Ford's Theatre National Historic Site

On this day in 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant testified at the trial against the Lincoln assassination conspirators. In the drama of the courtroom, a small bit of humor emerged.

While waiting to testify, Grant paced back and forth in the hallway and smoked his pipe. A 16-year-old clerk named Alfred Gibson accompanied the general. Young Alfred Gibson was also a stickler for the rules. He recalled his encounter with Grant years later:

"It being an arsenal, there were signs posted prohibiting smoking. And as the general walked up and down the corridor with his pipe in his mouth, I considered it my duty to point out these signs to him.

‘I beg your pardon,’ I had the audacity to say to the commander of all the Union armies, ‘did you read those?'"

Grant promptly put out his pipe and never smoked again during the trial. Gibson proudly claimed he was "the only man who ever made General Grant stop smoking."

Photo of Alfred Gibson from the Library of Congress
Photo of Ulysses S. Grant from the Library of Congress

At 10:00 am on May 10, 1865, the trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators met for the first time on the third floor of the Old Washington Arsenal.

A hush fell as guards led the accused conspirators into the courtroom. In addition to wrist and ankle chains, the prisoners wore hoods tied over their heads. Once the prisoners took their seats, guards removed their hoods to identify them. A court official read off their names: David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell, Michael O’Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary Surratt, and Samuel Mudd.

A military commission of nine Army officers watched from a table on one wall. Since this was military trial, the commissioners would serve as judges in place of a civilian jury. Lawyers for the prosecution and defense had their own seats, as did courtroom transcribers and a few members of the press.

An official read the charges for a “malicious, unlawful, and traitorous conspiracy" to "murder...Abraham Lincoln." The accused pled not guilty, and the lawyers rose to begin their arguments. The reckoning had begun.



Drawing of the courtroom from Dickinson College
Photo of conspirator's chains from the Library of Congress
Photo of conspirator's hood from the Smithsonian Museum of American History

On May 4, 1865, a mourning nation laid Abraham Lincoln to rest.

After weeks of public funerals in a dozen cities, the last funeral procession marched through Springfield, Illinois. It carried not only Abraham Lincoln's coffin, but also the coffin of his young son Willie. Mourners led Lincoln's horse "Old Bob" in the procession as it wound past the Lincoln home to Oak Ridge Cemetery. Mourners placed the coffins in the family vault and after a brief ceremony, closed the iron gate.

The legacy of Ford's Theatre is the legacy that Lincoln left behind. It is up to us to remember, dedicate, and continue towards Lincoln's 'unfinished work.' As one banner in Springfield said, "He Lives in the Hearts of his People."



Photo of Lincoln's horse and Rev. Henry Brown from the Library of Congress
Photo of Lincoln's tomb from the Library of Congress

The poet Walt Whitman was among the millions who mourned President Abraham Lincoln in April of 1865. Whitman had begun to admire Lincoln during the two years Whitman worked as a hospital nurse in Washington, DC. Now the great, good man was dead.

The contrast of the tragedy with the beauty of spring blooms plucked a nerve in Whitman’s poetic soul. His poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” invokes the tragic beauty of Lincoln’s funeral passage across the country.

“Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods…
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a co**se to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
….
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.”

Learn more about Walt Whitman at https://www.nps.gov/people/walt-whitman.htm.


Photo of Walt Whitman from the Library of Congress

The death of President Abraham Lincoln was an international event. Dozens of nations sent condolences to both the United States and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. One such letter arrived on this day in 1865 from possibly the most influential woman of the time: Queen Victoria of Great Britain.

Unlike many other leaders around the world, Queen Victoria had also suffered a great personal loss. Her husband died in 1861 and the Queen had been living in isolation for several years. So while much of the world consoled the United States for the loss of a great President, Queen Victoria consoled Mary over the loss of her husband. She wrote, “No one can better appreciate than I can, who am myself utterly broken-hearted by the loss of my own beloved Husband, who was the Light of my Life, — my Stay — my all, — what your sufferings must be.”

Many other nations condemned the assassination and sent their condolences to the American people. Haiti and Liberia, two nations that Lincoln had pushed the United States into recognizing, were especially vocal. When the State Department published its records for 1865, it included a separate volume for international reactions to the death of Lincoln.



Photo of Queen Victoria from the UK National Portrait Gallery

At 2:00 am on April 26, 1865, John Wilkes Booth woke up to the shouts of soldiers. He had evaded capture for twelve days after assassinating President Abraham Lincoln. Now his time was up.

Booth and his accomplice David Herold were asleep in a to***co barn on the Garrett farm when the Sixteenth New York Cavalry surrounded them. The soldiers called to Booth and Herold to surrender. Herold put his hands up and walked out of the barn, but Booth refused to give himself up. The soldiers set fire to the barn in an effort to force Booth out. A sergeant named Boston Corbett claimed he saw Booth raising his rifle towards the soldiers. Corbett fired a single pistol shot that hit Booth in the neck.

