LINCOLN+161

From the account that brought you JFK+62, LINCOLN+161 will run from March 4 to May 4, 2026, recounting real-time news from two eventful months of 1865, fresh off the telegraph wires!

Major Henry Hitchcock is dispatched to carry Johnston's surrender terms from Raleigh to Washington for approval. He is under strict instructions not to let "greedy newspaper correspondents" see what the Confederates are offering General Sherman.

Stopping in Salisbury, N. C., as he flees southward, Jefferson Davis is told that many of his officers are now asking permission to go home and protect their families. He writes back, "Our necessities exclude the idea of disbanding any portion of the force which remains to us."

The East Room is now closed to all mourners, to allow preparations for to-morrow's funeral. Hastily but quietly, so as not to disturb Mrs. Lincoln, carpenters re-design the room and its makeshift platforms again so that it may seat six hundred invited guests.

The public viewing of Lincoln's body in the East Room has just ended. Beginning now, specially designated visitors may enter in small groups, to attend the casket without the crowds of thousands trying to get through.

Thousands of federal government employees have, as of to-day, been directed to wear black mourning bands of crape on their left arms while on duty for a period of six months.

Johnston and Breckenridge quickly agree to Sherman's terms, designed not to turn out Johnston's men, but to put an end to the war. They would allow the Confederate armies to return home with their weapons, instructed to leave them with their newly reconstructed state governments.

Johnston presents suggested terms of surrender. Sherman, as the victor in these negotiations, rejects them out of hand and begins to write his own, based on his conversations with Lincoln last month. Both papers, however, propose a general amnesty for all Confederate troops.

Arriving at Bennett Place, Johnston mentions that Breckenridge is nearby and could join the negotiations. Sherman objects to including a member of Davis' cabinet, but Johnston promises that he will negotiate only in his role as a major-general in the Confederate army.

An unsigned letter arrives on Stanton's desk: "The running of cars upon the street railroads [...] should cease tomorrow between 11 a.m., and 4 p.m. The rolling of cars, and the jingle of bells will contrast strangely with the solemnity of those sacred hours."

At Dr. Mudd's suggestion, Lt. Alexander Lovett is now on his way to the house of Parson Wilmer, to which Booth supposedly asked for directions. Lovett strongly suspects that Mudd is misdirecting him and already knows that he'll probably be back to arrest the man before long.

Thomas Jones is at a bar in Port Tobacco, Md., when a Washington detective offers a $100,000 reward to any one who can provide information leading to Booth's capture. Jones remarks, "That is a large sum of money, and ought to get him – if money can do it."

Federal authorities have come to interview Dr. Mudd about the two men who visited him on Saturday morning. The physical description he provides of the man with the broken leg matches John Wilkes Booth perfectly, but Mudd can't say where he went after he left.

Sherman returns to the Bennett house near Durham, N. C., two hours after the appointed time to resume negotiations, to find no sign of Johnston. A courier informs him that the general is on his way.

"The last resting place of Mr. Lincoln will be the Mecca of millions of people," writes the Chicago Tribune, "almost holy ground." Therefore, it is argued, he should be buried in the heart of downtown Springfield, easily accessible to all, not at far-flung Oak Ridge Cemetery.

The doors of the East Room of the White House are thrown open, allowing the first members of the public to view Lincoln's open casket. The entire room has been re-arranged into an amphitheatre in which visitors can walk around the body and back out again.

Alexander Gardner takes photographs of Lewis Paine, manacled as he waits aboard the U.S.S. Saugus, wearing both the clothes he had on when arrested and those that he allegedly wore when attacking Secretary Seward.

Alexander Gardner takes photographs of Lewis Paine, manacled as he waits aboard the U.S.S. Saugus, wearing both the clothes he had on when arrested and those that he allegedly wore when attacking Secretary Seward.

Lewis Paine is taken aboard the U.S.S. Saugus at the Navy Yard, the second conspirator to be arrested and brought to this floating prison in the Potomac.

Johnston meets with John C. Breckenridge, the Confederate secretary of war, in the field. He explains the generous terms offered by Sherman and suggests that Breckenridge, rather than fleeing southward with Davis, should join him at the negotiating table to-morrow.

In custody, Paine is identified as Seward's attempted killer by William Bell, the doorman who tried to stop his entry. The Secretary's son Gus, who was stabbed several times, is allowed to grab Paine just as he did that night, before he too confirms that this is the man.