“The Saddest Good Friday”

In Matoaca’s little devotional note-book, I read: “Good Friday, 1865. This is the saddest Good Friday I ever knew. I have spent the whole day praying for our stricken people, our crushed Southland.” “The saddest Good Friday I ever knew”; nearly every man and woman in the South might have said that with equal truth.

Her “Journal” of secular events contains a long entry for April 14; it is as if she had poured out all her woes on paper. For the most part it is a tale of feminine trivialities, of patching and mending. “Unless I can get work and make some money,” she writes, “we must stay indoors for decency’s sake.” Her shoes have holes in them: “They are but shoes I cobbled out of bits of stout cloth.” The soles are worn so thin her feet are almost on the ground. The family is suffering for food and for all necessaries. “O God, what can I do!” she cries, “I who have never been taught any work that seems to be needed now! Who is there to pay me for the few things I know how to do? I envy our negroes who have been trained to occupations that bring money; they can hire out to the Yankees, and I can’t. Our negroes are leaving us. We had to advise them to go. Cato will not. ‘Me lef’ Mars Ran?’ he cried, ‘I couldn’ think uv it, Miss Mato’ca!’”

Woes of friends and neighbours press upon her heart. Almost every home has, like her own, its empty chair, its hungry mouths, its bare larder, though some are accepting relief from the Christian Commission or from Federal officers. Of loved ones in prison, they hear no tidings; from kindred in other parts of the South, receive no sign. There are no railroads, no mail service. In the presence of the conquerors, they walk softly and speak with bated breath. The evening paper publishes threats of arrest for legislators who may come to town obedient to the call Judge Campbell issued with Mr. Lincoln’s approval.

Good Friday was a day of joy and gladness North. From newspapers opened eagerly in radiant family circles men read out such headlines as these: “War Costs Over. Government Orders Curtailing Further Purchase of Arms, Ammunition and Commissary Stores.” “Drafting and Recruiting Stopped.” “Military Restrictions on Trade and Commerce Modified.” Selma, Alabama, with its rich stores of Confederate cotton, was captured. Mr. Lincoln’s conciliatory policy was commented on as “a wise and sagacious move.” Thursday’s stock market had been bullish.

Rachel weeping for her children was comforted because they had not died in vain. Larders were not bare, clothes were not lacking. The fastings and prayers of the devout were full of praise and thanksgiving. For the undevout, Good Friday was a feast day and a day of jollification.

In Charleston, South Carolina, gaping with scars of shot and shell of her long, long, siege, the roses and oleanders and palmettoes strove to cover with beauty the wounds of war, and in their fragrance to breathe nature’s sympathy and faithfulness. Her own desolate people kept within doors. The streets were thronged with a cheerful, well-clad crowd; the city was overflowing with Northern men and women of distinction. In the bay lay Dahlgren’s fleet, gay flags all a-flying. On land and water bands played merrily.

Fort Sumter’s anniversary was to be celebrated. The Union flag was to be raised over the ruined pile by General Robert Anderson, who had lost the fort in 1861. In the company duly assembled were Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton, William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. Dr. Storrs. Mr. Beecher uttered words of kindly sentiment towards the South. He gave God thanks for preserving Lincoln’s life, accepting this as a token of divine favor to the Nation. Dr. Storrs read: “‘When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.’” The people: “‘Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing.’” And so on through the 126th Psalm. Then: “‘Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.’” And: “‘They are brought low and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.’”

“The Star-Spangled Banner” was sung, and the guns of Dahlgren’s fleet thundered honours to the Stars and Stripes, which, rising slowly and gracefully, fluttered out in triumph against the Southern sky. At sunset, guns boomed again, proud signal to the ending of the perfect day. The city, silent and sad as far as its own people were concerned, rang with the strangers’ joyaunce. Social festivities ruled the hour. General Gillmore entertained at a great banquet. The bay was ablaze with fireworks; all forts were alight; the beautiful Sea Islands, whose owners roamed in destitute exile, gleamed in shining circle, the jewels of the sea.

