Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865

From Harper's Weekly of April 29, 1965. this illustration is by Thomas Nast, and represents Nast's Tribute to the fallen president. The illustration shows Columbia, or Lady Liberty, kneeling and weeping over Abraham Lincoln's Coffin. The picture also shows a grieving Union Soldier, contemplating the loss of his commander and chief. Also pictured is a Union Navy man, likewise mourning Abraham Lincoln's death.

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 are 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. 

~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892) (wiki) ("O Captain! My Captain!," 1st stanza)*

Last known photograph of Abraham Lincoln,
taken by Henry F. Warren on 6 March 1865

Our children will behold his fame,

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,

Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,

New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

~James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) (of President Lincoln, Commemoration Ode, 21 July 1865)

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.**

~Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) (in the House of Commons, 1 May 1865, on Lincoln's assassination) 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have born the battle and for his widow and for his orphan, to do all that may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 

~President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) (wiki) (Second inaugural address, 4 March 1865)

Lincoln Assassination - Harper's Weekly Illustration

Although he actually died at 7:30 the following morning, today is the anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) on 14 April 1865, only five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Lincoln was very fond of the theater, and that evening, he and Mrs. Lincoln - likely in a celebratory mood because of the end of the Civil War - attended a performance of the comedy, Our American Cousin, by English playwright Tom Taylor at Ford's Theater on 10th Street NW in Washington. There, following the intermission, actor and Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth managed to gain access to the Presidential box through a series of security lapses, and shot Lincoln in the back of head with a small pistol. He then jumped down onto the stage, shouted "Sic semper tynannis!" ("Thus always to tyrants!"), and although breaking his leg in the process, made his escape. Booth was ultimately tracked down and killed on 26 April, and four other conspirators were hanged on 7 July 1865.*** 

.

The Assassination of President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre
 After the Act, wood engraving from Harper's Weekly,
 April 29, 1865 (colorized)

At least in the North, the President's death unleashed a paroxysm of grief. Before funeral services in Washington, he lay in state in both the White House and the Capitol, and the train that slowly bore his body to Illinois for burial stopped in 11 cities for additional viewings by the public. He was laid to rest in Springfield, Illinois on 4 May 1865. Perhaps my favorite Lincoln quotation:

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

* N.B. Written by Whitman in 1871 in memory of the assassination of President Lincoln.

** Except that this one probably did, at least in the United States... It led to the many excesses of Reconstruction and lasting bitterness between the North and South.

*** Lincoln's assassination was only part of a larger conspiracy which also targeted Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Johnson's intended attacker lost his nerve, but Seward was seriously wounded in a stabbing attack that same night. 

Here's a brief (5 minute) video on the assassination:

Funeral March for Abraham Lincoln written by Major General John Gross Barnard was performed by the United States Marine Band during the funeral procession from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol on April 19, 1865. This youtube version is played with with period illustrations of the obsequies: 

In 1956, an eyewitness (Samuel Seymour) to the Lincoln assassination appeared on "I've Got a Secret": 

Here's the 1954 interview with Mr. Seymour referred to by the host.

Related posts/links:

Here' a  photo of Lincoln's first inauguration.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863: history, photos, videos and more.

The first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter.

Santa Claus enters the fray on the side of the Union.

Lincoln's 1858 speech on the meaning of Independence Day: "Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it then."

Gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain

Much more at History.com. The rest of the illustrations from the Harper's Weekly issue referenced above are available here.

Lincoln's 1858 speech on the meaning of Independence Day: Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it then.

Lincoln’s speech of July 10, 1858 concludes with an explanation of the meaning of this day to Americans with matchless eloquence and insight in words that remain as relevant now as then. Emphasis is mine: 

Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometime about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them.

We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty—or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,—with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,—we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity.

We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves—we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it.

We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration [loud and long continued applause], and so they are. That is the cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of “don’t care if slavery is voted up or voted down” [Douglas's "popular sovereignty" position on the extension of slavery to the territories], for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice---"Hit him again"], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.

Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices---"me" "no one," & c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of "no, no,"] let us stick to it then [cheers], let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

via PowerLine, which has more backstory.

Wednesday links

Tax day quotes, cartoons, history and links, including the 1967 cartoon version of The Beatles "Taxman"

A Look Back at Franklin, America's Lost State.

How computational power—or its absence—shaped World War naval battles.

Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 and died the morning of the 15th - here's history, contemporaneous articles and illustrations, and an eyewitness report from 1956.

