Part 15

Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, crowds of people filled with frenzy, ready to seize any outlet for it, came near committing murder several times on innocent individuals. One such case was especially exciting. The infuriated crowd, through some chance, got started against one man, either for words he uttered, or perhaps without any cause at all, and were proceeding at once to hang him on a neighboring lamp-post, when he was rescued by a few heroic policemen, who placed him in their midst and fought their way slowly and amid great peril toward the station house. It was a fitting episode of the whole affair. The crowd rushing and eddying to and fro, the night, the yells, the pale faces, many frightened people trying in vain to extricate themselves, the attacked man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse, the silent, resolute half dozen policemen, with no weapons but their little clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying swarms--made indeed a fitting side scene to the grand tragedy of the murder. They gained the station house with the protected man, whom they placed in security for the night and discharged in the morning.

And in the midst of that night pandemonium of senseless hate, infuriated soldiers, the audience and the crowd--the stage, and all its actors and actresses, its paint pots, spangles and gaslight--the life blood from those veins, the best and sweetest of the land, drips slowly down....

Such, hurriedly sketched, were the accompaniments of the death of President Lincoln. So suddenly, and in murder and horror unsurpassed, he was taken from us. But his death was painless.

By permission of David McKay.

HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY

(May 4, 1865)

BY WALT WHITMAN

Hush'd be the camps to-day, And soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons, And each with musing soul retire to celebrate Our dear commander's death.

No more for him life's stormy conflicts, Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.

But sing, poet, in our name. Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.

As they invault the coffin there, Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse, For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

By permission of David McKay.

TO THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

(1865)

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

O, slow to smite and swift to spare, Gentle and merciful and just! Who, in the fear of God, didst bear The sword of power--a nation's trust.

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, Amid the awe that hushes all, And speak the anguish of a land That shook with horror at thy fall.

Thy task is done--the bond are free; We bear thee to an honored grave, Whose noblest monument shall be The broken fetters of the slave.

Pure was thy life; its bloody close Hath placed thee with the sons of light, Among the noble host of those cause of right.

CROWN HIS BLOODSTAINED PILLOW

BY JULIA WARD HOWE

Crown his blood-stained pillow With a victor's palm; Life's receding billow Leaves eternal calm.

At the feet Almighty Lay this gift sincere; Of a purpose weighty, And a record clear.

With deliverance freighted Was this passive hand, And this heart, high-fated, Would with love command.

Let him rest serenely In a Nation's care, Where her waters queenly Make the West more fair.

In the greenest meadow That the prairies show, Let his marble's shadow Give all men to know:

"Our First Hero, living, Made his country free; Heed the Second's giving, Death for Liberty."

THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN