Mourning Lincoln

by Martha Hodes

  16. undershirts: Alfred Neafie to Anne Neafie, Savannah, Ga., Apr. 19, 1865, Neafie Papers, NYSL; sugar: La Motte K. Devendorf to Jerusha Devendorf, Morehead City, N.C., Apr. 23, 1865, Devendorf Family Papers, NYSL; boots: Jacob Henry Enders to parents and sister, Summit Point, Va., Apr. 20, 1865, ts., Enders Papers, NYSL; farm: Horace O. Gilmore to Lucy Gilmore, Petersburg, Va., Apr. [15], 1865, Gilmore Papers, NYSL; arm: E. P. Grover to Josiah Wood, Washington, D.C., May 12, 1865, Wood Papers, Duke; overcoat: Kiliaen Van Rensselaer to parents, City Point, Va., Apr. 20, 1865, ts., Erving-King Papers, NYHS; snake: James McHue to family, Pleasant Valley, Md., Apr. 17, 1865, McHue Letters, NYSL.

  17. relate: D. H. Jacques, How to Write: A Pocket Manual of Composition and Letter-Writing (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1857), 65; too deep: “Rebecca” to Jane Wigglesworth Grew, Boston, May 14, 1865, Grew Correspondence, MHS; minutiae: Martha Coffin Wright to Ellen W. Garrison, Auburn, N.Y., Apr. 19, 1865, box 261, Garrison Family Papers, SSC.

  18. nervous, finished: Helen A. Du Barry to mother, Washington, D.C., Apr. 25, 1865, in “Eyewitness Account of Lincoln’s Assassination,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 39 (1946), 369, 370.

  19. heart: Charles Nye to mother, Worcester, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, Nye Family Papers, Duke; refuses: “Eliz.” to “Geo.,” Cambridge, Mass., Apr. 16, 1865, Wigglesworth Family Papers, MHS; mania: Martha Thomas, “Synopsis of Record,” case #3245, entry 66, July 16, 1872, box 11, stack area 12W2A, RG418, Records of Saint Elizabeths Hospital, NARA (I thank Ashley Bowen-Murphy, Brown University, for transcribing and sharing this document); poor, troubled: Emily Watkins to Abiathar Watkins, Jersey City, N.J., Apr. 16, May 11, 1865, Watkins Papers, NYPL.

  20. black line: “Carrie” to sister, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, box 2, fol. 27, Richard John Levy and Sally Waldman Sweet Collection, NYPL; cease: “Rebecca” to Jane Wigglesworth Grew, Boston, Apr. 18, 1865 (part of Apr. 16 letter), Grew Correspondence, MHS; written: Helen M. Blake to Mary Ingham Emerson, Brussels, Belgium, May 4, 1865, Emerson Family Papers, NYPL.

  21. prevented, hardly: Sarah Hale to Charles Hale, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 28, June 9, 1865, box 11, Hale Family Papers, SSC.

  22. Ellie, last week: William Lloyd Garrison Jr. diary, Apr. 15, 16, 1865, box 34, and William Lloyd Garrison Jr. to Martha Coffin Wright, Roxbury, Mass., Apr. 16, 1865, box 56, Garrison Family Papers, SSC.

  23. wrong: Harriett Canfield to Malcolm Canfield Sunderland, Vt., Apr. 16, 1865, Canfield Papers, NYSL; trifling: Caroline Butler Laing to Mary Butler Reeves, Brooklyn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS; sacrilege: James Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, New York, Apr. 17, 1865, in Crete and James: Personal Letters of Lucretia and James Garfield, ed. John Shaw (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994), 218.

  24. very sad: Emilie Davis diary, Apr. 15, 1865, and see Apr. 17–19, 24–26, 1865, HSP and davisdiaries.villanova.edu.

