An Eyewitness Account of Abraham Lincoln's Assassination

Abstract

AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION Edited by Ronald D. Rietveld Washington was the scene of rejoicing as the long civil war was drawing to a close. The city streets filled up long before night as a tide of people set down Pennsylvania Avenue in search of any one who would make a speech or lead a song. As far as one could see were brilliant lights, rows of illuminated windows and decorated government buildings. High above all this display, towered the Capitol , glowing as if on fire. While the most important issue ever to face the people of the nation was being settled by force of arms, shrewd speculators, little jackals, and loyal Union men were in town seeking favors from officialdom , especially the newly available "loaves and fishes" of office in the conquered South. Among those visitors in town was Frederick A. Sawyer of Massachusetts . Sawyer was a New England teacher who was engaged by the city school board of Charleston, South Carolina in April, 1859 to organize and superintend the Normal School, as a branch of the system of graded schools established previously.1 He was a man of considerable scholarship, of good address and some ability as a speaker, having received a classical education from Harvard university, Class of 1844.2 As the war approached, he desired to leave and go North, having been offered excellent positions. Instead, he yielded to the persuasion of friends who told him that if he left the school it would be broken up. So he remained at his post as a teacher. He served the Normal School until September, 1864, "when his persistent loyalty rendered him so obnoxious to the rebels that they gave him a passport for himself and his family through the lines to the post of Port Royal, then in the possession of the Federal forces. . . ." Sawyer and other northern men had been invited by the authorities to depart from the Confederacy, unless they were willing to become citizens . It was later charged that while in the South he added to his 1 Ben. Perley Poore, The Political Register and Congressional Directory: A Statistical Record of the Federal Officiah, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, of the United States of America (Boston, 1878), p. 610; The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York, 1893), III, p. 522; Charleston Courier, June 14, 1865. 2 John S. Reynolds, Reconstruction In South Carolina, 1865-1877 (Columbia, S.C., 1905), p. Ill; Harper's Weekly, Sept. 26, 1868, p. 621. 60 income by running the blockade, giving "aid and comfort" to the Confederacy, as well as having been a member of the "Charleston Home Guard" in 1864. Nevertheless, taking his family, Sawyer left Charleston before the final evacuation of the city, after he was compelled to swear to say nothing prejudicial of the military or political affairs of the Confederate States.3 Without proper War Department passes, Sawyer and his family passed within Federal lines. Letters and bills of exchange brought in by him were deposited with the Adjutant-General of the Union Army.4 When the Sawyer family returned to New England the campaign of 1864 was in progress. Sawyer proceeded to make many speeches in support of the re-election of President Lincoln. Because of his obligation to silence, he could not (or would not) discuss the condition of the South, but he was perfectly willing to talk about the condition of the North and analyze the Democratic party and its principles as embodied in the Chicago platform of 1864. When he spoke at Concord Hall in Boston, the Boston Journal reported: A very lucid and convincing argument was made to show why the North should be unitedly determined to re-elect Mr. Lincoln. The Chicago platform, he [Sawyer] said, was made by Jeff. Davis, his sympathizers at the North and foreign emissaries. The rebellion was four-fifths destroyed already. McClellan might be a fine man personally , but lacked decision, was surrounded by rebel sympathizers, and there was no evidence that he possessed any fitness for the position. As for his military capacity , being the other side of the line, the speaker didn't see what he did, but...