Our friend had received some criticism for refusing to sign the death warrant of a condemned murderer. He justified his action on the legal ground that, since the man had been judged only on his own confession, it was not right to hang him without a full and fair trial. When the war was over, Governor Andrew retired to private life, resuming the practice of his profession. The strain upon him had been tremendous. He laughingly said: “It’s nip and tuck. I may bust my boiler, or I may not.” Alas! A stroke of apoplexy carried him off while still under fifty years of age. He was as much a victim of the Civil War as if he had died on the field of battle. On the morning of Saturday, April 19, 1865, came the terrible news of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the murderous attack on Secretary Seward and his son. Evidently there was a plot on foot to kill the chief officials of the national government. To the deep sorrow at the death of the beloved President was added the fear of the unknown evils threatening us and great indignation at the dastardly deed. How wide-spread the plot might be we did not know. Grief for the death of Lincoln was the predominant feeling. The sudden and tragic ending of his career showed his countrymen, as by a flash of light, the nobility of his character and the magnitude of what he had accomplished. Even the London _Punch_, which had jeered at the cause of the North during the Civil War, now made such atonement as was possible. I quote a verse of the poem by Douglas Jerrold: The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, Utter one voice of sympathy and shame! Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high; Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came. I do not believe our country has ever shown such universal signs of mourning. As my father and I rode on horseback about the suburbs of Boston, we saw house after house draped with black and white, some of the decorations being very elaborate. For a long time the countryside was swathed in mourning. The day after Lincoln’s death was Easter Sunday. In our own Church of the Disciples the pulpit was draped with purple cloth and adorned with flowers. In the afternoon I attended the services of the Church of the Advent, in which my friend, Louise Darling, was much interested, an Episcopal church of strongly ritualistic tendencies. There were no signs of mourning and no mention of the national sorrow! This seemed to me very heartless. Meanwhile the assassin was at large. It was a most dramatic as well as a most terrible time in our history. I read the newspapers—doubtless every one did—with the greatest interest. Here the story gradually unfolded itself, culminating in the trial and execution of Mrs. Surratt and the other conspirators. I remember wading through endless testimony, the question whether Edward Spingler did or did not wear a mustache being much discussed.