Mourning Lincoln

by Martha Hodes

  40. looking: Stephen Minot Weld to Hannah Weld, near Alexandria, Va., May 25, 1865, in War Diary and Letters of Stephen Minot Weld, 1861–1865 (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1912), 399; perlite: Guy C. Taylor to Sarah Taylor, near Washington, Va., May 20, 1865, in Letters Home to Sarah: The Civil War Letters of Guy C. Taylor, Thirty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, ed. Kevin Alderson and Patsy Alderson (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 263; tired: Rufus Mead Jr. diary, May 24, 1865, Mead Papers, LC.

  41. devilish: Mary H. and Dallas M. Lancaster, eds., The Civil War Diary of Anne S. Frobel (McLean, Va.: EPM, 1992), 230 (May 22, 1865, entry).

  Interlude: Relics

  1. postcards, First Lady: “Cornelia” to parent(s), New York, Apr. 17–19, 1865, Lincoln Miscellaneous Manuscripts, NYHS; medal: Frances Owens diary, May 3, 1865, CHM; Johnson: F. C. Chambers diary, Apr. 24, 1865, Chambers Family Diaries, Princeton; Washington: Caroline Dunstan diary, May 29, 1865, NYPL; photographs: William Gray Brooks diary, May 9, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; Harriet Anne Severance diary, July 1, 1865, SL; Margaret B. Howell diary, May 9, 1865, HSP; Tad, speeches, memorial book: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, May 5, 15, 13, 1865, MHS; Booth, biography: Susan E. Parsons Brown Forbes diary, Apr. 18, 1865, AAS; Booth: E. Gould to John Mead Gould, Portland, Me., Apr. 17, 1865, Gould Papers, Duke; sermons: William Gray Brooks diary, May 9, 1865, Brooks Papers, MHS; memorial: B. F. Morris, Memorial Record of the Nation’s Tribute to Abraham Lincoln (Washington, D.C.: W. H. and O. H. Morrison, 1865).

  Victor Searcher writes, “The memorabilia of Lincoln’s passing—the badges, pamphlets, posters, books, special newspaper editions, magazine features, sketches, engravings, photographs and other souvenirs—is beyond belief”; see The Farewell to Lincoln (New York: Abingdon, 1965), 294.

  2. renewed, drapery: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, May 13, June 26, 1865, MHS.

  3. scrapbooks: scrapbook compiled by J. W. H. Cathcart, 24-S12, ser. K, Cromwell Family Papers, Schomburg; Samuel Canby diary, May 1865, DHS; New Yorker: “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; Carrington: C. C. Carrington, “Assassination and Funeral of President Lincoln,” scrap-book, 1865–71, 2 vols., McLellan Lincoln Collection, Brown.

  4. collar: Newton Ferree diary, Apr. 14, 1865, in “Eyewitness to History: Newton Ferree, the Lincoln Assassination and the Close of the Civil War in Washington,” ed. John K. Lattimer and Terry Alford, Lincoln Herald 58 (1956), 97; towel: Augustus Clark to S. M. Allen, Washington, D.C., Apr. 16, 1865, accompanying scrap of bloodstained towel used for Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, Special Collections, MHS; alley: 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), 8; crestfallen: Catherine Gansevoort Lansing diary, May 23–28, 1865, box 255, Gansevoort-Lansing Papers, NYPL; crape, theater, Petersen’s: James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, “Chapel Pt.,” May 7, 1865, and James Otis Moore to Mary Elizabeth Moore, Washington, D.C., Apr. 20, 1865, Moore Papers, Duke.

  5. left: Marian Hooper to Mary Louisa Shaw, Boston, May 28, 1865, in Thoron, Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams, 8.

  Chapter 10. Justice

  1. Dorman diary, June 20 (rebellion, surpassing), May 30 (people, thousand), 2 (damned), June 7 (sharks, contemptible), 9 (ninnyhammers, blaspheming, craven), 24 (dogs), 1865.