Stopping the spread of disease during and after the American Revolution - fumigating people with smoke was thought to neutralize smallpox: “a judicious and proper application of fire and smoke is the true means appropriated for the destruction and utter extinction of the most malignant sources of disease.”

A History of Pizza - Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph, described pizza in 1831 - "it altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out of the sewer’.

And in the animals are just like humans category, Elephants Console One Another By Genital Touching and Sympathetic Noises.

Independence Day links

Want some inspiration? Read Lincoln's 1858 speech on the meaning of Independence Day: "Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it then." More excellent speeches from Coolidge (1926) and Reagan (1986). Video of the Reagan speech is here.

The 7 most bad-ass founding fathers, 5 forgotten founding fathers, and 4 more.

Journal of the American Revolutions' 10 Myths for the Fourth of July and Breaking News From 1776: First News Reports of Independence.

All about the Statue of Liberty.

Dave Barry's excellent 1998 column for the 4th of July.

Videos: The Science of Fireworks and of Barbecue. 

Kaboom! 10 Facts About Firecrackers That Will Blow You Away. Related: PBS's description of various fireworks effects, and a quiz.

From Mark Steyn - America The Beautiful: the story of the song.

Top Ten Movies For The Fourth Of July.

When in the course of human events... here's the full text of the Declaration of Independence.

Independence Days from science fiction.

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Monday links

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” 

~ Frédéric Bastiat (wiki)

Tax day quotes, cartoons, links, Dave Barry, and the 1967 cartoon version of The Beatles "Taxman".

A Brief History of the Beer Can.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 - quotes, a brief synopsis of events, and a televised eyewitness report from 1956. Also, For Sale: The Telegram That Announced Abraham Lincoln’s Death.

News you can use: How to Dismantle a Nuclear Missile.

For Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday, check out his handwritten resume from 1482. 

The Titanic sunk on April 14, 1912 - here's an eyewitness account. Related: Titanic Food Menus For 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class Passengers.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the science of dog farts, the Florida town where people cut off their appendages for insurance money, photos of Italy in the mid-1800s, and that Time the US military made flying saucers.

Tuesday links

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809.

Snail Slime Love Spell

The White House once had an official Squirrel Feeder.

How to Prevent Drunkenness, per 1612 - apparently roasted goat lungs will soak that alcohol right up.

A collection of photos of Victorian women with extremely long hair.

Sovereign Immunity - Could Queen Elizabeth Get Away with Murder Legally?

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include how mapmakers saw the world in the 16th century, a toilet seat that monitors your heart health, a canonical list of recipes for World Nutella Day, a photo gallery of early supercomputers, and a movie supercut of "I should have killed you when I had the chance".

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809

This Feb. 5, 1865 photo of Lincoln
in Washington is the last one taken of him

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew and and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. 

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.  We of this Congress and this generation will be remembered in spite of ourselves.  No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.  The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down to honor or dishonor to the last generation...

~ Abraham Lincoln (Second Annual Message to Congress, 1 December 1862) 

It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of the people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. 

~ Lincoln (Response to a serenade, 10 November 1864) 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.  Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

~ Lincoln (Second Inaugural Address, 4 March 1865*)

Colorized photo by Matthew Brady was taken in 1861

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have born the battle and for his widow and for his orphan, to do all that may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 

~ ibid

This dust was once the man,

Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand, 

Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,

Was saved the Union of these States. 

~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892) (of Lincoln, "This Dust Was Once the Man")   

February 12 is the anniversary of the birth of the 16th president of these United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Born in Kentucky and raised in Illinois, Lincoln was largely self-educated and became a country lawyer in 1836, having been elected to the state legislature two years earlier.  He had one term in the U.S. Congress (1847-1849) but failed (against Stephen A. Douglas) to gain election to the Senate in 1856. Nominated by the Republican party for the presidency in 1860, he prevailed against the divided Democrats, triggering the secession of the southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. As the course of the war turned more favorably for the preservation of the Union, Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864, but was assassinated in April 1865, only a week after the final victory.  

* N.B.  Highly recommended is Lincoln's Greatest Speech, by Ronald C. White, Jr., who analyzes the Second Inaugural Address in the same way that Gary Wills dissected the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln at Gettysburg. This post on the speech contains some analysis, as well.

A brief National Geographic documentary on Lincoln:

Related posts and links:

This Feb. 5, 1865 photo of Lincoln in Washington is the last one taken of him.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 (this post has a different photo that claims to be Lincoln's last - I don't know which is accurate). 

In 1956, an eyewitness (Samuel Seymour) to the Lincoln assassination appeared on TV.

