 Lincoln's Last Hours, by Charles A. Leal, M.D. Addressed delivered before the Commandery of the State of New York, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, at the regular meeting, February 1909, City of New York, in observance of the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's Last Hours. Commander and companions of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, at the historic pageant in Washington when the remains of President Lincoln were being taken from the White House to the Capitol, a carriage immediately preceding the catapult was assigned to me. Outside were the crowds, the martial music, but inside the carriage I was plunged in deep self-communion, until aroused by a gentle tap at the window of my carriage door. An officer of high rank put his head inside and exclaimed, Dr. Leal, I would rather have done what you did to prolong the life of the President than to have accomplished my duties during the entire war. I shrank back at what he said and, for the first time, realized the importance of it all. As soon as I returned to my private office in the hospital I drew down the window shade, locked the door, threw myself prostrate on the bare wood floor, and asked for advice. The answer came as distinctly as if spoken by a human being present. Forget it all. I visited our Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes and asked his advice. He also said, cast it from your memory. On April 17, 1865, a New York newspaper reporter called it my army tent. I invited him in and expressed my desire to forget all the recent sad events and to occupy my mind with the exacting present and plans for the future. Recently several of our companions expressed the conviction that history now demands and that it is my duty to give the detailed facts of President Lincoln's death as I know them, and in compliance with their request I, this evening, for the first time, will read a paper on the subject, Lincoln's Last Hours. One of the most cruel wars in the history of the world had nearly closed. The people of the United States were rejoicing at the prospective peace and returning happiness. President Lincoln, after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, visited Richmond, Virginia, exposing himself to great danger, and on his return delivered an address from the balcony of the White House. I was then a commissioned officer in the Medical Department of the United States Army, having been appointed from my native state New York, and was on duty as Surgeon in charge of the wounded commissioned officer's ward at the United States Army General Hospital, Armory Square, Washington, District of Columbia, where my professional duties were of the greatest importance and required constant and arduous attention. For a brief relief and a few moments in the fresh air I started one evening for a short walk on Pennsylvania Avenue. There were crowds walking toward the President's residence. These I followed and arrived just at the commencement of President Lincoln's last public address to his people. From where I stood I could distinctly hear every word he uttered, and was profoundly impressed with his divine appearance as he stood in the rays of light which penetrated the windows of the White House. The influence thus produced me gave an intense desire again to behold his face and study the characteristics of the saviour of his country. Therefore, on the evening of April 14th, 1865, after the completion of my daily hospital duties, I told my wardmaster that I would be absent for a short time. As a very large number from the Army stationed near Washington frequently visited the city, a general order was enforced that none should be there without a special pass, and all wearing uniform and out at night were subject to frequent challenge. To avoid this inconvenience officers stationed in Washington generally removed all signs of their calling when off duty. I changed to civilians' dress and hurried to Ford's theater, where I had been told President Lincoln, General Grant, and members of the Cabinet were to be present to see the play, Our American Cousin. I arrived late at the theater, 8.15 p.m., and requested a seat in the orchestra, once I could view the occupants of the President's box, which, on looking into the theater, I saw had been beautifully decorated with American flags in honor of the occasion. As the building was crowded, the last place vacant was in the dress circle. I was greatly disappointed, but accepted this seat, which was near the front on the same side and about 40 feet from the President's box, and soon became interested in the pleasing play. Suddenly there was a cheering welcome. The acting ceased temporarily out of respect to the entering presidential party. Many in the audience rose to their feet in enthusiasm and vociferously cheered while looking around. Turning, I saw in the aisle a few feet behind me President Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, Major Rathbone, and Ms. Harris. Mrs. Lincoln smiled very happily in acknowledgment of the loyal greeting, gracefully curtsied several times, and seemed to be overflowing with good cheer and thankfulness. I had the best opportunity to distinctly see the full face of the President, as the light shone directly upon him. After he had walked a few feet, he stopped for a moment, looked upon the people he loved, and acknowledged their salutations with a solemn bow. His face was perfectly stoical. His deep-set eyes gave him a pathetically sad appearance. The audience seemed to be enthusiastically cheerful, but he alone looked peculiarly sorrowful as he slowly walked with bowed head and drooping shoulders toward the box. I was looking at him as he took his last walk. The memory of that scene has never been afaced. The party was preceded by a special usher who opened the door of the box, stood to one side, and, after all, had entered, closed the door and took a seat outside, where he could guard the entrance to the box. The play was resumed and my attention was concentrated on the stage until I heard a disturbance at the door of the President's box. With many others I looked in that direction and saw a man endeavouring to persuade the reluctant usher to admit him. At last he succeeded in gaining an entrance, after which the door was closed and the usher resumed his place. For a few moments all was quiet, and the play again held my attention until, suddenly, the report of a pistol was heard, at a short time after I saw a man in mid-air leaping from the President's box to the stage, brandishing in his hand a drawn dagger. His spur caught of the American flag festooned in front of the box, causing him to stumble when he struck the stage, and he fell on his hands and knees. He quickly regained the erect posture and hopped across the stage, flourishing his dagger, clearing the stage before him, and dragging the foot of the leg, which was subsequently found to be broken, he disappeared behind the scene on the opposite side of the stage. Then followed cries that the President had been murdered, interspersed with cries of kill the murderer, shoot him, etc., from different parts of the building. The lights had been turned down, a general gloom was over all, and the panic-stricken audience were rushing toward the doors for exit and safety. I instantly arose, and in response to cries for help and for a surgeon, I crossed the aisle and vaulted over the seats in a direct line to the President's box, forcing my way through the excited crowd. The door of the box had been securely fastened on the inside to prevent anyone following the assassin before he had accomplished his cruel object and made his escape. The obstruction was with difficulty removed, and