In a recent conversation General Grant thus speaks of this sad time: “The darkest day of my life was the day I heard of Lincoln’s assassination. I did not know what it meant. Here was the rebellion put down in the field, and starting up again in the gutters; we had fought it as war, now we had to fight it as assassination. Lincoln was killed on the 14th of April. I was busy sending out orders to stop recruiting, the purchase of supplies, and to muster out the army. Lincoln had promised to go to the theatre, and wanted me to go with him. While I was with the President a letter came from Mrs. Grant, saying that she must leave Washington that night. She wanted to go to Burlington to see her children. Some incident of a trifling nature had made her resolve to leave that evening. I was glad to have it so, as I did not want to go to the theatre. So I made my excuse to Lincoln, and, at the proper hour, we started for the train. As we were driving along Pennsylvania Avenue, a horseman rode past us on a gallop, and back again around our carriage, looking into it. “Mrs. Grant said: ‘There is the man who sat near us at lunch to-day with some other men, and tried to overhear our conversation. He was so rude that we left the dining-room. Here he is now, riding after us.’ “I thought it was only curiosity, but learned afterwards that the horseman was Booth. It seemed that I was to have been attacked, and Mrs. Grant’s sudden resolve to leave changed the plan. A few days after I received an anonymous letter from a man, saying that he had been detailed to kill me; that he rode on my train as far as Havre de Grace, and as my car was locked he failed to get in. He thanked God that he had failed. I remembered that the conductor had locked the car, but how true the letter was I can not say. I learned of the assassination as I was passing through Philadelphia. I turned around, took a special train, and came on to Washington. It was the gloomiest day of my life.” Of the imposing funeral ceremonies, and the manifestations of deep grief throughout the nation, I need not speak. As Dr. Holland well says: “Millions felt that they had lost a brother, or a father, or a dear personal friend. It was a grief that brought the nation more into family sympathy than it had been since the days of the Revolution. Men came together in public meetings, to give expression to their grief.... There were men engaged in the rebellion who turned from the deed with horror. Many of these had learned something of the magnanimity of Mr. Lincoln’s character; and they felt that the time would come when the South would need his friendship.”