''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 31

"And could it really be, then? Out of all the affairs of this world of woe and pa.s.sion, of failure and disorder and dismay, was there really come the confirmed, unerring sign of peace, like a shaft of pure light--of rightful rule--of G.o.d?

"But I must not dwell on accessories. The deed hastens. The popular afternoon paper, the little Evening Star, had scattered all over its third page, divided among the advertis.e.m.e.nts in a sensational manner in a hundred different places: "'The President and his lady will be at the theatre this evening.'

"Lincoln was fond of the theatre. I have myself seen him there several times. I remember thinking how funny it was that he, the leading actor in the greatest and stormiest drama known to real history's stage, through centuries, should sit there and be so completely interested in those human jackstraws, moving about with their silly little gestures, foreign spirit, and flatulent text.

"So the day, as I say, was propitious. Early herbage, early flowers, were out. I remember where I was stopping at the time, the season being advanced, there were many lilacs in full bloom.

"By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without being a part of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy of this day by the sight and odor of these blossoms. It never fails.

"On this occasion the theatre was crowded, many ladies in rich and gay costumes, officers in their uniforms, many well-known citizens, young folks, the usual cl.u.s.ter of gas lights, the usual magnetism of so many people, cheerful with perfumes, music of violins and flutes--and over all, that saturating, that vast, vague wonder, Victory, the nation's victory, the triumph of the Union, filling the air, the thought, the sense, with exhilaration more than all the perfumes.

"The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witnessed the play from the large stage boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one, and profusely draped with the national flag. The acts and scenes of the piece--one of those singularly witless compositions which have at the least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, esthetic or spiritual nature--a piece in which among other characters, so called, a Yankee--certainly such a one as was never seen, or at least like it ever seen in North America, is introduced in England, with a varied fol-de-rol of talk, plot, scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to make up a modern popular drama--had progressed perhaps through a couple of its acts, when, in the midst of this comedy, or tragedy, or non-such, or whatever it is to be called, and to offset it, or finish it out, as if in Nature's and the Great Muse's mockery of these poor mimics, comes interpolated that scene, not really or exactly to be described at all (for on the many hundreds who were there it seems to this hour to have left little but a pa.s.sing blur, a dream, a blotch)--and yet partially described as I now proceed to give it: "There is a scene in the play, representing the modern parlor, in which two unprecedented ladies are informed by the unprecedented and impossible Yankee that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore undesirable for marriage-catching purposes; after which, the comments being finished, the dramatic trio make exit, leaving the stage clear for a moment.

"There was a pause, a hush, as it were. At this period came the death of Abraham Lincoln.

"Great as that was, with all its manifold train circling around it, and stretching into the future for many a century, in the politics, history, art, etc., of the New World, in point of fact, the main thing, the actual murder, transpired with the quiet and simplicity of any commonest occurrence--the bursting of a bud or pod in the growth of vegetation, for instance.

"Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, etc., came the m.u.f.fled sound of a pistol shot, which not one-hundredth part of the audience heard at the time--and yet a moment's hush--somehow, surely a vague, startled thrill--and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starred and striped s.p.a.ce-way of the President's box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the stage, falls out of position, catching his boot heel in the copious drapery (the American flag), falls on one knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happened (he really sprains his ankle, unfelt then)--and the figure, Booth, the murderer, dressed in plain black broadcloth, bareheaded, with a full head of glossy, raven hair, and his eyes, like some mad animal's, flas.h.i.+ng with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness holds aloft in one hand a large knife--walks along not much back of the footlights--turns fully towards the audience, his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flas.h.i.+ng with desperation, perhaps insanity--launches out in a firm and steady voice the words, 'Sic semper tyrannis'--and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears.

"(Had not all this terrible scene--making the mimic ones preposterous--had it not all been rehea.r.s.ed, in blank, by Booth, beforehand?) "A moment's hush, incredulous--a scream--a cry of murder--Mrs. Lincoln leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry, pointing to the retreating figure, 'He has killed the President!'