Here's a  photo of Lincoln's first inauguration.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863: history, photos, videos and more.

The first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter.

Santa Claus enters the fray on the side of the Union.

Lincoln's 1858 speech on the meaning of Independence Day: "Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it then."

Gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Part of the text above is adapted from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email - leave your email address in the comments if you'd like to be added to his list. Ed is the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863: history, photos, videos and more

Today is the anniversary of President Lincoln's delivery of his few "brief remarks" at the dedication of the new national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (wiki), only four or so months after the great Civil War battle there that emerged as "the high-water mark of the Confederacy." 

One of the only two confirmed photos of Abraham
 Lincoln (sepia highlight) at Gettysburg, taken
about noon, just after Lincoln arrived and
some three hours before the speech.
To Lincoln's right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon

At the time, the final issue of the war was still in some doubt, and Lincoln received second billing to a lengthy speech by Dr. Edward Everett, then president of Harvard University and reputedly America's greatest orator. 

Everyone's familiar with the Gettysburg Address - didn't we all have to memorize it in grammar school? But in these troubled times, its mere 272 words remain well worth reading again. The full text is below.

By the way, Garry Wills' brilliant study Lincoln at Gettysburg analyzes the Gettysburg Address in terms of its role in defining the ethos of the United States for subsequent generations, while also tracing the antecedents of Lincoln's argument and the structure of his peerless prose back to Thucydides' account of Pericles' 430 B.C funeral oration at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War. (Wills notes that despite the popular view that Lincoln generally preferred short, pithy utterances, the final sentence of the Gettysburg Address is 84 words long - almost a third of the whole.)

Here's Wikipedia on the similarities:

Lincoln's speech, like Pericles', begins with an acknowledgment of revered predecessors: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent..."; Lincoln, like Pericles, then praises the uniqueness of the State's commitment to democracy: "..a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...government of the people, by the people, and for the people..."; Lincoln, like Pericles, addresses the difficulties faced by a speaker on such an occasion, "...we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground"; Lincoln, like Pericles, exhorts the survivors to emulate the deeds of the dead, "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the great task remaining before us"; and finally, Lincoln, like Pericles, contrasts the efficacy of words and deeds, "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract...The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." It is uncertain to what degree Lincoln was directly influenced by Pericles' Funeral Oration.

Wills never claims that Lincoln drew on it as a source, though Edward Everett, who delivered a lengthy oration at the same ceremony at Gettysburg, began by describing the "Athenian example".

This 2014 article on Obama's recitation of the speech (the 150th anniversary) in which he left out the words "under God" is from WMAL. Excerpts:

WASHINGTON -- One nation under God? Under President Obama, maybe not so much.

Union soldiers dead at Gettysburg, July 1963

In advance of the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address (full text below), which President Abraham Lincoln delivered on November 19, 1863, filmmaker Ken Burns gathered every living President, along with several prominent members of Congress, celebrities and news media stars to deliver the address themselves. Burns edited the individual speeches into one final mashup that is available on the site, but he also provided the complete speech as delivered by each individual dignitary. 

Curiously enough, in his version of the speech, President Barack Obama's delivery contained an omission - in a line that every other celebrity delivered as "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom" (click here for proof of that), the President left out the words "under God." 

You can watch all of the speeches at learntheaddress.org.

Gettysburg Address full text:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any other nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. 

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here died that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. 

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

~ Abraham Lincoln ("The Gettysburg Address," 19 November 1863)

Here's a brief documentary which includes most of the available photographs of Lincoln, some photos of battlefields, and several (non-photographic) illustrations from contemporaneous newspaper accounts. It also describes the historical context of the speech and Lincoln's feeling that it had been a failure:

An animated version of the speech:

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault Studio on Vimeo.

This video is a series of photos from the morning after the battle, set to music:

At the Smithsonian, a Battle of Gettysburg Interactive Map.

Related: Paper prints retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks"; retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address (read the whole thing!):

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

Mental Floss has an excellent post - Gettysburg: The Great Reunion of 1913.

Friday links

Tax day quotes, cartoons, and links, Dave Barry, and the 1967 cartoon version of The Beatles "Taxman"

How to file an online extension.

Tax Revolts from Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Death and Taxes... and Zombies: Tax implications of the zombie apocalypse.

The Long Sordid Tale of the American Income Tax.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 (includes an eyewitness report from 1956).

