Mourning Lincoln

by Martha Hodes

  31. avenged: E. A. Aglionby to cousin, London, May 13, 1865, Frances Walker Yates Aglionby Papers, ser. H, part 3, reel 1, Duke-SWF; and see Encyclopedia Virginia, s.v. “John Y. Beall,” EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Beall_John_Y_1835-1865; agony: Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 52, VHS-SWF; unreturning: Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, June 24, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM; prisoner: Creed Thomas Davis diary, May 4, 7, 1865, ser. A, reel 13, VHS-CMM; could not: [L. C. Gilmore?] to Susan (Dabney) Taylor, “Ingleside,” July 6, 1865, Saunders Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 42, VHS-SWF; drink: Cloe (Whittle) Greene diary, Apr. 11, 1865, reel 4, WM-AWD-South.

  Interlude: Mary Lincoln

  1. Poor Mrs. Lincoln: John Downing Jr. to “My Dear Friend,” [no place], Apr. 26, 1865, in Timothy S. Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 68; 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), 370; Sarah Hale to children, Brookline, Mass., Apr. 18, 1865, box 10, Hale Family Papers, SSC; Samuel Phillips Lee to Elizabeth Blair Lee, Cairo, Ill., Apr. 25, 1865, Blair and Lee Family Papers, Princeton; Susannah A. Milner-Gibson to Jane Poultney Bigelow, Folkestone, England, Apr. 28, 1865, Bigelow Family Papers, NYPL; 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), xli (Uncle Ape).

  2. how sad: Mary Elizabeth Moore to James Otis Moore, Saco, Me., Apr. 16, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke; Mr. Welles: Gideon Welles diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Welles Papers, LC; Tad: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 20, 1865, MHS; tears: Caroline Barrett White diary, May 4, 1865, White Papers, AAS.

  3. depth: Elizabeth Gaskell to Charles Eliot Norton, London, Apr. 28, 1865, in Letters of Mrs. Gaskell and Charles Eliot Norton, 1855–1865, ed. Jane Whitehill (London: Oxford University Press, 1932), 123; sat: Nellie S. DeLamater to “My Dear Friend,” Schenectady, N.Y., Apr. 24, 1865, box 2, fol. 27, Richard John Levy and Sally Waldman Sweet Collection, NYPL.

  4. agonizing: Mrs. Bardwell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Helen Temple Cooke Papers, SL; funeral: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, Apr. 21, 1865, MHS; train: William Gray Brooks diary, Apr. 29, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; pistol: Edgar Welles to George Harrington, Washington, D.C., Apr. [20?], 1865, Harrington Papers, HL; colored: “Mansion for Mrs. Lincoln,” San Francisco Elevator, Apr. 21, 1865, #4809, BAP.

  5. happy: Anne Neafie to Alfred Neafie, Ellenville, N.Y., Apr. 28, 1865, Neafie Papers, NYSL; above: William Dean Howells to William Cooper and Mary Dean Howells, Venice, Apr. 27, 1865, 1784.13(15), Howells Family Papers, HLH; better: Rachel Ann Cope to John Cope, [no place], Apr. 17, 1865, John Cope Papers, LC; shore: J. G. Holland, The Nation Weeping for Its Dead: Observances at Springfield, Massachusetts, on President Lincoln’s Funeral Day (Springfield, Mass.: Samuel Bowles, 1865), 29.

  6. no-one: Queen Victoria to Mary Lincoln, “Osborne,” Apr. 29, 1865, in Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 231n4; catalog: Charles Francis Adams to William Hunter, London, May 4, 1865, Letterbooks, Adams Papers, MHS.

  7. visits: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 19, 20, 22, 25, 1865, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jean Laas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 496–501 (“begged,” May 4, 1865, p. 500n1); sick: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, Washington, D.C., May 12, 1865, Blair and Lee Family Papers, Princeton; wonderfully: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, Silver Spring, Md., May 15, 1865, Blair and Lee Family Papers, Princeton; good-bye: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, Washington, D.C., May 22, 1865, Blair and Lee Family Papers, Princeton.

  Chapter 9. Nation

  1. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Hilton Head Island, S.C., Apr. 18, 1865; Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., May 14, 1865, both BFP.

