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 ABrAHAMI LINCOLN.

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ing close on the heels of the Prosident's murder-perpetrated, indeed, at the same instant-it was instinctively
felt to be the work of a conspiracy, secret, remorseless,
and terrible. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, had
left Mr. Seward's bedside not twenty minutes before
the assault, and was in his private chamber, preparing to retire, when a messenger brought tidings of the
tragedy, and sumnmoned his instant attendance. On his
way to Mr. Seward's house, Mr. Stanton heard of the
simultaneous murder of the President, and instantly felt
that the Government was enveloped in the meshes of a
conspiracy, whose agents were unknown, and which was
all the more terrible for the darkness and mystery in
which it moved. Orders were instantly given to close all
drinking-shops and all places of public resort in ther city,
guards were stationed at every point, and all possible
precautions were taken for the safety of the Vice-President and other prominent Government officials. A vague
terror brooded over the population of the town. Men
whispered to each other as they met, in the gloom of
midnight, and the deeper gloom of the shadonwy crime
which surrounded them. Presently, passiotate indignation replaced this paralysis of the public heart, and, but
for the precautions adopted on the instant by the Government, the public vengeance would have been wreaked
upon the rebels confined in the Old Capitol Prison. All
these feelings, however, gradually subsided, and gave
way to a feeling of intense anxiety for the life of the
President. Crowds of people assembled in the, neighborhood of the house where the dying ma tyr lay, eager for
tidings of his condition, throughout the night; and when,
early in the morning, it was announced that he was dead,
a feeling of solemn awe filled every heart, and sat, a
brooding grief, upon every face.
And. so it was through all the length and breadth of
the land. In every State, in every town, in every
household, there was a dull and bitter agony, as the
telegraph bore tidings of the awful deed. Everywhere
throughout the Union, the public heart, bounding with