chief cities of the south were occupied by the union forces; Lee had surrendered his sword, and President Lincoln had just visited the city of Richmond, so recently the confederate stronghold; and Jefferson Davis was a fugitive, who had then barely escaped capture. The demonstrations of joy at the now certain conclusion of hostilities, and the dawn of peace, were universal; and by no one, in all the land, was this joy shared so fully as by President Lincoln.

Of the president's happy frame of mind, now that victory had everywhere crowned the federal arms, and he was entering on

FORD'S THEATER, IN WASHINGTON.

his second presidential term under the auspices of prospective peace, something may be judged by the incidents represented to have transpired in connection with his private and personal intercourse, during the last day of his life. On the morning of that fatal day, Captain Robert Lincoln, son of the president, and who had just returned from the capitulation of General Lee, breakfasted with his father, and the president passed a happy hour listening to all the details. While thus at breakfast, he heard that Speaker Colfax was in the house, and sent word that he wished to see him immediately in the

reception room. He conversed with him nearly an hour, on his future policy as to the south, which he was about to submit to the cabinet. Afterwards he had an interview with Mr. Hale, minister to Spain, and with several senators and representatives. At eleven o'clock, the cabinet and General Grant met with him, and, in one of the most important and satisfactory cabinet sessions held since his first inauguration, the future policy of the administration was harmoniously and unanimously agreed on, Secretary Stanton remarking that he felt that the government was stronger than at any previous period since the rebellion commenced. Turning to General Grant, Mr. Lincoln asked him if he had heard from General Sherman. General Grant replied that he had not, but was in hourly expectation of receiving dispatches from him announcing the surrender of Johnston. The president re

plied:

"Well, you will hear very soon, and the news will be important."

"Why do you think so?" inquired General Grant, somewhat in a curious mood.

"Because," said Mr. Lincoln, "I had a dream, last night, and, ever since the war began, I have invariably had the same dream before any very important military event has occurred." He then instanced Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc., and said that before each of those events he had had the same dream, and, turning to Secretary Welles, continued, "It is in your line, too, Mr. Welles. The dream is, that I saw a ship sailing very rapidly, and I am sure that it portends some important national event."

In the afternoon, the president had a long and pleasant interview with General Oglesby, Senator Yates, and other leading citizens of Illinois.

At about half-past seven o'clock in the evening, Hon. George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, who presided over the Chicago Convention in 1860, called at the White House, and was ushered into the parlor, where Mr. Colfax was seated, waiting for

an interview with the president, on business which had a bearing on his proposed overland trip. A few moments elapsed, when President Lincoln entered the room, and engaged in conversation upon various matters, appearing to be in a very happy and jovial frame of mind. He spoke of his visit to Richmond, and when they stated that there was much uneasiness at the north while he was in that city, for fear that he might be shot, he replied, jocularly, that he would have been alarmed himself if any other person had been president and gone there, but that personally he did not feel any danger whatever. Conversing on a matter of business with Mr. Ashmun, he made a remark that he saw Mr. Ashmun was surprised at, and, though not very important, he immediately said, with his well-known kindness of heart,

"You did not understand me, Ashmun. I did not mean what you inferred, and I take it all back and apologize for it."

Mr. Ashmun desiring to see him again, and there being no time to attend to it then, the president took out a card, and placing it on his knee, wrote as follows:

"Allow Mr. Ashmun and friend to come to me at nine A. M., to-morrow.

A. Lincoln."

April 14, '65. These were the last words that he penned. It was the last time that he signed his name to any order, document or message. The last words written by him were thus making an engagement for the morrow-an engagement which he was not allowed to meet. Before the hour had arrived he was no more. After signing the card, he said, humorously, to Mr. Colfax,

"Mr. Sumner has the gavel of the Confederate Congress, which he got at Richmond, to hand to the secretary of war; but I insisted then that he must give it to you, and you tell him for me to hand it over."

Mr. Ashmun here pleasantly alluded to the gavel which he himself still had-the same one he had used when presiding over the Chicago Nominating Convention of 1860.