  25. whist: Annie P. Chadwick diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Chadwick Family Papers, NYSL; croquet, jackstraws: William Lloyd Garrison Jr. diary, Apr. 24, May 3, 1865, box 34, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; shopping: F. C. Chambers diary, May 1865, Chambers Family Diaries, Princeton; dances, balls: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, Apr. 22, 1865, MHS; Margaret B. Howell diary, Apr. 26, 1865, HSP; circus: Charles Edward French diary, Apr. 25, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; solemn, billiards: Mary S. Elliot diary, Apr. 19, 20, 21, 1865, Robinson-Elliot Papers, DHS; evil: James Thomas Ward diary, Apr. 14, 21, 1865, Ward Papers, LC; resist: Ellis Hughes diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Hughes-Gray Family Papers, Duke; grief: Ellen Kean to Mary Kean, New York, Apr. 16, 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), 17.

  26. weeping, funniest: Lizzie Niles diary, Apr. 16, 17, 1865, NYSL; talk, dream: Joanita Kant, ed., Maggie: The Civil War Diary of Margaret Wylie Mellette (Watertown, S.Dak.: Mellette Memorial Association, 1983), 20, 22 (Apr. 16, 19, 1865, entries); delightful: Henry Wirt Shriver diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Shriver Family Papers, MDHS; how sad: Maria H. Thomas diary, May 28, 1865, NYSL.

  27. flirtation: Edgar Dinsmore to Carrie Drayton, Saint Andrews Parish, S.C., May 29, 1865, Dinsmore Papers, Duke.

  28. fair: William L. Mead to Louisa White, Charleston, S.C., Apr. 19, 1865, ts., George Cornwell Correspondence, MDHS; summers: Nelson Palmer to Mercy Schenck, [no place], Apr. 23, 1865, Schenck Family Papers, NYSL; Miss Montgomery: Henry Adams to “Caro amico mio” [Charles Milnes Gaskell], Rome and Florence, May 10, 1865 (part of Apr. 23 letter), in The Letters of Henry Adams, ed. J. C. Levenson et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 493.

  29. shut: “Frank” to Henry C. Morgan, Tiffin, Ohio, Apr. 19, 1865, Morgan-Parry Family Papers, BHS.

  30. midst: Nathan Appleton Jr. to Harriet Appleton, Nottoway Court House, Va., Apr. 25, 1865, Appleton Family Papers, MHS; much: Henry Adams to “Caro amico mio” [Charles Milnes Gaskell], Rome and Florence, May 10, 1865 (part of Apr. 23 letter), in Levenson et al., Letters of Henry Adams, 493.

  31. infinite: Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” in Sequel to Drum-Taps (Washington, D.C., 1865–66), 8, available at whitmanarchive.org/published/other/DrumTapsSequel.html.

  32. blues: John Johnston, “Personal Reminiscence of the Civil War, 1861–1865,” diary transcriptions, May 17, 1865, Johnston Papers, SHC.

  33. produce: E. R. Harmanson to “Prince,” Red River, La., Apr. 23, 1865, Albert A. Batchelor Papers, ser. B, part 5, reel 1, LSU-RSPE; delightful: Daniel E. Sutherland, ed., A Very Violent Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Ellen Renshaw House (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996), 165 (May 25, 1865, entry); engaged: niece to aunt, Charlottesville, Va., June 14, 1865 (part of May 15 letter), Minor-Wilson Family Papers, ser. G, part 2, reel 33, UVA-SWF; distraction, heart: Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, May 29, June 14, 26, 1865, Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 52, VHS-SWF.

  34. mourning, property, free, restless: Nancy McDougall Robinson diary, undated late May entry [“Friday”?], May 29, June 7, July 1, 1865, Robinson Collection, ser. N, reel 17, MDAH-RSP; dark: Eva B. Jones to Mary Jones, Augusta, Ga., June 13, 1865, in The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War, ed. Robert Manson Myers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 1273–74.

  35. life, chair: Cornelia Spencer journal, May 7, June 8, 1865, Spencer Papers, ser. A, part 7, reel 16, SHC-SWF; rooms: “Frank” to Henry C. Morgan, Tiffin, Ohio, Apr. 19, 1865, Morgan-Parry Family Papers, BHS.

  36. heaven: Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, Apr. 22, 1865 (see also July 12, 1865), Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 52, VHS-SWF; drive: Creed Thomas Davis diary, May 5, 1865, ser. A, reel 13, VHS-CMM; suicide: William Kauffman Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin: A Dream Shattered, June, 1863–June, 1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 884, 892, 873, 935, 946 (May 9, 16, 1, June 16–18, 1865, entries).

