Tag Archives: Lincoln Assassination

Camp Brightwood, Washington, D.C. (Mid-April – June 2, 1865)

Unidentified Union infantry regiment, Camp Brightwood, Washington, D.C., circa 1865 (public domain; click to enlarge).

Marched closer to the nation’s capital in the wake of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in mid-April 1865, the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers were directed to proceed to the Brightwood district in the northwestern section of Washington, D.C. and erect their Sibley tents at the Union Army duty station known as Camp Brightwood.

Their new job was to prevent Confederate States Army troops and their sympathizers from reigniting the flames of civil war that had just been stamped out weeks earlier.

According to historians at Cultural Tourism DC, Brightwood was “one of Washington, DC’s early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia” — the Battle of Fort Stevens.

This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today’s Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans…. Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland.

Also, according to Cultural Tourism historians, Camp Brightwood was established on the grounds of “Emery Place, the summer estate of Matthew Gault Emery,” who had “made a fortune in stone-cutting, including the cornerstone for the Washington Monument,” which was laid in 1848.

During the Civil War (1861-1865), Captain Emery led the local militia. His hilltop became a signal station where soldiers used flags or torches to communicate with nearby Fort DeRussy or the distant Capitol. Soldiers of the 35th New York Volunteers created Camp Brightwood here. During the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864, Camp Brightwood was a transfer point for the wounded.

By late April of 1865, it was home to multiple Union Army regiments, including the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers.

Guarding the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators

Washington Arsenal Penitentiary, Washington, D.C., 1865 (Joseph Hanshew, public domain; click to enlarge).

Sometime after their arrival at Camp Brightwood during that fateful spring of 1865, a group of 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers were given a new assignment — guard duty at the Washington Arsenal and its prison facility, where eight people were being held in connection with their involvement in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. They had been arrested between April 17 and 26.

The key conspirators involved in President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination (Benn Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators,” 1865, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

While researchers for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story have not yet determined the exact start date of the 47th Pennsylvania’s guard duties at the Washington Arsenal Penitentiary, they are now able to offer a better estimate — thanks to the work of Lincoln scholars Edward Steers, Jr. and Harold Holzer, who published documents written by Union Major-General John Frederick Hartranft, the Pennsylvanian appointed by U.S. President Andrew Johnson on May 1, 1865 “to command the military prison at the Washington Arsenal, where the U.S. government had just incarerated the seven men and one woman accused of complicity in the shooting.” Included in the Steers-Holzer compilation is a letter from Major-General Hartranft, governor and commander of the “Washington Arsenal Military Prison,” to Major-General Winfield S. Hancock, commanding officer of the United States Middle Military Division, which was dated May 11, 1865. Hartranft began by informing Hancock that “at 10:25 yesterday [May 10, 1865], Lt. Col. J. M. Clough, 18th N. H. reported with 450 muskets, for four days duty, relieving the 47th Pa. Vols.” He then went on to describe the duties performed by 18th New Hampshire Volunteers at the Washington Arsenal on May 10:

At 11:45, the prisoners on trial were taken into Court, in compliance with the orders of the same. At 1 P.M. the Court ordered the prisoners returned to their cells, which was done.

At 1:10 P.M. dinner was served to the prisoners in the usual manner.

At 1:30 in compliance with your orders Marshal McPhail was admitted to see the prisoner in 161 [Atzerodt], his hood having been previously removed; he remained with him until 2.35, immediately after which his hood was replaced and the door locked.

At 3:45 P.M. Mr. George L. Crawford in accordance with your instructions, was permitted to have an interview with prisoner in 209. I was present during the same, and heard all that was said. The conversation was in regard to the property of the prisoner in Philadelphia. At 4:25 the hood was replaced and the cell locked.

At 6 P.M. Supper was furnished the prisoners and at the same time Dr. Porter and myself made inspections of all the cells and prisoners.

