Precisely at eight o'clock, the train of nine cars pulled out
from the station. It moved slowly, almost noiselessly, not
a bell ringing nor a whistle sounding, through a mourning
throng that lined the way to the borders of the town.
The line of the journey begun on this Friday morning
was practically the same that Mr. Lincoln had followed four
years before when he came to Washington for his first in-
auguration. It led through Baltimore, Harrisburg, Phila-
delphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus.
Indianapolis, and Chicago, to Springfield. The entire pro-
gramme of the journey, including the hours when the train
would pass certain towns where it could not stop, had been
published long enough beforehand to enable the people along
the way to arrange, if they wished, to pay a tribute to the
dead President. The result was a demonstration which in
sincerity and unanimity has never been equalled in the world's
history. The journey began at six o'clock on the morning
of April 21, and lasted until nine o'clock of the morning of
May 3 : and it might almost be said that during the whole
time there was not an hour of the night or day, whether the
r.offin lay in state in some heavily draped public building or
was being whirled across the country, when mourning
crowds were not regarding it with wet eyes and bowed heads.
Night and darkness in no way lessened the number of the
LINCOLN'S FUNERAL 51
mourners. Thus it was not until eight o'clock on Saturday
evening (April 22) that the coffin was placed in Independ-
ence Hall, at Philadelphia. The building was at once opened
to the public, and through the whole night thousands filed in
to look on the dead man's face. It was at one o'clock in the
morning, on Monday, that the coffin was carried from Inde-
pendence Hall to the train, but thousands of men, women,
and children stood in the streets while the procession passed,
as if it were day. In New York, on the following Tuesday,
City Hall, where the coffin had been placed in the afternoon,
remained open the whole night. The crowd was even greater
than during the day, filling the side streets around the square
in every direction. It was more impressive, too, for the men
and women who were willing to watch out the night in the
flare of torches and gaslights were laborers who could not
secure release in daytime. Many of them had come great
distances, and hundreds were obliged, after leaving the hall,
to find a bed in a doorway, so overfilled was the town. The
crowd was at its greatest at midnight, when, as the bells were
tolling the hour, a German chorus of some seventy voices
commenced suddenly to sing the Integer vitae. The thrill-
ing sweetness of the music coming unexpectedly upon the
mourners produced an effect never to be forgotten.
Nor did rain make any more difference with the crowd
than the darkness. Several times during the journey there
arose heavy storms; but the people, in utter indifference,
stood in the streets, often uncovered, to see the catafalque
and its guard go by or waiting their turn to be admitted to
view the coffin.
The great demonstrations were, of course, in the cities
where the remains lay in state for a few hours. These
demonstrations were perforce much alike. The funeral train
was met at the station by the distinguished men of the city
and representatives of organizations. The coffin was trans-
52 LIFE OF LINCOLN
ferred to a stately hearse, draped in velvet and crape, sur-
mounted by heavy plumes, ornamented in silver, and drawn
by six, eight, ten, or more horses. Then, to the tolling of
the bells and the regular firing of minute guns, followed by
a vast concourse of people, it was carried to the place ap-
pointed for the lying in state. Here a crowd which seemed
unending filed by until the time came to close the coffin, when
the procession reformed to attend the hearse to the funeral
train.
The first of these demonstrations was in Baltimore, the
city which a little over four years before it had been thought
unsafe for the President to pass through openly, the city
in which the first troops called out for the defense of the
Union had been mobbed. Now no offering was sufficient
to express the feeling of sorrow. All buildings draped in
black, all business suspended, the people poured out in a driv-
ing rain to follow the catafalque to the Exchange, where for
two hours, on April 21, the public was admitted.
i As was to be expected, the most elaborate of the series of
funeral ceremonies was in New York. There, when the
funeral train arrived on Tuesday, April 25, the whole city
was swathed in crape, and vast crowds filled the streets. The
climax of the obsequies was the procession which, on
Wednesday, followed the hearse up Broadway and Fifth
Avenue to Thirty-fourth Street and thence to the Hudson
River station. For a week this procession had been prepar-
ing, until finally it included representatives of almost every
organization of every nature in the city and vicinity. The
military was represented by detachments from scores of dif-
ferent regiments, and by many distinguished officers of the
army and navy, among them General Scott and Admiral
Farragut. Companies of the Seventh Regiment were on
each side of the funeral car. The city sent its officials — edu-
cational, judicial, protective. The foreign consuls marched
War Department Washington. April 20. 1865^
$180,000 Kl!