  2. Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., May 14, 1865 (finale); Sarah Browne diary, May 14 (Salem), 15 (disguised), 1865; Albert Browne to Sarah Browne, Savannah, Ga., May 16, 1865 (traitor); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Summerville, S.C., May 24, 1865 (part of May 18 letter), all BFP.

  3. Albert Browne [no salutation], Hilton Head Island, S.C., May 15, 1865, part of Charleston, S.C., May 11, 1865 (gathering); Albert Browne to Sarah Browne, Savannah, Ga., May 16, 1865 (momentous, hardly); Sarah Browne to Albert Browne, Salem, Mass., May 14, 1865, all BFP.

  4. Dorman diary, May 10 (insult), Apr. 16 (blame, Hell-hounds), May 12 (contemptible), 1865.

  5. Dorman diary, May 12 (pitiful, outrages), 7 (beshit), Apr. 16 (black-hearted), May 16 (mischief, out-negro), 1865.

  6. Dorman diary, May 25 (not criminal), June 14 (retribution), 1865.

  7. eventful: Horatio Nelson Taft diary, Apr. 30, 1865, LC, available at memory.loc.gov/ammem/tafthtml; years: James Helme Rickard to sister, [near Richmond, Va.], May 11, 1865, Rickard Civil War Letters, AAS; lifetime: Manning Ferguson Force to “Mr. Kebler” [?], Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 20, 1865 (letter copied into journal), Force Papers, LC; Franklin Augustus Buck to Mary Sewall Bradley, Weaverville, Calif., Apr. 27, 1865, Buck Papers, HL; 500: Nathan Seymour to Thomas Day Seymour, Hudson, Ohio, Apr. 13, 1865, Seymour Family Papers, Yale-Sterling; century: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; remarkable: Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, May 9, 1865, box 23, Hale Papers, NYSL; remember: Abigail Williams May to Eleanor Goddard May, Boston, Apr. 16, 1865, May and Goddard Family Papers, SL.

  8. private: Elizabeth Blackwell to Barbara Bodichon, New York, May 23, 1865, Blackwell Letters, Columbia.

  9. had felt: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, Apr. 15, 1865, MHS; tired: Anne Baldwin to Charlotte Nettleton, New York, Apr. 25, 1865, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke.

  10. exciting: Emma F. LeConte diary, “Friday” [Apr. 21], 1865, reel 22, SHC-AWD-South; reflections: Albert Quincy Porter diary, May 30, 1865, ts., LC.

  11. As James Oakes notes, union and slavery were inseparable for both radical and moderate Republicans during the war; see Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), 108, 117, 200, 242.

  12. citizenship: William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1900), 2:289 (“Frederick Stone, counsel for Harold [sic] after Booth’s death, is authority for the statement”); fraught: Abraham Lincoln, “Last Public Address,” Apr. 11, 1865, CWL, 8:400.

  13. worse: John Q. Anderson, ed., Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861–1868 (1955; reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 341 (May 15, 1865, entry); rail-splitter: Emma F. LeConte diary, “Friday” [Apr. 21], 1865, reel 22, SHC-AWD-South; all: Edward J. Bartlett to Martha Bartlett, South Side Railroad, Va., Apr. 23, 1865, Bartlett Letters, MHS.

  14. diabolical: “Speech to Indiana Delegation,” Apr. 21, 1865, PAJ, 7:610–15; over: Kate Cumming, Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse, ed. Richard Barksdale Harwell (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 290 (May 15, 1865, entry), NAWLD; traitor: William Kauffman Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin: A Dream Shattered, June, 1863–June, 1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 865 (Apr. 25, 1865, entry); Herod: Daniel Dudley Avery to Dudley Avery, “Petit Ance Island,” May 12, 1865, Avery Family Papers, ser. J, part 5, reel 11, SHC-RSP; from: Chester dispatch, Richmond, Va., May 15, 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), 347.