At 6 P.M. in accordance with your instructions, Mr. Stone, counsel for Dr. Mudd, was permitted to visit his client. The interview took place in the presence of Lt. Col. McCall but not in his hearing.

At 6:35 the interview closed, and the door was again locked.

At 7 this A.M. breakfast was served to the prisoners in the usual manner. At 7:15, Dr. Porter and myself made Inspections of all the cells and prisoners.

I would respectfully recommend that the prisoner in 190 be removed to cell 165.

All passes admitting persons during the last 24 hours are here with enclosed.

As a result, researchers for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ project postulate that:

  1. As many as four hundred and fifty 47th Pennylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantrymen may have been stationed at the Washington Arsenal between May 6-10, 1865; and
  2. At least some of those 47th Pennsylvanians may very well have interacted with the key Lincoln assassination conspirators (Samuel Bland Arnold, George A. Atzerodt, David E. Herold, Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, Michael O’Laughlen, Lewis Thornton Powell/Lewis Payne, Edman Spangler/Ned Spangler, and Mary Elizabeth Surratt) — interactions which likely took place while those eight prisoners were confined at the Washington Arsenal prison; on the way to and from the courtroom, where they were being tried for conspiring to assassinate President Lincoln; inside that courtroom during trial proceedings; and possibly also at other sites related to their confinement and trial.

Although the duties performed between by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers between May 6-9 would not have been exactly the same as those performed by the New Hampshire soldiers on May 10, they may very well have been similar — meaning that at least some 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers may have been involved in locking and unlocking the doors of the conspirators’ cells, escorting the conspirators into the courtroom of their military trial (which began on May 9, 1865), standing guard over the conspirators during their trial to prevent their escape, escorting them from the courtroom, and interacting with them in their cells by:

  • Bringing meals to them;
  • Removing and replacing the hoods that covered their heads so that they could interact with their lawyers and other visitors;
  • Verifying the legitimacy of passes held by would-be visitors and denying or granting access to those visitors as appropriate;
  • Escorting visitors to and from their cells; and
  • Monitoring their visits with anyone granted entry to their cells.

With their guard assignment completed by the morning of May 10, 1865, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers who were serving on detached duty at the Washington Arsenal were marched back to Camp Brightwood, where they would remain until their next assignment — participating in the Union’s Grand Review of the National Armies on May 23, 1865.

19th Corps, Army of the United States, Grand Review of the National Armies, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., May 23, 1865 (Matthew Brady, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

The Grandest of the Grand Reviews

The 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry was just one group of the more than one hundred and forty-five thousand Union military men who marched from Capitol Hill through the streets of Washington, D.C. during a two-day spectacle designed to celebrate the end of the American Civil War and heal Americans’ heartbreak in the wake of President Lincoln’s assassination. Held from May 23-24, 1865, it was a sight that had never been seen before — and one that would likely never be seen anywhere in the United States of America ever again. The first day’s parade alone lasted six hours.

Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant, leaning forward, President Andrew Johnson to his left, Grand Review of the National Armies, Washington, D.C., May 23, 1865 (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

According to The New York Times, the 47th Pennsylvanians were positioned behind the parade’s third division, as part of the Nineteenth Army Corps (XIX Corps) in Dwight’s Division. Marching with the precision for which they had become renowned, they passed in front of a review stand which sheltered U.S. President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant. The division directly behind the 47th Pennsylvanians in that day’s line of march included other officers and general staff of the Army of the United States and regiments commanded by American Civil War icon Brigadier-General Joshua L. Chamberlain, one of the most beloved heroes from the tide-turning Battle of Gettysburg.

Rev. William DeWitt Clinton Rodrock, chaplain, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (courtesy of Robert Champlin, used with permission).