THETOROERER
Of our late beloved President. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
IS STILL AT LARGE.
S50.000 REWARD!
will •« paid bj 1 bt- 0»-p.*rtwtru( Tor h«- mp(>r* li<-u<.ioii. in tidtlil ion !• mj rrw.ird offorrd
It* *tuni«i|>:il % ul bwil i - or Mltilr b) \t-r«t i»r».
825,000 REWARD!
will b«s P ulrf Our lfcw -j.prvh. uvi„ii . ' (Oil 1 II. *» I It It Ml
nf n«totli*< .1 r«<nn|»lirf »
$25,000 REWARD!
v* III Im paid ferine apprefceiifttai ol IiANlEJ, 1 HARR0LD Miiuih« t»i Boolh'aar* ■oBftplle**.
UlttKtl. Itl \> tltlp* v«iii be i>>nit n>r *■> loi.trBi.iiK'i' I but xhaJI rwdirc lo Ibr irml o4 t-iilwr
•i iW> ■ki\ •-•iikiiii-iI i 'immnlv «,r ihi tt H W y l l^A
III ihis.h.- faar<H>rins ..r ^in-line 'l" » Ibrr ■»( Ibrnv or aiding ..r awiiiiitc itaelr
m>M'i iliui ,. i «.iM|.|. . v H ibi niardrr ol ihi IV. Itrmpted
tt";.-rinil ■■! iln Si ■i. || \ i, ,_ •l.lil.ii*. 4 ommit-imt iinti
inhdiMiriil ..J IH. i I It.
Hit -I. ,i.i i>l ititiiM rt-in-.v.d Iroin Ibr lnuil »■> Hit nrrrM ami |>itnt<.hitit-r>t ol the
utri.rirs.
\n k««m| "'iliawim un • \horif«i |« aid pnlilir m*Ih-< on tins .,« < usihii. I i • • -v muii -bonlti cm>M«
bis i.imi >iiii«iiiii-i , lu.rt.ti hHIi ii- ^. ill im. tint*, (nil rt'sl n. Hlit-r in-hl .n.r il;»\ uiilil ,t It*- ,tri-omuli*h«'i).
KIWIS M. NTANTOX, Secretary of Mar.
1 I .Iter pair
■» i-.ilj-r prtmm. „
, » I ..I ikMl
â–
I fcatU .!»,-. iuir Luir IM .!■» naii t, ^ ft
I. Kit I MIIIIIT A It) Prta*
i r » «. A T
I H SIMILE OF REWARD FOR LINCOLN S ASSASSIN.
LINCOLN'S FUNERAL 53
in full uniform. There were scores of societies and clu
including all the organizations of Irish, German, and He-
brews. The whole life of the city was. in fact, represented
in the solid column of men which marched that day through
the streets of New York in such numbers that it took four
hours to pass a single point. Deepest in significance of all
the long rank was the rear body in the last division : 200
colored men bearing a banner inscribed with the words,
" Abraham Lincoln — Our Emancipator." A platoon of po-
lice preceded, another followed the delegation, for the
presence of these freedmen would, it was believed by many,
cause disorder, and permission for them to march had only
been obtained by an appeal to the Secretary of War, Mr.
Stanton. Several white men walked with them, and at many
points sympathizers took pains to applaud. With this single
exception, the procession passed through a silent multitude,
the only sound the steady tramp of feet and the music of the
funeral dirges.
At four o'clock the funeral car reached the station, and
the journey was continued toward Albany. But the obse-
quies in New York did not end then. A meeting was held
that night in Union Square, at which George Bancroft deliv-
ered an oration that will remain as one of the great expres-
sions of the day upon Lincoln and the ideas for which he
worked. It was for this gathering that Bryant wrote his
u Ode for the Burial of Abraham Lincoln," beginning:
"Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just ;
Who in the fear of God did'st bear
The sword of power, a Nation's trust."