The 14th was a red-letter day in the National Capital. Everything spoke of victory and gladness. Washington held the two idols of the North—Lincoln and Grant. It was Mr. Lincoln’s perfect hour. He went about with a quiet smile on his face. The family breakfast at the White House was very happy; Captain Robert Lincoln was visiting his parents. General Grant was present at the Cabinet meeting during the forenoon, Mr. Lincoln’s last. These are some of the President’s words:

“I think it providential that this great rebellion is crushed just as Congress has adjourned and there are none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we are wise and discreet we shall reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation with order prevailing, and the Union reËstablished before Congress comes together in December. I hope there will be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these men. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish resentment if we expect harmony and Union. There is too great a disposition on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to these States, to treat the people not as fellow-citizens; there is too little respect for their rights.” He made it plain that he meant the words of his second inaugural address, hardly six weeks before, when he promised that his mission should be “to bind up the wounds of the Nation.”

“Very cheerful and very hopeful,” Mr. Stanton reported, “spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy, and of the establishment of the Government of Virginia.” Also, he spoke of the state government in Louisiana, and that which he had mapped out for North Carolina. General Grant was uneasy about Sherman and Johnston. The President said: “I have no doubt that favourable news will come. I had a dream last night, my usual dream which has preceded every important event of the war. I seemed to be on a singular and indescribable vessel, always the same, moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore.”

MRS. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON

(Lydia McLane, daughter of Senator McLane, of Delaware.)

He did not know that on that day Sherman was writing Johnston, “I am empowered to make terms of peace.” But he knew he had so empowered Sherman. I can imagine that through his heart the refrain was beating: “There will be no more bloodshed, no more devastation. There shall be no more humiliations for this Southern people, and God will give it into my hands to reunite my country.”

He went for a long, quiet drive with his wife. “Mary,” he said, “we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington; but the war is over, and with God’s blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happiness. Then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our days in quiet.” He longed for quiet. The Sabbath before, while driving along the banks of the James, he said: “Mary, when I die, I would like to lie in a quiet place like this,” and related a dream which he felt to be presage of death.

Sailing on the James, he read aloud twice, and in a manner that impressed Charles Sumner, who was present, this passage from Macbeth:

“‘Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.’”

He was going, safe and whole, from the land of “rebels” to Washington. “We have had a hard time in Washington, Mary.” Read Sherman’s “Memoirs,” and see what little liking great Federal generals had for journeys to Washington; how for peace and safety, they preferred their battle-fields to the place where politicians were wire-pulling and spreading nets.

The conclusion to his perfect day was a box in Ford’s Theatre, his wife and a pair of betrothed lovers for company; on the stage Laura Keene in “Our American Cousin.” The tragic sequel is indelibly impressed on the brain of every American—the people leaning forward, absorbed in the play, the handsome, slender figure of young Wilkes Booth moving with easy, assured grace towards the President’s box, the report of the pistol, the leap of Booth to the stage, falling as the flag caught his foot, rising, brandishing his weapon and crying: “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”, his escape with a broken ankle through the confused crowds; the dying President borne out to the boarding-house on Tenth Street.

Seward’s life was attempted the same evening by Booth’s confederate, Lewis Payne, who penetrated to the Secretary’s sick-room and wounded him and his son; Payne escaped. General Grant’s death was a part of the plot; he and Mrs. Grant had declined invitation to share the President’s box, and started west; Mr. Stanton’s murder was also intended; but he escaped, scathless of body but bitterer of soul than ever, bitterer than Mr. Seward, who was wounded.

In a letter which Matoaca wrote years afterward, she said: “I well remember the horror that thrilled our little circle when the news came. ‘Now, may God have mercy on us!’ Uncle exclaimed. He sat silent for a while and then asked: ‘Can it be possible that any of our own people could do this thing? Some misguided fanatic?’ And then, after a silence: ‘Can some enemy of the South have done it? Some enemy of the South who had a grudge against Lincoln, too?’ ‘What sort of secret service could they have had in Washington that this thing could happen? How was it that the crippled assassin was able to make his escape?’ he said when full accounts appeared. The explanations given never explained to him.

