THE MURDER OF THE PRESIDENT.

509

The Assassin.

Booth, an actor, of North-
ern birth, but of intensely
Southern proclivities. For months the des-
perate man had anticipated some kind of a
taking off of the President, and had organ-
ized a band for the purpose of abducting
their victim. This proving infeasible, the
assassination was resolved upon, when the
defeat of Lee was announced. Infuriated
over the loss of their cause, the conspirators
could not brook the rejoicing around them,
and nerved themselves to the dreadful deed.
Meeting nightly in the house of Mrs. Mary E.
Surratt, in Washington, the moment was
watched when the blow could be most ef
fectually struck. All arrangements were
made for effective escape, for the desperate
men had many confederates, who would
cheerfully aid them in eluding pursuit. Once
over in Virginia they might deem themselves
safe for a time, at least, among the mountains
of West Virginia, where it was arranged for
them to tarry until such moment as they could
pursue their route to Texas and Mexico. All
was arranged, in fact, which could be, to fa-
cilitate the perpetration of their hideous
crime and their escape. That Mrs. Surratt
had a full knowledge of the designs is pre-
sumed, though it was alleged on her trial
that she was in ignorance of its murderous
nature. But that she entertained the con-

To say that the Nation was horror-stricken, conveys but a faint idea of the impression made by the event. All were, at first, startled and stunned. The crime was too mighty to gain immediate belief; but as bulletin after bulletin followed, giving the progress of the President's dissolution, and adding further particulars of the scene in the theatre, the public mind became aroused to a fearful degree. All classes and conditions of men execrated the deed; strong men wept like children; the President's late political adversaries were among those most moved and excited. It was an outburst of commingled grief and indignation such as the world never again may witness, proving not only the hold which Mr. Lincoln had upon the affections | of the people, but also the depth of the popular devotion to the Government. Saturday was a day of tears-of stormy, intense excite-spirators, consorted with them, was closely ment of public and private manifestation of grief for the great loss. The whole land was draped in black; it hung from windows and balconies; it covered doors and walls. Woe to those who shared not in the sorrow, for aroused vengeance pursued every man deemed in the slightest degree to rejoice over the Nation's loss. Well known sympathizers In the Capitol, under its lofty dome, the with secession and slavery were watched, and remains lay in state until Friday, the 21stif the badge of mourning was not exhibited an immense throng constantly passing the an enraged populace took the matter in hand. body through the two days of its exposure. Such continued to be the state of feeling for Then the solemn pageant of its removal to many days, so deeply moved were the people Springfield, Illinois, commenced-a pageant over the tragedy. In some cases it was with such as no country ever before witnessed. extreme difficulty that officers of the law Moving from town to town, on trains expresscould protect some obnoxious person from ly provided-but always retaining the funeral the violence of his fellow citizens, for some car, and the President's own car, in which he word or deed indicative of the individual's so often had journeyed-the remains paused "copperhead" propensities. at Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, AlThe assassin proved to be John Wilkes bany, etc. In all places business was sus

an

identified, in fact, with the doings, were evidences which a merely negative plea could not avail to set aside, and the court adjudged her equally guilty with Booth, Harold, Atzeroth and Payne, and with the latter three suffered the ignominious death of the scaffold.

pended, and vast throngs pressed to behold | home and abroad, renewed encouragement of

the face of the martyred man. The journey was called the passage of tears, and the week con-umed in the transfer was a week of mourning.

While this solemn scene

Home Again. was being enacted the armies of the Republic were rapidly wending their way Northward. The funeral pageant was succeeded by the welcome home of those whom the people might truly call the saviors of their country. During the last weeks of April and the first of May the several corps of the Army of the Potomac and of Sherman's main body marched into the National Capital, where a review followed, such as the country may never look upon again. Then the divisions dissolved into regiments-regiments into companies-and the armies were no more. The regiments moving to their places of recruitment, there to be mustered out, were enthusiastically received along the route, but alas! how many were not there whose names were on the first roll-call! It was, after all, a mournful sight-many regiments being reduced to one-fourth of their original numbers, with Colonels, LieutenantColonels and Majors gone, and Captains commanding but little squads.

The cost of the Rebellion in its best lifeblood never may be counted. One million of its bravest and best perished or were disable for life, withdrawing from society that number of productives to the country's increase and wealth. In treasure the sacrifice was incalculable. Though sustained by the people, in a marvelous manner, the Treasury yet was tasked to its utmost to meet the calls upon it; and by many it was regarded as questionable, if, with its accumulated weight of its three billions (three thousand millions) of debt, the war could have been prosecuted through the fifth year with its early spirit. Fewer troops would have sufficed and a greatly reduced fleet, owing to the contracted area of the insurgent territory; but, the burden daily becoming heavier, must insensibly but certainly have affected the war spirit, and have given the enemies of the Union, at

peace based upon a virtual recognition of Southern Independence. That no such calamity came was due to the terrible vigor of Grant's administration, which, by simultaneous and pertinacious offense, gave the enemy not a day's relief, not a gleam of success, not a ray of hope. To the combined campaigns fought under his command, history must ascribe the honor of having closed a civil war, which, under a less eminent guidance, might have been prolonged until peace came from mere weariness of the struggle.