I was the first to be admitted to the box. The usher, having been told that I was an army surgeon, had lifted up his arm and had permitted me alone to enter. I passed in, not in the slightest degree knowing what I had to encounter. At this moment, while in self-communion, the military command Halt came to me, and in obedience to it, I stood still in the box, having a full view of the four other occupants. Then came the advice, be calm, and, with the calmest deliberation and force of will, I brought all my senses to their greatest activity, and walked forward to my duty. Major Rathbone had bravely fought the assassin. His arm had been severely wounded and was bleeding. He came to me, holding his wounded arm in the hand of the other, beseeching me to attend his wound. I placed my hand under his chin. Looking into his eyes, an almost instantaneous glance revealed the fact that he was in no immediate danger, and in response to appeals from Mrs. Lincoln and Miss Harris, who were standing by the high-backed arm-chair in which President Lincoln sat. I went immediately to their assistance, saying I was a United States Army surgeon. I grasped Mrs. Lincoln's outstretched hand in mine, while she cried piteously to me, Oh, doctor, is he dead? Can he recover? Will you take charge of him? Do what you can for him. Oh, my dear husband! Et cetera, et cetera. I soothingly answered that we would do all that possibly could be done. While approaching the President, I asked a gentleman who was at the door of the box to procure some brandy and another to get some water. As I looked at the President, he appeared to be dead. His eyes were closed and his head had fallen forward. He was being held upright in his chair by Mrs. Lincoln, who was weeping bitterly. From his crouched-down sitting posture it was evident that Mrs. Lincoln had instantly sprung to his aid after he had been wounded and had kept him from stumbling to the floor. By Mrs. Lincoln's courage, strength and energy, the President was maintained in this upright position during all the time that elapsed while Major Rathbone had bravely fought the assassin and removed the obstruction from the door of the box. I placed my finger on the President's right radial pulse but could perceive no movement of the artery. For the purpose of reviving him, if possible, we removed him from his chair to a recumbent position on the floor of the box, and as I held his head and shoulders while doing this, my hand came in contact with a clot of blood near his left shoulder. Remembering the flashing dagger in the hand of the assassin and the severely bleeding wound of Major Rathbone, I supposed the President had been stabbed, and while kneeling on the floor over his head with my eyes continuously watching the President's face, I asked a gentleman to cut the coat and shirt open from the neck to the elbow to enable me, if possible, to check the hemorrhage that I thought might take place from the subclavian artery or some other blood vessel. This was done with a dirk knife but no wound was found there. I lifted his eyelids and saw evidence of a brain injury. I quickly passed the separated fingers of both hands through his blood-matted hair to examine his head, and I discovered his mortal wound. The President had been shot in the back of the head behind the left ear. I easily removed the obstructing clot of blood from the wound and this relieved the pressure on the brain. The assassin of President Lincoln had evidently carefully planned to shoot to produce instant death, as the wound he made was situated within two inches of the physiological point of selection when instant death is desired. A Derringer pistol had been used which had sent a large round ball on its awful mission through one of the thickest, hardest parts of the skull and into the brain. The history of surgery fails to record a recovery from such a fearful wound, and I have never seen or heard of any other person with such a wound and injury to the sinus of the brain and to the brain itself, whoever lived even for an hour. As the President did not then revive I thought of the other mode of death, apnea, and assumed my preferred position to revive by artificial respiration. I knelt on the floor over the President, with a knee on each side of his pelvis and facing him. I leaned forward, opened his mouth, and introduced two extended fingers of my right hand as far back as possible, and by pressing the base of his paralyzed tongue downward and outward, opened his larynx and made a free passage for air to enter the lungs. I placed an assistant at each of his arms to manipulate them in order to expand his thorax, then slowly to press the arms down by the side of the body, while I pressed the diaphragm upward, methods which cost air to be drawn in and forced out of his lungs. During the intermissions I also, with the strong thumb and fingers of my right hand, by intermittent sliding pressure under and beneath the ribs, stimulated the apex of the heart and resorted to several other physiological methods. We repeated these motions a number of times before signs of recovery from the profound shock were attained, then a feeble action of the heart and irregular breathing followed. The effects of the shock were still manifest by such great prostration that I was fearful of any extra agitation of the President's body and became convinced that something more must be done to retain life. I leaned forcibly forward directly over his body, thorax to thorax, face to face, and several times drew in a long breath, then forcibly breathed directly into his mouth and nostrils, which expanded his lungs and improved his respirations. After waiting a moment I placed my ear over his thorax and found the action of the heart improving. I arose to the erect kneeling posture, then watched for a short time, and saw that the President could continue independent breathing and that instant death would not occur. I then pronounced my diagnosis and prognosis. His wound is mortal, it is impossible for him to recover. This message was telegraphed all over the country. When the brandy and water arrived I very slowly poured a small quantity into the President's mouth. This was swallowed and retained. Many looked on during these earnest efforts to revive the President, but not once did anyone suggest a word or in any way interfere with my actions. Mrs. Lincoln had thrown the burden on me and sat nearby looking on. In the dimly lighted box of the theatre, so beautifully decorated with American flags, a scene of historic importance was being enacted. On the carpeted floor lay prostrate the President of the United States. His long, outstretched, athletic body of six feet four inches appeared unusually heroic. His bleeding head rested on my white linen handkerchief. His clothing was arranged as nicely as possible. He was irregularly breathing. His heart was feebly beating. His face was pale and in solemn repose. His eyelids were closed. His countenance made him appear to be in prayerful communion with the universal God he always loved. I looked down upon him and waited for the next inspiration, which soon came. Remove to safety. From the time Mrs. Lincoln had placed the President in my charge, I had not permitted my attention to be diverted. Again I was asked the nature of his wound and replied in these exact words. His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover. While I was kneeling over the President on the floor, Dr. Charles S. Taft and Dr. Albert F. A. King had come and offered to render any assistance. I expressed the desire to have the President taken, as soon as he had gained sufficient strength, to the nearest house. On the opposite side of the street I was asked by several if he