Personal Recollections—The Tragic Event—Mr. Stanton—A Nation in Sorrow—The Funeral—The Interment at Springfield, Illinois—The House in Which President Lincoln Died—Changed Conditions—The South Honors Lincoln—A United People—A Rich Inheritance.
On the 15th of April, 1865, my father came hurriedly into the house with the exclamatory interrogation, addressed to mother, "Guess who's dead!" Mother at once thought of her old father, and asked if it were he. Then came the startling news, "Lincoln is killed!" What a shock it was to our family, as it was to thousands of others. We looked at the little two-year-old boy of the household who bore the President's name, and, with childish superstition, wondered if he would suffer any disadvantages because of the murder of President Lincoln.
On Friday evening, April 14, the President was in attendance at Ford's Theater, on Tenth Street, in Washington, D. C. The proceeds of the entertainment were to be given to a charity benefit, and it was widely advertised that the President and wife, with General Grant and others would be present. John Wilkes Booth, a fanatic and Southern sympathizer, shot the President in the head at 10:15. He at once became unconscious, and never regained consciousness. He was carried across the street to a house, where he died the next morning at 7:23. Mrs. Lincoln, the son Robert T., Private Secretary John Hay, several members of the cabinet, surgeons, Rev. Dr. Gurley, Senator Charles Sumner, and others were present when the end came.
No one, outside of the family, was so deeply moved at the striking down of the President as was Mr. Stanton. It will be remembered that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton first met in 1857, at the trial of the McCormick Reaper Patent case, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and that at the trial Stanton slighted Mr. Lincoln and made uncomplimentary remarks about him. Four years later, President Lincoln chose Mr. Stanton a member of his cabinet, making him Secretary of War. Their relations were very close during the war period up to the time of Mr. Lincoln's death.
F. B. Carpenter, in his book, "Six Months at the White House," says:
"A few days before the President's death, Secretary Stanton tendered his resignation of the War Department. He accompanied the act with a heartfelt tribute to Mr. Lincoln's constant friendship and faithful devotion to the country, saying, also, that he, as secretary, had accepted the position to hold it only until the war should end, and that now he felt his work was done, and his duty was to resign.
"Mr. Lincoln was greatly moved by the secretary's words, and, tearing in pieces the paper containing his resignation, and throwing his arms about the secretary, he said, 'Stanton, you have been a good friend and a faithful public servant, and it is not for you to say when you will no longer be needed here.' Several friends of both parties were present on the occasion, and there was not a dry eye that witnessed the scene."
When Lincoln fell, Stanton was almost heart-broken, and as he knelt by his side was heard to say to himself: "Am I indeed left alone? None may now ever know or tell what we have suffered together in the nation's darkest hours." When the surgeon-general said to him that there was no hope, he could not believe it, and passionately exclaimed, "No, no, general; no, no!"
When Lincoln expired, and just after prayer by Doctor Gurley, Stanton was the first to break the silence, saying, "Now he belongs to the ages."
At the death of President Lincoln the nation was suddenly turned from demonstrations of great joy, on account of the closing of the war, to intense grief and unutterable horror. W. O. Stoddard says, "It was as if there had been a death in every home throughout the land." J. H. Barrett says: