Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Upon the hearts of a people glowing with the joy of victory the news of
the President's death fell as a great shock. In the unspeakable calamity
the country lost sight of the great national successes of the past week;
and thus it came to pass that there was never any organized celebration
in the North over the downfall of the rebellion. It was unquestionably
best that it should be so. Lincoln himself would not have had it
otherwise, for he hated the arrogance of triumph. As it was, the South
could take no offense at a grief so genuine; and the people of that
section even shared, to a certain extent, in the mourning for one who,
in their inmost hearts, they knew to have wished them well.
Within an hour after Mr. Lincoln's body was taken to the White House the
town was shrouded in black. Not only the public buildings, the shops,
and the better class of dwellings were draped in funeral decorations;
still more touching proof of affection was shown in the poorest class of
homes, where laboring men of both colors found means in their poverty to
afford some scanty bit of mourning. The interest and veneration of the
people still centered at the White House, where, under a tall catafalque
in the East Room the late chief lay in the majesty of death, rather than
in the modest tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the new President
had his lodgings, and where the Chief Justice administered the oath of
office to him at eleven o'clock on the morning of April 15.
It was determined that the funeral ceremonies in Washington should be
held on Wednesday, April 19, and all the churches throughout the country
were invited to join at the same time in appropriate observances. The
ceremonies in the East Room were simple and brief, while all the pomp
and circumstance that the government could command were employed to give
a fitting escort from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol, where the
body of the President lay in state. The procession moved to the
booming of minute guns, and the tolling of all the bells in Washington,
Georgetown and Alexandria; while, to associate the pomp of the day with
the greatest work of Lincoln's life, a detachment of colored troops
marched at the head of the line.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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