April 21st, 1865-Dated Abraham Lincoln Assassination Civil War Period, Autograph Letter Signed, "R. M. Kennedy," from Lively Grove, Illinois, 6 days after the Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, describing with extraordinary content and vividness, the Nation's emotional sorrow and whiplash, Extremely Fine.
This exceptional Abraham Lincoln Assassination related content 4 page letter, very well written just Six Days after Lincoln's Assassination on April 14, 1865. It captures with remarkable immediacy the emotional whiplash experienced across the Northern home front in the final days of the Civil War. Writing from Lively Grove, Illinois, R. M. Kennedy addresses his letter to R.G. Ardley, apparently a Union soldier recently returned from Confederate captivity. This letter opens with news of General Sherman's triumphant march and the Surrender of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, confidently declaring that, "the Rebellion is gone up the spout as good again." Kennedy then describes the extraordinary scenes of National Celebration that preceded the Assassination, in part:

"The whole North was one out burst of Joy at the success of our army the cannon in all directions was in one perpetual roar the blacksmiths had throwed down their hammers and turned their anvils into cannon every flag was thrown to the breeze in a nation's joy."

The celebration was ordered for the Saturday, when the people had partly assembled and "the telegraph brought the news that the President had fell by the assassin's bullet the roars of cannon hushed the people all looked as though they had lost a near & dear friend there was the great contrast from extreme joy to extreme grief that the nation ever experienced."

Kennedy notes that even the fall of Mobile and the Surrender of Johnston's Confederate army, in part: "has failed to arouse the people from their grief,

"... before turning to personal matters, sympathizing with Ardley's misfortune of having been taken Prisoner, and noting that "if you had got Justice I think you should have been promoted rather than reduced but Robert, it makes nothing you will have the pleasure of knowing that you have done your duty as a soldier of your country."

This historic letter concludes with domestic news of a wet spring, a promising wheat crop, and hopes that Ardley will be home in time for harvest, closing with a postscript directing Ardley's attention to enclosed verses on the death of the President. The combination of battlefield intelligence, eyewitness account of the national reaction to Lincoln's Assassination, personal sympathy for a returned Prisoner of war, and domestic home front detail, makes this one of the most richly layered and historically immediate personal letters describing the Civil War's final days. Well written in rich brown ink on clean wove period paper having some slight overall age tone, and its 4 pages are easily readable, each page measuring about 5 x 8 inches.

[Civil War, Reconstruction Era, Illinois] [Abraham Lincoln, William Tecumseh Sherman, Prisoners of War] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Autographs]