The Titanic sunk on April 14, 1912 - here's an eyewitness account. Related: Titanic Food Menus For 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class Passengers.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include the science of dog farts, a history of the joke "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?", the physics behind a baseball bat’s sweet spot, and a useful infographic: The Flowchart of Medieval Penitent Sexual Decision-Making.

Monday links

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809.

The Strange Beauty of Soviet Bus Stops.

How Wild Animals Self-Medicate.

How to Prevent Drunkenness, per 1612.

The House That Spied on Me.

The true story behind Burt Reynolds' centerfold.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include an 1861 Victorian sex manual, dubious studies on how 1. alcohol cleans toxins from your brain and 2. McDonald's fries cure baldness, and the classic 1970 exploding whale video from the early days of the internet (plus the Dave Barry column that made it famous).

This Feb. 5, 1865 photo of President Abraham Lincoln in Washington is the last one taken of him.

This Sunday, Feb. 5, 1865, photo made available by the Library of Congress shows President Abraham Lincoln in Washington. This image is the last photo in the president's last photo session during his life. 

(AP Photo/Library of Congress, Alexander Gardner)

h/t Hot Mic

This 1861 photo by Matthew Brady was taken in 1861 - it's from this set of gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain (this related book gets excellent reviews: The Civil War in Color: A Photographic Reenactment of the War Between the States.):

Related posts and links:

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 (this post has a different photo that claims to be Lincoln's last - I don't know which is accurate). Related: In 1956, an eyewitness (Samuel Seymour) to the Lincoln assassination appeared on TV.

Here' a  photo of Lincoln's first inauguration.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863: history, photos, videos and more.

The first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter.

Santa Claus enters the fray on the side of the Union.

Lincoln's 1858 speech on the meaning of Independence Day: Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it then.

Monday links

February 5th is World Nutella Day - here's a canonical list of Nutella recipes.

The Physics of Sunsets.

NatGeo visits the coldest city on earth. 

This Feb. 5, 1865 photo of President Abraham Lincoln in Washington is the last one taken of him.

How did Robert E. Lee die? His earlobe may have the answer to that.

You Can (Probably) Still Drink the World’s Oldest Bottle of Wine.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and are all Groundhog Day and Super Bowl related: Groundhog Day, Candlemas and weather predictions, Punxsutawney Phil has been correct 39% of the time since 1887, how long Bill Murray was stuck in Groundhog Day (8 years? 34 years? hundreds of years?), Life magazine archive of photos from Super Bowl 1, football during WWII, when almost all able-bodied men joined the military (this led to a combined Steelers/Eagles team called the Steagles), and whether or not footballs were ever actually made of pigskin.

In 1956, an eyewitness (Samuel Seymour) to the Lincoln assassination appeared on TV

In 1956, a 96 year old eyewitness (Samuel Seymour) to the Lincoln assassination appeared on "I've Got a Secret":

The show's producers learned about Mr. Seymour from an article written by him in the February 7, 1954 issue of The American Weekly (wiki) magazine. It was available online a couple of years ago, but I can no longer find a link to it. Here's an image of the article:

And here's the text:

“I Saw Lincoln Shot"

By Samuel J. Seymour, as told to Frances Spatz Leighton

The only living witness re-creates the drama of that tragic night.

This is an eyewitness account of one of history’s great tragedies – the assassination of Abraham Lincoln – told by the only living witness to the fateful drama enacted at Ford’s Theater on the night of April 14th, 1865 – THE EDITORS

Even if I were to live another 94 years, I’d still never forget my first trip away from home as a little shaver five years old.

My father was overseer on the Goldsboro estate in Talbot County, Maryland, and it seems that he and Mr. Goldsboro has to go to Washington on business – something to do with the legal status of their 150 slaves. Mrs. Goldsboro asked if she couldn’t take me and my nurse, Sarah Cook, along with her and the men, for a little holiday.

We made the 150-mile trip by coach and team and I remember how stubborn those horses were about being loaded onto an old fashioned side-wheeler steamboat for part of the journey.

It was going on toward supper time – on Good Friday, April 14th, 1865 – when we finally pulled up in front of the biggest house I ever had seen. It looked to me like a thousand farmhouses all pushed together, but my father said it was a hotel.

I was scared. I had seen men with guns, all along the street, and every gun seemed to be aimed right at me. I was too little to realize that all of Washington was getting ready to celebrate because Lee has surrendered a few days earlier.

I complained tearfully that I couldn’t get out of the coach because my shirt was torn – anything to delay the dread moment – but Sarah dug into her bag and found a big safety pin.

