The morning of our first day, I walked out of the bathroom and couldn't find Brenden. I knew he hadn't gone out of the room because it was still bolted. But he wasn't in any of the beds. Kyleigh was (miraculously) still sleeping, so I quietly looked in every nook in the room until I came to the curtains and stopped to find this:
This little girl rarely sees 7:00 am light up the alarm clock. She's usually up by then. So when we found her still asleep after everyone else was almost finished getting ready...we should have known it was because she was about to come down with a slight fever.
But once Sleeping Beauty woke up, she was anxious to get out the door and do DC again. We had a breakfast of Einstein Bagels from the hotel lobby shop and took the metro that was right outside our hotel in Crystal City. We were in a very nice district just south of Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon. They had over 100 shops and restaurants all within reasonable walking distance...which is very important in DC.
Someone has a good grip on his sissy in the Metro station. Protective brother role has been fulfilled.
Too much security around the white house after the Boston bombings that you couldn't get close to the white house like before. We stopped here at the Treasury Building before turning around to find the National Aquarium.
Little dance number inbetween exhibits at the Aquarium. I'm telling you-they can really provide their own entertainment anywhere we go.
Enjoying the North American freshwater bog exhibit
Brenden told me these were lionfish. I said something like, yeah they kinda look like it...and then I read the label and found out he was right.
Too many sharks stuffed into one little tank.
After the National Aquarium, we headed over to the Old Post Office building where you can go up to the 12th or so floor and overlook our Nation's Capital in 360 degrees.
A view of the National Mall-and all the Smithsonian museums.
Road leading to the Capitol building
After a quick lunch at Quiznos, we headed over to Ford's Theatre. This was the one thing I told Trent that we had to go visit. I didn't much care what else we saw or did...but we could not leave DC this trip without visiting Ford's Theatre.
Lincoln wasn't anxiously awaiting this play to come out. They had an early dinner and were going to see Laura Keene in Our American Cousin. (Their son Tad was also attending a play that evening, Aladdin, but in a different theater). His wife was the real theatre buff and he was just good enough to accompany her. Especially on April 14th-he left those in the room with him (Noah Brooks, Massachusetts congressman George Ashmun and Speaker Colfax) saying, "I suppose it's time to go, though I would rather stay." Speaker Colfax was heading to California and President Lincoln said he had wanted to go to California and looked forward to when he could (He had also told his wife earlier that day in a carriage ride that he wanted to go visit Isreal...seems like he was starting to see a world beyond the Civil War gloom). Then asked Speaker Colfax to join him at the theatre, but Colfax had too many commitments. General Grant and his wife were going to join Lincoln and it was reported in the paper that they would be there, but General Grant's wife wanted to visit their kids in New Jersey instead, so Grant excused himself. Lincoln invited the Stantons, but they refused. And can you imagine what would have happened that night had Stanton allowed Thomas Eckert, his chief telegrapher, to accept Lincoln's invitation? Lincoln had requested Eckert for his uncommon strength because he had been known to "break a poker over his arm" and could serve as a bodyguard. But Stanton thought the theater was a "foolish diversion" and refused to allow Eckert to join Lincoln. His regular bodyguard, Crook, had the night off and had told Crook, "It has been advertised that we will be there, and I cannot disappoint the people". So Clara Harris, a daughter of Mary Lincoln's friend, and her fiance Major Henry Rathbone were the only ones to join the Lincolns in their carriage and theater box that night.
I like his smile in the last picture.
One of those flags is what John Wilkes Booth's spur got caught on and caused him to hurt his leg when he jumped from the box after shooting President Lincoln. Wish it had done more damage than just his leg...
He considered himself as Brutus and would be taking down an even "greater tyrant" than Julius Cesar. Little did he know that the South were just as honest in their sorrow of Lincoln's death as the North...they understood that Lincoln was their best hope for a merciful Reconstruction.
