If Lincoln had not died

[Linda Anderson]

There were many deaths that were directly attributed to Lincoln's assassination and who knows how many other people suffered or died as a result from it.

Thomas Goodrich writes about the immediate aftermath in The Darkest Dawn.

"By midnight, it seemed to many as though the entire population of Washington was in the streets, boiling and surging about aimlessly. ..Fueling the panic, of course, was the want of reliable information...

"Not only were Lincoln, Seward, and their entire families reportedly butchered, but as the rumors gained momentum, all the president's cabinet had been slaughtered as well...

"Understandably, many individuals were paralyzed with fear. 'We saw a colored man,' said a reporter, 'blanched with terror and trembling in every limb, his teeth chattering like one with the ague.' The frightened black was not alone, as the journalist admitted: 'The hair on my head stood up.' Others became perfectly unhinged. Overcome with excitement and fear, an army captain went 'raving mad' and was placed under arrest by a lieutenant...

"On the streets and in hotels, huge mobs brandishing pistols vowed to kill on the spot every rebel that fell into their hands. According to one soldier, patrols darting about the city were not only encouraged but ordered to shoot down any who now displayed even a trace of disloyalty...

"Frank Myers and his comrades were marching through the streets at the double-quick when a bystander was heard celebrating. Grabbing a musket from a private, an angry sergeant promptly ran over to the man and speared him with the bayonet. Not content with his bloody work, the enraged soldier again plunged the blade into his victim as he lay writhing on the ground."

Michael Kauffman has a good summation in American Brutus of the people harmed as a result of Booth's act.

"The list of Booth's victims is long and wide-ranging. It includes Frances and Fanny Seward, whose horrific experience contributed to their early deaths; Lucy Quesenberry, who was traumatized by her mother's arrest, and died soon after; Henry Rathbone, who was tormented by self-reproach, and his wife, Clara, whom he killed; the two soldiers who died in the President's funeral; the eighty-seven men who drowned while searching for Booth; and the countless others who were killed for rejoicing or for looking a little too much like the assassin. To those, we should add the victims of guilt by insinuation-the people Booth destroyed to keep his plot safe from detection."