"And still a moment's strange, incredulous suspense--and then the deluge!--then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty--the sound, somewhere back, of a horse's hoofs clattering with speed--the people burst through chairs and railings, and break them up--that noise adds to the queerness of the scene--there is inextricable confusion and terror--women faint--quite feeble persons fall, and are trampled on--many cries of agony are heard--the broad stage suddenly fills to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some horrible carnival--the audience rush generally upon it--at least the strong men do--the actors and actresses are there in their play costumes and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the rouge--some trembling, some in tears--the screams and calls, confused talk--redoubled, trebled--two or three manage to pa.s.s up water from the stage to the President's box, others try to clamber up, etc., etc.

"In the midst of all this the soldiers of the President's Guard, with others, suddenly drawn to the scene, burst in--some two hundred altogether--they storm the house, through all the tiers, especially the upper ones--inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience with fixed bayonets, muskets and pistols, shouting, 'Clear out! clear out!'

"Such a wild scene, or a suggestion of it, rather, inside the playhouse that night!

"Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, crowds of people filled with frenzy, ready to seize any outlet for it, came near committing murder several times on innocent individuals.

"One such case was particularly exciting. The infuriated crowd, through some chance, got started against one man, either for words he uttered, or perhaps without any cause at all, and were proceeding to hang him at once to a neighboring lamp-post, when he was rescued by a few heroic policemen, who placed him in their midst and fought their way slowly and amid great peril toward the station-house.

"It was a fitting episode of the whole affair. The crowd rus.h.i.+ng and eddying to and fro, the night, the yells, the pale faces, many frightened people trying in vain to extricate themselves, the attacked man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse; the silent, resolute half-dozen policemen, with no weapons but their little clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying swarms, made, indeed, a fitting side scene to the grand tragedy of the murder. They gained the station-house with the protected man, whom they placed in security for the night, and discharged in the morning.

"And in the midst of that night pandemonium of senseless hate, infuriated soldiers, the audience and the crowd--the stage, and all its actors and actresses, its paint pots, spangles, gas-light--the life-blood from those veins, the best and sweetest of the land, drips slowly down, and death's ooze already begins its little bubbles on the lips.

"Such, hurriedly sketched, were the accompaniments of the death of President Lincoln. So suddenly, and in murder and horror unsurpa.s.sed, he was taken from us. But his death was painless."

The a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet did not produce instant death, but the President never again became conscious. He was carried to a house opposite the theatre, where he died the next morning. In the meantime the authorities had become aware of the wide-reaching conspiracy, and the capital was in a state of terror.

On the night of the President's a.s.sa.s.sination, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, was attacked while in bed with a broken arm, by Booth's fellow-conspirators, and badly wounded.

The conspirators had also planned to take the lives of Vice-President Johnson and Secretary Stanton. Booth had called on Vice-President Johnson the day before, and, not finding him in, left a card.

Secretary Stanton acted with his usual promptness and courage. During the period of excitement he acted as President, and directed the plans for the capture of Booth.

Among other things, he issued the following reward: REWARD OFFERED BY SECRETARY STANTON. War Department, Was.h.i.+ngton, April 20, 1865. Major-General John A. Dix, New York: The murderer of our late beloved President, Abraham Lincoln, is still at large. Fifty thousand dollars reward will be paid by this Department for his apprehension, in addition to any reward offered by munic.i.p.al authorities or State Executives.

Twenty-five thousand dollars reward will be paid for the apprehension of G. W. Atzerodt, sometimes called "Port Tobacco," one of Booth's accomplices. Twenty-five thousand dollars reward will be paid for the apprehension of David C. Herold, another of Booth's accomplices.

A liberal reward will be paid for any information that shall conduce to the arrest of either the above-named criminals or their accomplices.