The Lesson of the
War.

Whatever

"There is," says a Southern writer, "but one conclusion that remains for the dispassionate student of history. may be the partial explanations of the downfall of the Southern Confederacy, and whatever may be the various excuses that passion and false pride, and flattery of demagogues may offer, the great and melancholy fact remains that the Confederates, with an abler Government and more resolute spirit, might have accomplished their independence."

An 'abler Government' simply was impracticable, owing to the disintegrating character of the primal idea of that Government. Based upon the denational assumption of the independency of separate States, unity, barmony, obedience were impossible. Jealousies never were absent, and suspicion ever was present. Congress represented dissatisfied constituencies, and the Executive alternately alarmed and exasperated the people by his presumed assumption of power not delegated by their compact or copartnership. In a word, no ability however great, no patriotism however pure, can conduct a mighty war to a successful issue when singleness of power and purpose are wanting. In the result the observant will not fail to discover the fallacy of the theory out of which the rebellion grew; and, though there yet may remain a few devotees to worship at the shrine of Calhoun, to the mass of those once converts to his system, and to their progeny, Secession is and must remain the most repugnant of all remedies for local or National evils.

APPENDIX.

SEWARD'S CIRCULAR то GOVERNMENT AGENTS ABROAD.

to recruit his wasted forces.

tains, and then, marching westward, took up a po- | Port Hudson, under a fierce fire, co-operated with sition at Murfreesboro, fortified them, and proceeded the river fleets. Laborious and persevering attempts were made to open an artificial channel for the river opposite Vicksburg, as had been done with such signal success at Island No. 10. But the various canals, projected and executed, failed, and only a few small steamers, of no considerable power, were thus enabled to pass the city. Combined land and naval expeditions were also sent forth, which, with infinite pains and endurance, attempted to turn the enemy's works by navigating the various bayous and sluggish rivers, whose intricate network forms so singular a feature of the military topography of the banks of the Mississippi. All these attempts having failed from physical obstacles found to be insurmountable, General Grant and Admiral Porter at last put afloat armed steamers and steam transports, which ran through the fires of the long line of shore batteries which the insurgents had erected at Vicksburg, and its chief supports, Warrenton and Grand

Van Dorn and Price were at the same period in command of very considerable forces in Mississippi and Alabama, and to them was assigned the third part in the grand invasion of the loyal States, which the cabal at Richmond had decreed. This was an attempt, as they called it, to deliver, but in fact to subjugate Western Tennessee and Kentucky. General Rosecrans received the assault of those portions of the insurgent forces at Corinth, defeated them with great slaughter, and drove them backward, so that they neither reached nor approached the region General which they were appointed to invade. Rosecrans, called to succeed General Buell in command of the Army of the Cumberland, then entered Nashville, which the insurgents had before invested, in carrying out their grand scheme of invasion. He raised the siege, and prepared for offensive action. In the last days of the year he i-sued from Nashville and delivered a sanguinary battle at Stone river which gave him possession of Murfreesboro. Bragg retreated to Shelbyville and Tullahoma, and there again rested and entrenched. A long period of needed rest was now employed by the respective parties in increasing the strength and efficiency of their armies; but this repose was broken by fre

quent skirmishes, and by cavalry expeditions, which penetrated hostile regions, sometimes hundreds of miles, and effected breaches of military connections and a destruction of military stores upon an extensive scale, while they kept up the spirit of the troops, and hardened them for more general and severe conflicts.

Gulf. At the same time the land forces moved down the right bank of the river to a point below Grand

Gulf, where they crossed in the steamers which had effected so dangerous a passage. The batteries of Grand Gulf for several hours resisted a bombardment by the gunboats at short-range, but they fell into the hands of the Admiral as soon as General Grant's

forces appeared behind them. General Grant,

through a series of brilliant manoeuvres, with marches interrupted by desperate battles day by day, succeeded in dividing and separating the insurgent forces. He then attacked the chief auxiliary column under Johnston, and drove it out of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. Having destroyed the railroad bridges and military stores there, General Grant turned at once to the west. Numerous combats

ensued, in all of which the loyal arms were successful. Loring, with a considerable insurgent force, was driven off toward the southeast while Pember

ton, after a loss of sixty pieces of artillery and many prisoners, regained his shelter within the fortified lines of Vicksburg, with an army now reduced to between thirty thousand and forty thousand men. During these movements. the heavy batteries of the insurgents which were established near the mouth of the Yazoo river, and which constituted an important part of the defensive system of Vicksburg, were taken and raised by Rear Admiral Porter, who thereupon sent a detachment of his fleet up that impor tant tributary of the Mississippi, and effectually de