could not be taken to the White House, but I responded that if that were attempted the President would die long before we reached there. While we were waiting for Mr. Lincoln to gain strength, Laura King, who had been taking part in the play, appealed to me to allow her to hold the President's head. I granted this request and she sat on the floor of the box and held his head on her lap. We decided that the President could now be moved from the possibility of danger in the theatre to a house where we might place him on a bed in safety. To assist in this duty I assigned Dr. Taft to carry his right shoulder, Dr. King to carry his left shoulder, and detailed a sufficient number of others, whose names I have never discovered, to assist in carrying the body, while I had carried his head, going first. We reached the door of the box and saw the long passage leading to the exit crowded with people. I called out twice, guards clear the passage, guards clear the passage. A free space was quickly cleared by an officer, and protected by a line of soldiers in the position of present arms with swords, pistols, and bayonets. When we reached the stairs I turned so that those holding the President's feet would descend first. At the door of the theatre I was again asked if the President could be taken to the White House. I answered, No, the President would die on the way. The crowd in the street completely obstructed the doorway and a captain whose services proved invaluable all through the night came to me saying, Surgeon, give me your commands and I will see that they are obeyed. I asked him to clear a passage to the nearest house opposite. He had on side arms and drew his sword. With the sword and word of command he cleared the way. We slowly crossed the street. It was necessary to stop several times to give me the opportunity to remove the clot of blood from the opening to the ground. A barrier of men had been formed to keep back the crowds on each side of an open space leading to the house. Those who went ahead reported that the house directly opposite the theatre was closed. I saw a man standing at the door of Mr. Peterson's house, diagonally opposite, holding a lighted candle in his hand and beckoning us to enter. This we did, not having been interrupted in the slightest by the throngs in the street, but a number of the excited populace followed us into the house. The great difficulty of retaining life during this brief time occupied in moving the President from the theatre to Mr. Peterson's house conclusively proved that the President would have died in the street if I had granted the request to take him such a long distance as to the White House. I asked for the best room and we soon had the President placed in bed. He was lifted to the longitudinal center of the bed and placed on his back. While holding his face upward and keeping his head from rolling to either side, I looked at his elevated knees caused by his great height. This uncomfortable position grieved me and I ordered the foot of the bed to be removed. Dr. Taft and Dr. King reported that it was a fixture. Then I requested that it be broken off. As I found this could not satisfactorily be done, I had the President placed diagonally on the bed and called for extra pillows, and with them formed a gentle inclined plane on which to rest his head and shoulders. His position was then one of repose. The room soon filled with anxious people. I called the officer and asked him to open a window and order all except the medical gentlemen and friends to leave the room. After we had given the President a short rest, I decided to make a thorough physical examination as I wished to see if he had been wounded in any other part of the body. I requested all except the surgeons to leave the room. The Captain reported that my order had been carried out with the exception of Mrs. Lincoln to whom he said he did not like to speak. I addressed Mrs. Lincoln, explaining my desire, and she immediately left the room. I examined the President's entire body from his head to his feet and found no other injury. His lower extremities were very cold and I sent the hospital steward, who had been of great assistance to us in removing the President from the theatre to procure bottles of hot water and hot blankets, which were applied. I also sent for a large synapism, and in a short time one very nicely made was brought. This I applied over the solar plexus and to the anterior surface of his body. We arranged the bed clothes nicely and I assigned Dr. Taft and Dr. King to keep his head upon the pillows in the most comfortable position, relieving each other in this duty, after which I sent an officer to notify Mrs. Lincoln that she might return to her husband. She came in and sat on a chair placed for her at the head of the bed. As the symptoms indicated renewed brain compression, I again cleared the opening of clotted blood and pushed forward the button of bone which acted as a valve, permitted an oozing of the blood and relieved pressure on the brain. I again saw good results from this action. After doing all that was professionally necessary, I stood aside for a general view and to think what to do next. While thus watching, several army officers anxiously asked if they could in any way assist. I told them my greatest desire then was to send messengers to the White House for the President's son, Captain Robert T. Lincoln, also for the Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon D. Willard Bliss, in charge of Armory Square General Hospital, the President's family physician Dr. Robert K. Stone, and to each member of the President's cabinet. All these desires of mine were fulfilled. Having been taught in early youth to pay great respect to all religious denominations in regard to their rules concerning the sick or dying, it became my duty as Surgeon in charge of the dying President to summon a clergyman to his bedside. Therefore after inquiring and being informed that the Rev. Dr. Gurley was Mrs. Lincoln's pastor, I immediately sent for him. Then I sent the hospital steward for a Nelleton probe. No drug or medicine in any form was administered to the President, but the artificial heat and mustard plaster that I had applied warmed his cold body and stimulated his nerves. Only a few were at any time admitted to the room by the officer whom I had stationed at the door, and at all times I had maintained perfect discipline and order. While we were watching and letting nature do her part, Dr. Taff came to me with brandy and water and asked permission to give some to the President. I objected, stating as my reason that it would produce strangulation. Dr. Taft left the room and again came to me, stating that it was the opinion of others also that it might do good. I replied, I will grant the request, if you will please at first try by pouring only a very small quantity into the President's mouth. This Dr. Taft very carefully did. The liquid ran into the President's larynx producing laryngeal obstruction and unpleasant symptoms which took me about half a minute to overcome, but no lasting harm was done. My physiological and practical experiences had led to correct conclusions. On the arrival of Dr. Robert K. Stone, who had been the President's family physician during his residence in Washington, I was presented to him as the one who had been in charge since the President was shot. I described the wound and told him all that had been done. He said he approved of my treatment. Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes' long delay in arriving was due to his going first to the White House, where he expected to find the assassinated President, then to the residence of Secretary Seward and his son, both of whom he found requiring immediate attention as they had been severely wounded by the attempts of another assassin to kill them. On the arrival of the Surgeon General and Assistant Surgeon General, Charles H. Crane, I reported what we had done and officially detailed to the Surgeon General my diagnosis, stating that whenever the clot was allowed to form over the opening to the wound the President's breathing became greatly embarrassed. The Surgeon General approved the treatment and my original plan of treatment was continued in every respect until the President's death. The hospital steward arrived with a Nelleton probe and an examination was made by the Surgeon General and myself who introduced the probe to a distance of about two and a half inches where it came in contact with a foreign substance which lay across the track of the ball. This was easily passed and the probe was introduced several inches further where it again touched a hard substance. At first it's supposed to be the ball, but as the white porcelain bulb of the probe on its withdrawal did not indicate the mark of lead it was generally thought to be another piece of loose bone. The probe was introduced the second time and the ball was supposed to be distinctly felt. After this second exploration nothing further was done with the wound except to keep the opening free from coagula which if allowed to form and remain for a short time produced signs of increased compression, the breathing becoming profoundly stutterous and intermittent, the pulse more feeble and irregular. After I had resigned my charge all that was professionally done for the President was to repeat occasionally my original expedient of relieving the brain pressure by freeing the opening to the wound and to counter the pulse and respirations. The President's position on the bed remained exactly as I had first placed him with the assistance of Dr. Taft and Dr. King. Captain Robert T. Lincoln came and remained with his father and mother, bravely sustaining himself during the course of the night. On that awful, memorable night the Great War Secretary, the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, one of the most imposing figures of the nineteenth century, promptly arrived and recognized at that critical period of our country's history the necessity of a head to our government and as the President was passing away established a branch of his War Department in an adjoining room. There he sat surrounded by his counselors and messengers, pen in hand, writing to General Dix and others. He was soon in communication with many an authority and with the government and army officials. By Secretary Stanton's wonderful ability in power and action he undoubtedly controlled millions of excited people. He was then the master and in reality acting President of the United States. During the night Mrs. Lincoln came frequently from the adjoining room accompanied by a lady friend. At one time Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed sobbing bitterly, oh that my little tatty might see his father before he died. This was decided not advisable. As Mrs. Lincoln sat on a chair by the side of the bed, with her face to her husbands, his breathing became very stutterous and the loud unnatural noise frightened her in her exhausted agonized condition. She sprang up suddenly with a piercing cry and fell fainting to the floor. Secretary Stanton hearing her cry came in from the adjoining room and with raised arms called loudly, take that woman out and do not let her in again. Mrs. Lincoln was helped up kindly and assisted in a fainting condition from the room. Secretary Stanton's order was obeyed and Mrs. Lincoln did not see her husband again before he died. As Captain Lincoln was consoling his mother in another room, and as I had promised Mrs. Lincoln to do all I possibly could for her husband, I took the place of kindred and continuously held the President's right hand firmly, with one exception of less than a minute when my sympathies compelled me to seek the disconsolate wife. I found her reclining in a nearby room being comforted by her son. Without stopping in my walk I passed the room where Secretary Stanton sat at his official table and returning took the hand of the dying President in mind, the hand that had signed the Emancipation Proclamation liberating four million slaves. As morning dawned it became quite evident that the President was sinking and at several times his pulse could not be counted. Two or three feeble pulsations being noticed, followed by an intermission when not the slightest movements of the artery could be felt. The inspirations became very prolonged and labored, accompanied by a guttural sound. The respiration ceased for some time and several anxiously looked at their watches until the profound silence was disturbed by a prolonged inspiration which was followed by a sonorous expiration. During these moments the Surgeon General occupied a chair by the head of the President's bed and occasionally held his finger over the carotid artery to note its pulsations. Dr. Stone sat on the edge of the foot of the bed and I stood holding the President's right hand with my extended forefinger on his pulse. Being the only one between the bed and the wall, the bed having been drawn out diagonally for that purpose. While we were anxiously watching in profound solemn silence, the Reverend Dr. Gurley said, Let us pray, and offered a most impressive prayer, after which we witnessed the last struggle between life and death. At this time my knowledge of physiology, pathology, and psychology told me that the President was totally blind as a result of blood pressure on the brain, as indicated by the paralysis, dilated pupils, protruding and bloodshot eyes. But all the time I acted on the belief that if his sense of hearing or feeling remained, he could possibly hear me when I sent for his son, the voice of his wife when she spoke to him, and that the last sound he heard may have been his pastor's prayer, as he finally committed his soul to God. Knowledge that frequently just before departure recognition and reason returned to those who have been unconscious caused me for several hours to hold his right hand firmly within my grasp to let him, in his blindness snow, if possible, that he was in touch with humanity and had a friend. The protracted struggle ceased at twenty minutes past seven o'clock on the morning of April fifteenth, 1865, and I announced that the President was dead. Immediately after the death the few remaining in the room knelt around the bed while the Reverend Dr. Gurley delivered one of the most impressive prayers ever uttered, that our Heavenly Father looked down in pity upon the bereaved family and preserve our afflicted and sorrow-stricken country. Then I gently smoothed the President's contracted facial muscles, took two coins from my pocket, placed them over his eyelids, and drew a white sheet over the martyr's face. I had been the means, in God's hand, of prolonging the life of President Abraham Lincoln for nine hours. Every necessary act of love, devotion, skill, and loyalty had been rendered during his helpless hours to the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to the beloved of millions of people throughout the world. Many reported, anxious in any way to be of service. I accepted their offers to the extent of abundantly filling every want. Of all the people I have met in different parts of the world, I have found that as a class, good Americans are not to be excelled when occasions demand in strength, endurance, calmness, good judgment, ardent loyal devotion, and self-sacrificing love. By prolonging the life of President Lincoln, his son Robert, whom I sent for, was enabled to