All persons harboring or secreting the said persons, or either of them, or aiding or a.s.sisting their concealment or escape, will be treated as accomplices in the murder of the President and the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of the Secretary of State, and shall be subject to trial before a military commission, and the punishment of death.

Let the stain of innocent blood be removed from the land by the arrest and punishment of the murderers.

All good citizens are exhorted to aid public justice on this occasion. Every man should consider his own conscience charged with this solemn duty, and rest neither night nor day until it be accomplished.

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

BOOTH FOUND IN A BARN.

Booth, accompanied by David C. Herold, a fellow-conspirator, finally made his way into Maryland, where eleven days after the a.s.sa.s.sination the two were discovered in a barn on Garrett's farm near Port Royal on the Rappahannock. The barn was surrounded by a squad of cavalrymen, who called upon the a.s.sa.s.sins to surrender. Herold gave himself up and was roundly cursed and abused by Booth, who declared that he would never be taken alive.

The cavalrymen then set fire to the barn and as the flames leaped up the figure of the a.s.sa.s.sin could be plainly seen, although the wall of fire prevented him from seeing the soldiers. Colonel Conger saw him standing upright upon a crutch with a carbine in his hands.

When the fire first blazed up Booth crept on his hands and knees to the spot, evidently for the purpose of shooting the man who had applied the torch, but the blaze prevented him from seeing anyone. Then it seemed as if he were preparing to extinguish the flames, but seeing the impossibility of this he started toward the door with his carbine held ready for action.

His eyes shone with the light of fever, but he was pale as death and his general appearance was haggard and unkempt. He had shaved off his mustache and his hair was closely cropped. Both he and Herold wore the uniforms of Confederate soldiers.

BOOTH SHOT BY "BOSTON" CORBETT.

The last orders given to the squad pursuing Booth were: "Don't shoot Booth, but take him alive." Just as Booth started to the door of the barn this order was disobeyed by a sergeant named Boston Corbett, who fired through a crevice and shot Booth in the neck. The wounded man was carried out of the barn and died four hours afterward on the gra.s.s where they had laid him. Before he died he whispered to Lieutenant Baker, "Tell mother I died for my country; I thought I did for the best." What became of Booth's body has always been and probably always will be a mystery. Many different stories have been told concerning his final resting place, but all that is known positively is that the body was first taken to Was.h.i.+ngton and a post-mortem examination of it held on the Monitor Montauk. On the night of April 27th it was turned over to two men who took it in a rowboat and disposed of it secretly. How they disposed of it none but themselves know and they have never told.

FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS.

The conspiracy to a.s.sa.s.sinate the President involved altogether twenty-five people. Among the number captured and tried were David C. Herold, G. W. Atzerodt, Louis Payne, Edward Spangler, Michael O'Loughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mrs. Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, a physician, who set Booth's leg, which was sprained by his fall from the stage box. Of these Herold, Atzerodt, Payne and Mrs. Surratt were hanged. Dr. Mudd was deported to the Dry Tortugas. While there an epidemic of yellow fever broke out and he rendered such good service that he was granted a pardon and died a number of years ago in Maryland.

John Surratt, the son of the woman who was hanged, made his escape to Italy, where he became one of the Papal guards in the Vatican at Rome. His presence there was discovered by Archbishop Hughes, and, although there were no extradition laws to cover his case, the Italian Government gave him up to the United States authorities.

He had two trials. At the first the jury disagreed; the long delay before his second trial allowed him to escape by pleading the statute of limitation. Spangler and O'Loughlin were sent to the Dry Tortugas and served their time.

Ford, the owner of the theatre in which the President was a.s.sa.s.sinated, was a Southern sympathizer, and when he attempted to re-open his theatre after the great national tragedy, Secretary Stanton refused to allow it. The Government afterward bought the theatre and turned it into a National museum.

President Lincoln was buried at Springfield, and on the day of his funeral there was universal grief.