“You hold still now, Sammy,” she said, “and I’ll fix the tear right away.” I shook so hard, from fright, that she accidentally stabbed me with the pin and I hollered, “I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot!”

When I finally had been rushed upstairs, shushed and scrubbed and put into fresh clothes, Mrs. Goldsboro said she had a wonderful surprise.

“Sammy, you and Sarah and I are going to a play tonight,” she explained. “A real play – and President Abraham Lincoln will be there.”

I thought a play would be a game like tag and I liked the idea. We waited a while outside the Ford Theater for tickets, then walked upstairs and sat in hard rattan-backed chairs.

Mrs. Goldsboro pointed directly across the theater to a colorfully draped box. “See those flags, Sammy?” she asked. “That’s where President Lincoln will sit.” When he finally did come in, she lifted me high so I could see. He was a tall, stern-looking man. I guess I just thought he looked stern because of his whiskers, because he was smiling and waving to the crowd.

When everyone sat down again and the actors started moving and talking, I began to get over the scared feeling I’d had ever since we arrived in Washington. But that was something I never should have done.

All of a sudden a shot rang out – a shot that always will be remembered – and someone in the President’s box screamed. I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat. People started milling around and I thought there’d been another accident when one man seemed to tumble over the balcony rail and land on the stage.

“Hurry, hurry, let’s go help the poor man who fell down,” I begged.

But by that time John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, had picked himself up and was running for dear life. He wasn’t caught until 12 days later when he was tracked to a barn where he was hiding.

Only a few people noticed the running man, but pandemonium broke loose in the theater, with everyone shouting:

“Lincoln’s shot! The President’s dead!”

Mrs. Goldsboro swept me into her arms and held me close and somehow we got outside the theater. That night I was shot 50 times, at least in my dreams – and I sometimes still relive the horror of Lincoln’s assassination, dozing in my rocker as an old codger like me is bound to do.

Related post:

Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865

Friday links

The Suez Canal opened on November 17, 1869.

These crabs can grow up to 3 feet - and hunt birds, a biologist's video proves.

Watch 245 People Jump Off A Bridge.

The Gettysburg Address was seven score and fourteen years ago tomorrow (November 18) - here's some history and an excellent brief video with contemporaneous photos and illustrations. Related: newspaper prints a retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks"; retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address.

The pigeon’s rump cure for childhood seizures.

My Surprising Career as an Amazon.com "Fake" Reviewer.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's birthday, are cats, technically, a liquid?, an X-ray murder trial, and how female turkeys choose their mates (and avoid the rejects).

Paper prints retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks". Retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address.

One of the two confirmed photos of Abraham Lincoln
(sepia highlight) at Gettysburg, taken about noon,
 just after Lincoln arrived and some three hours before the
 speech. To his right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

We write today in reconsideration of “The Gettysburg Address,” delivered by then-President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the greatest conflict seen on American soil. Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s words “silly remarks,”deserving “a veil of oblivion,” apparently believing it an indifferent and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring in its brevity.

In the fullness of time, we have come to a different conclusion. No mere utterance, then or now, could do justice to the soaring heights of language Mr. Lincoln reached that day. By today’s words alone, we cannot exalt, we cannot hallow, we cannot venerate this sacred text, for a grateful nation long ago came to view those words with reverence, without guidance from this chagrined member of the mainstream media.

The world will little note nor long remember our emendation of this institution’s record – but we must do as conscience demands:

In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, the Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error.

The original editorial:

Patriot & Union | Tuesday, Nov. 24, 1863 | Editorial

A Voice from the Dead 

We have read the oration of Mr. Everett. We have read the little speeches of President Lincoln, as reported for and published in his party press, and we have read the remarks of the Hon. Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward,all delivered on the occasion of dedicating the National Cemetery, a plot of ground set apart for the burial of the dead who fell at Gettysburg in the memorable strife which occurred there between the forces of the Federal Government and the troops of the Confederacy of seceded States.

To say of Mr. Everett's oration that it rose to the height which the occasion demanded, or to say of the President's remarks that they fell below our expectations, would be alike false. Neither the orator nor the jester surprised or deceived us. Whatever may be Mr. Everett's failings he does not lack sense - whatever may be the President's virtues, he does not possess sense. Mr. Everett failed as an orator, because the occasion was a mockery, and he knew it, and the President succeeded, because he acted naturally, without sense and without constraint, in a panorama which was gotten up more for his benefit and the benefit of his party than for the glory of the nation and the honor of the dead. 