“I heard some speak who thought it no more than just retribution upon Mr. Lincoln for the havoc he had wrought in our country. But even the few who spoke thus were horrified when details came. We could not be expected to grieve, from any sense of personal affection, for Mr. Lincoln, whom we had seen only in the position of an implacable foe at the head of a power invading and devastating our land; but our reprobation of the crime of his taking off was none the less. Besides, we did not know what would be done to us. Already there had been talk of trying our officers for treason, of executing them, of exiling them, and in this talk Andrew Johnson had been loudest.

“I remember how one poor woman took the news. She was half-crazed by her losses and troubles; one son had been killed in battle, another had died in prison, of another she could not hear if he were living or dead; her house had been burned; her young daughter, turned out with her in the night, had died of fright and exposure. She ran in, crying: ‘Lincoln has been killed! thank God!’ Next day she came, still and pale: ‘I have prayed it all out of my heart,’ she said, ‘that is, I’m not glad. But, somehow, I can’t be sorry. I believe it was the vengeance of the Lord.’”

Jefferson Davis heard of Lincoln’s death in Charlotte. A tablet in that beautiful and historic city marks the spot where he stood. He had just arrived from Greensboro, was dismounting, citizens were welcoming him when the dispatch signed by Secretary of War Breckinridge was handed him by Major John Courtney. Mrs. Courtney, the Major’s widow, told me that her husband heard the President say: “Oh, the pity of it!” He passed it to a gentleman with the remark, “Here are sad tidings.” The Northern press reported that Jefferson Davis cheered when he heard of Lincoln’s death.

Mrs. Davis, at the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, received a message from her husband announcing his arrival in Charlotte and telling of the assassination. Mrs. Davis “burst into tears, which flowed from sorrow and a thorough realization of the inevitable results to the Confederates,”—her own words.

General Johnston and General Sherman were in Mr. Bennett’s house near Raleigh. Just before starting to this meeting, General Sherman received a dispatch announcing Mr. Lincoln’s assassination. He placed it in his pocket, and, as soon as they were alone, handed it to General Johnston, watching him narrowly. “He did not attempt to conceal his distress,” General Sherman relates. “The perspiration came out in large drops on his forehead.” His horror and detestation of the deed broke forth; he earnestly hoped General Sherman would not charge this crime to the Confederacy. “I explained,” states General Sherman, “that I had not yet revealed the news to my own personal staff or to the army, and that I dreaded the effect when it was made known.” He feared that “a worse fate than that of Columbia would befall” Raleigh, particularly if some “foolish man or woman should say or do something that would madden his men.” He took pains when making the calamity known to assure his army that he did not consider the South responsible.

Mr. Davis, under arrest, and on the way to Macon, heard that Andrew Johnson had offered a reward of $100,000 for his arrest, charging him, Clement C. Clay and other prominent Southerners with “inciting, concerting, procuring” the “atrocious murder” of President Lincoln. Between threatening soldiery, displaying the proclamation and shouting over his capture, Mr. Davis and his family rode and walked.

At Macon, General Wilson received him with courtesy; when the proclamation was mentioned, Mr. Davis said one person at least in the United States knew the charge to be false, and that was the man who signed it, for Andrew Johnson knew that he preferred Lincoln to himself.

In Augusta, Colonel Randall (author of “Maryland, My Maryland”), meeting Clement C. Clay on the street, informed him of the proclamation. The old ex-Senator at once surrendered, asking trial.[5]

In Southern cities citizens held meetings condemning the murder and expressing sorrow and regret at the President’s death. Ex-Governor Aiken, known as the largest slave-owner in South Carolina, led the movement in Charleston, heading a petition to General Gillmore for use of the Hibernian Hall that the people might have a gathering-place in which to declare their sentiments.

Even the Confederates in prison were heard from. The officers confined at Fort Warren signed with General Ewell a letter to General Grant, expressing to “a soldier who will understand” their detestation of Booth’s horrible crime. The commandant of the Fort, Major William Appleton, added a note testifying to their deep sincerity.

THE WRATH OF THE NORTH