The Day Lincoln Was Shot Read online

  He was barely savoring the exultation of it when a telegraph key started an insistent chatter in straight English:

  “From Richmond,” it began. Two army operators listened, in bug-eyed disbelief, then emitted a whoop and ordered a fifteen-year-old apprentice telegrapher, Willie Kettles, to copy the rest of it. The two operators threw up a front window and began to roar, in unison: “Richmond has fallen! Richmond has fallen! Richmond has fallen!” Citizens on the walk below looked up anxiously. The two yelled the louder. Drays on the cobbles, and carriages too, came to a stop. The faces below began to comprehend; they began to crease in attitudes of smiles, and relief, and sudden sadness and ecstasy. An aged man threw his hat down and jumped on it. A woman blessed herself. A wagon driver burst into tears and blew his nose.

  The cry was taken up, and boys skittered down Pennsylvania Avenue in the cool yellow sunshine passing the word and bumping into people and the word began to spread quickly and wildly. When it reached the offices of the Washington Star, an editor ran out front and printed in chalk on a big blackboard:

  GLORY!!! HAIL COLUMBIA!!!

  HALLELUJAH!!! RICHMOND OURS!!!

  In a public park, a battery of guns was limbering up when the word came. The officer in charge became so excited that he ordered an immediate salute of eight hundred rounds, three hundred for Petersburg and five hundred for Richmond. The cannonading was massive and, as it echoed across the Navy Yard, an officer heard it and, not knowing the news, decided to fire one hundred rounds on a big Dahlgren gun on the chance that the news might be important. In an hour, the offices of Washington City were almost empty, and many of the stores were without clerks. Stranger hugged stranger and the taverns did a brisk morning business. The courts adjourned. Children skipped home from school. The banks closed. Church bells tolled in the hollows between mountainous crashes of artillery. Flags appeared before the homes of the loyal and the disloyal. Horse cars stopped running. An impromptu parade started on Sixth Street, the first of many. Negro families emerged from shacks shyly, like children hoping to be asked to a party. Unbidden orators stood on the several hotel steps, faces red, arms waving, but not a word was heard in the bedlam.

  Mr. Stanton, surrendering to a rare moment of happiness, leaned from a War Department window and held up a hand for silence. He asked the crowd below to beg Providence “to teach us how to be humble in the midst of triumph.” In the momentary vacuum, someone said that Richmond was burning, and the crowd roared: “Let ’er burn!” Willie Kettles was introduced from the telegraph window as the “man” who had received the auspicious message. Willie bowed gravely from the waist.

  On E Street, two squadrons of cavalry met and, without orders, got into parade formation and in a moment a brigade of infantry fell in behind. As the parade moved, it grew. An hour later, the cavalrymen led it across the south grounds of the White House and they were surprised to find that they were being reviewed by General C. C. Augur.

  This was going to go on, sporadically, for twelve days. It was the wildest celebration known to the young Republic and it would not end until the nation was plunged into deepest grief. On some days, it would flag a little, through surfeit or exhaustion, and then fresh news of victory would come and it would revive in Washington City and New York and Spring-field and St. Paul and in the crossroad settlements across the country. The feeling in most minds was that two incredible things had happened: the war was over; we won it.

  And yet it was not quite over. Lee’s army was still in the field. It was a striking unit in being; it had its fighting units intact, its stores, its staff. It was dying in dignity, and no one in the Army of the Potomac was celebrating.

  The President sent word to Stanton that he was about to sail upriver to take a look at burned-out Richmond, and the Secretary of War was beset with misgivings. Had he the power, Stanton would have placed the President under military detention to keep him out of Richmond. He knew that Mrs. Lincoln had returned to Washington yesterday, and would not return to her husband for a few days, but Stanton did not visit the White House on this Monday, April 3, to ask her to stop Lincoln. There is no record that he even visited to ask how she enjoyed her trip.

