"Our fearful trip is done..."

150 years ago today, the nation received a shocking blow: President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The Civil War had virtually ended five days before and he was the first president to be assassinated. How could something like this have happened? 

Photo: rarenewspapers.com 

John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer, grew up in Maryland in an acting family. As a child, he was athletic and popular but uninterested in school, but he took to acting and at the age of 17 he made his stage debut in Richard III. When the Civil War broke out, Booth voiced his support for the South's "heroic" act of secession, his support for slavery and his abhorrence of President Lincoln.

In 1863, he was arrested in St. Louis for "making 'treasonous' remarks against the Lincoln administration." In order to avoid being thrown in jail, Booth swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. (Giblin, James. Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth.)

 Photo: walnutstreettheatre.org

As the tide of the war turned in favor of the Union and Lincoln was reelected, Booth became more active for the Confederacy. Initially, he planned to kidnap Lincoln, bring him to Richmond and ransom him for Confederate prisoners in the North. Not only did Booth want the prisoners returned, he also believed that the ransom would invigorate the Confederacy. But as Booth planned this endeavor, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox and it became obvious that the kidnapping would be impossible. 

Photo: reformation.org

On April 14, President Lincoln rose and shared breakfast with his sons before an 11:00 a.m. cabinet meeting in which Lincoln and his cabinet members discussed how the nation would move forward with the end of the war; Lincoln did not want any more bloodshed and stated he did not want trials or hangings. Lincoln’s day consisted of various meetings and a carriage ride to the Navy Yard.

That evening, President Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln went to Ford's Theatre to see the play Our American Cousin. During the third act, Booth entered the Presidential box and shot the president from behind. Booth then jumped to the stage and shouted a phrase in Latin that meant "So perish all tyrants" and fled the scene. 

 Photo: memory.loc.gov

When the news reached the public, there were two very different reactions: the North mourned as if a dear, personal friend had been killed, while the South celebrated his death. Walt Whitman, a poet, abolitionist and Lincoln supporter wrote a poem to honor the passing of president: 

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

                         But O heart! heart! heart!

                            O the bleeding drops of red,

                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

                         Here Captain! dear father!

                            This arm beneath your head!

                               It is some dream that on the deck,

                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                            But I with mournful tread,

                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead."