Just one week later men met each other on the street with tears in their eyes; signs of mourning were seen everywhere, and the bands played sad tunes. Word came on the telegraph wire that morning that the beloved president was dead; killed by an assassin's bullet.
Mr. Lincoln and his wife were out riding around Washington, and he said, "Mary, we have had a stormy life in Washington, and after this term of office is over, we will go back to Springfield and live a quiet life." But God had willed otherwise. That evening while he was resting from his hard labors and duties as president by attending Ford's theater, John Wilkes Booth, a wild fanatic, who had been a southern rebel, stole upon him from the rear and shot him in the back of the head, then jumped to the stage, and shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis." Booth then leaped out of the window. Although his leg had been broken by the first jump, he got on a horse and rode day and night until he got into Virginia, and there hid in a barn. When they tried to capture him, he would not come out of the barn, so they set the barn on fire, and when he came out they shot him. Several others who were in this plot were hung. They carried President Lincoln to the house across the street, where, as the dawn of day came, his soul departed to its everlasting rest in Heaven.
There probably has never been a death more sudden and unexpected and terrible in the history of the nations. Not only in this country did men everywhere cease their work as people do when a relative dies; but even in the countries of Europe they did so. All organizations passed resolutions of sympathy and the governments universally expressed theirs. It was a world-wide calamity.
He had gone through the four years of a terrible civil war unharmed, and now, when he had saved his country, conquered the enemy, and made him a friend again, and beautiful peace had come everywhere, to think his life should be taken by a cruel murderer, seemed more than men could bear. Every family mourned as though one of its own number had died suddenly.
The Washington funeral took place at the White House, Wednesday, April 19. The body was then taken to the rotunda of the capitol and covered with flowers. It lay in state until Friday, April 21. Thousands of people came to look at the calm, sad face that so many had looked at for hope through the long years of the awful war. It was now cold in death, but had a peaceful, natural look.
A great funeral train was formed that moved slowly across the country, going back along the route he came as the new president in 1861. It was over a week on the journey, as at many of the cities and towns it had to be stopped, so memorial exercises might be held and the people get a chance to see for the last time, the face of the martyr president. More than a million people, no doubt, thus looked on the dead face of President Lincoln.
They reached Springfield May 3 and there the greatest funeral ceremony took place and he was buried in Oakwood cemetery. Bishop Simpson preached the funeral sermon. In the beautiful tomb and under the magnificent monument since erected, Abraham Lincoln, his wife and two sons now sleep, awaiting the great resurrection day.
The nations of the world passed so many tributes in his honor that they were bound into a book of nearly a thousand pages.
As Mr. Lincoln was returning from Richmond on the steamer, the last Sunday of his life, he read aloud to some friends this seeming tribute for himself, from Shakespeare:
"Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further."