see his father alive. Physicians and surgeons, lawyer and clergyman, whom I sent for, visited the President and were given time to deliberate. Members of the Cabinet, whom I sent for with soldiers and sailors and friends, had the opportunity to surround him. Millions of dangerous, excited and disappointed people were morally dissuaded from acts of discord. The nation was held in suppressed, sympathetic suspense and control when the people heard that the President was living, though severely wounded and dying. Before the people had time to realize the situation, there was another President of the United States, and the grandeur of the continuity of the Republic was confirmed. After all was over, and as I stood by the side of the covered mortal remains I thought, you have fulfilled your promise to the wife, your duty now is to the many living, suffering, wounded officers committed to your care in your ward at Armory Square General Hospital, and I left the house in deep meditation. In my lonely walk I was aroused from my reveries by the cold, drizzling rain dropping on my bare head. My hat I had left in my seat at the theatre. My clothing was sustained with blood, and I had not once been seated since I first sprang to the President's aid. I was cold, weary, and sad. The dawn of peace was again clouded. The most cruel war in history had not completely ended. Our long, sorrowing country vividly came before me as I thought how essential it was to have an organization composed of returning soldiers to guard and protect the officers of state and uphold the Constitution. This great need was simultaneously recognized by others for on that day, April 15th, 1865, there assembled at Philadelphia a few Army officers for that purpose and originated the military order of the loyal Legion of the United States. Among the archives of our organization, the military order of the loyal Legion of the United States, we have recorded. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, March 4th, 1861 to April 15th, 1865. Born February 12th, 1809, Hardin, LaRue County, Kentucky, assassinated April 14th, 1865, died April 15th, 1865 at Washington, D.C., enrolled by special resolution to date from April 15th, 1865. I herewith give in the order in which they arrived the names of the physicians and surgeons and the clergymen whom I recognize as taking a professional part in the physical, mental, or spiritual welfare of the President from the time he was shot until his death. The first person to enter the box after the President was shot, and who took charge of him at the request of Mrs. Lincoln, was myself, Charles A. Leal, M.D., Assistant Surgeon, United States Volunteers, and the Surgeon in Charge of the Ward containing the wounded commissioned officers at the United States Army General Hospital, Armory Square, Washington, D.C. The next two reported and simultaneously offered their services to me, which were accepted, were Charles S. Taft, M.D., Acting Assistant Surgeon, United States Army, and Albert F.A. King, M.D., Acting Assistant Surgeon, United States Army. Then apparently, a very long time after we had cared for the President in Mr. Peterson's house, and in response to the numerous messengers whom I had sent, there arrived Robert K. Stone, M.D., Mrs. Lincoln's family physician, Joseph K. Barnes, M.D., Surgeon General, United States Army, Charles H. Crane, M.D., Assistant Surgeon General, United States Army, and the Reverend Dr. Gurley, Mrs. Lincoln's pastor. During the night, several other physicians, unknown to me, called, and through courtesy I permitted some of them to feel the President's pulse, but none of them touched the wound. Later in the forenoon, as I was in the midst of important surgical duties at our hospital, I was notified by my lady nurse that a messenger had called inviting me to be present at the necropsy. Later a doctor called for the same purpose. I respectfully asked to be excused, as I did not dare to leave the large number of severely wounded expecting my usual personal care. I was fearful that the shock of hearing of the sudden death of the President might cause trouble in their depressed, painful conditions. One of my patients was profoundly depressed. He said to me, Doctor, all we have fought for is gone, our country is destroyed, and I want to die. This officer, the day before, was safely recovering from an amputation. I called my lady nurse. Please closely watch Lieutenant. Cheer him as much as possible and give him two ounces of wine every two hours, etc., etc. This brave soldier received the greatest kindness and skillful care. But he would not rally from the shock, and died in a short time. Among my relics I have a photograph taken a few days later in full-staff uniform as I appeared at the obsequies. The crepe has never been removed from my sword. I have my cuffs stained with the martyr's blood, also my card of invitation to the funeral services, held on Wednesday, April 19th, which I attended, having been assigned a place at the head of the coffin at the White House, and a carriage immediately preceded in the catafolk, in the grand funeral procession from the White House to the capital, where, during the public ceremonies, I was assigned to a place at the head of the casket, as it rested beneath the rotunda. One of the most devoted of those who remained in the room with a dying President was Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. He visited me subsequently and said, Dr. Leal, do you remember that I remained all the time until President Lincoln died? Senator Sumner was profoundly affected by this great calamity to both North and South. On my visit to Secretary Seward some time after the President's death, he was still suffering from his fracture and from the brutal attacks of the assassin who made such a desperate attempt to kill him on that fateful night. When I again met Secretary Stanton, we sat alone in his private office. He was doing his utmost to continue what he deemed best for our country. The long continued strain and great burden had left their deep impress upon him. At the close of my call we shook hands fraternally. After the war had closed Governor Fenton of New York State, one of the war governors, came to me and said, Dr. Leal, I will give you anything possible within my power. I responded. I sincerely thank you, Governor, but I desire nothing as I wish to follow my mission in life. The city of Washington was wrapped in a mantle of gloom. The President had known his people and had a heartful of love for his soldiers and sailors. With malice toward none, he alone seemed to have the power to restore fraternal love. He alone appeared able to quickly heal his country's wound. In May there occurred in Washington one of the most pathetic and historic events, the return of the Northern Army for the final review of more than seventy thousand veterans. A grandstand had been erected in front of the White House for the new President, his cabinet, officers of state, foreign ministers, and others. I had a seat on this grandstand, from which on May 24 we watched one of the most imposing parades recorded in history. Among the many heroes I recall the passing of stately General William Tecumseh Sherman on his majestic horse which had been garlanded with roses. After we had been sitting there for several hours a foreign official tapped me on the shoulder and said, What will become of these thousands of soldiers after their discharge? I answered, They will return to their homes all over the country and soon be at work doing their utmost to pay off the national debt. He replied, Is it possible? No other country could expect such a result. All had lost comrades. Many were to return to desolate and broken homes. Amidst all the grandeur of victory there was profound sorrow. Among the thousands of passing veterans there were many who looked for their former commander-in-chief, but their father Abraham had answered to his last bugle call and with more than three hundred thousand comrades had been mustered out. End of Lincoln's Last Hours by Charles A. Leal M.D. Recording by John Leader Bloomington, Illinois Amidst summer's night trip, a chapter from the book Danger Signals by John A. Hill and Jasper E. Brady. