At 11:00 a.m. on April 3, 1865, the Philadelphia Inquirer posted a bulletin proclaiming the fall of Richmond on the previous day. Further dispatches informed about the occupation of the city by Union troops.
Summoned by the ringing of the bell of Independence Hall, people thronged to the heart of the city. Within an hour jubilant citizens, led by the fire companies, were parading the streets. From the navy yard came thousands of workmen, headed by the marine band, who paraded to the business district. When passing the newspaper offices and the mayor’s office, at Fifth and Chestnut Streets, there was great jubilation and joyous cheers. The public schools were dismissed, and the children, with songs and flags, marched through their neighborhoods. A joyful mass meeting was held in front of the Customs House (Chestnut Street above Fourth). The Union League hung out every flag in its house on Chestnut Street. In fact, the entire city was soon awash in red, white and blue.
Until late at night, the streets were brightly illuminated and crowded with scores of military bands leading impromptu parades of visitors and city residents. The excitement of that day of rejoicing only ended with utter exhaustion of the people. They knew that soon, Johnnie would “come marching home.”352
General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant and the Union forces at Appomattox Court House on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865. The news reached Philadelphia the same day about 9.40 p.m. From the mayor’s office, it was telegraphed to various parts of the city, and within an hour the streets downtown, usually dark and deserted at that time on Sundays, were crowded with rejoicing citizens. The windows of the newspaper offices were illuminated. Over the door of the Union League flashed the word “Victory.” Bells rang everywhere. The fire companies brought their hose carriages to Independence Hall and added to the din of the hour. Great crowds, mad with joy, surged around the Cradle of Liberty. In thousands of homes, thanks were offered up to heaven that long absent fathers, husbands and sons would soon be home from the war and back at the firesides they had left so long ago to fight for their country’s flag. Down on Washington Avenue, the historic little cannon, “Fort Brown,” the watchdog of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee, stirred up all of Southwark by thundering out thirty-six rounds of powder, one blast for every state. On Monday, no one thought of business or work. At sunrise, the bells were ringing again and bands were playing patriotic airs in the tower of Independence Hall. Flags were flying from thousands of windows. At 9:00 a.m., schoolchildren marched down Chestnut Street, unmindful of the rain. At noon, the Union League Artillery Battery fired two hundred rounds at Center Square (now city hall) at Broad and Market Streets, and at sunset, by order of Mayor Henry, one hundred rounds were fired at Nineteenth and Hamilton Streets by the city battery.
That Monday, April 10, was the beginning of a week of joy all over the North. Never did a people know a greater swing of emotion from gladness to sorrow and despair.353
Never were two successive Sundays the scene of more diverse emotions. The world knew on the morning of Sunday, April 16, that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington and died on the morning of Saturday, April 15, 1865, the day before. Shocked people picked up and opened their newspapers that day and blanched at the black words they saw there. Again the people crowded to the heart of the old town.
There was immediate and genuine sorrow at the tragic loss of the martyred president, seemingly at the very moment of his triumphal victory. But there were also those in Philadelphia who were staunch critics of the president and the cause for which the war had been fought, and these opponents of Lincoln tended to stay indoors, for many of his supporters and the discharged soldiers sought vengeance for his loss.
On that memorable Sunday and early on Monday, most of the black crepe and mourning goods in the stores of Philadelphia and in many homes were brought out and draped outside to demonstrate the inhabitants’ sorrow. Most of the residents in Philadelphia saw only somber streets or the frozen stare on the silent faces of the people who crowded around the newspaper offices as one bulletin from Washington followed another concerning Lincoln’s death. Thousands of soldiers, freshly discharged, crowded around their comrades and officers and sought to be led back to the South for a new campaign of revenge.
But the honorable people of the South repudiated the Lincoln assassination conspirators and their deadly deed, and the war, although not officially ended by President Johnson’s proclamation until nearly a year later, was not conducted for reprisal.
The 214th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 8th Union League Regiment, one of the last Philadelphia units to leave for service, arrived in Washington on the very day of the murder. It was as late as April 26 when the last regiment, the 215th Regiment (9th Union League), departed to relieve the returning combat veterans. This was the last body of soldiery to leave Philadelphia in the course of the war.354
The funeral services for the president were held in Washington at noon on April 19, four years to the hour from the fateful riot at Baltimore, where the first soldiers from Philadelphia and Massachusetts had been killed. At the same hour, in churches in every loyal city and state, the people gathered in testimony of their love for the martyred president.355
The body of the president reached Philadelphia on Saturday, April 22, and was followed by a large escort of soldiers and citizens from the Broad and Prime Street Station to Independence Hall. All that night and into the following Sunday, April 23, people processed reverently through the silent, mournful chamber of Independence Hall to gaze upon Lincoln’s peaceful though careworn face.356
On three successive Sundays in April 1865, the populace had been subjected to the glorious news of the surrender of the Confederate army at Appomattox; then experienced the tragedy of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; followed closely by the arrival of Lincoln’s remains for a final visit to one of his favorite cities in the North.
At three o’clock on Monday morning, April 24, the First City Troop and the 187th PA Regiment, with muffled drums and arms reversed, the military salute to the fallen, escorted Lincoln’s body to the Kensington Station at Front and Montgomery to board the funeral train to New York City. The train was waiting there to take Lincoln on to other cities and mourners on the long journey back to his final resting place at his former home in Springfield, Illinois.357