary, Apr. 21, 1865, Glenn Papers, MDHS.

  35. come out: “Prayer,” in Morris, Memorial Record, 226; oration: “Funeral Oration by Bishop Simpson,” in Morris, Memorial Record, 230, 236; none: Chas. S. Jacobs, “Letter from Decatur, Illinois,” May 5, 1865, Christian Recorder, published May 20, 1865.

  36. to day: Caroline Dunstan diary, May 4, 1865, NYPL; remains: William Boardman Richards diary, Apr. 28, 1865, Richards Family Papers, MHS; continued: James Thomas Ward diary, May 4, 1865, Ward Papers, LC; hearts: Caroline Barrett White diary, May 4, 1865, White Papers, AAS; world: Elon N. Lee to family, Chicago, May 3, 1865, ts., Lee and Bastin Papers, Chicago.

  37. noisy: George W. Squier to Ellen Squier, Chattanooga, Tenn., May 4, 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), 111; hope: Mary H. and Dallas M. Lancaster, ed., The Civil War Diary of Anne S. Frobel (McLean, Va.: EPM, 1992), 224 (May 4, 1865, entry).

  38. jog: Benjamin Brown French to Frank O. French, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1865, French Papers, LC; absorbing: William M. Myers to William H. Henshaw, Danville, Ill., May 12, 1865, Ann Henshaw Gardiner Papers, Duke; Philadelphia: F. C. Chambers diary, Apr. 28, 1865, Chambers Family Diaries, Princeton; Indianapolis: Lyman P. Spencer diary, May 30, 1865, Spencer Papers, LC.

  Interlude: Springtime

  1. humiliating: Virginia Ingraham Burr, ed., The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848–1889 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 261 (May 1, 1865, entry); troubled: Kate Cumming, Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse, ed. Richard Barksdale Harwell (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 276 (May 1, 1865, entry), NAWLD; life: Hannah Ford Turner to William Mason Turner, Philadelphia, Apr. 20, 1865, Turner Papers, Brown; national: Caroline Kean (Hill) Davis diary, May 14, 1865, ser. D, part 1, reel 5, VHS-SWF; flowers: Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, May 18, 1865, Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 52, VHSSWF.

  2. loveliest: Lucretia Hale to Charles Hale, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 28, 1865, box 50, Hale Family Papers, SSC; gloomy: Douglass S. Taylor to Elizabeth H. Taylor, Washington, D.C., May 14, 1865, Taylor Family Correspondence, HL; mourn’d: Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” in Sequel to Drum-Taps (Washington, D.C., 1865–66), 3, available at whitmanarchive.org/published/other/DrumTapsSequel.html.

  3. world: James J. Higginson to Anne E. Heath, Burkeville, Va., Apr. 25, 1865, Heath Family Papers, MHS; everything: Samuel Canby diary, Apr. 25, 1865, DHS; cannot: Harriet Williams to Lewis J. Williams, Medical Hall, Md., Apr. 24, 1865, Archer-Mitchell-Stump-Williams Family Papers, MDHS; exquisite: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, May 24, 1865, MHS; life: Sarah Browne diary, May 2, 1865, BFP.

  Chapter 7. Everyday Life

  1. Sarah Browne diary, Apr. 19, 1865; Albert Browne to Edward Browne, Charleston, S.C., Apr. 20, 31 [sic], 1865; Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., Apr. 20, 1865, one of two letters of this date, all BFP.

  2. Sarah Browne diary, Apr. 20, 25 (Booth), 23, 30 (Latin, French), May 1 (picnic, closet), 13 (cleaning), 10 (proclamation, Alice), 1865; Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., May 14, 1865 (minister, wages), both letters of this date, all BFP.

