Emblems of Woe

Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on Sunday, April 9, 1865, signaled an end to the Civil War and brought joy and relief to the North and its soldiers, and to the slaves in Confederate states. But the sudden shock of Lincoln’s assassination just five days later, on Good Friday, sullied the victory. As news of the event and its Rebel perpetrators spread across the North, gloom and anger descended. But how was Lincoln’s death viewed in the South? Worn out and ravaged from war, their economy in ruins, their slaves now free, Southerners might have been expected to cheer the death of their archenemy. The reaction in the South, however, was more complex, more fascinating, and far from predictable, as David Hardin shows.