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THE TRAGIC ERA

A

CHAPTER I

'THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING'

I

DISMAL drizzle of rain was falling as the dawn came to Washington after a night of terror. In the streets men stood in groups discussing the tragic drama on which the curtain had not yet fallen. The city was 'in a blaze of excitement and rage.' Then, at seven-thirty, the tolling of all the church bells in the town, and a hush in the streets. Lincoln was dead.

1

At the Kirkwood Hotel 2 soldiers stood guard within and without, and before the door of a suite on the third floor an armed sentinel was stationed. The night before, Andrew Johnson, occupant of these rooms, had been awakened from a deep slumber and told of the tragedy at Ford's Theater. Shaken with emotion, he had clung momentarily to the fateful messenger, unable to speak. Then, disregarding the protests of his friends, he had turned up his coat collar, drawn his hat down over his face, and walked through the crowded streets to the deathbed of the stricken chief. There he had stood a brief moment, looking down with grief-corrugated face upon the dying man. Thence he had hurried back to his closely guarded rooms.

3

With the tolling of the bells, he had been formally notified by the Lincoln Cabinet that the chief magistracy had passed to him; and at ten o'clock, in the presence of the members of the Cabinet, Senators, and a few intimate friends, he stood before Chief Justice Chase, with uplifted hand, and took the oath of office. He 'seemed to be oppressed by the suddenness of the call upon him,' and yet, withal, 'calm and self-possessed.' The sobering ef

1 Julian, MS. Diary, April 15, 1865.

* Sumner to Bright, Pierce, iv, 241.

2 On the site of the present Raleigh.

4 Men and Measures, 376.

fect of power and responsibility accentuated his natural dignity of mien. Kissing the Bible, his lips pressed the twenty-first verse of the eleventh chapter of Ezekiel.1

'You are President,' said Chase. 'May God support, guide, and bless you in your arduous duties.'

2

The witnesses pressed forward to take his hand, and he spoke briefly, pledging that his policies would be those of his predecessor 'in all essentials.' Then, requesting the Cabinet to remain, as the others filed out, he instructed them to proceed with their duties,3 and 'in the language of entreaty' asked them to 'stand by him in his difficult and responsible position.' That very night Charles Sumner, bitterly hostile to the reconstruction plans of Lincoln, intruded upon the new President with indecent haste to discuss 'public business,' ' and that very day one of the Radical leaders was complaining that Johnson 'has been already in the hands of Chase, the Blairs, Halleck, Grant & Co.'

5

II

Nowhere did the murder fall so like a pall as in the South. ‘A canard!' cried Clay, of Alabama, in concealment with other Confederate leaders in the country home of Ben Hill in Georgia, when the news reached him; and when the verification came he exclaimed in tones of anguish, 'Then God help us! If that is true, it is the worst blow that has yet been struck the South.' Even the young Southern girls were horrified and instantly sensed the significance of the deed. Vallandigham, the 'copperhead,' thought it the 'beginning of evils,' since even those who had opposed Lincoln's policy had come 'to turn to him for deliverance,' because 'his course in the last three months has been most liberal and conciliatory.' '

It was this very policy of conciliation that so easily reconciled the party leaders in Washington to Lincoln's death. They had launched their fight against it long before; had sought to prevent 1 Chase's story, Warden, 640. 2 Welles, 11, 289.

3 Ibid.

5 Sumner to Bright, Pierce, Iv, 241.

"Belle of the Fifties, 245.

4 Men and Measures, 376.

Julian, MS. Diary, April 15, 1865.

8 Confederate Girl's Diary, 436; Mrs. Brooks, MS. Diary, April 21, 1865. Life of Vallandigham, 406.

his nomination in 1864; and it was just a little while before that the Wade-Davis Manifesto had shaken and shocked the Nation with its brutal denunciation of Lincoln's reconstruction plan. At the moment of his death there was no lonelier man in public life than Lincoln.

This Manifesto was an accurate expression of the spirit of the congressional leadership of his party. It referred contemptuously to 'the dictation of his political ambition'; denounced his action on the Wade-Davis reconstruction plan as 'a stupid outrage on the legislative authority of the people'; warned that Lincoln had 'presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration had so long practiced'; and demanded that he 'confine himself to his executive duties.' A more outrageous castigation of a President had never been written. The exigencies of a presidential campaign had forced a semblance of harmony, but the feeling of hostility which bristles in this document was beating fiercely beneath the surface when the assassin's bullet removed this conciliatory figure from the pathway of the leaders. 'Its expression never found its way to the people,' wrote Julian, though in both branches of Congress there were probably not ten Republicans who really favored the renomination of Lincoln in 1864.1 Thus, among the Radicals, 'while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feeling was nearly universal that the accession of Johnson would prove a Godsend to our cause.' 2

