The Role of Media in the American Civil War
Abraham Lincoln's Assassination
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4.2. Abraham Lincoln's AssassinationAs a President of a section that was on the verge of winning the civil war, Abraham Lincoln’s life was visibly less stressful after the recent surrender of the army of Northern Virginia. Therefore, he decided to spend the night of 14th April with his wife in the Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. During Laura Keene’s performance “Our American Cousin” Lincoln was shot to head from behind and succumbed to his injuries early next morning. The murderer was a 26 years-old stage actor of a Maryland origin. After his home state did not seceded from the Union, Booth despite his sympathy to the southern cause, resolved to stay in the North. When the war was coming to the end, Booth and his copartners desperately tried to change the inevitable by paralyzing the Union and putting the country into chaos after assassinating the President and his possible successors – Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Nevertheless, Seward survived the attack and Johnson was never attacked at all. The article “President Lincoln is Shot” claims that Booth still saw a chance to win the war “with Confederate president Jefferson Davis still free and General Joseph Johnston's army still alive in the Carolinas.” Lincoln’s corpse was transported from Washington D.C. to Springfield, his home town in Illinois. The North fell into deep mourning after the news spread through the country. Not only republican but also democratic press produced patulous articles in tribute to assassinated President. William Mitchell was unable to find words for his obituary for Saint Cloud Democrat from Minnesota: “No pen can write an eulogium of Abraham Lincoln dead. But he lives and will live in thousands upon thousands of hearts, as the man whose nature knew no unkindness”(2). In Ohio, the Cleveland Morning Leader mourned for Lincoln in the article “The Assassination of President Lincoln”: “How shall we write the terrible words that we must record to-night? How shall we blot the bright happiness of yesterday’s thanksgiving with this black stain of grief and crime! The brain reels, the heart sickens, the whole frame shudders, at the very thought of our great affliction”(1). In spite of his deep grief, William Campbell assured the readers of the government’s stability in the article “President Johnson’s Policy” published in the Daily Intelligencer in West Virginia: But in this instance the wheels of government have not stopped for a moment, and an event which would have shaken almost any other government to its very centre, has no perceptible depressing effect upon the business of the country or the credit of the nation. By our national calamity the world will learn an impressive lesson of the permanence and stability of republican institutions. The ruler dies, but the republic lives. (2) Although the Lincoln’s assassination broke heart to people in the North, the reactions in the South varied. Whereas some people celebrated either publicly or in private, there were southerners who learnt to like Lincoln and felt compassion with the North. The Freemont Journal from Ohio printed the article of Isaac Keeler on April 21, describing the general mood in the North: “No event of the war, however calamitous, has been able to fill the heart of the nation with such anguish. All men, a few of the most malignant Copperheads included, had learnt to love and trust Abraham Lincoln. It may be truly said the people believed in him, as they have believed in no man since George Washington” (2). In contrast to the Journal’s observation, The Plymouth Weekly Democrat from Indiana referred in its article “The Assassination of the President” to southerners celebrating the assassination: “It is said that several rebel prisoners at Camp Morton, Indianapolis, on hearing the news of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination cheered lustily, for doing which they were promptly hung” (2). The article went on with another case of the same nature: “We also learnt that a few individuals in other places who manifested joy at the occurrence were sent to prison by the military authorities, and others of the same class have been dealt with by the citizens in a way that tended to silence, if it did not convince them of the error of their ways.“ (2) Even though the minor skirmishes continued even after Lincoln’s assassination, together with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the murder marked the end of an important American period and started a journey to a state based not on the economical benefits, but on the national identity.
Secondly, the thesis helps to overcome generalization in the questions of the Civil War such as that Northerners were abolitionists and Southerners slave-holding tyrants. On an example of the Baltimore incident and Proclamation of Emancipation is evident, that not all the Northerners shared the Republican’s attitude. At last, the aim of the thesis is to call attention to media literacy. It is crucial that people are aware of danger coming from mass media and are able to analyze and evaluate the received information.
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Web. 6 Apr. 2014 “Story of Three Days.” New York Daily Tribune 14 Apr. 1865: 1. Library of Congress. Web. 19 Apr. 2014 “The Assassination of President Lincoln.” Cleveland Morning Leader 15 Apr. 1865: 1. Library of Congress. Web. 19 Apr. 2014 “The Assassination of the President.” Plymouth Weekly Democrat 20 Apr. 1865: 2. Library of Congress. Web. 19 Apr. 2014 “The Choice.” Holmes County Republican 18 Apr. 1861: 2. Library of Congress. Web. 16 Apr. 2014 “The Civil War Battle Names.” Civil War Potpourri. N.p., 21 Apr. 2005. Web. 6 Apr. 2014 “The Causes of our Defeat.” New York Tribune 26 July 1861: 2. Web. 27 Mar. 2014 “The Conscription Law.” Daily Sentinel 5 Mar. 1863: 1. Library of Congress. Web. 8 Jan. 2014 “The Disunion Outcry.” Daily Spy [Massachusetts] 9 Nov. 1860: 2. Web. 6 Apr. 2014 “The Emancipation Proclamation.” Northern Visions of Race, Region and Reform. An American Antiquarian Society Online Resource, 2006. "The Emancipation Proclamation--The South”. 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The Life History of the United States: The Union Sundered. New York: Time, 1963. Print. Williams, Harry T. The Life History of the United States: The Union Restored. New York: Time, 1963. Print. 1 See Charleston Mercury. 10 July 1863. Print. Download 142.04 Kb. Share with your friends:
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