Manuscript, 1905, A History of the Memorial Association Formed in Tallahassee After the Late Civil War, Ellen Call Long
June 19 [1864] We have daily skirmishes in Va. General Finegan is there
gathering new laurels—in a fight on the 3rd—he regained in a most gallant
manner the ground lost by Breckinridge before Richmond. Grant is said to
be afraid to risk a battle before Richmond, but his plan is to surround it and
besiege it as he did at Vicksburg. This summer’s campaign is a political one
with the North to affect their election in November for President—Lincoln for
President, Any Johnson for Vice President have already been nominated by
the Radical portion of the Black Republican party, while Freemont is nominated
by another branch.
January 8th [1865] It is now rumored that Gov. Brown of Georgia has sent a
messenger to Lincoln proposing to return to the Union if he will allow Georgia to
do so with her institutions as they existed before the war and that the Congress
of the United States have agreed that they nor Lincoln have any right to legislate
upon slavery, it being a question for the states to decide themselves, if this is so,
the war is over ...
March 4 [1865] To day Abe Lincoln is a second time inaugurated President of
the United States, which inaugurates the war for another four years if we can
stand it which seems to me impossible . . . .
April 21st [1865]. Well I believe the war is over—our suffering may not have yet
begun, however. A command under General Wilson has in two weeks or less
time marched through Alabama taking everything in its course—reaching Ga,
has taken Columbus and is now on its way to Macon. It is said that Lincoln is
in Richmond making peace speeches, and last night a telegram says that 200
guns were fired in Jacksonville a day or two since ____ the Federals there
learning that Genl Lee and his army in Va. had surrendered to Genl Grant—all
officers paroled and allowed to keep their side arms. This is not improbable
since Lee’s hasty retreat from Richmond most probably prevented his bringing
off supplies of provisions and ammunition for an army, and he must be surrounded
by the commands of Grant and Sherman, but there are some people silly enough
to think we are going to whip the Yankees yet. The rejoicing at the North over our
failing strength is said to exceed all bounds. Lincoln’s place in history will
exceed that of Washington, while that of the South will be falsified (as the Yankees
write the books) until we shall appear to succeeding generations as a nation of
most egregious fools, and I am by no means sure that what we shall deserve it
(Nobody in this part of the world knows where our President is though well aware
of Mr. Lincoln’s movements). I cannot but think that Davis has acted selfishly in
persisting in this war. I believe the majority of the people in the South have been
anxious for peace and “Reconstruction” for the last three years, but any one that
had the temerity to say so has been called a traitor and treated with doubt and
suspicion.
April 26th [1865] We had the most astounding and startling news last night—coming
through the lines at Jacksonville—which is, that Lincoln has been assassinated
while at the theatre in Washington City after his visit to Richmond and that Seward
was mortally wounded the same evening in his own home. The assassin shot Lincoln
and then jumping on the stage raised his hat exclaiming, “sic simper Tyrannis,” the
motto of the State of Virginia. I am sorry. This man most probably has been murdered
while considering the best act of his life, for every thing indicates he had a conciliatory
course on his part towards the South, while his death puts a much worse man in his
place (Andy Johnson) whose opinion may be very much opposed to our interest. I
am glad it did not occur in Richmond as it must have reflected upon the South very
greatly and might have aroused a state of feeling at the North we could ill afford to
brook at this time, and it may now delay or affect the negotiations for peace—it
certainly will do us no good. A great many express themselves as “glad of it.” I met
a handsome and amiable lady yesterday rejoicing over the event, only wished a
woman could have done it. She wished he could have been suspended from a tree
and every woman in the South could have had a shot at him. The girls giggle and
the boys call the murder “Bully.” I have never felt any of this individual hatred to
Lincoln. I have looked upon him as the puppet of a party, and it is not impossible
that we have lost in him, at this juncture of our affairs, a friend. It had been
announced in the morning papers that Lincoln and General Grant would attend the
theatre the following night. Grant afterward determined to visit his family in New
Jersey. Lincoln, however, did attend accompanied by his wife. It was during the 3rd
act that a stranger made his appearance in the private box of Lincoln, shot him,
leaped on the stage exclaiming as before said. Mrs. Lincoln fainted. The gas was
instantly extinguished and every thing was in confusion. The assassin had a horse
in waiting, which was found some hours afterwards covered with foam and exhausted,
but his rider has not yet been discovered. Lincoln was shot through the head but
did not die until next morning. The same evening a man went to Seward’s house
(who was confined in his bed from illness), told the servant at the door that he had
April 26th [1865] [continued]
prescriptions for Mr. Seward from the Surgeon General’s and that he must see him.