  2. Dorman diary, June 20 (flummery, starvation), 27 (property, education), 18 (theives), May 23 (inciters), 16 (ignorant, insolent), 28 (worse), 1865; on slave property, see also May 12, 1865.

  oath: Justus Silliman to brother, Jacksonville, Fla., May 18, 1865, in A New Canaan Private in the Civil War: Letters of Justus M. Silliman, 17th Connecticut Volunteers, ed. Edward Marcus (New Canaan, Conn.: New Canaan Historical Society, 1984), 108.

  3. Dorman diary, June 10 (worst), 3 (enjoy), Apr. 26 (tyranny), 1865.

  changes, die: William B. Johnson, “Florida Correspondence,” Jacksonville, Fla., June 22, 1865, Christian Recorder, published July 8, 1865.

  4. Dorman diary, June 27 (negroes), May 15 (war, one sided), 14 (no better), 30 (over), 1865.

  5. Albert Browne to Sarah Browne, Savannah, Ga., May 16, 1865 (disfranchise, literacy); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 28, 1865 (part of Apr. 24 letter) (active); Albert Browne, [no salutation], Charleston, S.C., May 11, 1865 (loyal, ballot), all BFP.

  6. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 28, 1865 (part of Apr. 24 letter) (wonder, acres); Albert Browne, [no salutation], Charleston, S.C., May 11, 1865 (supported); Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 27, 1865 (part of Apr. 24 letter) (demand), all BFP.

  7. Albert Browne to “Dear Ones,” Charleston, S.C., Apr. 28, 1865 (part of Apr. 24 letter) (human nature, fancy); Albert Browne, [no salutation], Charleston, S.C., May 11, 1865 (dont love); Sarah Browne diary, May 1, 1864 (earnest), May 26, 1865 (dear), all BFP.

  8. unsatisfactory, cup: Abraham Lincoln, “Last Public Address,” Apr. 11, 1865, CWL, 8:403, 404.

  9. inexorable: Chester dispatch, Richmond, Va., May 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), 348–49; confidence: “The Duties of the Nation,” San Francisco Elevator, May 19, 1865, #4997, BAP; right: “Box,” letter to the editor, May 28, 1865, San Francisco Elevator, published July 7, 1865, #4993, BAP; awakened: “Emancipation Celebration at Bath, Pennsylvania,” Christian Recorder, Aug. 12, 1865.

  10. enemies: 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); noble: John H. Winston, letter to the editor, New Orleans Black Republican, Apr. 22, 1865, #3405, BAP.

  11. loyal: Andrew Johnson, “Address to Loyal Southerners,” Apr. 24, 1865, PAJ, 7:631.

  12. pardon: Andrew Johnson, “Amnesty Proclamation,” May 29, 1865,, PAJ, 8:128–31.

  13. For a clear summary of the proclamation, see James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 498–99; we see: William Benjamin Gould diary, July 11, 1865, MHS; after: “Will Justice Be Done?” San Francisco Elevator, June 2, 1865, #5477, BAP; differ: Lincoln, “Last Public Address,” Apr. 11, 1865, CWL, 8:401.

  14. best friend: “The Richmond Freedmen: Their Visit to the President,” New York Daily Tribune, June 17, 1865; welcomed, laws, women, many: “From Committee of Richmond Blacks,” Richmond, Va., June 10, 1865, PAJ, 8:210–14 and n6; political, poured: “From Delegation Representing the Black People of Kentucky,” Washington, D.C., June 9, 1865, PAJ, 8:203–5; protecting: “From South Carolina Black Citizens,” [no city], June 29, 1865, PAJ, 8:317; expect: Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1865, cited in PAJ, 8:205n8.

  15. fitting: Charles Francis Adams diary, Apr. 26, 1865, Adams Papers, MHS; rehabilitation: Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams Jr., London, May 12, 1865, Letters Received and Other Loose Papers, Adams Papers, MHS.

