THE DEATH OF LINCOLN

To win the hearts of his foes, his chief care in his closing days. No exulting at the White House over the conquered South. Lincoln's last speech, April 11, 1865. — His anxiety for a speedy restoration of the Union. — His strange dream the night before his assassination. His last cabinet meeting, held on the fatal Friday. Peace and good-will his watchwords. "We must extinguish our resentments."- Fondly planning the future with his wife. Her unhappy premonition. Their theater party with Major Rathbone and the daughter of Senator Harris of New York as their guests. Lincoln assassinated in a box at Ford's Theater, April 14, by John Wilkes Booth. - Escape of the assassin. Secretary Seward stabbed by Lewis Powell, alias Payne, one of Booth's accomplices. - Death of Lincoln, April 15.

LINCOLN's chief care on returning to his post of duty seemed to be to win the hearts of his foes.

He longed to see the great armies of both sides disperse and the soldiers return to the ways of peace. The North was wild with joy over the ending of the war. Probably no other event in history ever was so universally celebrated among any people. The multitude felt it was their victory, won by themselves and for themselves.

Yet if Lincoln could have had his choice, not a salute would have been fired or a bell rung in triumph

over his defeated countrymen in the South. He would have had the nation at large emulate the spirit of Grant at Appomattox when he ordered the artillery to stop firing in honor of Lee's surrender.

At a serenade the next day, Lincoln called on the band to play "Dixie,” and, as its stirring strains echoed through the White House, his foot kept time to the battle song of the Confederacy. A great crowd coming to rejoice with him on the night of the second day after the surrender, he appeared at a window and read his speech while a man at his elbow held a lamp above his manuscript.

He spoke to the humbled vanquished rather than to the exultant victors, and in a tone of the utmost soberness. "It may be my duty," he said in concluding, "to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper."

April 14 fell on Good Friday. It is doubtful, however, if the religious significance of the day occurred to Lincoln's mind, for he always lived among a people who were not used to observing it as the anniversary of the crucifixion of the Saviour.

By his own selection it was the occasion for raising above the ruins of Fort Sumter the flag which had been lowered there four years before. Anderson,

its defender then, was the central figure in the ceremony, and the orator of the day eloquently thanked God that Lincoln had been spared to behold the glorious fulfilment of his labors for the Union.

An unwonted ease and happiness seemed to rest upon the President. Robert returned from the army and for an hour his father listened to the young man's account of what he had seen and done.

General Grant, the captor of three armies, came, wearing modestly his latest and noblest honors. There was still a Confederate army in the field in North Carolina, under Johnston, and Grant was worried because no report of its capture had been received from Sherman. Lincoln was sure that good news would soon come, for he had had a dream the night before, the same dream which had been the forerunner of other great events. He dreamed he was in a strange ship, moving rapidly toward a dark and

indefinite shore. This was the vision which he had seen in his sleep before the battles of Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg, and he was confident it meant now that Sherman had defeated, or was about to defeat, Johnston. What else could it mean? He knew of no other important event that was pending.

Mrs. Lincoln joined in welcoming the victorious General-in-chief, and, as a return for the courtesies

she had lately received at his headquarters, invited him and Mrs. Grant to go to the theater in the evening. The General promised to consider the invitation, and Mrs. Lincoln sent a messenger to Ford's Theater with a request for a box.

Within an hour, John Wilkes Booth called at the theater for his mail, which he was accustomed to receive there, and a man in the office spoke to him of the distinguished party that was coming to the evening performance. Booth's was a familiar and dramatic figure in the streets of Washington. He was a handsome young man of twenty-eight, who was generally regarded as a person of dark but harmless moods. As an actor, his gifts were by no means worthy of his name, which had been made famous by the genius of his brother Edwin and his father, Junius Brutus.

Throughout the war he vaunted his loyalty to the South, and his hostility to the Union preyed upon his never well-balanced mind. It is apparent that the news he heard at the theater instantly determined him to carry out a desperate project which had long been in his thoughts, and he called into council a group of mad adventurers.

It was cabinet day at the White House. When Lincoln took his seat at the head of the table, Stanton had not come. While waiting for the Secretary

of War, the President told again the story of his dream voyage in a phantom ship toward an unseen shore.

The uppermost topic of discussion at the meeting was the policy to be pursued toward the states of the South, as well as toward Jefferson Davis and various other principals in the war against the Union. Lincoln said he regarded it as providential that Congress was not in session to interfere in the matter of reconstruction. He believed that by wise and discreet action the administration could set the states upon their feet, secure order, and reëstablish the Union before the meeting of Congress in December.

As to the treatment of the Confederate leaders, he said with much feeling that no one need expect he would take any part in hanging these men, even the worst of them. "Frighten them out of the country," he cried, in a high-pitched voice. "Open the gates! Let down the bars! Scare them off!" and he threw up his arms as if to drive a herd of sheep. "Enough lives have been sacrificed," he continued. "We must extinguish our resentments, if we expect harmony and union."

He expressed his dislike of the disposition of some persons to hector and dictate to the people of the South. "All must begin to act in the interest of