actor, John Wilkes Booth by name, who--inspired with all the mad,
unreasoning, malignant hatred of everything representing Freedom and
Union, which was purposely instilled into the minds and hearts of their
followers and sympathizers by the Rebel leaders and their chief
accomplices in the North--had basely skulked into the box, behind Mr.
Lincoln, mortally wounded him with a pistol-bullet, and escaped--after
stabbing Major Rathbone for vainly striving to arrest the vile
assassin's flight.

Thus this great and good Ruler of our reunited People was foully
stricken down in the very moment of his triumph; when the Union troops
were everywhere victorious; when Lee had surrendered the chief Army of
the downfallen Confederacy; when Johnston was on the point of
surrendering the only remaining Rebel force which could be termed an
Army; on the self-same day too, which saw the identical flag of the
Union, that four years before had been sadly hauled down from the
flagstaff of Fort Sumter, triumphantly raised again over that historic
fort; when, the War being at an end, everything in the future looked
hopeful; at the very time when his merciful and kindly mind was
doubtless far away from the mimic scenes upon which he looked, revolving
beneficent plans for reconstructing and rebuilding the waste and
desolate places in the South which War had made; at this time, of all
times, when his clear and just perceptions and firm patriotism were most
needed,

[For his last public words, two nights before, had been: "In the
present 'situation,' as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make
some new announcement to the people of the South. I am
CONSIDERING, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action
will be proper."]