Afterward, 47th Pennsylvania Chaplain William DeWitt Clinton Rodrock summed up the experience in a report penned at Camp Brightwood on May 31:

The wise king of the Scriptures speaks of a sorrow that pervades the human heart “in the midst of laughter.” The truthfulness of this Divine philosophy is a matter of daily experience. Our most joyous seasons are intermingled with a sadness that often challenges definition. Every garden has its sepulchre. Every draft of sweet has its ingredient of bitter. This fact has never been so fully realized as this month. With the mighty army of brave soldiers congregated and reviewed in Washington and the … expressions of deep regret that Abraham Lincoln is not here to have witnessed the great pageant of the 23rd and 24th inst. have been universal. Not the splendid victories which our brave soldiers have won — not the pleasing prospect that they are “homeward bound” — not the consolatory thought that the reins of government have fallen into the hands of so good a man as Andrew Johnson — have served to restrain these utterances of grief and sorrow. Had it been God’s will to spare Mr. Lincoln’s life, what an eclat his presence would have imparted to the mighty pageant.

But as He willed otherwise and “doeth all things well,” it is ours to learn the great lesson of the hour.

Rebuilding a Shattered Nation

Ruins of Charleston, South Carolina as seen from the Circular Church, 1865 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain).

As the cheers of the Grand Review crowds faded, the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers resumed life at Camp Brightwood, with many assuming that their days of wearing “Union Blue” were finally coming to an end. But that assumption proved to be an incorrect one when the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers received word that they were being reassigned. Ordered to pack their belongings in late May 1865, they would be heading back to America’s Deep South — this time to assist with Reconstruction duties in Georgia and South Carolina, beginning the first week in June.

 

Sources:

  1. “Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online May 21, 2025.
  2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  3. “Battleground National Cemetery: Battleround to Community — Brightwood Heritage Trail,” “Fort Stevens” and “Mayor Emery and the Union Army.” United States: Historical Marker Database, retrieved online May 20, 2025.
  4. “Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail.” Washington, D.C.: Cultural Tourism DC, 2008.
  5. “Grand Military Review: Streets Crowded with Spectators: Sherman Greeted with Deafening Cheers.” Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: The Daily Post, May 25, 1865.
  6. “Grant” (television mini-series). New York, New York: History Channel Education, 2020.
  7. “Our Heroes! The Grand Review at Washington. Honor to the Brave. Immense Outpouring of the People. The Troops Reviewed by Gen. Grant.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Daily Telegraph, May 23, 1865.
  8. Pitman, Benn. The Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Cincinnati, Ohio and New York, New York: Moore, Wilstach & Boldwin, 1865.
  9. “Reconstruction: An Overview.” Washington, D.C.: American Battlefield Trust, November 28, 2023.
  10. “Review of the Armies; Propitious Weather and a Splendid Spectacle. Nearly a Hundred Thousand Veterans in the Lines.” New York, New York: The New York Times, May 24, 1865, front page.
  11. Rodrock, Rev. William D. C. Chaplain’s Reports (47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1865). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  12. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  13. “Serenade to General Grant” (performance for Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant by the 47th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers’ Regimental Band), in “Washington.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Inquirer, May 22, 1865.
  14. Steers, Edward Jr. and Harold Holzer. The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2009.
  15. “The Final March: Grand Review of the Armies.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online May 20, 2025.
  16. “The Grand Review: A Grand Spectacle Witnessed.” Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: The Daily Post, May 24, 1865.
  17. “The Grand Review: Immense Crowds in Washington: Fine Appearance of the Troops: Their Enthusiastic Reception.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, May 24, 1865; and West Chester, Pennsylvania: The Record, May 17, 1865.
  18. “The Grand Review: The City Crowded with Visitors: Order of Corps, Divisions, Brigades and Regiments.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Daily Constitutional Union, May 23, 1865.
  19. “The History of the Forty-Seventh Regt. P. V.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Lehigh Register, 20 July 1870.
  20. “The Lincoln Conspirators,” in “Ford’s Theatre.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online May 21, 2025.

 

April 15th: A Date of Decision and Death for President Abraham Lincoln

This 1865 photograph of President Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner is believed by historians to be the final photo taken of Lincoln (1865, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

There were multiple key moments in the life of the man who would become the sixteenth president of the United States of America. Some, like the deaths of his mother and sister, would dramatically alter the trajectory of his life; others, like his decision to embark upon a life of public service, would reshape the future of a nation.