The soldiers pulled Booth out of the burning barn and onto the porch of the Garrett farmhouse. The mortal bullet was lodged in Booth’s spine, and he was paralyzed from the neck down. Booth died at 7:15 am. As he looked at his paralyzed hands, Booth’s final words were, “useless, useless.”

Interested in reading more? Explore a day-by-day account of Booth’s escape here: https://www.nps.gov/.../history.../the-assassin-s-escape.htm



Image of Booth’s capture from Dickinson College

On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train stopped in New York City for a public funeral at City Hall. As the funeral procession wound along Broadway, it passed by the home of Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt. No one knew that a future president was watching Lincoln’s hearse go by.

In this photo, there are two small boys leaning out of a window on the left side. Six-year-old Theodore Roosevelt and his brother Elliot happened to be visiting their grandfather that day. From the window, they had prime seats to view the martyred president’s funeral.

Theodore Roosevelt went on to become president 36 years later. He often referenced Lincoln as an inspiration. Roosevelt even experienced an assassination attempt of his own. The two presidents would eventually sit side by side on Mount Rushmore.

To discover more connections between Lincoln and Roosevelt, visit https://home.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/lincoln-and-roosevelt.htm.



Photo from the New York Public Library

The black-draped train pulled into Philadelphia at 4:50 PM on April 22, 1865. Abraham Lincoln’s body had arrived in the birthplace of American independence.

Thousands of mourners escorted Lincoln’s hearse from the train station to Independence Hall. They placed the President’s body in the Assembly Room, where the Founding Fathers signed both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Standing there four years earlier, Lincoln had stated that he “would rather be assassinated on this spot” than give up the principles of the Declaration.

Over the next two days, between 100,000 and 300,000 people passed through Independence Hall to view Lincoln’s open casket. Temporary platforms allowed mourners to enter through the Assembly Room’s tall windows. After 20 continuous hours of visitation, the hearse carried Lincoln’s body back to the train. The long mourning journey was just beginning.



Photo of Lincoln’s hearse in Philadelphia from the Library of Congress
Photo of the Assembly Room from the NPS

On this day in 1865, the body of President Abraham Lincoln left Washington, DC on a special funeral train.

An honor guard carried the body of President Lincoln from the United States Capitol across the National Mall to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad station. The honor guard placed Lincoln's coffin on a special funeral car draped in black bunting. With Lincoln was the coffin of his son Willie, who had died three years before.

Once all was ready, the train pulled away from the platform. The “rail-splitter” president was headed home to rest. The train traveled over 1,600 miles before reaching Springfield, Illinois on May 3. The funeral train stopped in 12 cities along the way, each of which held their own ceremonies to honor the fallen President Lincoln.



Photo of Lincoln's funeral train from the Library of Congress

At 5:00 am, on April 20, 1865, George Atzerodt was dragged out of bed and arrested by the First Delaware Cavalry.

The cavalry had been alerted to a suspicious man who seemed to know more about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln than the newspapers had reported. The alert, raised by a man Atzerodt had eaten Easter dinner with about four days before, proved accurate. George Atzerodt knew of the plan to assassinate President Lincoln.

When George Atzerodt started working with John Wilkes Booth, the plan had been to abduct President Lincoln. Atzerodt would provide the boat necessary to ferry the captured President across the Potomac. When Booth’s plan shifted to assassination, he dragged his conspirators along. Booth's goal was to kill multiple high-ranking members of the federal government to destabilize it. Booth would kill Lincoln. Lewis Powell, an ex-Confederate soldier, would kill Secretary of State William Seward. George Atzerodt was ordered to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson.

On the night of April 14, 1865, George Atzerodt went to the Kirkwood House, the hotel Vice President Johnson was staying in. He went the bar to get a drink…and then left, never even asking to see the Vice President.

It is unclear exactly why George Atzerodt did not go through with his role in the conspiracy. What is certain is that he did not attempt to stop or warn anyone about Booth’s plan. As a result, he was convicted for conspiracy to murder.



Photo of George Atzerodt from the Library of Congress

On this day in 1865, a black hearse carried President Abraham Lincoln's body from the White House to the United States Capitol. Over 30,000 mourners and soldiers marched with the hearse down Pennsylvania Avenue. Photographers documented the scene from nearby rooftops.

At the Capitol, the pallbearers placed Lincoln's coffin atop a black velvet platform in the Capitol Rotunda. Crowds of mourners waited in line to file past Lincoln's open coffin. One newspaper estimated that the mourners walked by the coffin "at the rate of 3,500 per hour." Between 25,000 and 40,000 people paid their respects to the fallen president that day.



Photo of Lincoln's funeral procession from the Library of Congress