Imposing, solemn, and sincere as was this series of muni-
cipal demonstrations over the bier of Lincoln, there was an-
other feature of the funeral march which showed more viv-
idly the affectionate reverence in which the whole people
54 LIFE OF LINCOLN
held the President. This was the outpouring at villages,
country cross-roads, and farms to salute, as it passed, the
train bearing his remains. From Washington to Springfield
the train entered scarcely a town that the bells were not toll-
ing, the minute guns firing, the stations draped, and all the
spaces beside the track crowded with people with uncovered
heads. At many points arches were erected over the track ;
at others the bridges were wreathed from end to end in crape
and evergreens and flags. And this was not in the towns
alone; every farm-house by which the train passed became
for the time a funeral house ; the plow was left in the furrow,
crape was on the door, the neighbors were gathered, and
those who watched from the train as it flew by could see
groups of weeping women, of men with uncovered heads,
sometimes a minister among them, his arms raised in prayer.
Night did not hinder them. Great bonfires were built in
lonely country-sides, around which the farmers waited pa-
tiently to salute their dead. At the towns the length of the
train was lit by blazing torches. Storm as well as darkness
was unheeded. Much of the journey was made through the
rain, in fact, but the people seemed to have forgotten all
things but that Abraham Lincoln, the man they loved and
trusted, was passing by for the last time.
At eleven o'clock on the morning of Monday, May I, the
funeral train reached Chicago, and here the mourning began
to take on a character distinctly different from what had
marked it through the East. The people who now met the
coffin, who followed it to the court-house, who passed in end-
less streams by it to look on Lincoln's face, dated their trust
in him many years earlier than 1861. Man after man of
them had come to pay their last tribute, not to the late Presi-
dent of the United States, but to the genial lawyer, the
resourceful, witty political debater who had educated Illinois
to believe that a country could not endure half slave and half
LINCOLN'S FUNERAL 55
free, and who, after defeat, had kept her faithful to the " dur-
able struggle" by his counsel. The tears these men
shed were the tears of lung-time friends and personal
followers.
As the train advanced from Chicago toward Springfield
the personal and intimate character of the mourning grew.
The journey was made at night, but the whole population of
the country lined the route. Nearly every one of the towns
passed — indeed, one might almost say every one of the farms
passed — had been visited personally by Lincoln on legal or
political errands, and a vast number of those who thus in
the dead of night watched the flying train he had at some
time in his life taken by the hand.
It was nine o'clock on the morning of May 3 that the
funeral train entered the town where, four years and two
months before, Abraham Lincoln had bidden his friends
farewell, as he left them to go to Washington. Nearly all
of those who on that dreary February morning had listened
to his solemn farewell words were present in the May sun-
shine to receive him. Their hearts had been heavy as he de-
parted ; they were broken now, for he was more than a great
leader, an honored martyr, to the men of Springfield. He
was their neighbor and friend and helper, and as they bore
his coffin to the State House, in the centre of the city, their
minds were busy, not with the greatness and honor that had
come to him and to them through him, but with the scenes of
more than a quarter of a century in which he had always
been a conspicuous figure. Every corner of the street sug-
gested that past. Here was the office in which he had first
studied law ; here, draped in mourning, the one before which
his name still hung. Here was the house where he had lived,
the church he had attended, the store in which he had been
accustomed to tell stories and to discuss politics. His name
was written everywhere, even on the walls of the Hall of
56 LIFE OF LINCOLN
Representatives in the State House, where they placed his
coffin, for here he had spoken again and again.
During the time that the body lay in state — from the noon
of May 3 until the noon of May 4 — the place Lincoln
held in Springfield and the surrounding country was shown
as never before. The men and women who came to look on
his face were many of them the plain farmers of Sangamon
and adjacent counties, and they wept as over the coffin of a
father. Their grief at finding him so changed was incon-
solable. In the days after leaving Washington the face
changed greatly, and by the time Springfield was reached it
was black and shrunken almost beyond recognition. To
many the last look at their friend was so painful that the re-
membrance has never left them. The writer has seen men
weep as they recalled the scene, and heard them say repeat-
edly, " If I had not seen him dead ; if I could only remember
him alive! "
It was on May 4, fifteen days after the funeral in Wash-
ington, that Abraham Lincoln's remains finally rested in
Oakland Cemetery, a shaded and beautiful spot, two miles
from Springfield. Here, at the foot of a woody knoll, a vault
had been prepared; and thither, attended by a great con-
course of military and civic dignitaries, by governors of
States, members of Congress, officers of the army and navy,
delegations from orders, from cities, from churches, by the
friends of his youth, his young manhood, his maturer years,
was Lincoln carried and laid, by his side his little son. The
solemn rite was followed by dirge and prayer, by the reading
of his last inaugural address, and by a noble funeral oration
by Bishop Simpson. Then, as the beautiful day drew toward
evening, the vault was closed, and the great multitudes
slowly returned to their duties.