But his actions on one particular date, during two entirely different years, did both.

So pivotal in history, that particular date’s annual arrival still stops average Americans in their tracks each year, prompting them to reflect on the legacy of that one man — and the question, “What if?”

That man was U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and that date is April 15.

Lincoln’s Call for Seventy-Five Thousand Volunteers (April 15, 1861)

Proclamation issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, calling for seventy-five thousand state militia troops to bring an end to the secession of, and insurrection by, eleven of fifteen southern slaveholding states, April 15, 1861 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

In response to the fall of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina to Confederate States troops on April 14, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation in which he called for seventy-five thousand men across the United States to risk their lives to defend the nation’s capital and bring a swift end to the secession crisis and insurrection initiated by eleven of fifteen southern slave holding states. That proclamation, which was issued on April 15, 1861 read as follows:

By the President of the United States.

A Proclamation.

Whereas the laws of the United States have been, for some time past, and now are, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular Government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.

I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.

And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date.

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress.

Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective Chambers, at 12 o’clock, noon, on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.

Abraham Lincoln

By the President: William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Four years later, on the exact same date, President Abraham would draw his last breath.

Lincoln’s Death from an Assassin’s Bullet (April 15, 1865)

President Abraham Lincoln on his deathbed at the Petersen House in Washington, D.C., April 15, 1865 (Harper’s Weekly, 1865, public domain; click to enlarge).

Mortally wounded by a shot to his head, which was fired by an assassin and Confederate sympathizer while President Abraham Lincoln was watching a performance of the popular stage play, Our American Cousin, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the evening of Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was initially examined on site in the presidential box, by fellow theatre attendee and physician Charles Leale, before being carried downstairs by Union Army soldiers and taken across Tenth Street — and into a room at the Petersen boarding house, where he was then gently lowered onto the bed of Willie Clark.

As additional physicians arrived and assessed the president’s condition, a decision was made to make him as comfortable as possible, when it was determined that he would likely not survive the night.

A remarkably strong man, even as he waged his toughest battle, President Lincoln managed to hang onto until the following morning, drawing his final ragged breath at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865 — and leaving the work of national healing and Reconstruction in far less capable hands.

One hundred and sixty years later, Americans still wonder, “Would we be a better nation if Lincoln had survived?”

 

Sources:

  1. “A Proclamation by the President of the United States, April 15, 1861.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, retrieved online April 15, 2025.
  2. “Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination,” in “History Channel: Civil War.” New York, New York: A&E Television Networks, February 27, 2025.
  3. “Eric Foner: Reconstruction and the Constitution” (video). Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Humanities Festival, 2019.
  4. “Lincoln’s Death,” in “Lincoln Assassination.” Washington, D.C.: Ford’s Theatre, retrieved online December 1, 2024.
  5. “The Petersen House.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, December 1, 2024.

 

April 17, 1865: A Nation in Mourning Begins to Move Forward

Andrew Johnson, photographed by Matthew Brady sometime between 1860 and 1875, was sworn in as president of the United States on April 15, 1865 (Matthew Brady Collection, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, is now President of the United States. The mysterious purposes of Divine Providence, far beyond the extremest perception of man’s mere judgment, in shaping the ends his wisdom deems to be wisest for our chastisement or in promoting our good, will chasten us while humbling us in the dust in the bereavement the People have sustained through that most wicked act, the bold and daring assassination of the President of the United States. Such an act of perfidy and atrocity has no parallel in the annals of deep and damning crime. The world will stand aghast in horror and detestation of the brutal murder, when the terrible tidings will have reached earth’s remotest extremity.