Lincoln was a tall dude. (This is what you see once you step inside the Theatre. A mini gift shop to the left and the theater to the right.)
Lincoln jr. (They share just about the same integrity core and strong humanitarian leanings).
Kyleigh fell asleep in the stroller, so I took B inside the Petersen boardinghouse where they took Lincoln's body after Booth shot him in the theater. I wanted B to not just hear about or read about Lincoln and his legacy, but touch and feel the place and events that took place. The movie Lincoln came out and sparked a deeper interest to find out more about the President I knew general facts about, but could remember nothing intimate. So I picked up the book Steven Spielberg used to make the movie-Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" and have learned so much. Hopefully B got a taste of what a great man and how loved Lincoln was by walking through this place.
Brenden walked into this house knowing that we were going to see where President Lincoln died. He knew he was a President of the United States and was shot in the theater across the street. Beyond that, I don't think he knew much. Like how crowded and crazed the street behind him was on the night of April 14th, 1865. Some trying to figure out what just happened, and if it was just a rumor. Others searching for certain cabinet members who would be needed if/when the President died. Some trying to find and inform Lincoln's sons (Mary wanted Robert to come to the Petersen house, but not Tad. She was worried about what he would think to see his father in such a bad state. When Robert showed up an eyewitness said Robert "bore himself with great firmness, and constantly endeavored to assuage the grief of his mother by telling her to put her trust in God." And he tried to comfort others but was sometimes "entirely overcome" and "would retire into the hall and give vent to most heartrending lamentations." But it was also noted that he was not alone. Someone else said, "there was not a soul present that did not love the president".
Kinda feels like they just got up and left everything as it was after April 1865.
Goodwin quotes Colonel A. F. Rockwell saying this about Stanton: "While evidently swayed by the great shock which held us all under its paralyzing influence, he was not only master of himself but unmistakably the dominating power over all. Indeed, the members of the cabinet, much as children might to their father, instinctively deferred to him in all things." Stanton had been by Seward's house where he was shocked at the amount of blood all over the house. John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirator, powerfully built Lewis Powell, had been assigned to take out Seward, who Booth considered to be Lincoln's Marc Antony. Powell's gun misfired when trying to shoot Seward's son, Fred, and after bringing the gun down onto Fred's head and knocking him unconscious, Powell was left him with a knife. Powell then attacked a soldier assigned to watch over Seward, Private Robinson. Seward's daughter, Fanny, screamed when Robinson was attacked and Powell advanced toward her father. She had been in the room reading Legends of Charlemagne to her father until he fell asleep. After Powell attacked Robinson, he stabbed Seward in the face and neck before Gus, Seward's other son, was brought into the room by screams from his sister. Powell slashed Robinson again as well as Gus before escaping the room. Gus ran for a pistol, Powell stabbed Emerick Hansell, a young State Department messenger, in the back before finally reaching the door and ran out into the city streets. The doctor who was called to the house to try to fix up the damage Powell left was completely astonished at the damage one man left. "And all this, the work of one man-yes, of one man!" Doctor Verdi came in to see Seward first and said, "He looked like an exsanguinated corpse. In approaching him my feet when deep in blood. Blood was streaming from an extensive gash in his swollen cheek; the cheek was now laid open". The doctor thought his jugular vein was pierced but it was not. Seward had been in bed that night, still recuperating from a carriage accident 9 days earlier...and this carriage ride caused him to have a metal contraption to hold his broken jaw in place, and this is what deflected the blade from piercing his jugular vein and saving his life.
So when Stanton left Seward's house, he was prepared for something bad at the Petersen house.