  16. Whig: Charles Francis Adams diary, May 25, 1865, Adams Papers, MHS; blockade: Charles Francis Adams to William Hunter, London, May 25, 1865, Letterbooks, Adams Papers, MHS; whipped, shuddered, tired, beaten: Benjamin Moran diary, Apr. 17, May 26, 31, 17, 1865, Moran Papers, LC; protect: Charles Francis Adams diary, May 26, 1865, Adams Papers, MHS.

  17. sacrifice, no difficulty: Charles Francis Adams diary, July 10, 1865, Adams Papers, MHS; lenient: Charles Francis Adams to William Hunter, London, May 25, 1865, Letter-books, Adams Papers, MHS.

  18. readmitting: “Proclamation Establishing Government for North
Carolina,” May 29, 1865, PAJ, 8:136–38; white: John W. Gorham to Andrew Johnson, Clarksville, Tenn., June 3, 1865, PAJ, 8:173.

  19. not dead: P. Houston Murray, “Negro Suffering and Suffrage in the South,” Natchez, Miss., June 10, 1865, Christian Recorder, published July 1, 1865; trouble: J. H. Payne, “Letter from Wilmington,” Wilmington, N.C., Aug. 12, 1865, Christian Recorder, published Aug. 19, 1865; mistaken: J. J. Wright, “Reconstruction,” Christian Recorder, July 8, 1865.

  20. question: Henry W. Halleck to Francis Lieber, Richmond, Va., June 14, 1865, box 10, Lieber Papers, HL; please: Nicholas B. Wainwright, ed., A Philadelphia Perspective: The Diary of Sidney George Fisher …, 1834–1871 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1967), 499 (June 8, 1865, entry); voters, gained: Abial H. Edwards to Marcia Edwards, Darlington, S.C., Aug. 13, 1865, and Abial H. Edwards to Anna L. Conant, Darlington, S.C., Oct. 22, 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), 135, 140.

  21. abandoned, unquestionably: Carl Schurz to Frederick Althaus, Bethlehem, Pa., June 25, 1865, and Carl Schurz to wife, Savannah, Ga., July 30, 1865, in Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz, 1841–1869, trans. and ed. Joseph Schafer (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1928), 341, 345; not abolished: Martha Coffin Wright to sisters, Auburn, N.Y., June 25, 1865, box 266, Garrison Family Papers, SSC; Andy: Samuel Miller Quincy to mother, New Orleans, June 28, 1865, Quincy, Wendell, Holmes, Upham Family Papers, MHS.

  22. slavery: 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.

  23. freedpeople: David Todd to George Whipple, Pine Bluff, Ark., May 31, 1865, #4608, reel 8, AMA; sorry: Eliza F. Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864–1865 (New York: D. Appleton, 1908), 281–82 (June 1, 1865, entry), DocSouth, docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/andrews/menu.html; not think: Richard L. Troutman, ed., The Heavens Are Weeping: The Diaries of George Richard Browder, 1852–1886 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987), 199 (June 1, 1865, entry); friends: Hattie Powell to Nina Powell, Richmond, Va., June 15, 1865, Powell Family Papers, ser. C, reel 6, WM-SWF.

  24. festival: Caroline Barrett White diary, June 1, 1865, White Papers, AAS; show: George E. Ellis diary, June 1, 1865, Ellis Papers, MHS; imitation: Ezra Stiles Gannett daily journal, June 1, 1865, Gannett Papers, MHS; work: Alpheus B. Kenyon diary, June 1, 1865, GWBW; glorious: Kate Hunter journal, June 1, 1865, Hunter Family Papers, ser. B, part 2, reel 27, NHS-NWF; chess: Simon Newcomb to wife, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1865, Newcomb Papers, LC; backgammon: Mary Dreer diary, June 1, 1865, Edwin Greble Papers, LC; soldiers: William D. Guernsey to Emeline Guernsey, Atlanta, Ga., June 1, 1865, Guernsey Family Papers, HL; more truly: Anna Cabot Lowell diary, June 1, 1865, MHS; still lives: Abram Verrick Parmenter diary, June 1, 1865, Parmenter Papers, LC; sacred: Mary (Jackson) Darlington to William S. Jackson, Elkdale, Pa., June 1, 1865, Alger Family Papers, SL; hauling: F. C. Chambers diary, June 1, 1865, Chambers Family Diaries, Princeton.

