Lincoln Assassination Deposition- Six Days After

In the days after the assassination of President Lincoln, a mourning nation searched in earnest for his killer. This led to a deluge of finger-pointing by concerned citizens who believed that their neighbors might have been in on it, or at least “too sympathetic” with the crime. This spirt is perfectly captured by the document offered here, an original affidavit from April 21, 1865, taken just 6 days after Booth shot the President. On that day, a Mr. William Anderson travelled to Camp Butler, a Union stronghold in Illinois, and reported that a neighbor, Charles Warner, had made an inflammatory remark about Lincoln’s death. Specifically, Anderson told the Union officer who patiently took his statement that, less than 48 hours after the assassination Mr. Warner declared he “was gladder of the President’s death than he would be to have found five hundred dollars.” It is unclear what action was taken against Mr. Warner, if anything.

Wonderful (and entertaining) original document that perfectly captures the strained sentiments that gripped the nation in the immediate wake of a national tragedy.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Slavery, Abolition]