III. HOMELY WAYS TO EXPRESS TRUTH
The way Lincoln looked at the malicious denunciations of his conduct of the war, the vile stories told about him and the wicked perversions of the things he said was once characterized by him in the story of an incident that happened to two Irish emigrants who had come out into the wilderness fresh from the Emerald Isle.
They were tramping their way through the West seeking for work. One evening they camped at the edge of a pond of water. Being tired, they were soon fast asleep. Suddenly they were awakened by a chorus of bellowing sounds the like of which they had never heard before. It was not comparable to anything they knew of man or beasts. Baum, gurgle and bellow it went here, there, and then seemingly everywhere. They grabbed their walking-stick shillelahs, ready to face the enemy, whether man, beast or devil. But nothing was to be seen. They crept forward, then boldly searched, strained their eyes in every direction and defied their enemy with many insulting challenges to show himself, but the scattering bellowing was all that could be found.
At last a happy thought struck one of them. "Jamie," he cried to his companion, "I know what it is! It"s nothing but a noise."
Lincoln took this att.i.tude toward all minor things that could have absorbed his time for weightier questions.
When General Phelps captured Ship Island, near New Orleans, early in the war, he took upon himself the power of freeing all the slaves on the island. This looked like something very important to many people, who were surprised that Lincoln took no notice of it. At last he was taken to task for it, and he settled the whole question with a story.
There was once a man who was very meek but he had a very aggressive wife. He had the reputation of being badly henpecked. One day a friend saw the poor man"s wife switching him out of the house.
The first time the friend met the henpecked man, after that disgraceful episode, the friend said, "I have always stood up for you, as you well know, but now I am done with you. Any man who allows his wife to switch him out of the house deserves all he gets."
The abused man patted his friend on the back and in a conciliating tone said, "Now don"t feel that way about it, it didn"t hurt me a bit, and you have no idea what a great amount of satisfaction it gives my dear wife."
Lincoln saw things as symbols with moral meanings. On seeing a tree covered with a luxuriant vine, he said, "The vine is beautiful, but, like certain habits of men, it decorates the ruin it makes."
Speaking of the difference in meaning between character and reputation, he said, "Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, but the real thing is the tree."
Some influential people were urging him to declare the slaves free before conditions made such a thing practical. He pressed that point home to them with a question.
"How many legs," he asked, "will a sheep have if you call the sheep"s tail a leg?"
They promptly answered five.
"You are wrong," he replied, "for calling a sheep"s tail a leg won"t make it so."
To importunate and impetuous persons Lincoln always had the right reply. Once a rather proud mother came before him with a rather haughty-looking son.
"Mr. President," she said very conclusively, "you must give a Colonel"s commission to my son."
He waited for her to explain why he must do so.
"Sir," she exclaimed, "I have a right to demand it. My grandfather fought at Lexington; my uncle stood his ground at Blandensburg; my father fought at New Orleans; and my husband was killed at Monterey."
"I guess, Madam," Lincoln promptly replied, "that your family has done its share for its country. Let"s give others a chance."
IV. THE GREAT TRAGEDY
Our story here has to do only with episodes that compose the personal interest of Lincoln and does not take into consideration the usual public or political affairs that build up his historical character and national service. But the tragedy of his martyrdom has many important points of interest relating to the interpretation of his personal life. The Book of Fate opens only upon the past and we call it history, but it is the "light of experience" for social reason and the moral law.
On the evening of April 14, 1865, a happy party of distinguished friends were gathered for dinner with President Lincoln at the White House. Mrs. Lincoln, being the manager of social affairs, made up a theatre party to see Laura Keene play "Our American Cousin" at Ford"s Theatre. In the party were General Grant and his wife, and Governor Oglesby of Illinois. The box for the party having been procured in the morning, the manager of the theatre announced in the afternoon papers that the President and the Hero of Appomattox would be present at the farewell benefit performance of Miss Keene.
The house was filled, but the President came late, as Mr. and Mrs.
Grant had decided to take the train that evening for the West, and Mrs. Lincoln had to rearrange the plans for her party, so as to include Major Rathburn and his stepsister, Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris of New York. The President desired to give up going, but, on being told how disappointed the public would be, he yielded to the persuasion and went.
They arrived about the middle of the first act and were received with loud applause, the people standing as the band played "Hail to the Chief."