— The Constitutional Union newspaper, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Monday, April 17, 1865

 

That opening paragraph of Philadelphia’s Constitutional Union article, “The New President,” illustrates both the State of the Union and the state of mind of the average American during the first days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln—the collective and individual states of bewilderment and grief while looking back and reflecting on Lincoln’s life and death while also worrying about what the future held as a new leader was introduced to the nation.

That new leader—President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who had been quietly sworn in as the seventeenth president of the United States on the same day that Lincoln died—April 15, 1865—had worked his way up from an early-career job as mayor of a local town in Tennessee to a later-life election to the United States Senate, becoming the only senator from America’s Deep South to remain in service with the Senate when southern states began their secession from the Union in December 1860. Subsequently appointed by Lincoln as Tennessee’s military governor in March 1862, he had then been placed on the Republican ticket as Lincoln’s running mate during the pivotal presidential election of November 1864, and had been sworn in as the nation’s vice president in March 1865—just forty-two days before he succeeded Lincoln.

Like Lincoln and Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, Andrew Johnson had also been the target of the assassination conspiracy that unfolded on April 14, 1865. But Johnson was luckier. George Atzerodt, the man who had been assigned to assassinate him, changed his mind as he reached Kirkwood House, the Pennsylvania Avenue hotel where Johnson lived, and, instead, left Washington, D.C., hoping to evade capture.

Shortly before sunrise, while still the sitting vice president, Johnson visited the unconscious, dying president at his bedside at the Petersen House, spent a few moments consoling Lincoln’s family, and then walked the short distance back to his residence to prepare for the possibility of being sworn in as the nation’s next president.

Depiction of Andrew Johnson being sworn as the seventeenth president of the United States, April 15, 1865. The ceremony, attended by only a handful of senior government officials, was a subdued affair due to the death earlier that day of President Lincoln. It was held at Kirkwood House in Washington, D.C., where Johnson had resided since his inauguration as vice president forty-two days earlier (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 6, 1866).

Less than four hours after Lincoln’s death, Johnson was administered the Oath of Office by Chief Justice Salmon Chase of the United States Supreme Court, as several members of Lincoln’s former cabinet and Johnson’s former fellow senators looked on:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

After speaking those words, President Andrew Johnson told the small group:

The duties of the office are mine; I will perform them—the consequences are with God. Gentlemen, I shall lean upon you; I feel I shall need your support. I am deeply impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the responsibilities of the duties of the office I am assuming.

It was at that moment, during the morning of April 15, 1865, that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry entered its tenure of Reconstruction Era service under a new commander-in-chief.

Members of the regiment began that new phase of duty with heavy hearts and hope for a brighter day, according to C Company’s Henry Wharton. Writing to the editor of his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American, from an unidentified “Camp Near Washington, D.C.” on April 24, Wharton mused:

It is true we have sustained a great loss in the death of our much beloved President, but as it has pleased Divine Power to remove him from our midst, we should be thankful that He has given us such a great and determined man in his stead (Andrew Johnson) to drive on the machinery of the Government. It was a wise thing in the framers of the Constitution when they put in that clause, where if we lose our President the wheels of the Government can never be stopped. This is done by the Vice President, a plain unpretending citizen, on the death of the Chief Magistrate, stepping forward so to take the oath administered by the Chief Justice, and at once takes the responsibility of the office. No flourish of trumpets, nor convulsion of nations, but by the simple power vested in a Judge, a fellow citizen assumes power. This little fact proves that our Republic can never die.

I cannot describe to you the feeling of the army when the news reached us that Abraham Lincoln had been murdered by the assassin. I will not attempt it, for in doing so, I would work myself into a state to make me miserable. One thing – if the boys had gone into a fight that morning no prisoners would have been taken – no quarters given.

In Washington, the train containing the remains of our late President, passed us near the Annapolis Junction. There was [sic, were] nine cars heavily draped in mourning. Our train stopped on a siding. It was a solemn time. The men all uncovered in respect, and stout men wept as the last of him they loved, passed them, to be conveyed to its resting place. Along the whole route, houses were draped in mourning, and the American flag hung at half mast [sic, half-mast] with mourning. This showed the deep hold Mr. Lincoln had in the hearts of our people.

