The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

STATE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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the President's breathing was regular, but difficult. This
continued throughout the night, he giving, with occasional exceptions, no indications of suffering, and remaining, with closed eyes, perfectly unconscious. At about
seven in the morning his breathing became more difficult,
and was interrupted at intervals sometimes for so long a
time that he was supposed to be dead. At twenty-two
minutes past seven he ceased breathing, and thus expired.
There was no convulsive action, no rattling in the throat,
no appearance of suffering of any kind-none of the
symvptoms which ordinarily attend dissolution and add
to its terrors. From the instant he was struck by the
ball of the assassin, he had not given the slightest indication that he was conscious of any thing that occurred
around him.
The news that the President had been shot spread at
once through the town, and was instantly followed by
tidings of a murderous assault, still more terrible in its
details, upon the Secretary of State. We have already
mentioned the accident by which Mr. Seward was thrown
from his carriage, and seriously injured. His right arm
was broken above the elbow, his jaw was fractured, and
his whole system seriously shattered. For nearly a fort.
night he had been confined to his bed, unable to swallow
any thing but liquids, and reduced, by pain and this
enforced abstinence, to a state of extreme debility. His
room was on the third floor of his residence in Madison
Place, fronting on President Square, and the bed on which
he lay stood opposite the door by which the room was
entered, and about ten feet from it. At a few minutes
past ten-within five minutes of the time when the President was shot-a man, proved afterwards to be Lewis
Payne Powell, generally known as Payne, rang at the
door of Mr. Seward's residence, and said to the colored
lad who opened it that he had some medicines prescribed
for Mr. Seward by Dr. Verdi, his family physician,
which he must deliver in person. The lad said that
no one could go up to Mr. Seward's room; but Payne
pushed him aside and rushed up 'stairs. He had