  Interlude: Young Folk

  1. Uncle Sam: Edward Williams Morley to Sardis Morley, Fortress Monroe, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, Morley Papers, LC; ceasing: Mary S. Pond to George Whipple, Portsmouth, Va., May 13 1865, #H1-7147, reel 210, AMA; tearful, weight: H. C. Percy to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., May 7, 1865, #H1-7112-16, reel 210, AMA; dead: Lizzie [no last name], “Letter from Morristown, Ohio,” Christian Recorder, May 27, 1865.

  2. ball: Edward Sanford Martin diary, Apr. 19, 1865, Throop and Martin Family Papers, Princeton; books, houses: Grenville H. Norcross diary, Apr. 15, 1865, AAS.

  3. try: Harriett Canfield to Malcolm Canfield, Sunderland, Vt., Apr. 16, 1865, Canfield Papers, NYSL; good: “Rebecca” to Jane Wigglesworth Grew, Boston, May 24, 1865, Grew Correspondence, MHS; ain’t, dead: Frances Owens diary, May 2, 1865, ts., CHM.

  Johnson: Hope R. Daggett to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., Apr. [n.d.], 1865, #H1-7058, reel 210, AMA; catch: “Maggie!”: Maggie Lindsley’s Journal, Nashville, Tennessee, 1864, Washington, D.C. 1865 (Southbury, Conn.: Mu
riel Davies Mackenzie, 1977), 86 (Apr. 23, 1865, entry).

  4. dismal: Carrie Hunter to Kate Hunter, Newport, R.I., Apr. 15, 1865, Hunter Family Papers, ser. B, part 2, reel 36, NHS-NWF; weeping, flirtation: Georgiana Gordon King diary, Apr. 15, 17, 1865, King Family Papers, ser. B, part 2, reel 40, NHS-NWF.

  5. sit: Emma F. LeConte diary, May 17, 1865, reel 22, SHC-AWD-South.

  Chapter 8. Everyday Loss

  1. Dorman diary, May 2, 1865. Drew Gilpin Faust writes, “Confederate men died at a rate three times that of their Yankee counterparts; one in five white southern men of military age did not survive the Civil War”; see “Death and Dying,” available at nps.gov/history/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/death.html.

  2. Dorman diary, May 4, 1865.

  3. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 31 [sic], 1865 (part of Apr. 24 letter), BFP.

  4. Sarah Browne diary, Apr. 17, 21, 22, 1864; Nellie Browne to Albert Browne Jr., Beaufort, S.C., May 14, 1864; Albert Browne Jr. to Nellie Browne, Boston, May 26, 1864; and see correspondence between Nellie Browne and Lewis Weld, May 1864, all BFP.

  5. Sarah Browne diary, May 26, 27, 1865; Alice Browne to Lewis Weld, Salem, Mass., June 27, 1864; Albert Browne to Lewis Weld, Beaufort, S.C., June 1, 1865; Lewis Weld to Nellie Browne, Jacksonville, Fla., June 3, 1864, one of two letters of this date; and see “In Memoriam: Miss Nellie Browne. Beaufort, S.C., June 2, 1864,” clipping from the Free South, Beaufort, S.C., July 2, 1864 (giving her age as twenty-three), all BFP.

  6. Albert Browne Jr. to Lewis Weld, Salem, Mass., June 12, 1864 (God); Sarah Browne diary, June 6, 26, Aug. 28, 1864; Alice Browne to Lewis Weld, Salem, Mass., June 27, 1864, all BFP; and see “Walking with God,” in The Life and Works of William Cowper, vol. 8, ed. T. S. Grimshawe (London: Saunders and Otley, 1835), 97. Albert Browne to Lewis Weld, Salem, Mass., June 21, 1864 (thunder bolt); Albert Browne to Lewis Weld, Salem, Mass., June 30, 1864 (blessed), both BFP. Albert Browne to “Rev. Wilson,” Beaufort, S.C., Dec. 6, 1864, Browne Family Additional Papers, SL.