 

Sources:

  1. “Andrew Johnson’s Inauguration.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  2. “Andrew Johnson: The 17th President of the United States.” Washington, D.C.: The White House, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  3. “The New President” (announcement of President Andrew Johnson’s recent inauguration). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Constitutional Union, April 17, 1865.
  4. “The Swearing in of Andrew Johnson.” Washington, D.C.: Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) and the United States Senate, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
  5. Wharton, Henry. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1868. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.

 

April 16, 1865: Stanton and Grant Inform the Union Army That President Lincoln Has Been Assassinated

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.

 

The Lincoln Assassination: A Union Army Chaplain’s Angry, Heartsick Response

Rev. William DeWitt Clinton Rodrock, chaplain, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida, 1863 (courtesy of Robert Champlin, used with permission).

In an April 30, 1865 report sent to Brigadier-General L. Thomas, the Adjutant General of the U.S. Army, the Rev. William DeWitt Clinton Rodrock, chaplain of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, expressed his ire and grief regarding the recent assassination of President Abraham Lincoln:

“Sir.

The present month claims more than an ordinary place in our National history. In the very hour of general exultation and rejoicing for vouchsafed blessings and victories on our arms, promising speedy restoration of internal peace and return of prosperity and happiness, our great and good Chief Magistrate, Abraham Lincoln, was slain by the hand of foul conspiracy and vile assassination. For the first time the annals of the country have been stained by a political assassination! It is a crime against God, against the Nation, against humanity and against liberty, that has thus been perpetrated! It is the madness of Treason and murder! And the day that commemorates the Crucifixion of the Saviour of Man is henceforth made forever memorable by a new crime against the Law of God and Country.

But we must bow low, before the Almighty Hand that thus shows us the weakness and wickedness of man and the vanity of all human calculations!

May this fearful blow recall us all to our duties! We will draw near to the Altar of our country, also, as we approach the Altar of our God. We have great duties in this crisis. And the first is to forget selfishness and passion and party, and look to the salvation of the Country.

As to our lamented President, let us do justice to his memory! He dies in the hour of his country’s restored greatness, and in the full fruition of his own personal triumph. The assassin’s blow, will rank him in the memory of mankind among the martyrs of freedom.

The 19th inst. – the day set apart for the funeral of our late President, was duly observed with appropriate ceremonies for our Brigade. The Regiments present were the 47th Pa. V.V.’s, 8th Vermont, 12th Conn. and 153rd N.Y. It became my duty to officiate on the occasion, and it was one of the most solemn and impressive scenes I ever witnessed.” 

Rodrock then went on to report on the morale and health of his regiment, leaving the “solemn and impressive” gathering of soldiers to the reader’s imagination. What is known for certain is that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were unable to participate in the President’s funeral parade, as many other Union troops did, because the 47th Pennsylvanians and their fellow brigade members were still on duty. Assigned to protect Washington, DC in the wake of Lincoln’s assassination, they grieved collectively during Rodrock’s brief memorial service and individually as battle-hardened soldiers when their respective schedules allowed time for rumination.

Over the next two weeks, one member of the 47th Pennsylvania would be given the honor of guarding the late President’s funeral train while others would be assigned to guard Mary Surratt and the other key conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination during the early days of their imprisonment.

To read more of Chaplain Rodrock’s reports, please see the Religion and Spirituality section of this website.

O Captain! My Captain! – American Artists and the Apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln

Washington & Lincoln (Apotheosis), J. A. Arthur, 1865 (public domain).

Washington & Lincoln (Apotheosis), J. A. Arthur, 1865, public domain.

O Captain! My Captain!
By Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, 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 bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head!
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

 

Sources:

  1. Washington & Lincoln (Apotheosis). Washington, D.C.: J. A. Arthur, 1865.
  2. Whitman, Walt. O Captain! My Captain!, in Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: David McKay, 1891.