“Abraham Lincoln died this morning at twenty-two minutes after seven o’clock.”

But we must return to the assassin. He was known to some persons who saw him and heard his voice, after the fatal shot—John Wilkes Booth—a worthless, dissipated fellow, in full sympathy with the rebel cause. Immediate efforts were put forth by the authorities to capture him and his fellow-conspirators. It was soon ascertained that Booth had been busy laying his plans during the previous day, and that several accomplices were engaged with him. There was unmistakable evidence that other members of the Cabinet were singled out for assassination, and that General Grant would have been a victim had he remained in the city. A letter was found in Booth’s trunk which showed that the assassination was planned for March 4th—the day of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, and that it failed because the accomplices refused to proceed “until Richmond could be heard from.”

Colonel Baker, with his picked men, pursued Booth to the farm-house of one Garrett, in Lower Maryland, in whose barn he was found, with Herold, one of his accomplices. Herold gave himself up, but Booth refused to surrender, whereupon the barn was set on fire, and he was shot by Boston Corbett, in his attempt to escape. Lewis Payne, who made the attempt upon the life of Secretary Seward; George A. Atzerodt, to whom was assigned the murder of Vice-President Johnson; Michael O’Laughlin, Edward Spangler, who aided Booth at the theatre; Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, were the conspirators arrested and tried by a military commission. Herold, Atzerodt, Payne, and Mrs. Surratt were sentenced to be hanged, and were executed on the 7th day of July.

We stop here to record a fact about the assassin that has never been published. A retired sea-captain of New Bedford, Mass., remarked, when he read that J. Wilkes Booth had murdered President Lincoln,—

“I am not at all surprised; just what I should expect!”

“Why do you say that?” inquired a listener.

“I will tell you,” replied the captain; “when J. Wilkes Booth was about ten years old, I was running a vessel from Liverpool to New Orleans, and I brought J. Wilkes, with his father and family, from the former to the latter place. That boy, John Wilkes, was the most ungovernable and impudent fellow of his age I ever met with. Like most boys who go to ruin, he was disrespectful and saucy to his mother. She could do nothing with him. One day she was correcting him for his usual impudence to her, when Mr. Booth, her husband, made his appearance. Observing what his wife was about, he cried out at the top of his voice, ‘What! treating that boy so? He never will make a man if you treat him so.’ ” The captain added: “I am not surprised that such a boy should become an assassin.”

Before his assassination, President Lincoln was often likened to William of Orange, whose subjects called him “Father William,” as we were wont to call our beloved President “Father Abraham.” But when treason had done its worst, and our Lincoln was assassinated, as William of Orange was assassinated, the comparison with that “purest and best-loved ruler of his times” became a remarkable and affecting coincidence.

By midnight, April 14th, the tidings of President Lincoln’s assassination began to flash over the wires. Long before sunrise the large cities and towns of the country, having night telegraphic connection with Washington, were startled by the terrible news. Governors, mayors, and other officials, were called from their beds to receive the dreadful announcement. By the time men and women went to the business of the morning the sad news met them everywhere; and speedily followed Mr. Stanton’s telegram announcing the President’s death.

Never was there such sorrow in the Republic before. The people had been rejoicing over the close of the war for several days, and the praise of President Lincoln, for his wise and successful administration, was on every lip. The heights of national joy had been reached; and now to plunge therefrom into the lowest depths of sorrow was a fearful change. The popular heart sank under the burden of grief. Strong men wept as they went about the streets. Great men buried their faces in their hands and cried as if