½ an hour,” he remembered, “& seeing that they were still burning, I arose and saw a sentry passing before my house. I thought something wrong had happened, so dressed & went down & opened the front door.”
A soldier came along and said, “Are not the doings of last night dreadful?” French asked what he meant by that. The soldier replied, “Have you not heard?” and told French that the president had been shot in Ford’s Theatre “and Secretary Seward’s throat cut in his residence.” French ordered the Capitol building closed and hurried to the Petersen house. There he found Lincoln, who was still alive, in the back bedroom. As he hovered over the deathbed in the crowded little bedroom, perhaps he already wondered: Where, in all of Washington, could he hope to find enough black mourning crepe and bunting?
An early broadside announcing Lincoln’s death.
Early on April 15 Dr. Leale knew that Lincoln would not live long: “As morning dawned it became quite evident that he was gradually sinking,” he remembered. It was past 6:00 A.M. when Mary Lincoln returned to the bedroom. One of the doctors there recalled the scene. Mary fell in a faint, and when she awoke, she was taken to the bed to speak to her dying husband. “‘Love,’ she exclaimed, ‘live but one moment to speak to me once—to speak to our children.’”
As Lincoln’s breathing became louder and more labored, Mary cried out with fear and again fell fainting to the floor. Edwin Stanton heard her and came in from the room next door. He ordered, “Take that woman out and do not let her in again.” He was obeyed. Mary Lincoln never saw her husband alive again.
At 7:22 A.M. on April 15, Abraham Lincoln died.
The bloody death bed shortly after Lincoln’s body was removed.
But what had begun in the little back room of a boardinghouse in downtown Washington would not end with Lincoln’s death. Soon the assassination would set in motion strong forces, the likes of which America had never seen. In the days to come, millions of Americans would join the procession that had begun that night when a handful of their fellow citizens made a pilgrimage to look upon their dying president.
Jefferson Davis awoke on the morning of April 15 not knowing anything about what had taken place in Washington. Davis did not know John Wilkes Booth, and had not sent him to kill Lincoln. Nor did Davis know that Booth was on the run, the prey of what would soon become a nationwide manhunt. He had no idea that within hours his longtime archenemy, Vice President Andrew Johnson, would succeed Lincoln as president. Johnson was a hardened foe of Southern plantation owners. The South could expect no mercy from him.
Worse, this morning’s newspapers accused Davis himself of being the mastermind behind the great crime. Many demanded Davis’s death by hanging or horrible torture. But Jefferson Davis was in the dark. For several days he would not know that Abraham Lincoln was dead.
Davis left Greensboro on April 15. Secretary of the Navy Mallory encouraged the president to not just get out of Greensboro, but to flee the country. There was no more hope of a military victory, Mallory believed. Davis should make himself “ready to cross the Mississippi and get into Mexico, or to leave the coast of Florida for the Bahamas or Cuba.”
But Mallory could see that Jefferson Davis had no intention of leaving the country as long as there were any soldiers willing to fight for his cause. If his staff had known that Lincoln had just been murdered, they might have demanded that Davis flee to escape the North’s vengeance. But they did not know, and so they packed up for the next stage of their journey south.
There were no trains at Greensboro, so Davis’s party switched to horses, wagons, and carts. They left Greensboro on horseback on the afternoon of April 15. Burton Harrison wrote that the roads were hard to travel on: “Heavy rains had recently fallen. . . . The soil was
A soldier came along and said, “Are not the doings of last night dreadful?” French asked what he meant by that. The soldier replied, “Have you not heard?” and told French that the president had been shot in Ford’s Theatre “and Secretary Seward’s throat cut in his residence.” French ordered the Capitol building closed and hurried to the Petersen house. There he found Lincoln, who was still alive, in the back bedroom. As he hovered over the deathbed in the crowded little bedroom, perhaps he already wondered: Where, in all of Washington, could he hope to find enough black mourning crepe and bunting?
An early broadside announcing Lincoln’s death.
Early on April 15 Dr. Leale knew that Lincoln would not live long: “As morning dawned it became quite evident that he was gradually sinking,” he remembered. It was past 6:00 A.M. when Mary Lincoln returned to the bedroom. One of the doctors there recalled the scene. Mary fell in a faint, and when she awoke, she was taken to the bed to speak to her dying husband. “‘Love,’ she exclaimed, ‘live but one moment to speak to me once—to speak to our children.’”
As Lincoln’s breathing became louder and more labored, Mary cried out with fear and again fell fainting to the floor. Edwin Stanton heard her and came in from the room next door. He ordered, “Take that woman out and do not let her in again.” He was obeyed. Mary Lincoln never saw her husband alive again.
At 7:22 A.M. on April 15, Abraham Lincoln died.
The bloody death bed shortly after Lincoln’s body was removed.
But what had begun in the little back room of a boardinghouse in downtown Washington would not end with Lincoln’s death. Soon the assassination would set in motion strong forces, the likes of which America had never seen. In the days to come, millions of Americans would join the procession that had begun that night when a handful of their fellow citizens made a pilgrimage to look upon their dying president.
Jefferson Davis awoke on the morning of April 15 not knowing anything about what had taken place in Washington. Davis did not know John Wilkes Booth, and had not sent him to kill Lincoln. Nor did Davis know that Booth was on the run, the prey of what would soon become a nationwide manhunt. He had no idea that within hours his longtime archenemy, Vice President Andrew Johnson, would succeed Lincoln as president. Johnson was a hardened foe of Southern plantation owners. The South could expect no mercy from him.
Worse, this morning’s newspapers accused Davis himself of being the mastermind behind the great crime. Many demanded Davis’s death by hanging or horrible torture. But Jefferson Davis was in the dark. For several days he would not know that Abraham Lincoln was dead.
Davis left Greensboro on April 15. Secretary of the Navy Mallory encouraged the president to not just get out of Greensboro, but to flee the country. There was no more hope of a military victory, Mallory believed. Davis should make himself “ready to cross the Mississippi and get into Mexico, or to leave the coast of Florida for the Bahamas or Cuba.”
But Mallory could see that Jefferson Davis had no intention of leaving the country as long as there were any soldiers willing to fight for his cause. If his staff had known that Lincoln had just been murdered, they might have demanded that Davis flee to escape the North’s vengeance. But they did not know, and so they packed up for the next stage of their journey south.
There were no trains at Greensboro, so Davis’s party switched to horses, wagons, and carts. They left Greensboro on horseback on the afternoon of April 15. Burton Harrison wrote that the roads were hard to travel on: “Heavy rains had recently fallen. . . . The soil was
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