  7. Sarah Browne diary, Apr. 6, May 2, 30, 1865; Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., May 31, 1865; Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., May 14, 1865; and see Nellie Browne to Albert Browne Jr., Beaufort, S.C., May 14, 1865, all BFP.

  8. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., June 1, 1865, one of two letters of this date, BFP.

  9. fondly, blood: Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” Mar. 4, 1865, CWL, 8:333; ultimate: Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 156.

  10. hardest: Albert Browne Jr. to Lewis Weld, Boston, June 28, 1864, BFP; apaling: Gayle Thornbrough and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher, vol. 9 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1983), 68 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); horrid, distress: Edward Lear diary, Apr. 26, May 4, 1865, HLH; should: George W. Van Horne to John Bigelow, Marseille, France, May 9, 1865, John Bigelow Papers, NYPL.

  11. rather: 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; never: Laudie Henderson to “Luth,” James River, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, Duke.

  For other comparisons see P. B. S. Nichuston [?] to George Whipple, Roanoke Island, N.C., Apr. 22, 1865, #100001, reel 169, AMA (father and mother), and Mary Ingham Emerson diary, May 28, 1865, Emerson Family Papers, NYPL (father). For a rare expression of Lincoln’s death as worse than a private loss, see Harriett Canfield to Malcolm Canfield, Sunderland, Vt., Apr. 16, 1865, Canfield Papers, NYSL (“This great national calamity overpowers private grief”).

  12. take: 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), 4; Alfred: Emilie Davis diary, Dec. 20–23, 1865, HSP and davisdiaries.villanova.edu.

  13. highest: Chester dispatch, Richmond, Va., Apr. 10, 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), 303.

  14. assassinated, five, man, another: Henry B. James diary, Apr. 15, 20, May 9, 13, 1865, James Papers, MHS; funerals: H. H. B. Chambers diary, Apr. 28, 1865, and F. C. Chambers diary, Apr. 23, 1865, Chambers Family Diaries, Princeton; perfectly: Walt Whitman to “Mrs. Irwin,” Washington, D.C., May 1, 1865, available at whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/cw/tei/med.00310.html.

  Ronald C. White Jr. writes that ministers declared Lincoln “the Civil War’s final casualty”; see A. Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2009), 675.

  15. whipped, warmest: John Payne to W. W. Thomas, near Mobile, Ala., May 26, 1865, and John Payne to uncle, Alexandria, La., July 11, 1865, Payne Papers, Civil War Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, Schomburg; on Payne and his friend Mathias Hutchison of the 32nd Iowa, see Civil War Soldiers and Sailors database, nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm; one, left: Henry J. Peck to Mary Peck, Richmond, Va., May 23, 1865, and Mary Peck to Henry J. Peck, Jonesville, N.Y., May 26, 1865, Peck Correspondence, NYSL; strike: Abial H. Edwards to Anna L. Conant, Darlington, S.C., Sept. 15, 1865, in “Dear Friend Anna”: The Civil War Letters of a Common Soldier from Maine, ed. Beverly Hayes Kallgren and James L. Crouthamel (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1992), 137; bodies, bones: Heber Painter to Rebecca Frick, Richmond, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, #02016.082, GLC-NYHS; William C. McLean diary, May 15,1865, ts., McLean Family Papers, NYSL; William H. Gilbert diary, May 1–5, 1865, Gilbert-Cheever Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; Rufus Mead Jr. diary, May 15, 1865, Mead Papers, LC; world: James Thomas Ward diary, May 1, 1865, Ward Papers, LC.

  16. sad: Edward J. Bartlett to Martha Bartlett, South Side Railroad, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, Bartlett Letters, MHS; many: D. M. Corthell to William P. Corthell, Savannah, Ga., May 8, 1865, box 1, Civil War Collection, AAS.

  17. “Break It Gently” and “Let Me Kiss Him”: Irwin Silber, comp. and ed., Songs of the Civil War (New York: Bonanza, 1960), 116, 117.

  18. brother: Rose Pickard to Alonzo Pickard, Stockton, N.Y., May [n.d.], 1865, and Rose Pickard to Byron Flagg, Alexandria, Va., Apr. 17, 1865 (part of Apr. 14 letter), Pickard Papers, LC.