The funeral pageant was at an end, but the mourning was
not silenced. From every corner of the earth there came to
'>â–
wxkiy.
L
IMF CAPTURE OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH, THE ASSASSIN OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Booth wastracked from Washington to a farm near Bowling Green, Virginia, whore, on the night of April 25th
eleven days after the assassination, he was found in a barn. Be refused to surrender, and the harn was r-et on fire'
While it was burning Booth was shot by one of the pursuing party. He died three hours later
TfiS N
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOJt, LINal
ITILDEN POUNDATTOMsl
LINCOLN'S FUNERAL 57
the family and to the Government tributes to the greatness
of the character and life of the murdered man. Medals
were cast, tablets engraved, parchments engrossed. At the
end of the year, when the State Department came to publish
the diplomatic correspondence of 1865, there was a volume
of over 700 pages, containing nothing but expressions of
condolence and sympathy on Lincoln's death. Xor did the
mourning and the honor end there. From the day of his
death until now, the world has gone on rearing monuments
to Abraham Lincoln.
The first and inevitable result of the emotion which swept
over the earth at Lincoln's death was to enroll him among
martyrs and heroes. Men forgot that they had despised him,
jeered at him, doubted him. They forgot his mistakes, for-
got his plodding caution, forgot his homely ways. They saw
now, with the vision which an awful and sudden disaster so
often gives, the simple, noble outlines on which he had
worked. They realized how completely he had sunk every
partisan and personal consideration, every non-essential, in
the tasks which he had set for himself — to prevent the exten-
sion of slavery, to save the Union. They realized how, while
they had forgotten everything in disputes over this man, this
measure, this event, he had seen only the two great objects
of the struggle. They saw how slowly, but surely, he had
educated them to feel the vital importance of these objects,
had resolved their partisan warfare into a moral struggle.
The wisdom of his words, the sincerity of his acts, the stead-
fastness of his life were clear to them at last. With this rea-
lization came a feeling that he was more than a man. He
was a prophet, they said, a man raised up by God for a
special work, and they laid then the foundation of the Lin-
coln myth which still enthralls so many minds.
The real Lincoln, the great Lincoln, is not, however, this
prophet and martyr. He is the simple, steady, resolute, un-
58 LIFE OF LINCOLN
selfish man whose supreme ambition was to find out the truth
of the questions which confronted him in life, and whose
highest satisfaction was in following the truth he discovered.
He was not endowed by nature with the vision of a seer.
His power of getting at the truth of things he had won by in-
cessant mental effort. From his boyhood he would under-
stand, though he must walk the floor all night with his prob-
lem. Nor had nature made him a saint. His lofty moral
courage in the Civil War was the logical result of life-long
fidelity to his own conscience. From his boyhood he would
keep faith with that which his mind told him was true
though he lost friend and place by it. When he entered pub-
lic life these qualities at first won him position; but they cost
him a position more than once. They sent him to Congress ;
but, in 1849, they forced him out of public life. They
brought him face to face with Douglas from 1854 to 1858,
and enabled him to shape the moral sentiment of the North-
west ; but later they defeated him. They made him Illinois's
candidate for the presidency in i860; but they brought upon
him as President the distrust and hatred of even his own
party. It took four years of dogged struggle, of constant
repetitions of the few truths which he believed to be essential
to teach the people of the United States that they could trust
him; it took a murderer's bullet to make them realize the
surpassing greatness of his simplicity, his common sense,
and his resolution. It is this man who never rested until he
had found what he believed to be the right, and, who, having
found it, could never be turned from it, who is the Real Lin-
coln.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
The following Letter?, Telegrams and Speeches of Abraham Lin-
coln have been collected by the author in the course of the work of
preparing this Life of Lincoln. None of these documents appear
in Lincoln's " Complete Works " edited by Nicolay and Hay or in
any other collection of his writings.
New Salem, Aug. 10, 1833.