With a strange insensibility, these men, soon to dominate, left the Nation to bury its dead, while they turned instantly to devices definitely to end the Lincoln policies through his successor. That Johnson would fall in with their plans they had no doubt. Had any one surpassed the violence of his denunciations of the Southerners in 1864? Had he not talked of confiscation and punishment for treason? Thus, they reasoned, he would readily agree to a reconstruction imposed upon the South by the 'Loyalists' there and the Radicals of the North. Besides, they thought, Johnson's previous association with the Committee on the Conduct of the War would put him onto the right track.' They thought, too, that Grant's was a descending star, because 'his terms with Lee 1 Julian, Recollections, 244. 2 Ibid., 255. 'Sherman, Recollections, 1, 959. 4 Julian, MS. Diary, April 16, 1865.

were too easy,1 and Thad Stevens, speaking at Lancaster three days before Lincoln's death, had denounced the terms with the declaration that he would dispossess those participating in the rebellion of 'every foot of ground they pretend to own.' 2

Scarcely had the body of the murdered President turned cold when, on the very morning of his death, members of the war committee that had been so obnoxious to Lincoln hastened to Johnson, but they found him in no mood to discuss anything but the apprehension of the assassins.3 This rebuff, however, did not deter Charles Sumner. That night, as we have seen, less than twentyfour hours after the murder, found him seated in the Kirkwood House urging negro suffrage upon Johnson.

That afternoon, within eight hours of Lincoln's death, a caucus of the Radicals was conferring on plans to rid the Government of the Lincoln influence. One of the participants, who 'liked the radical tone,' was 'intolerably disgusted' with the 'profanity and obscenity.' There, among others, sat Ben Wade, Zack Chandler, and Wilkeson, correspondent of the 'New York Tribune,' who proposed to put Greeley on the war path.' In the discussion as reported, 'the hostility for Lincoln's policy of conciliation and contempt for his weakness' was 'undisguised,' and 'the universal sentiment among radical men' was that 'his death is a Godsend to our cause.' Moving with revolutionary celerity, these practical men had agreed to urge on Johnson the reconstruction of his Cabinet 'to get rid of the last vestige of Lincolnism,' and Ben Butler was chosen for Secretary of State!1

Sunday was a wearisome day for the new President. Lincoln's body was resting in the East Room of the White House. The city was silent and sad, with crape everywhere fluttering in a chilly breeze. Temporary offices had been provided Johnson in the Treasury, and there, in the morning, he met his Cabinet in a general discussion of reconstruction plans, in which Johnson's attitude was one of severity.5

The members of the Cabinet filed out, the Radical Republican leaders filed in. 'Johnson, we have faith in you,' exclaimed Ben

1 Julian, MS. Diary, April 16, 1865. 3 Life of Chandler, 279.

Julian, MS. Diary, April 15, 1865.

2 Lancaster Intelligencer, March 21, 1867.

Welles, 11, 291.

Wade, explosively. 'By the gods, there will be no trouble running the government.' The presidential reply was such that the visitors 'applauded his declarations and parted after a very pleasant interview.' 1

Leaving the Treasury, the conspirators hurried to the Willard to meet Ben Butler, who had hastened to the city. He, too, had other fish to fry than to bow at the bier of Lincoln. Had he not been slated for Secretary of State? He was 'in fine spirits,' and that night he, too, had a conference with Johnson. No doubt in Butler's mind about the necessity for a new Cabinet. "The President must not administer on the estate of Lincoln,' he said with his squint.2

Sunday night found the conspirators nervously active. Sumner and a few Radicals were in conference with Stanton on the reconstruction plan for Virginia, and Sumner, listening, interrupted to inquire what provision was made for the negroes to vote.3

Clearly, Stanton was no stranger to this Radical group.

Thus, with events seemingly moving satisfactorily for the Radicals, nothing was being taken for granted, for there were skeptics. Grim old Thad Stevens, the genius of the group, was grinding his teeth impatiently in the red-brick house in Lancaster; and Professor Goldwin Smith, describing Johnson's accession as 'an appalling event,' was calling for impeachment before he had been three days in office. Nor was Ben Butler taking any chances. Just three days after Lincoln's death, he was declaiming within hearing distance of the White House that as for Virginia 'the time has not come for holding any relations with her but that of the conqueror to the conquered.' This denunciation of the noblest acts of the late President' and 'inflaming excited crowds into senseless cheers for the policy which that Magistrate ever refused to approve,' by 'an unscrupulous general whose cowardice and incapacity always left his enemies unharmed upon the field,' was attacked by the 'New York World.' The very day Butler was speaking, Johnson, a stenographer beside him, was addressing an Illinois delegation, and at the conclusion a copy of his remarks was handed to him. Glancing over the copy, and noting his pledge to continue the Lincoln policies, he asked if his meaning had not been slightly

1 Julian, MS. Diary, April 16, 1865. 4 New York World, April 21, 1865.

2 Ibid.
April 22, 1865.

3 Welles, 11, 291.

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