He mounted to his room, where finding his son, he knocked him senseless and then
stabbed Seward in several places,, occurring that same evening as the murder of
Lincoln. It would seem that there was a regular conspiracy to make away with the l
eaders of the party in power. Lincoln in his first inauguration was deathly fearful of
assassination as his ludicrous entrance into Washington City at that time in
disguise—the approach to the Capitol palisaded for his protection would
indicate—so what commenced as farce has ended in tragedy.
May 10th [1865] Andrew Johnson has issued a proclamation offering a $100,000
reward for the arrest of Jeff Davis and others whom he pretends to implicate in the
murder of Lincoln and Seward. Poor Davis, where is he? We heard a few days
since that he was in Ga. With 4,000 Cavalry, but I cannot believe that he would
so triffle with his life, and would sooner suspect him of making his way under an
old slouched hat, incog, along the hedges and by ways leading out of the country,
as forlorn in appearance and fortunes as any other of Lee’s (les) Miserables. I
understand the commandant of the Stockade at Andersonville, where we kept
our northern prisoners, has been arrested and first condemned to be starved for
thirty days, but subsequently it was determined to give him up to the soldiers of
the Federal army to be dealt with as they please, and it is said, they hang by his
thumbs every day and subject him to other tortures, which I suppose would ___
death welcome. He is said even by our authorities to have been personally cruel.
[No date] Some where in N. Carolina that has been, some time before the Surrender,
in the hands of the Federals, some “White Niger” influenced the negros to hang their
church in mourning for Lincoln. I saw a letter in the ”Tribune” yesterday from the same
piebald individual, in which he greatly eulogizes these “faithful” creatures who wish to
have a “Bust” of the great and good man, Lincoln who had knocked off their chains,
to adorn their church. In the same paper I read a full account of the obsequies of the
dead President. I do not think that there was ever any thing like it in the world. From
Washington City to his place of internment in Illinois, might be called one funeral
procession. In every city through which his body passed
[New page] there was every demonstration of grief set forth in every emblem of woe.
The streets were festooned with flags draped in crepe, and so at every rail way station,
while his corpse was received by long processions of military and citizens in the cities
and exposed to view for several hours, thousands and thousands passing the coffin
continuously, taking a last look at the unfortunate man. Ladies were ready at every
stopping place with the rarest and most beautiful flowers to decorate the funeral car
and coffin so that as one wreath weathered, there were others to take its place. The
funeral car prepared for the occasion is said to have been very magnificent, covered
with velvet crepe and silver bullion. Abe, not for any thing he did in life, but because
he happened to be killed by an ordinary man, supposed to be in league with the South.
What creatures of circumstance we are after all, or “there is a Providence that shapes
our ends, rough hew them as we will.” So the Rail splitting, Union splitting, joking
President, is now called a Martyr and soon will be a saint, two of which the North
has now, the other being “John Brown,” and I suppose if old Andy Johnson lives or
dies they will make a God of him (after the order of Bacchus).
[Same entry continues] The examination of Jeff Davis and others in Washington City
as accomplices in Lincoln’s murder is going on but failing to implicate him in the murder.
They have indicted himself and Mr. Stephens for high treason.