  15. same: “a Southern Man” to Andrew Johnson, Saint Louis, Mo., May 31, 1865, PAJ, 8:159; shoot: “A Southerner for life” to Andrew Johnson, “Canada,” June 1, 1865, PAJ, 8:166; heaven’s: “From a Loyal Woman of Virginia” to Andrew Johnson, Baltimore, Apr. 15, 18
65, PAJ, 7:559.

  16. hereafter: Frederick Douglass, “The Fall of Richmond: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 4 April 1865,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:73; less: “Lee’s Surrender—Peace,” New York Anglo-African, Apr. 15, 1865; might not: Hope R. Daggett to George Whipple, Norfolk, Va., Apr. [n.d.], 1865, #H1-7058, reel 210, AMA.

  17. colored: “Andrew Johnson President of the United States,” New Orleans Black Republican, Apr. 22, 1865, #15222, BAP; hope: “From the Regiments,” letter from Richard H. Black, 3rd U.S.C.T., Fernandina, Fla., New York Anglo-African, May 27, 1865.

  18. freind: William B. Scott and William B. Scott Jr. to President Johnson, Nashville, Tenn., May 27, 1865, PAJ, 8:120; liberty: “Response to John Mercer Langston,” PAJ, 7:585–86n2; control: “Petition from the Colored People of Alexandria,” Alexandria, Va., Apr. 29, 1865, PAJ, 7:656–58.

  19. loyal, fighting, mantle: “From North Carolina Blacks,” New Bern, N.C., May 10, 1865, PAJ, 8:58; heroic: “From Committee of Richmond Blacks,” Richmond, Va., June 10, 1865, PAJ, 8:210.

  20. new skin: Frederick Douglass, “In What New Skin Will the Old Snake Come Forth?: An Address Delivered in New York, New York, on 10 May 1865,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:83, 85.

  21. very, curious: Salmon P. Chase to Andrew Johnson, Hilton Head Island, S.C., May 17, 1865, and Salmon P. Chase to Andrew Johnson, Fernandina, Fla., May 21, 1865, in James E. Sefton, “Chief Justice Chase as an Advisor on Presidential Reconstruction,” Civil War History 13 (1967), 253, 261; dignity: Dorman diary, May 18, 1865; inferior: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).

  22. guaranty: “Response to John Mercer Langston,” Apr. 18, 1865, PAJ, 7:585; necessary, native, loafers: “Reply to Delegation of Black Ministers,” May 11, 1865, PAJ, 8:63, 62.

  A minority of ardent white southern Unionists joined African Americans in directly confronting President Johnson, demanding black suffrage as a way to curtail the power of the aristocracy; see James E. Hamilton to Andrew Johnson, New York, May 3, 1865, and Joseph Noxon to Andrew Johnson, New York, May 27, 1865, PAJ, 8:20, 119.

  23. time: “Reply to Delegation of Black Ministers,” May 11, 1865, PAJ, 8:63; we see: William Benjamin Gould diary, June 14, 1865, MHS.

  24. equal: Anna M. Ferris diary, Apr. 16, 1865, Ferris Family Papers, FHL; rather: Henry Morrill to C. Henry Albers, Memphis, Tenn., Apr. 20, 1865, Morrill Papers, Western Americana, Yale-Beinecke; read: “Maggie!”: Maggie Lindsley’s Journal, Nashville, Tennessee, 1864, Washington, D.C., 1865 (Southbury, Conn.: Muriel Davies Mackenzie, 1977), 84 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); drunken: “Carrie” to sister, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, box 2, fol. 27, Richard John Levy and Sally Waldman Sweet Collection, NYPL.

  25. given: David Homer Bates diary, Apr. 15, 1865, Bates Papers, LC; favorably: James Thomas Ward diary, Apr. 17, 1865, Ward Papers, LC.