  Instead, Stanton tried the direct approach. He sent a message to Lincoln:

  “I congratulate you and the nation on the glorious news in your telegram just recd. Allow me respectfully to ask you to consider whether you ought to expose the nation to the consequences of any disaster to yourself in the pursuit of a treacherous and dangerous enemy like the rebel army. . . . Commanding Generals are in the line of their duty in running such risks. But is the political head of a nation in the same condition?”

  The President read it, was comforted by the solicitude of his Secretary of War, and took a boat up the river to Richmond. When he disembarked at a riverbank on the edge of the Confederate capital, Admiral Porter was at his side. A small group of Negroes saw the overly tall man with the stovepipe hat scrambling up the bank and, when they saw the quizzical, sad smile on the thick lips, a few recognized him from half-remembered pictures. They began to shout and bow and a group gathered about him, a few kneeling to kiss his black shoes.

  “Don’t kneel to me,” the President said sharply. “This is not right.” He glanced around the circle of dark faces and saw the wonderment in them. “You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy. I am but God’s humble instrument, but you may rest assured that, as long as I live, no one shall put a shackle to your limbs, and you shall have all the rights which God has given to every other free citizen of this Republic.”

  He had injected the somber note: “As long as I live. . . .”

  Admiral Porter tried to push the Negroes away. They were as pliant as full wheat. They moved back when pushed. When the hand was removed, they returned. Negroes seemed to be coming from everywhere and the admiral looked around helplessly for help. There was none. The people pressed around the President and they sang and chanted. A few bold ones tried to touch the sleeve of his coat. Lincoln stepped forward, determined to see a part of Richmond, and the circle moved with him. Later, Lincoln was seen and rescued by a roving squadron of U.S. Cavalry. Both groups were equally surprised.

  All of the nation’s news came from the front in these final days. Washington City—normally the master maker of news—was, for the moment, a listening post. Congress had adjourned; many legislators had gone home to mend fences. The streets were full of men in uniform, men from Ohio and Vermont and Illinois and Delaware and Missouri who were on leave from one of the many camps in and around the city, and who wanted, before the war was done, to say that they had seen the new Capitol dome and the White House.

  The most momentous event on Tuesday, April 4, was the arrival of the steamer Thomas Powell with three hundred wounded aboard. The most trivial news was that Mrs. Lincoln, preparing to return to City Point, Virginia, sat in the White House and wrote notes for two of the President’s guards, detailing them to duty at the White House and, in effect, exempting them from being drafted into the Army. Both guards, John Parker and Joseph Sheldon, had been notified that they were being drafted, and both had asked Mrs. Lincoln for the note.

  It was news of a happy sort that the State Department had ordered a grand illumination of all Federal buildings in the District of Columbia for this Tuesday night in celebration of the fall of the Confederate capital. All day, hundreds of workmen crawled along the façades of buildings carrying bunting. The Navy Department built a big model of a full-rigged ship and held it aloft in front of the building with piano wire. Over the front of the Treasury building, a gigantic ten-dollar bill could be seen. The main War Department building was hidden by hundreds of flags.

  Stanton wanted his department to do a memorable thing and so, shortly after sunset, men were stationed in each window of the War Department’s eleven buildings, armed with matches. At twilight, an army band crashed into “The Star-Spangled Banner” and, in an instant, the buildings swam in a pool of yell
ow flame. At the far end of Pennsylvania Avenue, for the first time, the Capitol was lighted from basement to dome by gas, and, across the front, in letters two stories high, blazed the message:

  THIS IS THE LORD’S DOING; IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES.

  The cheerful flicker of candles could be seen in almost every home on every street. Except at Mrs. Surratt’s boardinghouse. Here the shades were drawn and the owner wept.