E. C. Blankexship:
Dear Sir : — In regard to the time David Rankin served the en-
closed discharge shows correctly — as well as I can recollect — having
no writing to refer. The transfer of Rankin from my company
occurred as follows — Rankin having lost his horse at Dixon's ferry
and having acquaintance in one of the foot companies who were
going down the river was desirous to go with them, and one Gal-
ishen being an acquaintance of mine and belonging to the com-
pany in which Rankin wished to go wished to leave it and join
mine, this being the case it was agreed that they should exchange
places and answer to each others names — as it was expected we all
would be discharged in very few days. As to a blanket — I have
no knowledge of Rankin ever getting any. The above embraces
all the facts now in my recollection which are pertinent to the
case.
I shall take pleasure in giving any further information in my
power should you call on me.
Your friend, A. Lincoln.
(Original owned by DeWitt C. Sprague, Washington, D. C.)
Mr. Spears:
At your request I send you a receipt for the postage on your
paper. I am somewhat surprised at your request. I will, however,
comply with it. The law requires Newspaper postage to be paid in
advance, and now that I have waited a full year you choose to
wound my feelings by insinuating that unless you get a receipt
I will probably make you pay it again —
Respectfully, A. Lincoln.
61
62 LIFE OF LINCOLN
Received of George Spears in full for postage on the " Sangamon
Journal " up to the first of July, 1834.
A. Lincoln, P. M.
(From fac-simile of letter printed in Menard-Salem-Lincoln
Souvenir Album. Petersburg, 1893.)
Report of Road Survey, written by Abraham Lincoln.
To the County Commissioner's Court for the County of Sanga-
mon : —
We, the undersigned, being appointed to view and relocate a part
of the road between Sangamon town and the town of Athens
respectfully report that we have performed the duty of said ap-
pointment according to law — and that we have made the said re-
location on good ground — and believe the same to be necessary and
proper.
James Strowbridge, ,
Levi Cantrall,
Athens, Nov. 4, 1834. A. Lincoln.
Herewith is the map — The court may allow me the following
charges if they think proper — â–
1 day's labour as surveyor $3.00
Making map „50
$3.50
A. Lincoln.
(Original in office of county clerk, Springfield, 111.)
John Bennett, Esq.
Springfield, III., Aug. 5, 1837.
Dear Sir : — Mr. Edwards tells me you wish to know whether the
act to which your town incorporation provision was attached
passed into a law. It did. You can organize under the general
incorporation law as soon as you choose. I also tacked a provision
on to a fellow's bill to authorize the re-location of the road from
Salem down to your town, but I am not certain whether or not the
bill passed, neither do I suppose I can ascertain before the law will
be published, if it is a law. Bowling Greene, Bennett Abell, and
yourself are appointed to make the change.
No news. No excitement except a little about the election of
Monday next. I suppose of course our friend, Dr. Henry, stands
no chance in your " diggings."
Your friend and humble servant,
A. Lincoln.
(Original owned by E. R. Oeltjen, Petersburg, Illinois.)
APPENDIX 63
TO THE PEOPLE.
" Sangamo Journal/' Springfield, III., Aug. 19, 1837.
In accordance with our determination, aa expressed last week, we
present to the reader the articles which were published in hand-bill
form, in reference to the ease of the heirs of Joseph Anderson vs.
James Adams. These articles can now be read, uninfluenced by
personal or party feeling-, and with the sole motive of learning the
truth. When thai i. - done, the reader can pass his own judgment
on the matters at issue.
We only regret in this case, that the publications were not made
some weeks before the election. Such a course might have pre-
vented the expressions of regret, which have often been heard since,
from different individuals, on account of the disposition they made
of their votes.
TO THE PUBLIC.
It is well known to most of you, that there is existing at thi9
time, considerable excitement in regard to Gen. Adams's titles to
certain tracts of land, and the manner in which he acquired them.
As I understand, the Gen. charges that the whole has been gotten
up by a knot of lawyers to injure his election ; and as I am one of
the knot to which he refers — and as I happen to be in possession
of facts connected with the matter, I will, in as brief a manner as
possible, make a statement of them, together with the means by
which I arrived at the knowledge of them.
Sometime in May or June last, a widow woman, by the name of
Anderson, and her son, who resides in Fulton county, came to
Springfield, for the purpose, as they said, of selling a ten acre
lot of ground lying near town, which they claimed as the property
of the deceased husband and father.
When they reached town they found the land was claimed by
Gen. Adams. John T. Stuart and myself were employed to look
into the matter, and if it was thought we could do so with any
prospect of success, to commence a suit for the land. I went imme-