President Lincoln finally stated that he must go to the theater, and, saying, “You are going with Mrs. Lincoln and me to the theater, I hope," warmly pressed Speaker Colfax and Mr. Ashmun to accompany them, but they excused themselves on the score of previous engagements. It was now half an hour after the time when they had intended to start, and they spoke about waiting half an hour longer,-the president going with reluctance, as General Grant had that evening gone north, and Mr. Lincoln did not wish the people to be disappointed, it having been announced in the afternoon papers that the president, Mrs. Lincoln, and General Grant, would attend the theater that evening, to witness the representation of the "American Cousin." At the door, Mr. Lincoln stopped and said,

"Colfax, do not forget to tell the people in the mining regions, as you pass through them, what I told you this morning about the development when peace comes, and I will telegraph you at San Francisco."

Starting for the carriage, Mrs. Lincoln took the arm of Mr. Ashmun, and the president and Mr. Colfax walked together. As soon as the president and Mrs. Lincoln were seated in the carriage, Mrs. Lincoln gave orders to the coachman to drive around to Senator Harris's residence, for Miss Harris. As the carriage rolled away, they both said "Good-by,-Goodby," to Messrs. Ashmun and Colfax. A few moments later, and the presidential party of four persons, namely, the president and Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris, and Major Rathbone, arrived at the theater and entered the front and left-hand upper private box.

The deeply-laid plan of Booth to murder the president was soon to culminate in horrid and fatal execution. According to the very reliable account given by the Hon. H. J. Raymond, in his biography of the martyred president, and in which account there is exhibited the most painstaking synopsis of the accumulated evidence concerning Booth's movements, the murderer made his appearance at fifteen

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

minutes after ten, passed along the passage behind the spectators in the dresscircle, showed a card to the president's messenger, and stood for two or three minutes looking down upon the stage and the orchestra below. He then entered the vestibule of the president's box, closed the door behind him, and fastened it by bracing a short plank against it from the wall, so that it could not be opened from the outside. He then drew a small silvermounted Derringer pistol, which he carried in his right hand, holding a long double-edged dagger in his left. All in the box were intent on the proceedings upon the stage; but President Lincoln was leaning forward, holding aside the curtain of the box with his left hand, and looking, with his head slightly turned, towards the audience. Booth stepped within the inner door into the box, directly behind the president, and, holding the

pistol just over the back of the chair in which he sat, shot him through the back of the head. Mr. Lincoln's head fell slightly forward, and his eyes closed, but in every other respect his attitude remained unchanged. The report of the pistol startled those in the box, and Major Rathbone, turning his eyes from the stage, saw, through the smoke that filled the box, a man standing between him and the president. He instantly sprang towards him and seized him; but Booth wrested himself from his grasp, and, dropping the pistol, struck at him with the dagger, inflicting a severe wound upon his left arm, near the shoulder. Booth then rushed to the front of the box, shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!"-put his hand upon the railing in front of the box, and leaped over it upon the stage below. he went over, his spur caught in the flag which draped the front, and he fell; but recovering himself immediately, he rose, brandished the dagger, and facing the audience, shouted, "The South is avenged!" He then rushed across the

avenged!"

As

stage towards the passage which led to the

stage door in the rear of the theater. An actor named Hawke was the only person on the stage when Booth leaped upon it, and seeing Booth coming towards him with the dagger in his hand, he ran off the stage and up a flight of stairs. Booth ran through the passage-way beside the scenes, meeting one or two persons only, whom he struck from his path, went out at the door which stood open, and which he closed behind him, and mounting a horse which he had brought there, and which a lad was holding for him, he rode over the Anacosta bridge, across the east branch of the Potomac, safely escaping to Lower Maryland.

It is impossible to describe the scene which transpired in that box and in that vast audience, on the discovery that the president was shot. Suffice it to say, that the surgeon-general and other physicians were immediately summoned, and their skill exhausted in efforts to restore him to consciousness. An examination of his wounds, however, showed that no hopes could be given that his life would be spared.

Preparations were at once made to remove him, and he was conveyed to a house immediately opposite, and there placed upon a bed, the only evidence of life being

HOUSE WHERE LINCOLN DIED.

an occasional nervous twitching of the hand and heavy breathing. At about halfpast eleven, the motion of the muscles of his face indicated as if he were trying to speak, but doubtless it was merely muscular. His eyes protruded from their sockets and were suffused with blood.