  The celebrants were on all streets in rollicking bands. In front of the Patent Office, a crowd saw the Vice President and someone yelled “Speech! Speech!” Andrew Johnson, red of face and angry, said that the leader of the rebellion was Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate who had plunged the sword given to him by his country into his mother’s bosom. There were cries of “Hang him! Hang him!” and Johnson roared back: “Yes, hang him twenty times because treason is the greatest of the crimes!”

  The glee of the people was reflected in the newspapers, which, in stories never wider than one column, made the news gladsome and official. The New York Herald was radiant in diminishing sizes of type:

  GRANT

  RICHMOND OURS

  Weitzel Entered the Rebel Capital Yesterday Morning

  MANY GUNS CAPTURED

  Our Troops Received With Enthusiasm

  An editorial, probably written by editor James Gordon Bennett, fed the dream of power politics to the people: “The end of our great Civil War is close at hand,” it said. “It is very easy to see that with the return of peace, this country will be the greatest in the world. Midway between Europe and Asia, geographically, we shall hold the balance of power politically, commercially and financially. As our resources are developed we shall produce the gold, silver, iron, petroleum, corn and cotton for the use of all mankind. We are the center of the world, and we shall move everything by our immense central force. In creating this nation, Providence created the acme of strength and civilization. It is our manifest destiny to lead and rule all other nations.”

  On Wednesday, April 5, Mrs. Lincoln left Washington to rejoin her husband at the front. With her aboard the steamer were a party of friends. The war, within a few days, had taken on the aura of a sport, a hunt. Shipboard life was happily expectant. The steamer was barely past Indian Point when State Secretary William H. Seward, who had planned to join Lincoln to “sell” him on the idea of closing Southern ports to all but Northern traders, was out riding in his carriage. His matched blacks cut a corner too sharply and ran away. The front right wheel of the vehicle was smashed, and it screeched over the paving stones, acting as sled and brake at the same time. Seward pitched out and sustained a broken arm, a broken jaw, multiple contusions of face and head, and concussion of the brain. He was sixty-four.

  A small thing occurred on April 6, a week and a day before the day. John Surratt, son of the boardinghouse widow, arrived in Montreal with dispatches from the Confederate Secretary of State, Mr. Judah Benjamin. For the next week, Surratt would be busy with Southern General Edwin G. Lee.

  Now there was a period of quiet. From Thursday until Sunday, nothing of moment occurred except that General Robert E. Lee made a final, masterful attempt to haul his tired army southwestward to join General Johnston. Coming out of a small valley, his lead regiments saw horsemen on a ridge ahead.

  General Philip Sheridan was calling check.

  On Palm Sunday—April 9—the River Queen came upstream in the afternoon and docked with the President, Mrs. Lincoln, and a party of friends. Mr. Lincoln had heard about Seward’s accident and, begging leave of the others, hurried on alone to his Secretary of State.

  At the “Old Clubhouse”—the Seward home—Lincoln stood hat in hand in the lower hallway and listened to Frederick Seward retell the story of the accident and the grievous injuries. The President heard that Surgeon General Barnes had pronounced that, now that Seward had survived the initial shock, he would live. Lincoln walked up the two flights of stairs, and went to the bedroom at the front of the building on the left side. He tiptoed into the darkened room and, standing a moment, saw the secretary.

  Seward was on the side of the bed away from the door. His face, the small part of it that was visible, was unrecognizable with swelling and discoloration. Bandages and dressings covered the entire head except for the purple eyes and the cruelly ripped mouth. Without moving the twice-broken jaw, he whispered:

  “You are back from Richmond?”

  “Yes,” said the President, “and I think we are near the end, at last.”

  Without invitation, the President did something rare and impulsive. He sprawled, on his stomach, across the empty side of the bed, and he told his secretary all that had happened in Virginia in the past week. Lincoln was still talking, a half hour later, when he studied Seward’s eyes and saw that he was sleeping. The President arose softly, in stages, and tiptoed from the room.

