Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday Part 8

[8] _By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company._

V

DEATH OF LINCOLN

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN![9]

BY WALT WHITMAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The s.h.i.+p has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the sh.o.r.es a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying ma.s.s, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The s.h.i.+p is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor s.h.i.+p comes in with object won; Exult, O sh.o.r.es, and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

[9] _By permission of David McKay._

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S DEATH--A DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE AT FORD'S THEATRE[10]

WALT WHITMAN

The day (April 14, 1865) seems to have been a pleasant one throughout the whole land--the moral atmosphere pleasant, too--the long storm, so dark, so fratricidal, full of blood and doubt and gloom, over and ended at last by the sunrise of such an absolute National victory, and utter breaking down of secessionism--we almost doubted our senses! Lee had capitulated beneath the apple tree at Appomattox. The other armies, the f.l.a.n.g.es of the revolt, swiftly followed.

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, in some respects 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 jack-straws, 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 remembered 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 at all a part of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy of that 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.ters of gas-lights, the usual magnetism of so many people, cheerful, with perfumes, music of violins and flutes--and over all, and 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 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 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 ("Our American Cousin") in which, among other characters so called, a Yankee, certainly such a one as was never seen, or at least 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 through perhaps 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, come 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 to be described as I now proceed to give it:

There is a scene in the play representing the modern parlor, in which two unprecedented English 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 murder 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 (a distance of perhaps 14 or 15 feet), 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, but unfelt then)--and the figure, Booth, the murderer, dressed in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, 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 foot-lights--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--the 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 extricable 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 moral 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 200 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 the wild scene, or a suggestion of it, rather, inside the play house 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 especially 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 at once to hang him on 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 and gaslight--the life blood from those veins, the best and sweetest of the land, drips slowly down....

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.

[10] _By permission of David McKay._

HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY[11]

(May 4, 1865)

BY WALT WHITMAN

Hush'd be the camps to-day, And soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons, And each with musing soul retire to celebrate Our dear commander's death.

No more for him life's stormy conflicts, Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.

But sing, poet, in our name.

Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.

As they invault the coffin there, Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse, For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

[11] _By permission of David McKay._

TO THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

(1865)

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

O, slow to smite and swift to spare, Gentle and merciful and just!

Who, in the fear of G.o.d, didst bear The sword of power--a nation's trust.

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, Amid the awe that hushes all, And speak the anguish of a land That shook with horror at thy fall.

Thy task is done--the bond are free; We bear thee to an honored grave, Whose n.o.blest monument shall be The broken fetters of the slave.

Pure was thy life; its b.l.o.o.d.y close Hath placed thee with the sons of light, Among the n.o.ble host of those cause of right.

CROWN HIS BLOODSTAINED PILLOW

BY JULIA WARD HOWE