  25. unsurpassed: Frederick Douglass eulogy on Abraham Lincoln, June 1, 1865, holo-graph document, #177, digital ID #al0177, Frederick Douglass Papers, LC, available at loc.gov/exhibits/lincoln/lincoln-and-frederick-douglass.html; real: Martha Fisher Anderson diary, June 1, 1865, MHS; slave power: Lucretia Hale to Charles Hale, Brookline, Mass., June 2, 1865, box 50, Hale Family Papers, SSC.

  26. malice: Robert W. Chaffin journal, May 14, 1865, Washington Sandford Chaffin Papers, Duke; hateful: Sarah Lois Wadley diary, May 13, 1865, Wadley Papers, ser. A, part 3, reel 6, SHC-SWF; unbearable: Elizabeth (Alsop) Wynne diary, Apr. 22, 1865, Wynne Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 52, VHS-SWF; exulting: Samuel A. Burney to wife, Wooten’s Station, Ga., Apr. 26, 1865, in A Southern Soldier’s Letters Home: The Civil War Letters of Samuel A. Burney, Cobb’s Georgia Legion, Army of Northern Virginia, ed. Nat S. Turner III (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2003), 293.

  27. walk, horrid: Emma F. LeConte diary, May 17 and “Thursday” [May 18], 1865, reel 22, SHC-AWD-South; negro president: Mary H. and Dallas M. Lancaster, eds., The Civil War Diary of Anne S. Frobel (McLean, Va.: EPM, 1992), 226 (May 10, 1865, entry).

  28. cowed: John Payne to W. W. Thomas, near Mobile, Ala., May 26, 1865, Payne Papers, Civil War Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, Schomburg; badly: Henry J. Peck to Mary Peck, Richmond, Va., May 1, 1865, Peck Correspondence, NYSL; whipped, beaten: Benjamin Moran diary, Apr. 17, May 17, 1865, Moran Papers, LC; completely: William C. McLean diary, May 2, 1865, ts., McLean Family Papers, NYSL; nature: Henry A. Chambers diary, Apr. 10, 1865, Chambers Papers, SHC; subjugated: Caroline Thornton diary, Apr. 9, 1865, Green Family Papers, ser. D, part 3, reel 16, VHS-SWF; flies: Cornelia Spencer journal, June 8, 1865, Spencer Papers, ser. A, part 7, reel 16, SHC-SWF.

  29. rivet: 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); bondage: sister to “Fannie,” “Willowdew,” June 6, 1865, Graves Family Papers, ser. A, part 5, reel 11, SHC-SWF; vilest: 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); race, without: William Kauffman Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin: A Dream Shattered, June, 1863–June, 1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 884, 889 (May 9, 13, 1865, entries).

  For a rare Confederate voice articulating that former masters “have now changed in their opinions” about slavery because of God’s punishment through war, see Norman D. Brown, ed., One of Cleburne’s Command: The Civil War Reminiscences and Diary of Capt. Samuel T. Foster, Granbury’s Texas Brigade, CSA (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 171 (Apr. 30, 1865, entry), and see 176 (May 16, 1865, entry), professing readiness to submit.

  30. Yankee: Junius Newport Bragg to Anna J. G. Bragg, near Marshall, Tex., Apr. 23, 1865, in Bragg, Letters of a Confederate Surgeon, 1861–65, ed. Helen Bragg Gaughan (Camden, Ark.: Hurley, 1960), 272, ACWLD; Europe: Charles Woodward Hutson to “My dear friend,” Paris, [day illegible], 1865, Hutson Papers, SHC.

