CHAPTER XXI.

THE PRESIDENT'S ASSASSINATION.

THE CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.-ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT.— MURDEROUS ASSAULT UPON SECRETARY SEWARD.-THE FUNERAL PROCESSION FROM WASHINGTON TO SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.-FATE OF THE ASSASSINS. ESTIMATE OF MR. LINCOLN'S CHARACTER. CONCLUSION.

THE war was over. The great rebellion which, for four long years, had been assailing the nation's life, was quelled. Richmond, the rebel capital, was taken, Lee's army had surrendered, and the flag of the Union was floating, in reassured supremacy, over the whole of the National domain. Friday, the 14th of April, the anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter in 1861, by Major Anderson to the rebel forces, had been designated by the Government as the day on which the same officer should again raise the American flag upon the fort, in presence of an assembled multitude, and with ceremonies befitting so auspicious an occasion. The whole land rejoiced at the return of peace and the prospect of renewed prosperity to the whole country. President Lincoln shared this common joy, but with a deep intensity of feeling which no other man in the whole land could ever know. He saw the full fruition of the great work which had rested so heavily on his hands and heart for four years past. He saw the great task-as momentous as had ever fallen to the lot of man-wh.. h he had approached with such unfeigned diffidence, nea.ly at an end. The agonies of war had passed away--he had won the imperishable renown which is the high reward of those who save their country, and he could devote himself now to the welcome task of healing the wounds which war had made, and consolidating, by a wise and mag

nanimous policy, the severed sections of our common Union. Mr. Lincoln's heart was full of the generous sentiments which these circumstances were so well calculated to inspire. On the morning of Friday, a Cabinet meeting was held, at which he was even more than usually cheerful and hopeful, as he laid before the Secretaries his plans and suggestions for the treatment of the conquered people of the Southern States. And after the meeting was over he talked with his wife, with all the warmth of his loving nature, of the four years of storm through which he had been compelled to pass, and of the peaceful sky on which the opening of his second term had dawned. His mind was free from forebodings, and filled only with thoughts of kindness and of future peace.

But Mr. Lincoln had failed to estimate aright one of the elements inseparable from civil war-the deep and malignant passion which it never fails to excite. Free from the faintest impulse of revenge himself, he could not appreciate its desperate intensity in the hearts of others. Mr. Seward, with his larger experience and more practical knowledge of human nature, had repeatedly told him that so great a contest could never close without passing through an era of assassination-that if it did not come as a means of aiding the rebel cause, it would follow, and seek to avenge its downfall, and that it was the duty of all who were responsibly and conspicuously connected with the Government, to be prepared for this supreme test of their courage and patriotic devotion. Mr. Seward himself, had acted upon this conviction, and had stood at his post always prepared for sudden death. Mr. Lincoln was unwilling to contemplate the possibility of such a crime. To all remonstrances against personal exposure, he replied that his death could not possibly benefit the rebel cause, but would only rouse the loyalty of the land to fresh indignation, and that no precautions he could take would defeat the purpose of his murder, if it were really entertained. He continued, therefore, his habit of walking alone from the Executive Mansion to the War Department

late at night, and of riding unattended to his summer residence, the Soldiers' Home, four or five miles from the Capital, until the Secretary of War finally forced his reluctant assent to the presence of a guard. From time to time during his Administration, he had received letters threatening him with assassination, but as they were anonymous, and couched in language of bravado, he put them aside without remark.

As the war drew towards its close, and the rebel cause seemed tottering to its fall, warnings of more significance reached the Government, and arrested the attention of its leading members. Hints of plots against the President's life, among the rebel agents abroad and in Canada, began to multiply, and towards the last of March, Secretary Seward received from our consuls in London and Liverpool detailed reports of revelations, made to their secret agents in France, of a comprehensive conspiracy against the lives of the President and Generals Grant and Sherman, assumed to be the main bulwarks of the National cause.* These warnings were so distinct and direct, that Mr. Seward consulted Secretary Stanton in regard to them, and it was agreed that he should lay the subject before the President the next day, and earnestly represent to him the expediency of avoiding, for a time, all public gatherings, and all needless exposure to possible assault. But the next day Mr. Seward was thrown from his carriage and, his foot catching in the steps, he was dragged for some distance, and so seriously injured, that he was compelled to dismiss all thought of public matters from his mind. Mr. Lincoln's visit to Richmond had led to remonstrances from friends, who feared that some rebel fanatic, frenzied by the overthrow of the rebel cause, might seek revenge in the murder of the President, and he had, in reply, given assurances that he would take all due precautions. But the matter evidently made but a momentary impression upon his mind, and his personal demeanor in all respects remained unchanged.

On Friday, the 14th, he breakfasted with his son, Cap

* See Appendix.

tain Robert Lincoln, who was on the staff of General Grant, and from whom he heard full details of the surrender of General Lee, of which Captain Lincoln had been an eye-witness. He received various public men after breakfast, among whom were Speaker Colfax and ex-Senator J. P. Hale, and conversed freely, in a tone of high and hopeful courage, of the immediate political future. Nothing can indicate more clearly the elation of mind with which the President regarded the future of the country, now that its safety had been assured, than the language he addressed, in conversation at this interview, to Mr. Colfax, who was at this time preparing for a journey overland to the Pacific coast. Said he :

"Mr. Colfax, I want you to take a message from me to the miners whom you visit. I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the Western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced. During the war, when we were adding a couple of millions of dollars every day to our national debt, I did not care about encouraging the increase in the volume of our precious metals. We had the country to save first. But now that the rebellion is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the amount of our national debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make the payınent of that debt so much the easier. Now," said he, speaking with more emphasis, "I am going to encourage that in every possible way. We shall have hundreds of thousands of disbanded soldiers, any many have feared that their return home in such great numbers might paralyze industry, by furnishing, suddenly, a greater supply of labor than there will be demand for. I am going to try to attract them to the hidden wealth of our mountain ranges, where there is room enough for all. Immigration, which evon the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundreds of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point them to the gold and silver that wait for them in the West. Tell the miners for me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation; and," said he, his eye kindling with enthusiasm, "we shall prove, in a very few years, that we are indeed the treasury of the world."

At eleven o'clock he attended the meeting of the Cabinet, already referred to, which was rendered more than usu ally interesting by the presence and report of General Grant, who had come direct to Washington from the field,