HENRY WARD BEECHER'S EULOGY.

No final words of that great life can be more fitly spoken than the eulogy p.r.o.nounced by Henry Ward Beecher: "And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and States are his pall-bearers, and the cannon speaks the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh.

"Is Was.h.i.+ngton dead? Is Hampden dead? Is any man that was ever fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the un.o.bstructed sphere where pa.s.sion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is now grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be.

"Pa.s.s on, thou that hast overcome. Ye people, behold the martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FAMILY.

Abraham Lincoln was married on November 4, 1842, to Miss Mary Todd, four sons being the issue of the union.

Robert Todd, born August 1, 1843, removed to Chicago after his father's death, practiced law, and became wealthy; in 1881 he was appointed Secretary of War by President Garfield, and served through President Arthur's term; was made Minister to England in 1889, and served four years; became counsel for the Pullman Palace Car Company, and succeeded to the presidency of that corporation upon the death of George M. Pullman.

Edward Baker, born March 10, 1846, died in infancy.

William Wallace, born December 21, 1850, died in the White House in February, 1862.

Thomas (known as "Tad"), born April 4, 1853, died in 1871.

Mrs. Lincoln died in her sixty-fourth year at the home of her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards, at Springfield, Illinois, in 1882. She was the daughter of Robert S. Todd, of Kentucky. Her great-uncle, John Todd, and her grandfather, Levi Todd, accompanied General George Rogers Clark to Illinois, and were present at the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. In December, 1778, John Todd was appointed by Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, to be lieutenant of the County of Illinois, then a part of Virginia. Colonel John Todd was one of the original proprietors of the town of Lexington, Kentucky. While encamped on the site of the present city, he heard of the opening battle of the Revolution, and named his infant settlement in its honor.

Mrs. Lincoln was a proud, ambitious woman, well-educated, speaking French fluently, and familiar with the ways of the best society in Lexington, Kentucky, where she was born December 13, 1818. She was a pupil of Madame Mantelli, whose celebrated seminary in Lexington was directly opposite the residence of Henry Clay. The conversation at the seminary was carried on entirely in French.

She visited Springfield, Illinois, in 1837, remained three months and then returned to her native State. In 1839 she made Springfield her permanent home. She lived with her eldest sister, Elizabeth, wife of Ninian W. Edwards, Lincoln's colleague in the Legislature, and it was not strange she and Lincoln should meet. Stephen A. Douglas was also a friend of the Edwards family, and a suitor for her hand, but she rejected him to accept the future President. She was one of the belles of the town.

She is thus described at the time she made her home in Springfield--1839: "She was of the average height, weighing about a hundred and thirty pounds. She was rather compactly built, had a well rounded face, rich dark-brown hair, and bluish-gray eyes. In her bearing she was proud, but handsome and vivacious; she was a good conversationalist, using with equal fluency the French and English languages.

"When she used a pen, its point was sure to be sharp, and she wrote with wit and ability. She not only had a quick intellect but an intuitive judgment of men and their motives. Ordinarily she was affable and even charming in her manners; but when offended or antagonized she could be very bitter and sarcastic.

"In her figure and physical proportions, in education, bearing, temperament, history--in everything she was the exact reverse of Lincoln."

That Mrs. Lincoln was very proud of her husband there is no doubt; and it is probable that she married him largely from motives of ambition. She knew Lincoln better than he knew himself; she instinctively felt that he would occupy a proud position some day, and it is a matter of record that she told Ward Lamon, her husband's law partner, that "Mr. Lincoln will yet be President of the United States."

Mrs. Lincoln was decidedly pro-slavery in her views, but this never disturbed Lincoln. In various ways they were unlike. Her fearless, witty, and austere nature had nothing in common with the calm, imperturbable, and simple ways of her thoughtful and absent-minded husband. She was bright and sparkling in conversation, and fit to grace any drawing-room. She well knew that to marry Lincoln meant not a life of luxury and ease, for Lincoln was not a man to acc.u.mulate wealth; but in him she saw position in society, prominence in the world, and the grandest social distinction. By that means her ambition was certainly satisfied, for nineteen years after her marriage she was "the first lady of the land," and the mistress of the White House.