  For Latin America, see Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 79–113, and Cyrus B. Dawsey and James M. Dawsey, eds., The Confederados: Old South Immigrants in Brazil (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995).

  31. outrage: Scarborough, Diary of Edmund Ruffin, 946 (June 16–18, 1865, entries); bear: Charles Woodward Hutson diary, Apr. 18, 1865, Hutson Papers, SHC; years: John Steele Henderson diary, July 23, 1865, ts., Henderson Papers, ser. J, part 13, reel 25, SHC-RSP; not all: Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, June 24, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM.

  32. second: Cloe (Whittle) Greene diary, Apr. 19, 1865, reel 4, WM-AWD-South; two: Martha E. Foster Crawford diary, June 17, 1865, ser. H, part 2, reel 21, Duke-SWF, and see Abraham Lincoln, “‘A House Divided’: Speech at Springfield, Illinois,” June 16, 1858, in CWL, 2:461; Reconstruction: Elizabeth Collier diary, Apr. 25, 1865, ts., SHC; sooner: E. S. Mallory to Edward J. Garnet, Liberty, Va., May 12, 1865, Flora Morgan McCabe Papers, LC.

  33. best: Anderson, Brokenburn, 340 (May 15, 1865, entry); bully: Henry Robinson Berkeley diary, May 20, 1865, Berkeley Papers, ser. A, reel 2, VHS-CMM; venerate: Julia Watson to Katherine Douglas Meares, Lexington, England, June 15, 1865, De Rosset Family Papers, ser. A, part 8, reel 16, SHC-SWF.

  34. Clausewitz: James M. McPherson, “War and Politics,” in Geoffrey C. Ward, The Civil War: An Illustrated History (New York: Vintage, 1994), 282, writing about the year 1864.

  35. fiercer: Frederick Douglass, “The Fall of Richmond: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 4 April 1865,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:73, and Douglass made the same point yet earlier, in “Emancipation, Racism, and the Work before Us: An Address Delivered in Phil
adelphia, Pennsylvania on 4 December 1863,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:605 (“the bitter revenge which shall crystalize all over the South”); cessation: “Lee’s Surrender—Peace,” New York Anglo-African, Apr. 15, 1865 (published before news of the assassination arrived).

  36. spirit: Frederick Douglass, “Our Martyred President: An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 15 April 1865,” FDP, ser. 1, 4:78; saved: James Freeman Clarke, “Who Hath Abolished Death,” in Sermons Preached in Boston on the Death of Abraham Lincoln (Boston: J. E. Tilton, 1865), 101–2.

  Scholars have implied that the victors made Reconstruction harsher as a result of Lincoln’s assassination. For example, John Fabian Witt writes, “After John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln on April 14, a mere five days after the courtly meeting of military commanders at Appomattox, northern sentiment tipped toward a fierce justice for the postwar world”; see Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (New York: Free Press, 2012), 286–87. William C. Harris writes that “the spirit of vengeance that swept the North following Lincoln’s murder greatly complicated postwar reconstruction”; see With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), 265. Don E. Fehrenbacher writes that Lincoln’s assassination “undoubtedly helped set the emotional tone for a harsher reconstruction policy”; see “The Death of Lincoln,” in Lincoln in Text and Context: Collected Essays (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987), 170.

  37. vestige: “George W. Julian’s Journal—The Assassination of Lincoln,” Indiana Magazine of History 11 (1915), 335 (Apr. 15, 1865, entry); lesson: 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), 16, 14. See also S. W. Magill to “Secretaries A.M.A.,” Savannah, Ga., May 8, 1865, #19368, reel 30, AMA: a white missionary working among freedpeople understood Lincoln’s death as divine providence, since the crime brought the nation to “a sharper & better tone in regard to the punishment of traitors, and the carrying out of the great measures for which Mr. Lincoln became a martyr.”