  26. sterner: Samuel Comfort to Susan Comfort, Petersburg, Va., Apr. 21, 1865, Comfort Papers, Princeton; radical: Hallock Armstrong to Mary Armstrong, near Petersburg, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, in Letters from a Pennsylvania Chaplain at the Siege of Petersburg: 1865 (n.p.: Privately published, 1961), 28, ACWLD; yielding: Caroline Butler Laing to Mary Butler Reeves, Brooklyn, N.Y., Apr. 21, 1865, Butler-Laing Family Papers, NYHS; traitors: Selden Connor to father, Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, 1865, Connor Papers, Brown; hemp: John B. Burrud to Ocena Burrud, Charlestown, Va., Apr. 19, 1865, Burrud Papers, HL; silk: Georgia Treadway to Newton Perkins, New Haven, Conn., Apr. 16, 1865, Montgomery Family Papers, LC; necessary: Lydia Maria Child to John Greenleaf Whittier, May 1865, fragment, Child Letters, SL; smooth: John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Question of To-Day,” Liberator, May 26, 1865; star: 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), 14–15.

  27. made: “The Blacks and the Ballot,” Christian Recorder, May 27, 1865; emancipated: “Emancipation of the White Man,” New York Anglo-African, July 23, 1865; prejudiced: J. H. Payne, “Letter from Wilmington,” Wilmington, N.C., Aug. 12, 1865, Christian Recorder, published Aug. 19, 1865.

  28. plebeins: Stephen M. Barbour to Andrew Johnson, Philadelphia, May 1, 1865, PAJ, 8:3; poor: Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, Boston, Apr. 25, 26, 1865, box 6, Hale Papers, NYSL; background: Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Blake Shaw, Apr. [n.d.], 1865, Child Letters, SL; greatest: Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, May 1, 1855, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Civil War in the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1937), 275.

  29. suffer, sorry: Ebenezer N. Gilpin diary, Apr. 24, May 5, 16, 1865, Gilpin Papers, LC; ready: Richard G. Lay to Carrie Lay, Danville, Va., May 3, 1865, Lay Letters, NYPL; completely, peace: William C. McLean diary, May 2, Apr. 30, 1865, ts., McLean Family Papers, NYSL; hoped: Theophilus M. Magaw diary, Apr. 21, 1865, Magaw Papers, HL.

  30. disfranchise: Chauncey Welton to parents, Raleigh, N.C., Apr. 19, 1865, Welton Papers, SHC.

  31. bold: Heber Painter to Rebecca Frick, Richmond, Va., Apr. 16, 1865, #02016.082, GLC-NYHS; obliged: C. P. Day to George Whipple, Hampton, Va., Apr. 21, 1865, #H1-7022, reel 209, AMA; not subdued: Warren Goodale to children, Petersburg, Va., Apr. 20, 1865, Goodale Papers, MHS; dangerous: W. D. Harris to George Whipple, Portsmouth, Va., May 1, 1865, #H1-062, reel 210, AMA; lethal: Harriet E. Gaylord to George Whipple, Natchez, Miss., May 1, 1865, #71762, reel 111, AMA; Mr. Lincoln: W. L. Coan to M. E. Strieby, Richmond, Va., Apr. 30, 1865, #H1-7050, reel 210, AMA.

  32. fatal, Booth, genuine, forgive: Martha Coffin Wright to Marianna Pelham Mott, Auburn, N.Y., May 4, 1865, box 265, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; subordinates: Martha Coffin Wright to David Wright, Roxbury, Mass., May 24, 1865, box 267, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; Toussaint: Martha Coffin Wright to sisters, Auburn, N.Y., June 25, 1865, box 266, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; horrible, gentle: Octavius B. Frothingham, “The Saints Coming from the Graves,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, Apr. 29, 1865, pp. 2–3.