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org. It is all of twenty years now since the little incident happened that I am going to tell you about. After the strike of seventy-seven I went into exile in the wild and woolly west, mostly in bleeding Kansas, but often in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The Santa Fe goes almost everywhere in the southwest. One night in August I was dropping an old Baldwin Consolidator down a long Mexican grade after having helped a stock train over the division by double heading. It was close and hot in this sage brush waist, something not unusual at night in high latitudes, and the heat and sheet lightning around the horizon warned me that there was to be one of those short, fierce storms that come but once or twice a year in these latitudes, and which are known as cloud bursts. The alkali plains or deserts, as they are often erroneously called, are a great stretches of adobe soil, known as Doby by the natives. This soil is a yellowish brown, or perhaps more of a gray color, and as fine as flower. Water plays sad havoc with it if the soil lies so as to oppose the flow, and it moves like dust before a slight stream. On the flat, hard-baked plains the water makes no impression, but on a railroad grade, be it ever so slight, the tendency is to dig pitfalls. I have seen a little stream of water, just enough to fill the ditches on each side of the track, take out all the dirt, and keep the ties and track afloat, until the water was gone, then drop them into a hole eight or ten feet deep, or if the washout was short, leave them suspended, looking safe and sound, to lure some poor engineer and his mate to death. Another peculiarity of these storms is that they come quickly, rage furiously for a few minutes and are gone, and their lines are sharply defined. It is not uncommon to find a lot of water or a washout within a mile of land so dry that it looks as if it had never seen a drop of water. All this land is fertile when it can be brought under irrigating ditches and watered, but here it lies out almost like a desert. It is sparsely inhabited along the little streams by a straggling offshoot of the Mexican race, yet once in a while a fine place is to be seen, like an oasis in the Sahara, the home of some old Spanish Don with thousands of cattle or sheep ranging on the plains, or perhaps the headquarters of some enterprising cattle company. But these places were few and far between at the time of which I ride. The stations were merely passing places, long side tracks with perhaps a stockyard and section house once in a while, but generally without buildings or even switch lights. Noting the approach of the storm, I let the heavy engine drop the faster, hoping to reach a certain side track over 20 miles away where there was a telegraph operator and learn from him the condition of the road. But the storm was faster than any consolidator that Baldwin's ever built, and as the lightning suddenly ceased and the air became heavy, hot, and absolutely motionless, I realized that we would have the storm pull upon us in a few moments. I had nothing to meet for more than 30 miles, and there was nothing behind me. So I stopped and turned the headlight up and hung my white signal lamps down below the buffer beams, each side of the pilot. This to enable me to see the ends of the ties and the ditches. Billy Howell, my fireman and a good one, hastily went over the boiler jacket with signal oil to prevent rust. We donned our gum coats, I dropped a little oil on the Marianne's gudgens, and we proceeded on our way without a word. On these big consolidators you cannot see well ahead past the big boiler from the cab. And I always ran with my head out the side window. Both of us took this position now, standing up ready for anything. But we bolt safely along for one mile, two miles, through the awful hush. Then as sudden as a flash of light, boom, went a peel of thunder, as sharp and clear as a signal gun. There was a flash of light along the rails, the surface of the desert seemed to break out here and there with little fitful jets of greenish-blue flame, and from every side came the answering reports from the batteries of heaven, like sister gunboats answering a salute. The rain fell in torrents, yes, in sheets. I have never before or since seen such a grand and fantastic display of fireworks, nor heard such rivalry of ken and aid. I stopped my engine and looked with awe and interest at this angry fit of nature, watched the balls of fire play along the ground, and realized for the first time what a sight was an electric storm. As the storm commenced at the signal of a mighty peel of thunder, so it ended as suddenly had the same signal. The rain changed in an instant from a torrent to a gentle shower. The lightning went out, the batteries ceased their firing. The breeze commenced to blow gently, the air was purified. Again we heard the signal peel of thunder, but it seemed a great way off as if the piece was hurrying away to a more urgent quarter. The gentle shower ceased, the black clouds were torn asunder overhead. Invisible hands seemed to snatch a gray veil of fleecy clouds from the face of the harvest moon, and it shone out as clear and serene as before the storm. The ditches on each side of the track were half full of water, ties were floating along in them, but the tracks seemed safe and sound, and we proceeded cautiously on our way. Within two miles the row turned to the west, and here we found the water in the ditches running through soil so dry, carrying dead grass and twigs of sage upon its surface. We passed the head of the flood, tumbling along through the dry ditches as dirty as well could be, and fast soaking into the soil, and then we passed beyond the line of the storm entirely. Billy put up his seat and filled his pipe, and I sat down and absorbed a sandwich as I urged my engine ahead to make up for lost time. We took up our last routine of work just where we had left it, and life was the same old song. It was past midnight now, and as I never did a great deal of talking on an engine, I settled down to watching the rails ahead, and wondering if the knuckle joints would pound the rods off the pins before we got to the end of the division. Billy, with his eyes on the track ahead, was smoking his second pipe and humming a tune, and the marion was making about forty miles an hour, but doing more rolling and pitching and jumping up and down than an eight-wheeler wood at sixty. All at once I discerned something away down the track where the rails seemed to me. