Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN• 213his best detectives, telegraphed orders to watch the Canadianborder, and commanded the President of the Baltimore andOhio Railway to intercept General Grant in Philadelphia andbring him back to Washington at once, running a pilot locomotiveahead of his train.He poured a brigade of infantry into lower Maryland, andsent a thousand cavalrymen galloping after the assassin, sayingover and over: "He will try to get South. Guard the Potomacfrom the city down."The bullet that Booth fired pierced Lincoln's head belowthe left ear, plowed diagonally through the brain, and lodgedwithin half an inch of the right eye. A man of lesser vitalitywould have been cut down instantly; but for nine hours Lincolnlived, groaning heavily.Mrs. Lincoln was kept in an adjoining room; but every hourshe would insist on being brought to his bedside, weeping andshrieking, "O my God, have I given my husband to die?"Once as she was caressing his face and pressing her wetcheek against his, he suddenly began groaning and breathinglouder than ever. Screaming, the distraught wife sprang backand fell to the floor in a faint.Stanton, hearing the commotion, rushed into the room, shouting,"Take that woman away, and don't let her in here again."Shortly after seven o'clock the groaning ceased and Lincoln'sbreathing became quiet. "A look of unspeakable peace," wroteone of his secretaries who was there, "came over his wornfeatures."Sometimes recognition and understanding flash back into thesecret chambers of consciousness immediately before dissolution.In those last peaceful moments broken fragments of happymemories may have floated brightly through the deep hiddencaverns of his mind—vanished visions of the long ago: a logfire blazing at night in front of the open shed in the BuckhornValley of Indiana; the roar of the Sangamon plunging overthe mill-dam at New Salem; Ann Rutledge singing at thespinning-wheel; Old Buck nickering for his corn; Orlando Kelloggtelling the story of the stuttering justice; and the law officeatSpringfield with the ink-stain on the wall and garden seedssprouting on top of the bookcase. . . .Throughout the long hours of the death-struggle Dr. Leale,