  33. headlines: Benjamin Brown French to Frank O. French, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1865, French Papers, LC; telegraph: Frederick G. Niles diary, May 16, 1865, HL; newsboys: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, May 14, 1865, MHS; celebrations: Asa Fitch diary, May 15, 1865, Fitch Papers, Yale-Sterling; Silas W. Haven to Jane Haven, Montgomery, Ala., May 17, 1865, in “A Punishment on the Nation”: An Iowa Soldier Endures the Civil War, ed. Brian Craig Miller (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2012), 178; mingled: Harriet Anne Severance diary, May 15, 1865, SL; let us pass: James Harrison Wilson to “Ad,” Macon, Ga., May 13, 1865, Adam Badeau Civil War Letters, Princeton; disguised: Sarah Browne diary, May 15, 1865, BFP; ridiculous: Annie G. Dudley Davis diary, May 15, 1865, HL; ludicrous: Thomas Bradford Drew diary, May 14, 1865, MHS; disgraced: Lucretia Hale to Charles Hale, Brookline, Mass., May 19, 1865, box 50, Hale Family Papers, SSC; Emmeline Yelland to Albert Yelland, [no place], May 23, 1865, Yelland Family Correspondence, Duke; king: Edgar Dinsmore to Carrie Drayton, Saint Andrews Parish, S.C., May 29, 1865, Dinsmore Papers, Duke; woman: Ellis Hughes diary, May 15, 1865, Hughes-Gray Family Papers, Duke; images: Simon Newcomb diary, June 7, 1865, Newcomb Papers, LC; sales: Sarah Lydia Gilpin diary, May 24, 1865, #06846.05, GLC-NYHS; Caroline Dunstan diary, May 25, 1865, NYPL.

  34. shall: Samuel May almanac, Apr. 12, 1865, May Papers, MHS; measure: Charles Edward French diary, May 14, 1865, French Diaries and Papers, MHS; fitted: Edgar Dinsmore to Carrie Drayton, Saint Andrews Parish, S.C., May 29, 1865, Dinsmore Papers, Duke; ready: William Benjamin Gould diary, June 16, 1865, MHS; roasted: Sarah G. Putnam diary, Apr. 27, 1865, MHS; no other: Lydia Maria Child to John Greenleaf Whittier, May 1865, fragment, Child Letters, SL.

  35. force: William Dean Howells to William Cooper Howells, Venice, June 6, 1865, 1784.1.2(78), Howells Family Papers, HLH; anxious: Charles Francis Adams to John G. Palfrey, London, June 6, 1865, Letterbooks, Adams Papers, MHS; consternation: Charles Francis Adams diary, May 27, June 14, 1865, and Ad
ams to William Hunter, London, June 15, 1865, Letterbooks, Adams Papers, MHS; martyr: Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams Jr., London, May 26, 1865, Letters Received and Other Loose Papers, Adams Papers, MHS; suicide: William H. Stewart diary, May 11, 1865, ts., SHC.

  36. renew: Emma F. LeConte diary, “Thursday” [May 18], 1865, reel 22, SHC-AWD-South.

  37. horsecars: Marian Hooper to Mary Louisa Shaw, Boston, May 28, 1865, in The Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 1865–1883, ed. Ward Thoron (Boston: Little, Brown, 1936), 5.

  38. weather: Charles T. Cotton diary, May 23, 24, 1865, Columbia; troops: Benjamin Brown French, Witness to the Young Republic: A Yankee’s Journal, 1828–1870, ed. Donald B. Cole and John J. McDonough (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1989), 478 (May 24, 1865, entry); hours: Samuel Canby diary, May 24, 1865, DHS; marching: Walt Whitman to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, Washington, D.C., May 25, 1865, available at whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/cw/tei/wwh.00008.html; “John Brown”: Marian Hooper to Mary Louisa Shaw, Boston, May 28, 1865, in Thoron, Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 7; flags: Annie G. Dudley Davis diary, May 28, 1865, HL.

  For observations of African Americans marching, see also Marian Hooper to Mary Louisa Shaw, Boston, May 28, 1865, in Thoron, Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 8. On black troops, see Noah Brooks, “The Grand Review—First Day,” Washington, D.C., May 23, 1865, in Mr. Lincoln’s Washington: Selections from the Writings of Noah Brooks, Civil War Correspondent, ed. P. J. Staudenraus (South Brunswick, N.J.: Thomas Yoseloff, 1967), 475.

  39. generations, return: French, Witness to the Young Republic, 479 (May 24, 1865, entry); greatest: Simon Newcomb diary, May 24, 1865, Newcomb Papers, LC; continent, never return: James Thomas Ward diary, May 23, 1865, Ward Papers, LC; magnificent, all: Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, 3 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 2:310 (May 22–23, 1865, entry); should: Abial H. Edwards to Anna L. Conant, Washington, D.C., May 26, 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), 128; strange: Marian Hooper to Mary Louisa Shaw, Boston, May 28, 1865, in Thoron, Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 7.