Here's the room they laid Lincoln's body as he was struggling for 9 hours. The doctors reported that the wound Lincoln received "would have killed most men instantly, or in a very few minutes. But Mr. Lincoln had so much vitality" that he struggled on for so long. They laid Lincoln diagonally on the bed because his frame was so large. When Stanton and Welles showed up, they were surprised by Lincoln's stature. "his large arms," Welles noted, "were of a size which one would scarce have expected from his spare appearance." For 9 hours, family, friends, and close associates walked back and forth into this room. Those attending Lincoln thought that Mary was too fragile to handle the full truth, so she was not told that her husband was dying. They would put a clean white cloth over the red stains on the pillow whenever she walked in. Mary could only rotely repeat the question "Why didn't he shoot me? Why didn't he shoot me?"
This room was stuffed full of people watching, worried, and waiting. Stanton had to send many messages throughout the night to inform others who needed to know what had happened, as well as initiate the search for Wilkes Booth and Powell. Stanton, Secretary of War, sent his first telegraph to General Grant. It read "The President was assassinated at Ford's Theater at 10.30 to-night and cannot live...Secretary Seward and his son Frederick were also assassinated at their residence and are in a dangerous condition." Grant was in his hotel eating dinner when he got the message. He "dropped his head," eyewitness reported, "and sat in perfect silence." His wife noticed he turned pale and guessed it was bad news. She asked him to read the telegraph out loud. "First prepare yourself for the most painful and startling news that could be received," he warned. He told Julia, his wife, that the news filled him "with the gloomiest apprehension. The President was inclined to be kind and magnanimous, and his death at this time is an irreparable loss to the South, which now needs so much both his tenderness and magnanimity."
Brenden is a sensitive kid. And he was unable to just walk past this large mural on the wall.
Someone was really able to capture the emotion of Lincoln's son.
Once you leave the floor where President Lincoln died, you take an elevator to the 4th floor and walk through an exhibit about the events following Lincoln's death. The capture of Booth and other conspirators and the funeral procession all the way back to Illinois.
Mary received a note of condolence from Queen Victoria. She had also recently lost her husband and was acutely aware of the grief Mary now felt. Mary wrote back to Queen Victoria.
Many different trains were used to take Lincoln's body back to Illinois.
A model of the train car that carried Lincoln's body was built inside the museum/boardinghouse.
As well as a replica of Lincoln's coffin.
This glass case houses actual tassels and tools used to make the coffin or catafalque.
This letter says that the guy who sealed the coffin, never used those tools again. Tucked them away as a special memento.
(This photo is out of order as it should be the last in the slide of cities that train passed). By the time the funeral train reached Springfield, it was only 40 minutes behind schedule.
The train arrived at 7 am in Cleveland and left at midnight...with a constant flow of people to come catch a glance of the President.
In the town where Lincoln first started his professional career, he was met with 75,000 mourners. Many of his old colleagues, friends, adversaries, children and soldiers.
Never knew where this saying came from. Mudd was the name of the Doctor who fixed Booth's leg and claimed not to have recognized Booth. He was imprisoned for this because he had met Booth several times previous. Eventually was released.
The idiot thought he could escape. His lack of intelligence even led him the wrong way on the river when he was trying to cross into Virginia.
This tells how they found Booth
They think this guy may have been the one to shoot Booth when they had him cornered in the barn.
The captured conspirators had to wear this hood.
Robert is the only son who lived to adulthood. Willie died in the White House. Tad later on.
When the conspirators were to be hung, a crowd brought out lemonade and cake to celebrate outside the prison walls. Not exactly the ending they had envisioned for their work.
Right before you exit the exhibit, there is a model of the barn where they found Booth hiding. They have a speaker overhead that plays out what happened. A loud knock and yelling for Booth to come out before they burn the barn down. When we first passed the barn and heard the action, Brenden thought Booth was really in there and was scared to go look through the peep hole. I convinced him no one was really in there and he bravely checked it out.
Then when you walk down the steps, you get to see all the different books written about Lincoln's life and legacy.
They had a few.
The plaque below says that after 80 years, we have more than 15,000 books written about Lincoln and more being written.
Cool place. If you have the time, you ought to go. B kept talking about it over and over. It was the one place that struck him the most. Me too.
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