“Now He Belongs to the Ages”
The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, had a tremendous impact both in the United States and abroad. People in Great Britain, which had favored the South, mourned as if Lincoln had been their leader. France, whose citizens had made no secret of their sympathy for the Union, paid tribute in verse and song. All eyes were on this struggling American democracy, so aptly personified in the person of Abraham Lincoln, and the world mourned his passing.
The pursuit of the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was one of the most extensive manhunts ever mounted by the United States government. The search lasted twelve days, by which time the body of President Lincoln, transported by rail on a thirteen-day journey to Springfield, Illinois, for burial, was half way to its resting place. Unending crowds of mourners lined the tracks between Washington and Springfield to pay their final respects to the martyred President Abraham Lincoln.
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