The tragical procession

[loetar44]

(12-01-2014 07:43 PM)L Verge Wrote:  From the Abraham Lincoln Classroom online: (Note that I have capitalized "hearse" twice and "carriage" once in the text related to moving the body from Petersen's to the White House.)

Abraham Lincoln died from his wounds at 7:22 P.M. on Saturday, April 15, 1865. Teenager Henry B. Stanton, who had frequently visited the President with his father, made his way to the Petersen House before the body of Abraham Lincoln was removed to the Executive Mansion.

Thank you Laurie for this post! But who was “Teenager Henry B. Stanton, who had frequently visited the President with his father”….. I did a search, and again realized that there's lots of good information on the Internet, but that you will also find a lot of inaccurate information. And here is a good example! Henry B. Stanton, who was he?

(1) I saw one article that said that Henry B. Stanton was a son of Edwin M. Stanton! Can't find the URL now. But, this is impossible. Edwin Stanton had 6 children from two marriages: two children from his first marriage with Mary Lamson ( Lucy Lamson Stanton, b. March 11, 1837 – 1841, and Edwin Lamson Stanton, b. Aug. 12, 1842, d. Aug. 1877; m. Matilda Wilkins Carr), and four children from his second wife Ellen Hutchinson (Eleanor Adams Stanton = Mrs. James Clark Bush, b. May 9, 1857, d. Sep 26, 1910, James Hutchinson Stanton, b. Oct. 17, 1861; d. July 10, 1862, Lewis Hutchinson Stanton, b. Jan 12, 1860, d. April 25, 1938, and Bessie Barnes Stanton = Mrs. Henry Steele Habersham, b. 1863). NO “teenager Henry B. Stanton” !!!

(2) Another internet source
(http://www.sno.wednet.edu/files/4313/777...on_Jr.pdf)

says that “teenager Henry B. Stanton” was the son of Henry Brewster Stanton (June 27, 1805 – January 14, 1887) the famous American 19th century abolitionist and social reformer. Again WRONG.

(3) In all internet articles I found (including the one Laurie referred to) you see the same sentence: “Teenager Henry B. Stanton, who had frequently visited the President with his father, made his way to the Petersen House before the body of Abraham Lincoln was removed to the Executive Mansion …” However, this information is not carefully cited and therefore maybe misleading, maybe a result of copy and paste without verifying. I had my doubts, because there was nowhere further info about a “teenager Henry B. Stanton”, who visited Lincoln frequently at the White House…..

What I found is that the story told is absolutely TRUE, but it was NOT “teenager Henry B. Stanton” but the then 19 year old ROBERT B(REWSTER) STANTON, son of Reverend Robert Livingston Stanton, D.D., from Connecticut, a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln.

Here is the story of Robert Brewster Stanton, told in “Abraham Lincoln, Personal Memories of the Man”, published in the July 1920 issue of Scribner’s Magazine.

“On the night of April 14, 1865, I was nowhere near Ford s Theatre. We were living then in the old home on North B Street, Capitol Hill. Everything was so quiet there that we did not hear of the tragedy of the night until the next morning. As soon as possible I went down to the neighborhood of the theatre. What surprised me most was the smallness of the crowd gathered there at that time. I had no difficulty in moving about close to the steps of the house opposite, where the remains of the President still lay. I stood very close to those steps until finally there came out that little band of mourners and gently placed the body of the murdered President in the hearse. What surprised me most, as I think of that day, was the small number of followers that accompanied that sad little procession. There were so few people that followed, I was able to walk close to the carriages and at times I was so near that I could have laid my hand on the wheel of the hearse. I followed all the way to the White House grounds. Nor did the crowd increase to any great proportions, as we neared the end. At the east gate of the White House, there were soldiers and no one was admitted to the grounds. I had gone a little ahead and stood on the pavement close to the gate. This absence of a great crowd on such an occasion was not due to any want of interest or sympathy, but was rather caused, as it seemed to me, by the terrible shock that had passed over the city, and because everyone was so depressed that but few had the desire to rush forward to form or join a crowd. Those on the sidewalks stopped and with bowed and uncovered heads stood still in silence and grief. That there were so few gathered at the gate of the White House grounds, this little incident will show. I had pushed forward and taken my place on the sidewalk close to the carriage way, and turning to look at the little funeral cortege approaching, I saw an old negro woman, a typical Southern cook, her head wrapped in a red-and-yellow bandanna, and her large blue-and white kitchen apron still on, come running across the street. She passed in front of the hearse and had no difficulty in taking her place beside me within two feet of where it would pass. Even at that early hour the negroes of the capital had been stunned, then driven to almost frenzy, by the rumor that now Mr. Lincoln was dead they would all be put back into slavery. As the little procession passed in, great tears rolled down the cheeks of that old negress, and she gathered her big apron over her face and sobbed aloud. Then there seemed to come to her soul a great light and a great courage. She dropped her apron and said in a firm though broken voice: “They needn’t to crow yet. God ain’t dead!”.

Here you can read the whole article (p. 32 - p.41):

https://ia600309.us.archive.org/17/items...anrich.pdf