The Day Lincoln Was Shot Read Online Free PDF Page B

politicians than by the people.
    What Mr. Brooks was trying to say was that, on this Good Friday, the Republican Party was cracking under the President’s feet in much the same manner that it had split under him four years before. The Butlers, the Wades, the Greeleys and the Sumners, added to the Democrats who despised him, would undo Lincoln. To them, the President stood for a soft peace; a let’s-bind-the-wounds-and-get-back-to-work peace. Many of the ranking Republicans in the Senate and House wanted peace with a whip. The South was on her knees and, to them, it was not enough. They wanted to see her bleed. That proud trembling chin must be brought down.
    The President got up from the breakfast table and said that he must be off to work. He walked back to his office, nodding to those who waited outside, and sat down at his big desk.
    His office was a big square one in the southeast corner of the White House. In the center was a round oak table where Cabinet meetings were held. It was covered with a heavy green tasseled cloth. Around the room were chairs and two horsehair sofas. At the south end of the room—where he had sat reading earlier—were his pigeonhole desk and the small window table and a worn old chair. Along the north wall, near the entrance to the office, was a small door inside which was a basin, a mirror, a wall-bracket gas lamp, some soap, a towel and a comb.
    Books in the room were few: a Bible, the Statutes of the United States of America, and a complete set of Shakespeare’s works. Over a mantel hung a black-and-white engraving of President Andrew Jackson. Behind Mr. Lincoln’s chair was a velvet bell cord for summoning secretaries. A soldier outside the office door brought the cards of guests.
    The President sat, and, before admitting the first visitor, scanned the morning newspapers. He often said that he seldom read them.
    At the same time, Mrs. Lincoln and her sons left the breakfast table and walked into the Red Room for a chat. The Lincolns had found this room cozier and more to their liking than any of the big rooms in the house, and it had become a family sitting room.
    Upstairs, a maid began the task of straightening out the President’s bedroom. The bed was low and large and the sheets were smoothed and the comforter was folded across the bottom. Two extra large pillows were set standing at the head. Over the head of the bed was a dark velvet canopy with lace side panels.
    A plain cane chair beside the bed served for removing shoes and socks. A big brass ceiling fixture fed gas to white globes, although one was tapped with a hose which fed a small reading lamp on a round table. Two of the chairs near this table were cane; a third one was upholstered and had an antimacassar. A big chair was placed with its back to the western light. Two rosewood folding doors connected with Mrs. Lincoln’s bedroom.

The President
    To see this one day clearly, it is necessary to see the President— and later, John Wilkes Booth—in the weeks prior to the event. Some of what happened on April 14, 1865, had earlier motivation. Some did not. Still, a certain pattern of events can be seen, in retrospect, and this pattern tends to increase, rather than diminish, the shame of the United States Government on April 14.
    It seems, from the testimony of many witnesses after the event, that the government in early 1865 had two main conversational functions: killing the Confederacy, and keeping Lincoln alive. When the officials weren’t talking about victory, and the means to victory, they were talking about the possibility of assassination. They talked about it, they worried about it and they counter-plotted against it. However, they were assuming that an assassination plot would involve the Confederate States of America versus the United States of America, and it seems not to have occurred to any ranking official that it might be a lonely band of fanatics versus the United States