We can readily conceive that the thousands who went there went as mourners, to view the burial place of their dead, to consecrate, so far as human agency could, the ground in which the slain heroes of the nation,standing in relationship to them of fathers, husbands, brothers, or connected by even remoter ties of marriage or consanguinity, were to be interred. To them the occasion was solemn; with them the motive was honest, earnest and honorable. But how was it with the chief actors in the pageant, who had no dead buried, or to be buried there; from none of whose loins had sprung a solitary hero, living or dead, of this war which was begotten of their fanaticism and has been ruled by their whims?

They stood there, upon that ground, not with hearts stricken with grief or elated by ideas of true glory, but coldly calculating the political advantages which might be derived from the solemn ceremonies of the dedication. 

We will not include in this category of heartless men the orator of the day; but evidently he was paralyzed by the knowledge that he was surrounded by unfeeling, mercenary men, ready to sacrifice their country and the liberties of their countrymen for the base purpose of retaining power and accumulating wealth. Hi oration was therefore cold, insipid, unworthy the occasion and the man. 

We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.

But the Secretary of State is a man of note. He it was who first fulminated the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict; and on the battle field and burial ground of Gettysburg he did not hesitate to re-open the bleeding wound,and proclaim anew the fearful doctrine that we are fighting all these bloody battles, which have drenched our land in gore, to upset the Constitution,emancipate the negro and bind the white man in the chains of despotism.

On that ground which should have been sacred from the pollution of politics, even the highest magnate in the land, next to the President himself, did not hesitate to proclaim the political policy and fixed purpose of the administration; a policy which if adhered to will require more ground than Gettysburg to hold our dead, and which must end in the ruin of the nation. The dead of Gettysburg will speak from their tombs; they will raise their voices against this great wickedness and implore our rulers to discard from their councils the folly which is destroying us, and return to the wise doctrines of the Fathers, to the pleadings of Christianity, to the compromises of the Constitution, which can alone save us. Let our rulers hearken to the dead, if they will not to the living - for from every tomb which covers a dead soldier, if they listen attentively they will hear a solemn sound invoking them to renounce partisanship for patriotism, and to save the country from the misery and desolation which, under their present policy, is inevitable.

Related: Obama Recites Gettysburg Address, Removes "Under God". Plus Thucydides!

From PennLive.

Monday links

In honor of Columbus Day, here’s a list of the top 10 accidental discoveries. Related: Columbus cleared of importing syphilis from the Americas to Europe. Plus, that time Columbus tricked Jamaicans out of supplies using knowledge of an upcoming eclipse.

Nose hair extensions are the next hot beauty trend everyone needs to try. Well, maybe not everybody.

Seven Body Organs You Can Live Without.

Gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Related to the above link: By the end of the Civil War, 4.5 million pieces of undelivered mail, which contained thousands of photos, had piled up in the Washington, D.C. Dead Letter Office. More on the DLO here.

Inflatable dummy tanks were a critical tactic in battlefield deception.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include a UFO detector, a collection of vintage ads you would never see today, Hitler's boxers bought at auction, and how nutmeg, cinnamon, and black pepper set off bloody conflicts and the discovery of the New World.

Gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain

This Mark Twain is extraordinary - it looks as if were taken yesterday:

Abraham Lincoln, taken by Civil War-era photographer Mathew Brady in 1861, at the beginning of Lincoln's first presidential term:

A colorized image of three Confederate prisoners and its original black and white stenograph, taken by Mathew Brady in 1863 on top of Seminary Ridge in Gettysburg:

And here's Custer:

More at Daily Mail and at the artists' Facebook page Colorized History. This related book gets excellent reviews: The Civil War in Color: A Photographic Reenactment of the War Between the States.

Friday links

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on this date in 1865. Related: In 1956, an eyewitness to the Lincoln assassination appeared on TV.

The Titanic sunk on April 14, 1912 - here's an eyewitness account.

A Brief History of the Cadbury Egg. 

Videos of violence against marshmallow peeps, including peeps vs. .50 Caliber Rifle and microwave ovens, plus Artworks Made From Peeps. Related: Peeps on Television: 20 Shows Recreated With Marshmallow Peeps.

DIY jello shots made from decapitated chocolate Easter bunnies.

Prepare to be offended: Easter cards from The Onion.

Creepy photos of Easter Bunnies with kids and the Unauthorized Biography of the Easter Bunny.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and are income tax related: history of income tax, tax implications of the zombie apocalypse, the animated version of The Beatles "Taxman", tax revolts from science fiction, and more.