One can hardly refrain from pausing, as this scene comes before the mind, to wonder if the log-cabin boy had beheld this scene in a prophetic dream how extravagant and impossible it would have seemed.
On reaching the box, the President took a large arm-chair in front, with Mrs. Lincoln by his side on the right.
After they were seated, the interrupted play was resumed.
It was about the middle of the third act, the time 10.20, when the audience was startled by a shot, and immediately the shout, "Sic semper tyrannis" (so ever to tyrants). Next came the piercing shriek of Mrs. Lincoln, then a well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, was seen to swing out over the box and fall heavily upon the stage.
The horrified people arose with cries of alarm and all was confusion, so that witnesses from the audience could see no more, and they poured forth into the streets with the dreadful news that the President had been shot.
Booth had desired to make the a.s.sa.s.sination as spectacular and sensational as possible. He prepared himself, just before the terrible deed, with a heavy drink of whisky in the nearby saloon. Going into the theatre from the front, he pa.s.sed along the wall to the pa.s.sageway leading to the box. He took out a visiting card and went up to the President"s messenger, who was sitting just outside. Presenting the card, he pa.s.sed through the door into the aisle back of the box, closing and barring the door after him. Slipping in just behind the President, he aimed the pistol at the back of his victim"s head and fired the shot.
Some testify that his first words were "Revenge for the South."
As the a.s.sa.s.sin swung himself over to take the twelve-foot leap to the stage, Major Rathburn of the party tried to catch him, and so received a severe wound on the hand from a dagger. An American flag draped the front of the stage, and in this Booth"s spur caught, throwing him so as to fracture his left leg, and which actually resulted in being the cause of his capture. This flag has thus been called the "mute avenger of its Nation"s Chief."
Excited crowds were nothing new in Washington, but witnesses declare they never saw such insane despair as that with which the people expressed their grief. Shouting, frenzied men and women ran aimlessly here and there in a chaos of ungovernable disorder.
People could hardly believe that the hideous deed had been done by John Wilkes Booth, whose rising fame as a tragedian was only surpa.s.sed by his famous brother and father. But he had been recognized by Laura Keene, as with quick thought she grasped a gla.s.s of water and ran to the President"s box. She seemed to be almost the first to understand, and to reach the martyr"s side with help for him. She held his head in her lap while the doctors were examining the wound. Her silk dress stained with his blood is still kept with the sacred relics at his tomb in Springfield, Illinois.
The picture of that box party cannot be surpa.s.sed by anything ever set up in the romantic imagination. At the death-moment it contained five persons. One of them was the greatest man of his time, just emerging as victor in one of the most consequential struggles of all human history. The death blow was upon him from a type of man as utterly his opposite in everything making the form of man that anyone can conceive. He was of the most ill.u.s.trious family of actors in his time, handsome, a fashionable beau, and a moral degenerate,--the most courted idler of the social show. For his deed he was destined in a few weeks to die the death of a beaten dog in a filthy stable. But no less in direful tragedy was the fate of the betrothed lovers, Major Rathburn and his stepsister, Miss Harris, who were the guests in that ghastly social hour. A few months later the young man went insane, killed his sweetheart and died in a madhouse.
Lincoln was still alive but unconscious when responsible persons, in a few minutes, came into control. He was carried across the street to the nearest room where he could be made as comfortable as possible.
The doctors had no hope that he would ever return to consciousness.
The surgeons and the nearest official friends were all that were allowed to remain in the little room with him. The pale light of a single gas jet flickered down over him. Secretary Stanton stood against the wall writing telegrams that told how the battle was going, and giving orders needed to keep the peace of that dark hour. At seven-twenty-two the next morning Lincoln"s heart ceased to beat and one of the greatest characters of history had pa.s.sed from life.
Mr. Stanton closed the martyr"s eyes, drew the sheet over his face, and said, "Now he belongs to the Ages."
CHAPTER X
I. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY
The nation was in mourning at the unspeakable tragedy. Friend and foe had just begun to learn how great was the difference between him and other men. Coming as it did at the close of the war, in the very dawn of peace, the a.s.sa.s.sination seemed so needless and cruel, even in the name of his bitterest foe.
Walt Whitman wrote one of the most stirring appreciations of the time.
"O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done, The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.
"But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen, cold and dead.
"O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills, For you the bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the sh.o.r.es a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying ma.s.s, their eager faces turning;