EVE

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. SURRATT.

VERY living American, North and South, likes to describe his special sensation at the time of the news of the murder of Abraham Lincoln, at Washington, on the night of April 14th, 1865.

No individual event ever created such

a

shock

throughout the civilized world. The daily record of the death of great men, of suicides, murders, shipwrecks, steamboat explosions, and conflagrations, hardly affects us: but the sudden killing of the unpretending President of the United States affected mankind at the same moment with a I never met an American who I could not tell some story connected with that tragedy, and some personal revelation of exactly at what time and place he heard of it.

matchless horror.

I heard of it at Richmond, on Saturday, the 15th of April, 1865, where I had been sent by Mr. Lincoln a few days before, with letters to the General in command, directing me to go with him and see the editors of the city and induce them to re-organize their newspapers, and to encourage

them to support the restored authority of the United States. Among my traveling companions were the present Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, Hon. Samuel J. Randall, the Hon. Emanuel B. Hart, of New York, the late General George M. Lauman, of Pennsylvania, and several others. After this news we returned to Washington by the earliest conveyance. On Sunday we reached the national capital to find Vice-president Andrew Johnson, installed in the presidency, holding his receptions at the Kirkwood House, while the dead body of the martyr was lying in the Presidential mansion, preparatory to that marvellous funeral, extending through all the states between Washington, the national capital, and Springfield, the capital of Illinois.

The idea, if not the apprehension of assassination was more or less before the mind of Abraham Lincoln, from the day of his election, November, 1860, to the day of his death, on the 14th of April, 1865. He did not seem to fear death, but there was so much written against him, and so much said to do him injury, and there was such an ingenuity of invention among those who did not know or did not like him, that even a calmer philosopher than himself would have been forced to pay some attention to a consideration that was more or less forced before his own and present in other minds. The reader will perceive that from the time he left Illinois on

the way to Washington, on the 11th of February, 1860, to his arrival at the National Capitol, the ghost of murder seemed to track his steps, and yet travelling with this ghost was the angel of forgiveness, as if sent as his holy sentinel.

At Indianapolis, he said "The question is, shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generation?" In the Indianapolis State House, he said, at the same time, "What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred on a district of country by its people by merely calling it a State?" At Cincinnati, "We mean to treat you as nearly as we possibly can as Washington, Jefferson and Madison treated you." At Columbus, "It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out there is really nothing that hurts anybody." At Steubenville, "If I adopt a wrong policy, the opportunity for condemnation will occur in four years time." At Pittsburg, "As a rule, I think it better that Congress should originate, as well as perfect, its measures, without external bias." At Buffalo, he expressed the hope that he might be able "to relieve the country from the present, or, as I should say, the threatened difficulties.

At Albany, "When the time comes I shall speak for the good, both of the North and South of this country, for the good of the one and the other, and for all sections of the country." At New York, "I am sure I bring a heart devoted to the

work." At Philadelphia he made the declaration which seemed to presage his assassination: "This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the world for all future time, and if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle-I was about to say-I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it." And on the very day before he was assassinated this was his language, after having received the news of the capture of Richmond: "Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restore the proper practical relations between the Southern states and the nation, and each forever after innocently indulging in his own opinion, whether in doing the acts he brought the states from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it."

President Johnson, full of honest grief for a death which opened his way to four years of disturbed executive power, was also full of anger, and if you will turn to his speeches, particularly that to the Indiana Delegation, you will see how sweeping this anger was, and how indiscriminate his charges against the people of the South, who mourned the loss of Lincoln as if he had been one of themselves, as indeed he was their best friend. The story of the capture of Booth need not be repeated, nor the fate of his confederates, nor the

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attempt to kill Secretary Seward. What concerns General Hancock is the fact that when Mrs. Surratt, convicted for being accessory to the great crime, was executed, the General had been recalled from Winchester, where, as I have said, he was stationed with his great corps, waiting to carry forward certain decisive operations rendered unnecessary by the catastrophe to the Confederacy. The officer who had immediate charge of Mrs. Surratt was General John F. Hartranft, of Pennsylvania. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, who, like the President, was greatly excited against the authors of the assassination, and in accordance with the prevailing public opinion, demanded their condign punishment. In most all political excitements, as our own experience has shown, a soldier is frequently called upon to carry out unpleasant orders from his civil superiors. General Grant himself has had more than one of these dilemmas to meet, and when General Hancock was placed in command of the Washington Department, he found himself in the midst of a wild unreasoning phrenzy. No one was more resolute, more obdurate and unapproachable, than President Johnson himself as his order directing-the execution of Mrs. Surratt will show. General Hancock did not hesitate to express his great repugnance at the unpleasant duty forced upon him. Hence when Judge Clampitt, now of Chicago, Mrs. Surratt's leading counsel in 1865, visited Wash