  19. deep: Mary Mellish to George H. Mellish, Woodstock, Vt., Apr. 16, 1865, Mellish Papers, HL; never: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, Washington, D.C., Apr. 20, 1865, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jean Laas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 498; a live: Wesley Shaw to parents, Burkeville, Va., Apr. 18, 1865, Shaw Letters, NYSL; you are: Emily Watkins to Abiathar Watkins, Jersey City, N.J., Apr. 16, 1865, Watkins Papers, NYPL.

  20. vacancies: Edward W. Benham to Jennie Benham, Washington, D.C., May 28, 1865, ts., Benham Papers, Duke; bringing: William Benjamin Gould diary, May 24, 1865, MHS; brother: J. and J. H. John to Bela T. St. John. Genesee, Ill., Mar. 5, Apr. 9, 24, June 5, 1865.

  21. April 15 deaths: Amos A. Lawrence diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; Hale: Edward Everett Hale diary, Apr. 16, 19, 22, 1865, box 54, Hale Papers, NYSL; depressed: William Gray Brooks diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS. For another related suicide, see E. Gould to John Mead Gould, Portland, Me., Apr. 17, 1865, Gould Papers, Duke.

  22. Mifflin: Ruth Anne Hillborn journal, Apr. 22, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL; Otis: Jennie M. Smith to Mercy Schenck, Syracuse, N.Y., May 7, 1865, Schenck Family Papers, NYSL.

  23. applicable: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 23, 1865, MHS; vividly: William Gray Brooks diary, Apr. 29, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; doubly: Sarah Gould to Charles A. Gould, Lexington, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, Gould Papers, Duke; sacrifice: Ruth Anne Hill-born journal, Apr. 19, 1865, Hillborn Papers, FHL.

  24. two years: Laura Rhoades Lamson diary, Apr. 15, 1865, ts., Lamson Papers, SL; very sad: Sarah Lydia Gilpin diary, Apr. 19, 20, 24, 1865, #06846.05, GLC-NYHS.

  25. other: Sar
ah Hale to children, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, box 10, Hale Family Papers, SSC; Neafies: Anne Neafie to Alfred Neafie, Ellenville, N.Y., Apr. 26, 28, May 1 (part of Apr. 28 letter), 18, 1865, and Alfred Neafie to Anne Neafie, Savannah, Ga., May 5, 13, 1865, Neafie Papers, NYSL.

  26. husband: Louisa Walter Bishop Hughes diary, Jan. 15, Apr. 10, 16, 1865, ts., Hughes Papers, SL; heavy, hope: Mary Russell to Eunice Stone, Claremont, N.H., Apr. 16, 1865, Margaret Russell to Eunice Stone, Claremont, N.H., Apr. 19, 1865, Lois Wright Richardson Davis Papers, Duke; on this family, see Martha Hodes, The Sea Captain’s Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006).

  27. overwhelming: Robert E. Lee, “General Order No. 9,” Appomattox, Va., Apr. 10, 1865 (farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia), Lee Letters and Documents, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Va., available at moc.org/lee-jackson/lee-letters-and-documents-1865-15; so many: C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (1981; reprint, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 796 (Apr. 23, 1865, entry); best: John Q. Anderson, ed., Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861–1868 (1955; reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 340 (May 15, 1865, entry).

  28. depth: William Gordon plantation journal, May 1, 1865, Gordon Family Papers, ser. E, part 1, reel 35, UVA-RSP; sit: Nimrod Porter diary, Apr. 29, 1865, Porter Papers, SHC.

  29. bitterer: Martha E. Foster Crawford diary, June 17, 1865, ser. H, part 2, reel 21, Duke-SWF; feel: Cornelia Spencer journal, May 4, 1865, Spencer Papers, ser. A, part 7, reel 16, SHC-SWF; hardships: Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, June 24, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM.

  30. language: Samuel Thomas McCullough to brother, Johnson’s Island, Ohio, Apr. 24, 1865, Hotchkiss-McCullough Manuscripts, LC.