Sunday, April
9, 1865.En route on Steamboat River
Queen and Washington, DC. | "That
whole day [steaming up Potomac] the conversation turned on literary subjects.
Mr. Lincoln read aloud to us for several hours. Most of the passages he
selected were from Shakespeare." Adolphe de Pineton, marquis de Chambrun,
Impressions of Lincoln and the Civil War: A Foreigner's Account
(New York: Random House, 1952), 82-86. President returns in excellent health. River Queen arrives at 6 P.M., bringing President, Mrs. Lincoln, Tad Lincoln, Attorney General James Speed, Assistant Secretary Otto, Senator Charles Sumner (Mass.), Senator James Harlan (Iowa), Mrs. Harlan and daughter Mary, and Marquis de Chambrun. Evening Star (Washington, DC), 10 April 1865, 3d ed., Extra, 2:2.
Presidential party arrives about sundown. Streets alive with people. Bonfires
everywhere. General Robert E. Lee has surrendered. William H. Crook, "Lincoln's
Last Day: New Facts Now Told for the First Time. Compiled and written down by
Margarita S. Gerry," Harper's Monthly Magazine 115 (September
1907):523. President visits Secretary Seward, severely injured by fall from carriage. Francis F. Browne, The Everyday Life of
Abraham Lincoln (New York: Thompson, 1886), 694-95.
Crowds in front of White House call for President. "He responded briefly but
pleasantly." Francis F. Browne, The Everyday Life of Abraham
Lincoln (New York: Thompson, 1886), 697. |