Broadside showing the text of General Orders, No. 66 issued by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant on 16 April 1865 to inform Union Army troops about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and provide instructions regarding the appropriate procedures for mourning (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

General Orders, No. 66
War Department, Adjutant-General’s Office
Washington, April 16, 1865

The following order of the Secretary of War announces to the Armies of the United States the untimely and lamentable death of the illustrious ABRAHAM LINCOLN, late President of the United States:

WAR DEPARTMENT,
WASHINGTON, CITY, April 16, 1865

The distressing duty has devolved upon the Secretary of War to announce to the armies of the United States, that at twenty-two minutes after 7 o’clock, on the morning of Saturday, the 15th day of April, 1865, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, died of a mortal wound inflicted upon him by an assassin.

The Armies of the United States will share with their fellow-citizens the feelings of grief and horror inspired by this most atrocious murder of their great and beloved President and Commander-in-Chief, and with profound sorrow will mourn his death as a national calamity.

The Headquarters of every Department, Post, Station, Fort, and Arsenal will be draped in mourning for thirty days, and appropriate funeral honors will be paid by every Army, and in every Department, and at every Military Post, and at the Military Academy at West Point, to the memory of the late illustrious Chief Magistrate of the Nation and Commander-in-Chief of its Armies.

Lieutenant-General Grant will give the necessary instructions for carrying this order into effect.

EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War

On the day after the receipt of this order at the Headquarters of each Military Division, Department, Army, Post, Station, Fort, and Arsenal and at the Military Academy at West Point the troops and cadets will be paraded at 10 o’clock a. m. and the order read to them, after which all labors and operations for the day will cease and be suspended as far as practicable in a state of war.

The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.

At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards at intervals of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun a single gun, and at the close of the day a national salute of thirty-six guns.

The officers of the Armies of the United States will wear the badge of mourning on the left arm and on their swords and the colors of their commands and regiments will be put in mourning for the period of six months.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:
W. A. NICHOLS, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Sources:

1. “General Orders No. 66: War Department, Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, April 16, 1865.” Washington, D.C.: United States Library of Congress, retrieved online April 16, 2024.
2. “Stanton, Edwin McMasters (1814-1869) General Orders No. 66.” New York, New York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, retrieved online April 16, 2024.
3. Wooley, John and Gerhard Peters. “Announcement to the Army of the Death of President Lincoln,” in “The American Presidency Project.” Santa Barbara, California: Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, retrieved online April 16, 2024.