At his bedside were the secretaries of war, the navy and the interior; the postmaster-general and attorney-general; Senator Sumner; General Todd, cousin to Mrs. Lincoln; Major Hay, Mr. M. B. Field, General Halleck, General Meigs, Rev. Doctor Gurley, the physicians, and a few other persons. All were bathed in tears; and Secretary Stanton, when informed by Surgeon-General Barnes, that the president could not live until morning, exclaimed, "Oh, no, General; no-no;" and with an impulse, natural as it was unaffected, immediately sat down and wept like a child. Senator Sumner was seated at the right of the president, near the head, holding the right hand of the president in his own; he was sobbing like a woman, with his head bowed down almost upon the pillow of the bed. In an adjoining room were Mrs. Lincoln, and

several others.

Mrs. Lincoln was in a state of great excitement and agony, wringing her hands and exclaiming, "Why did he not shoot me, instead of my husband! I have tried to be so careful of him, fearing something would happen, and his life seemed to be more precious now than ever. I must go with him!"-and other expressions of like character. She was constantly going to and from the bedside of the president, saying in utter grief, "How can it be so!" The scene was heart-rending. Captain Robert Lincoln bore himself with great firmness, and constantly endeavored to assuage the grief of his mother by telling her to put her trust in God and all would be well. Occasionally, however, being entirely overcome, he would retire by himself and give vent to most piteous lamentations.

At four o'clock, the symptoms of restlessness returned, and at six the premonitions of dissolution set in. His face, which had been quite pale, began to assume a waxen transparency, the jaw slowly fell, and the teeth became exposed. About a quarter of an hour before the president died, his breathing became very difficult, and in many instances seemed to have entirely

ceased. He would again rally and breathe with so great difficulty as to be heard in almost every part of the house. Mrs. Lincoln took her last leave of him about twenty minutes before he expired, and was sitting in the adjoining room when it was announced to her that he was dead. When this announcement was made, she exclaimed, "Oh! why did you not tell me that he was dying!"

The surgeons and the members of the cabinet, Senator Sumner, Captain Robert Lincoln, General Todd, Mr. Field, and one or two more, were standing at his bed-side when he breathed his last. Rob

that for the space of five minutes the ticking of the watches could be distinctly heard. All stood transfixed in their positions, speechless, breathless, around the dead body of that great and good man. At length the secretary of war broke the silence and said to Rev. Doctor Gurley, "Doctor, will you say anything?" He replied, "I will speak to God." "Do it just now," responded the secretary. And there, by the side of the fallen chief, a fervent prayer was offered up, at the close of which there arose from the lips of the entire company a fervid and spontaneous "Amen."

No adequate portrayal can be given of the effect upon the public mind, of the murder of the president, as the news was borne along the telegraphic wires, from one end of the land to the other. Stunned, bewildered, incredulous, at first, the tears and wailing of a whole nation were soon manifest deep answering unto deep-to an extent and degree never before witnessed since the death of Washington. A pang of horror seized every heart, in this darkest hour of the country's history, the emblems of mourning shrouded the land in very darkness-its streets, its habita

upon the arm of Senator Sumner, the mutual embrace of the two having all the affectionateness of father and son. The surgeons were sitting upon the side and foot of the bed, holding the president's hands, and with their watches observing the slow declension of the pulse, and watching the ebbing out of the vital spirit.

He lingered longer than was expected; until, at twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock, in the morning, April fifteenth, the physician said, with solemn accent and overpowering emotion,

"He is gone; he is dead."

Such was the deep stillness, in that awful presence, at the fatal announcement.

capitols, - funeral pageants everywhere hushed the noise of business, and the solemn voice of eulogy and lamentation, and the sound of dirge and requiem, filled the air, from the mountains of the north. to the prairies and valleys of the west and the golden slopes of the far-off Pacific.

If, in the blind and fatal mistake of sectional antagonism or partisan bitterness, this most infamous of human crimes found apologists, there were, at least, some notable exceptions to this feeling. Thus, when the tidings reached Richmond, General Lee at first refused to hear the details of the horrid deed, from the two gentlemen who waited upon him on Sunday night