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and the headlight gave a better view and penetrated further. Billy saw it too, for he took his pipe out of his mouth, and with his eyes still upon it said leconically as was his want, cow. Yes, I said closing the throttle and dropping a lever ahead. Man, said Billy, as the shape seemed to assume a perpendicular position. Yes, I said, reaching for the three-way cock and applying the tender brake without thinking what I did. Woman, said Billy, as the shape was seen to wear skirts, or at least drapery. Mexican, I said, as I noted the mantilla over the head. We were fast nearing the object. No, said Billy, too well built. I don't know what he judged by. We could not see the face, for she was turned away from us. But the form was plainly that of a comely woman. She stood between the rails with her arms stretched out like a cross, her white gown fitting her figure closely. A black shawl like mantilla was over the head, partly concealing her face. Her right foot was upon the left-hand rail. She stood perfectly still. We were within fifty feet of her, and our speed was reduced to half when Billy said sharply. Hold her, John, for God's sake. But I had the Marianne in the back motion before the words left his mouth, and was choking her on sand. Billy leaned upon the boiler-head and pulled the whistle-cord. But the white figure did not move. I shut my eyes as we passed the spot where she had stood. We got stopped, the rod or two beyond. I took the white light in the tank and sprang to the ground. Billy lit the torch and followed me with haste. The form stood still upon the track, just where we had first seen it. But it faced us, and the arms were folded. I confessed to herring slowly till Billy caught up with the torch, which he held over his head. Good evening, Seniors, said the apparition in very sweet English, just tinged with the Castilian accent. But she spoke as if nearly exhausted. Good gracious I, I, whatever brought you away out here, and hadn't you just a leaf shoe to man a scarab to death? She laughed very sweetly and said, The wash-out brought me just here, and I fancy it was lucky for you, both of you. Wash-out, I said, where? At the dry bridge beyond. Well, to make a long story short, we took her on the engine. She was wet through and went on to the dry bridge. This was a little wooden structure in a sag about half a mile away, and we found that the storm we had encountered farther back had done bad work at each end of the bridge. We did not cross that night, but after placing signals well behind us and ahead of the wash-out, we waited until morning, the three of us sitting in the cab of the Marianne, chatting as if we were old acquaintances. This young girl whose fortunes had been so strangely cast with ours was the daughter of Sr. Juan Arboliz, a rich old Spanish don who owned a fine place and immense her as a sheep over the Rio Picos, some ten miles west of the road. She was being educated in some Catholic school or convent at Trinidad, and had the evening before a lighted at the Big Carels a few miles below, where she was met by one of her father's Mexican rancheros who led her saddle-branco. They had started on their fifteen-mile ride in the cool of the evening, and following the road back for a few miles were just striking off toward the distant hedge of cotton woods that lined a little stream by her home when the storm came upon them. It was a lone pine tree, hardly larger than a bush, about half a mile from the track, and riding to this, the girl whose name was Josephine, had dismounted to seek its scanty protection, while the herder tried to hold the frightened horses. As a peel-on-peel of thunder resounded and the electric lights of nature played tag over the plain, the horses became more and more unmanageable, and at last stampeded, with old paths muttering Mexican curses and chasing after them wildly. After the storm passed, Josephine waited in vain for paths and the Broncos, and then debated whether she should walk toward her home or back to the corrals. In either direction the distance was long and the adobe soil is very tenacious when wet, and the wayfarer needs great strength to carry the load it imposes on the feet. As she stood there, thinking what was best to do, the sound came to her ears from the direction of the timber and home which she recognized in an instant, and without waiting to bait further, she turned and ran with all her strength, not toward her home but away from it. Across the waist the stunted sage she sped, the cool breeze upon her face, every muscle strained to its utmost. Nearer and nearer came the sound, the deep, regular bay of the timber wolf. These animals are large and fierce. They do not go in packs like the smaller and more cowardly breeds of wolves, but in pairs, or at most six together. A pair of them will attack a man even when he is mounted, and lucky he is if he is well armed and cool enough to dispatch one before it fastens its fangs in his horse's throat or his own thigh. As the brave girl ran she cast about for some means of escape or place of refuge. She decided to run to the railroad track, a climber telegraph pole, a feet which owing to her free life on the ranch, she was perfectly capable of. Once up the pole she could rest on the cross-tree in perfect safety from the wolves, and she would be sure to be seen and rescued by the first train that came along after daybreak. She approached the track over perfectly dry ground. To reach the telegraph pole she sprang nimbly into the ditch, and as she did so she saw a stream of water coming or rapidly toward her. It was the front of the flood. The ditch on the opposite side of the track, which she must also cross to reach the line of poles, she found already flooded. She decided to run up the track between the walls of water. This would put a ten-foot stream between her and her pursuers, and changed her course enough, she hoped, to throw them off the scent. In this design she was partly successful, for the Bay of the Wolves showed that they were going to the track as she had gone instead of cutting straight across toward her. Thus she gained considerable time. She reached a little arroyo, spanned by the dry bridge, and it was like a milpond, and the track was afloat. She ran across the bridge, she scarcely slackened speed, though the ties rocked and moved on the spike heads, holding them to the rails. She hoped for a moment that the wolves would not venture to follow her over such a way, but their hideous voices were still in her ear and came nearer and nearer. Then there came to her faintly another strange metallic sound. What was it? Where was it? She ran on tiptoe a few paces in order to hear it better. It was the rails, the vibration of a train in motion. Then there came in to view a light, a headlight, but it was so far away, so very far, and that awful bang so close. The Marianne, however, was fleeter of foot than a wolf, and the light grew big and bright, and the sound of working machinery came to the girl on the breeze. Would they stop for her? Could she make them see her? Then she thought of the bridge. It was death for them as well as for her. They must see her. She resolved to stay on the track until they whistled her off, but now the light seemed to come so slow. A splash at her side caused her to turn her head, and there a dozen feet away were her pursuers. Their tongues out, her eyes shining like balls of fire. They were just entering the water to come across to her. They fascinated her by their very fierceness. Forgetting where she was for the instant, she stared dumbly at them until call to life in action by a scream from the locomotives whistle. Then she sprang from the track just in the nick of time. She actually laughed as she saw two grayish white wolf tails, bob here and there among the sagebrush, as the wolves took flight at the side of the engine. This was the story she told as she dried her garments before the furnace door, and I confess to holding this cool, self-reliant girl in high admiration. She never once thought of fainting, but along toward morning she did say that she was scared then at thinking of it. Early in the morning a party of herders, with Josephine's father ahead, rode into sight. They were hunting for her. Josephine got up on the tender to attract her attention, and soon she