Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1915 — WHEN LINCOLN'S LIFE WENT OUT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHEN LINCOLN'S LIFE WENT OUT

Fifty Years Have Passed Since Tragic Event in Ford’s Theater. NIGHT OF FEAR AND ANXIETY

Incidents of That Fatal Fourteenth of April in Washington Are Recalled —Stanton Calm Amid Alt Confusion and Excitement

Washington.—Fifty years ago, on the night of April 14, 1865, In a house on K street, a cavalry captain lay beside his wife and child In his first peaceful sleep after four war-filled years. Suddenly the old-fashioned knocker on the front door chattered loudly. The servants at the end of the hall slept on but the alarm brought the trained soldier to his feet at once. An exchange of low-toned question and answer at the door and he came back into the bedroom. Fast Spreading News. As the captain turned up the light his wife saw his face, a pallid, set mask under the tan, his eyes wide with horror. She sat up in bed, afraid. “Joe, what is it?” The captain’s breath came hard and he labored over the words: “ —Lincoln —shot —” Five minutes later he was mounted and away to his command. On Pennsylvania avenue the hoofbeats of the horse ridden by the escaping murderer Booth had hardly died away behind the capitoL So fast spread the tragic news. In Ford’s Theater. In Ford’s theater on Tenth street the nightmare caused by the fatal shot was followed by confused action. The only two men who seemed to know what they were doing were the assassin Booth and Major Rathbone, whom Booth wounded in escaping. Men in the audience plunged wildly over the seats toward the stage crying, “Hang him.” In the presidential box it was not until several minutes later that the silent figure of Lincoln, still sitting calmly in the chair, was stretched upon the floor and examined by Dr. Charles Taft. He ordered it removed at once to the nearest bed. At the Peterson House. A shutter was brought. The president’s unconsciouis form was laid upon It, and through a trail of dripping

Abraham Lincoln.

blood the stricken party followed across the dress circle and down the stairs. In the street there was a helpless pause. , “Where shall we take him?" From the steps of a house opposite the theater a man called, "Bring him here into my room,” and through the crowd of civilians, soldiers and policemen the president was carried into the hall bedroom of William Clark, a soldier lodger. In the front room sat Mrs. Lincoln weeping and moaning, “Oh, why didn’t he kill me?” Horror and Dread In the City. Over the'city, after the first lightning shock of the story, there was surprisingly little violence. In the forts and camps the long roll sounded; an army /stood to arms, grim and silent

Mobs sprang from the ground and shouted for vengeance in unthinking fury, but always some voice quieted them with command and question, “Hush! What would Mr. Lincoln say if he could hear you?” Cavalry patrols trotted through the streets with what seemed a deadened clatter, their only command the raised arm of an officer. Men stood and whispered brokenly. Dread was upon the city. Rumor had ten thousand tongues and news met news more terrible. That Secretary Seward had been attacked and wounded was soon known. Secretary Stanton’s life had been attempted, It* was said. Grant was reported killed on his way North. “Conspiracy is among us. . . . What man is safe?” wrote the editor of a morning paper at two o’clock. Upon every man’s lips was the question, “In God’s name, what next?" A Wife’s Sore Agony* In Tenth street it was quiet The men who had shouted “Burn the theater,” had been silenced; the streets around the Peterson house had been cleared of the crowd and cavalry guarded every entrance to them. No one was allowed within the lines who had not urgent business there. A front and back parlor and Clark’s bedroom at the end of a long, narrow hall made up the first floor of the house. Mrs, Lincoln sat in the front room, supported in her grief by her son. Captain Robert Lincoln, who left her from time to time to go to’his father’s bedside. Several times the wife went to her husband, but was unable to stay for more than a few minutes without breaking down completely. Stanton’s the Master Mind. Secretary Stanton had not been wounded as reported. He was among the first to reach the house and sat in the back parlor at a table where he could see everyone who came near the president’s room. His was the directing and controlling mind through that long night. No man knew better than he the worth of the dying man but he was calm and energetic, and in the Intervals of giving orders and dictating dispatches wrote the best story of that night’s national calamity that remains today. > His family physician and several friends and ofllcials were with the president. Not a flicker of consciousness came to him after the bullet shot through his head from back to front. One moment he was here, rejoicing in full knowledge of his country’s new-found peace, in another he had passed beyond human knowledge to peace everlasting. But the long, gaunt body died hard. The stertorous breathing and painful moaning sounded through the house hour after hour over the low voices of Stanton and Dana, above the sobbing of the wife. Gradually the moaning ceased, the long, restless arms grew still. “Failing fast,” said the bulletin at six o’clock; "Symptoms of immediate dissolution,” read another at seven. “It Is Finished.” At twenty-two minutes past seven his son Robert, Secretaries Stanton, Wells and Usher, Private Secretary Hay and several others gathered around the bed saw the last breath flutter the parted lips. Abraham Lincoln was dead in the hour of his triumph and Stanton’s solemn voice broke the awed silence in the truest and most beautiful benediction ever pronounced upon a passing soul: “Now he belongs to the ages.” An Anguish-Stricken Nation. A man in rumpled frock coat appeared at the front door and looked around. On the steps a cavalry captain stiffened to salute, his eyes searching the other’s face. The man in the frock coat nodded silently. As he mounted and rode away the captain’s face wore the same pallid, set mask under the tan that had roused his wife to frightened questioning the night before. . Within the next half hour, ahead of the fast rising sun, sped a message that struck the nation to dumb anguish: , “President Lincoln died at 7:22.”