Vicksburg then remained in the hands of the insurgents, the principal key to the navigation of the Mississippi river, a navigation which was confessed on all sides to be absolutely essential to the United States, and when re-opened by them, fatal to the insurrection. The duty of wresting that key from the insurgents had been devolved on the navy, with the aid of a considerable land force then encamped on the west bank of the Mississippi river. But new and unforeseen difficulties baffled the enterprise. and seemed to render it impossible. General Grant, who was at the head of the department and of the Army of the Tennessee, at length assumed the active cor mand of the troops investing the stronghold, and these were adequately re-enforced. The naval squadron on the Mississippi, under command of Rear Admiral Porter, was also steadily increased until more than one hundred armed vessels were employ-operated by a movable column. He now re-estabed upon the river, including many iron-clad gunboats of great power. Part of the Gulf Squadron, under Admiral Farragut, gallantly running the batteries of

stroyed the numerous vessels and stores which were found within and upon its banks. General Grant, during these brilliant operations, had necessarily

lished his communications with the river fleets above as well as below Vicksburg, invested the town, and, ignorant of the numbers inclosed within its defenses,

SECRETARY SEWARD'S CIRCULAR.

513

the navigable floods to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not to be doubted that the insurgent losses in these operations upon the Mississippi amount to fifty thousand men and three hundred pieces of artillery, a large portion of which were of heavy calibre. Johnston's army, which, at the time of the surrender was advancing to threaten the besiegers, at once fell back to Jackson, and it was again driven from that capital by a detachment which General Grant had committed to the command of General Sherman. In retiring, Johnston fired many buildings filled with munitions of war, and abandoned a large quantity of railroad locomotives and cars, which had been detained at that place by reason of the railroads north, south, east and west of Jackson having been previously cut by the Government forces.

attempted an assault. Though bravely and vigor- | again opened to the inland commerce of the country. ously made, it was nevertheless unsuccessful. He Steamers descend the river and its tributaries from therefore sat down before the fortifications, to reduce them by the less bloody but sure methods of siege. Pemberton made a gallant defense, hoping for relief from Johnston. Strenuous efforts were made by the chiefs at Richmond to enable Johnston to render that assistance. They detached and sent to him troops from Bragg's army on the frontier of Alabama, and from Beauregard's command in South Carolina, and in doing this they endangered both those armies. All the capable free men of Mississippi were called to the rescue of the capital of their State, and to save the stronghold of the treasonable Confederacy which was besieged within their limits. More over, the besieged post was in the very centre of the slave population of that Confederacy, and the President's proclamation of freedom would be sounded in their hearing if the stronghold should fall. But the effort required was too great for the demoralized and exhausted condition of the insurgents. Johnston did not arrive to raise the siege, nor did success attend any of the attempts from within to break the skilfully drawn lines of General Grant. On the fourth of July, General Pemberton laid down his arms and surrendered the post, with thirty thousand men, two hundred pieces of artillery, seventy thousand small arms, and ammunition sufficient for a six years' defense. This capture was as remarkable as the famous one made by Napoleon at Ulm.

On the same day an insurgent attack upon General Prentiss, at Helena, situated on the west bank of the Mississippi, in the State of Arkansas, was repulsed with the loss of many prisoners on the purt of the assailants. As if the anniversary so identified with the nation's hopes was appointed to be peculiarly eventful, Lee, who had again entered Maryland, and, passing through that State, had approached the Susquehanna, threatening Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Philadelphia and Baltimore, fell back after pitched battles continued for three days at Gettysburg, and resumed his retreat, with an army even worse shat tered than before, to his accustomed position on the Rappahannock.

General Sherman now desisted from the pursuit of Johnston and returned to Vicksburg, where a pr tion of the army is enjoying repose, not more necessary than well earned, while others are engaged in expelling from the vicinity of the Mississippi roving bands of the insurgents, who infest its banks and fire from thence upon passing steamers. It is reported that Johnston, with the troops at his command, now said to be twenty-five thousand, has fallen back to Meridian, on the eastern border of the Mississippi, a hundred and twenty miles east of Vicksburg, so that the State, whose misguided people were among the earliest and most intemperate abettors of the insurrection, is virtually abandoned by its military agents.

In Louisiana, General Banks succeeded General Butler. After spending some months in organizing the department and disciplining the new levies which constituted its force, General Banks made a rapid and successful series of marches and contests, in which he drove the insurgent troops out of the Attakapas and Teche regions, well known as the richest portions of that very productive State, captured Alexandria and Donaldsonville, the seats of its fugitive seditious executive and legislative authorities, crossed the Mississippi at Bayou Sara, and there receiving an additional column which was ascending from Baton Rouge, invested Port Hudson, which,

hold of the insurrection on the great river.

On the eighth of July the insurgent garrison at Port Hudson, six thousand strong, after enduring a long siege with the utmost courage, surrendered un-excluding Vicksburg, was the only remaining strongconditionally to General Banks; and thus the United States recovered from the insurgents the last of the numerous posts by which, for more than two years, they had effectually destroyed the navigation of the Mississippi. This great river, which in time of peace contributes relatively as much toward a supply of the increased wants of mankind as the Nile did to those wants in the time of the Roman Empire, is now

It will be remembered that on the twenty-second day of September, 1862, the President issued a proclamation requiring the insurgents to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance, under the penalty that in all the districts where the insurrection should be still maintained with the support of the people, he would, on the first of January then next