  3. Dorman diary, May 25, 1865.

  4. Dorman diary, Apr. 16 (protection), May 6 (what), 26 (black-hearted), 23 (revolution), 1865.

  5. Dorman diary, May 13 (familiar), 8 (begging), 25 (wish), June 22 (stay), 1865.

  6. nothing: Thomas Bradford Drew diary, Apr. 16, 1865, MHS; anything: Georgia Treadway to Newton Perkins, New Haven, Conn., Apr. 16, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC; heart: 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; halt: “Funeral Oration by Bishop Simpson,” in B. F. Morris, Memorial Record of the Nation’s Tribute to Abraham Lincoln (Washington, D.C.: W. H. and O. H. Morrison, 1865), 229; still: Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, May 2, 1865, box 6, Hale Papers, NYSL.

  7. As Franz Kafka wrote in his diary in August 1914, “Germany has declared war on Russia.—Swimming in the afternoon”; see Max Brod, ed., The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1914–23 (1949; reprint, New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 75.

  8. journalists: Scott D. Trostel, The Lincoln Funeral Train: The Final Journey and National Funeral for Abraham Lincoln (Fletcher, Ohio: Cam-Tech, 2002), 66 (“Newspapers reported that from the time they left Harrisburg until they reached Philadelphia, not a person in sight was engaged in labor”); obsequies: anonymous account book, Apr. 19, 1865, Anonymous Diaries and Account Books, SL.

  9. gardens: Abbie Clarke Stimson diary, Apr. 14, 1865, ser. C, part 2, reel 16, RIHS-NWF; Patty Bartlett Sessions diary, Apr. 17, 1865, ts., reel 15, Utah-AWD-West; socks: Mary Dreer diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Edwin Greble Papers, LC; ironing: Mrs. Bardwell diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Helen Temple Cooke Papers, SL; walls: Ann Buckingham diary, Apr. 22, 1865, box 7, vol. 15, Shaker Collection, NYSL; dyeing: Omelia Bouton diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Bouton Family Diaries, NYSL; chimneys, poultices: Elizabeth Rogers Mason Cabot diary, Apr. 20, May 4, 1865, MHS; curtains: Sarah Lydia Gilpin diary, Apr. 29, 1865, #06846.05,
GLC-NYHS; injuries: Lydia Lyman Paine diary, Apr. 27, 1865, Robert Treat Paine Papers II, MHS; ploughing: F. C. Chambers diary, Apr. 20, 1865, Chambers Family Diaries, Princeton.

  10. fainted: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 15, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; feel like, sew: Margaret B. Howell diary, Apr. 17, 18, 1865, HSP; cleaning: Caroline Dall journal, Apr. 22, 1865, vol. J27, Dall Papers, MHS; busy: Caroline Barrett White diary, Apr. 20, 1865, White Papers, AAS; dare not: Harriett Canfield to Malcolm Canfield, Sunderland, Vt., Apr. 16, 1865, NYSL; gave out: James C. Mohr and Richard E. Winslow, eds., The Cormany Diaries: A Northern Family in the Civil War (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), 543, 545 (Apr. 15, 21, 1865, entries).

  11. planted, funeral: Ebenezer Paul diary, Apr. 14, 19, 1865, vol. 2, Henry F. Howe Collection II, MHS.

  12. shipbuilder: James A. Latham journal, Apr. 14, 19, passim, 1865, Latham Papers, GWBW; lawyer: Porter and Warren to George Frisbie Hoar, Boston, Apr. 18, 1865, Hoar Papers, MHS; writer: Bayard Taylor to George Palmer Putnam, Kennett Square, Pa., Apr. 28, 1865, HM14640, HL; presume: L. S. Currier to H. C. Rowley, Cincinnati, Apr. 15, 1865, Currier and Co. Papers, AAS; how much: Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, May 2, 1865, box 6, Hale Papers, NYSL.

  13. died: William H. Lightner diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MDHS; rations: George H. Butler diary, Apr. 17, 18, 19, 1865, #00794, GLC-NYHS; lame: Henry O. Perry diary, Apr. 17, 1865, NYHS; hospital: Henry B. James diary, Apr. 15, 1865, James Papers, MHS.

  14. news, Lisbon, politics: William Benjamin Gould diary, May 6, 7, June 14, 16, 1865, MHS.

  15. Susie: 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), 259.