t have
added to the picture in the course of nearly forty years. I shall
therefore quote a letter written to Chauncey Wright immediately
afterwards, of which I preserved a press copy.

Observatory, April 7, 1865.

Dear Wright,--Yours of the 5th just received. I heartily
reciprocate your congratulations on the fall of Richmond
and the prospective disappearance of the S. C. alias C. S.

You ought to have been here Monday. The observatory is half
a mile to a mile from the thickly settled part of the city.
At 11 A. M. we were put upon the qui vive by an unprecedented
commotion in the city. From the barracks near us rose a
continuous stream of cheers, and in the city was a hubbub
such as we had never before heard. We thought it must be
Petersburg or Richmond, but hardly dared to hope which.
Miss Gilliss sent us word that it was really Richmond.
I went down to the city. All the bedlams in creation broken
loose could not have made such a scene. The stores were
half closed, the clerks given a holiday, the streets
crowded, every other man drunk, and drums were beating
and men shouting and flags waving in every direction.
I never felt prouder of my country than then, as I compared
our present position with our position in the numerous dark
days of the contest, and was almost ashamed to think that
I had ever said that any act of the government was not the
best possible.

Not many days after this outburst, the city was pervaded by an equally
intense and yet deeper feeling of an opposite kind. Probably no
event in its history caused such a wave of sadness and sympathy as
the assassination of President Lincoln, especially during the few
days while bands of men were scouring the country in search of the
assassin. One could not walk the streets without seeing evidence of
this at every turn. The slightest bustle, perhaps even the running
away of a dog, caused a tremor.

I paid one short visit to the military court which was trying
the conspirators. The court itself was listening with silence and
gravity to the reading of the testimony taken on the day previous.
General Wallace produced on the spectators an impression a little
different from the other members, by exhibiting an artistic
propensity, which subsequently took a different direction in
"Ben Hur." The most impressive sight was that of the conspirators,
all heavily manacled; even Mrs. Surratt, who kept her irons partly
concealed in t