A Day of Mourning
By Elizabeth Keckley
This is a letter from a woman who was
a friend and seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln. She was a rather close friend
of the Lincoln's and could be found at the White House almost daily. Receiving
an invitation just hours after President Lincoln died, this friend and
ex-slave penned the terrible experience of her visit that day:
" "When [Mrs. Lincoln]
became a little quiet, I asked and received permission to go into the Guests'
Room, where the body of the President lay in state. When I crossed the threshold
of the room, I could not help recalling the day on which I had seen little
Willie lying in his coffin where the body of his father now lay. I remembered
how the President had wept over the pale beautiful face of his gifted boy
and now the President himself was dead. The last time I saw him he spoke
kindly to me, but alas! The lips would never move again. The light had faded
from his eyes, and when the light went out the soul went with it! What a
noble soul was his–noble in all the noble attributes of God. Never did I
enter the solemn chamber of death with such palpitating heart and trembling
footsteps as I entered it that day. No common mortal had died. The Moses
of my people had fallen in his hour of triumph...When I entered the room,
the members of the Cabinet and many distinguishing people were grouped around
the body of their fallen chief. They made room for me, and approaching the
body, I lifted the white cloth from the white face of the man I had worshipped
as an idol...There lurked the sweetness and gentleness of childhood, and
the stately grandeur of godlike intellect. I gazed long at the face and turned
away with tears in my eyes and a choking sensation in my throat. Ah! never
was a man so widely mourned before. The whole world bowed their heads in
grief when Abraham Lincoln died."