  At 9 P.M. on that Palm Sunday night, Secretary of War Stanton was dozing on a downstairs couch in his home. An army messenger yanked the pull bell, found that it was broken, and drummed his fist on the front door. The secretary was awakened, and was given a dispatch:

  Headquarters, Appomattox Ct. H. Va.

  April 9, 1865 4:30 p.m.

  Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington

  General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.

  U.S. Grant,

  Lieut.-General

  The iron man of the administration read it again. He was close to tears. While the messenger waited, he went to his desk, sat, and penned a reply:

  Thanks be to Almighty God for the great victory with which He has this day crowned you and the gallant army under your command. The thanks of the Department and of the government and of the people of all the United States, their reverence and honor, have been deserved and will be rendered to you and the brave and gallant officers of your army for all time.

  It was too late in the evening for a celebration. Mr. Stanton did the next best thing. He dressed and hurried to the White House with the most momentous news of his career. The President was in the Red Room with Mrs. Lincoln and some friends, and Lincoln was standing with his back to the coal grate, flicking his coattails as the dispatch was read. It was greeted with stunned silence. Now that it had happened, it was beyond the capacity of these people to comprehend. All faces seemed blank; the expressions were almost the same as though the news had been bad.

  Around this time—it may have been this night—Stanton asked to see the President alone and handed a paper to him on which was written the War Secretary’s resignation. Lincoln read it through, took the paper between his hands and tore it slowly, dropping the fragments into a basket, and placed his big hands on Stanton’s shoulders.

  “You cannot go,” he said. “Reconstruction is more difficult and dangerous than construction or destruction. You have been our main reliance. You must help us through the final act. The bag is filled. It must be tied and tied securely. Some knots slip. Yours do not. You understand the situation better than anyone else, and it is my wish and the country’s that you remain.”

  Washington City, tired and hungover from almost a week of celebrating, awakened on the morning of Monday, April 10, to the crashing of cannon. The people listened, and wondered what further good news was possible. Lee, they learned, had surrendered to Grant. The celebrating started all over again.

  A big battery was firing in Massachusetts Square, near Scott Circle and, between basso blasts, the treble tinkle of window glass could be heard. The morning newspapers, hawked up and down the streets, told of the dramatic meeting between the generals, how Grant had permitted the Southern officers to be paroled and to retain their sidearms, and of how he permitted the defeated army to keep its mules and horses for plowing old ground. The editorial pages speculated that, with Lee out of the way, Joseph Johnston commanded the only sizable force left to the Confederate states and, caught between Grant and Sherm
an, it must capitulate within a few days.

  That afternoon, the flags in the capital drooped in rain. People huddled before the White House in damp expectancy. Now and then, a cry of “Speech!” went up. The President sent word out that, because of his recent trip, he was behind in his work and he advised the people to disperse. One of the things he did on this bleak Monday was to sit for Gardner, the photographer. While the pictures were being taken, Tad frolicked around the room, bouncing on and off his father’s lap, distracting Mr. Lincoln to the point that, for the first time, he smiled faintly in a picture.

  Twice, the President went to the front windows of the White House, pulled back the curtain, and waved to the crowd below. He was waving when he saw Tad run out on the porch with a captured Rebel flag and race up and down in the dampness, trying to make the banner snap in the breeze. The crowd laughed when it saw the President of the United States, slightly harassed and embarrassed, come out to retrieve his son.

  There was no way that the President could get back inside gracefully without saying something, and so, informally, he turned to the crowd, hanging on to Tad, and said that he supposed there would be some formal celebration, and that he would save his words for that occasion. There was scattered applause. The Navy Yard band was standing under the eaves and Lincoln asked the leader to please play a song for the people; “Dixie,” he thought, would be appropriate because it could now be considered the lawful property of the United States.

  When he returned to his desk, Lincoln found a message from the Department of State advising him that the formal celebration of Lee’s surrender would be held on the evening of Tuesday, April 11 (tomorrow), and that there would be another grand illumination of the city with speeches, parades, etc.