After his marriage, by dint of untiring efforts and the recognition of influential friends, the couple managed through rare frugality to move along.

In Lincoln's struggles, both in the law and for political advancement, his wife shared his sacrifices. She was a plucky little woman, and in fact endowed with a more restless ambition than he. She was gifted with a rare insight into the motives that actuate mankind, and there is no doubt that much of Lincoln's success was in a measure attributable to her acuteness and the stimulus of her influence.

His election to Congress within four years after their marriage afforded her extreme gratification. She loved power and prominence, and was inordinately proud of her tall and ungainly husband. She saw in him bright prospects ahead, and his every move was watched by her with the closest interest. If to other persons he seemed homely, to her he was the embodiment of n.o.ble manhood, and each succeeding day impressed upon her the wisdom of her choice of Lincoln over Douglas--if in reality she ever seriously accepted the latter's attentions.

"Mr. Lincoln may not be as handsome a figure," she said one day in Lincoln's law office during her husband's absence, when the conversation turned on Douglas, "but the people are perhaps not aware that his heart is as large as his arms are long."

LINCOLN MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD.

The remains of Abraham Lincoln rest beneath a magnificent monument in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Ill. Before they were deposited in their final resting place they were moved many times.

On May 4, 1865, all that was mortal of Abraham Lincoln was deposited in the receiving vault at the cemetery, until a tomb could be built. In 1876 thieves made an unsuccessful attempt to steal the remains. From the tomb the body of the martyred President was removed later to the monument.

A flight of iron steps, commencing about fifty yards east of the vault, ascends in a curved line to the monument, an elevation of more than fifty feet.

Excavation for this monument commenced September 9, 1869. It is built of granite, from quarries at Biddeford, Maine. The rough ashlers were s.h.i.+pped to Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts, where they were dressed and numbered, thence s.h.i.+pped to Springfield. It is 721 feet from east to west, 119 1/2 feet from north to south, and 100 feet high. The total cost is about $230,000 to May 1, 1885. All the statuary is orange-colored bronze. The whole monument was designed by Larkin G. Mead; the statuary was modeled in plaster by him in Florence, Italy, and cast by the Ames Manufacturing Company, of Chicopee, Ma.s.sachusetts. A statue of Lincoln and Coat of Arms were first placed on the monument; the statue was unveiled and the monument dedicated October 15, 1874. Infantry and Naval Groups were put on in September, 1877, an Artillery Group, April 13, 1882, and a Cavalry Group, March 13, 1883.

The princ.i.p.al front of the monument is on the south side, the statue of Lincoln being on that side of the obelisk, over Memorial Hall. On the east side are three tablets, upon which are the letters U. S. A. To the right of that, and beginning with Virginia, we find the abbreviations of the original thirteen States. Next comes Vermont, the first state admitted after the Union was perfected, the States following in the order they were admitted, ending with Nebraska on the east, thus forming the cordon of thirty-seven States composing the United States of America when the monument was erected. The new States admitted since the monument was built have been added.

The statue of Lincoln is just above the Coat of Arms of the United States. The grand climax is indicated by President Lincoln, with his left hand holding out as a golden scepter the emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, while in his right he holds the pen with which he has just written it. The right hand is resting on another badge of authority, the American flag, thrown over the fasces. At the foot of the fasces lies a wreath of laurel, with which to crown the President as the victor over slavery and rebellion.

On March 10, 1900, President Lincoln's body was removed to a temporary vault to permit of alterations to the monument. The shaft was made twenty feet higher, and other changes were made costing $100,000.

April 24, 1901. the body was again transferred to the monument without public ceremony.