was in her father's arms. Her frightened pony had gone home as fast as his legs would carry him, and a relief party swam their horses at the ford, and rode forward at once. The old Don was profuse in his thanks and would not leave us until Billy and I had agreed to visit his ranch and enjoy a hunt with him, and actually set a date when we should meet him at the big corral. I wanted her to rest anyway, and it was perfectly plain that Billy was beyond his depth and loved with the girl at first sight, though we were not hard to persuade when she added her voice to her father's. Early in September Billy and I dropped off number one with our guns and plunder, as baggage is called there, and a couple of the old Don's men met us with a saddle and pack animals. I never spent a pleasure two weeks in my life. The quiet, almost gloomy old Don and I became fast friends, and the hunting was good. The Don was a Spaniard, but Josephine's mother had been a Mexican woman, and one noted for her beauty. She had been dead some years at the time of our visit. Billy devoted most of his time to the girl. They were a fine looking young couple. He being strong and broad-shouldered, with laughing blue eyes and light curly hair, cheese, slender and perfect in outline, with a typical southern complexion, black eyes and such eyes they were, and hair and eyebrows like the raven's wing. A few days before Billy and I were booked to resume our duties on the deck of the Marianne, Miss Josephine took my arm and walked me down to the yard and pumped me quietly about Mr. Howell, as she called Billy. She went into details a little and I answered all questions as best I could. All I said was in the young man's favor. It could not, in truth, be otherwise. Josephine seemed satisfied and pleased. When we got back to headquarters, I was given the care of a cold water hinkley, with a row of varnish cars behind her, and Billy fell heir to the rudder of the Marianne. We still roomed together. Billy put in most of his layover time, writing long letters to somebody, and every Thursday as regular as a clock, one came for him with a censor's mark on it. Often after reading a letter, Billy would say, That girl has more horse sense than the rest of the whole female race, and she don't slop over worth a cent. He invariably spoke of her as my Mexican girl, and often asked my opinion about white men intermarrying with that Mongol race. Sometimes he said that his mother would go crazy if he married a Mexican. His father would disown him and his brother Henry. Well, Billy did not like to think just what revenge Henry would take. Billy's father was manager of an eastern road, and his brother was an assistant to the first vice president, and Billy looked up to the ladder as a great man and sage. He himself was in the west for practical experience in the machinery department, and to get rid of a slight tendency to asthma. He could have gone east any time and been somebody on the road under his father. Finally Billy missed a week in writing, and once there was a cog gone from the answering wheel to match, Billy shortened his letters, the answers were shortened, and he quit writing. And as soon as they letters ceased to come, he had thought the matter over and decided, no doubt, that he was doing what was best, both for himself and the girl, and his family high ideas should not be outraged by a Mexican marriage. He had put a piece of flesh-colored cord plaster over his wound, not yielded. Early in the winter the old Don Road urging us to come down and hunt Antelope, but Billy declined to go. Said that the road needed him, and that Josephine might come home from school, and this would make them both uncomfortable. But Henry, his older brother, was visiting him, and he suggested that I take Henry. He would enjoy the hunt, and would help him drown his sorrow over the loss of his aristocratic young wife, who had died a year or two before. So Henry went with me and hunted Antelope until we tired of the slaughter, and then the old Don planned a deer-hunting trip into the mountains. But I had to go back to work, and left Henry and the old Don to take the trip without me. While they were in the mountains Josephine came home, and Henry Howells stayed lengthened out to a month. But I did not know until long afterward that the two had met. Billy was pretty quiet all winter, worked hard, and went out but little. He was thinking about something. One day I came home and found him writing a letter. What now, Billy, I asked. Writing to my Mexican girl, he said. I thought you'd got over that a long time ago. So did I, but I hadn't. I've been trying to please somebody else besides myself in this matter, and I'm done. I'm going to work for Bill now. Take an old man's advice, Billy, and don't write that girl a line. Go and see her. I can fix it all right by letter, and then run down there and see her. Don't do it. I'll risk it. A week later, Billy and I sat on the veranda of the company's hash foundry, figuring up our time, and smoking our cob mirror shims, when one of the boys who had been to the office placed two letters in Billy's hands. One of them was directed in the handwriting that used to be on the old Thursday letters. Billy tore it open eagerly, and his own letter to Josephine dropped into his hand. Billy looked at the ground steadily for five minutes, and I pretended not to have seen. Finally he said half to himself, you are right. I ought to have gone myself. But I'll go now. Go tomorrow. Then he opened the other letter. He read its single page with manifest interest, and when his eyes reached the last line they went straight on, and looked at the ground, and continued to do so for fully five minutes. Without looking up, he said, John, I want you to do me two favors. All right, I said. Still keeping his eyes on the ground, he said slowly, as if measuring everything well. I'm going up and draw my time and leave for old Mexico on number four tonight. I want you to write both these parties until then I've gone there and that you have forwarded both these letters. Don't tell them that I went after reading them. And the other favor, Billy? Read this letter, and see me off tonight. The letter read, Philadelphia, May 1st, 1879. Dear Brother Will, I want you and Mr. A. to go down to Don Juan Arbolis by the first of June. I'll be there then. You must be my best man, as I stand up to marry the sweetest dearest wildflower of a woman that ever bloomed in a land of beauty. Don't fail me. Josephine will like you for my sake, and you will love her for your brother. Henry. Most engineers' lives are busy ones and full of accident and incident. And having my full share of both, I had almost forgotten all these points about Billy Howell and his Mexican girl. When they were all recalled by a letter from Billy himself, with his letter was a photograph of a family group, a be-whiskered man of thirty-five, a good-looking woman of twenty, but undoubtedly a Mexican, and a curly-headed baby, perhaps a year old. The letter ran, City of Mexico, July 21st, 1890. Dear Old John, I had lost you and thought perhaps you had gone over to the majority, till I saw your name and recognized your quill in a story. Right to me, I'm doing well. I send you a photograph of all there are of the Howell outfit. No half-breeds for your uncle this time, William Howell. End of Amid Summer's Night Trip. Never Again by Edward Carpenter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Never Again, a protest and a warning addressed to the peoples of Europe by Edward Carpenter. Never Again must this thing happen. The time has come, if the human race does not wish to destroy itself in its own madness, for men to make up their minds as to what they will do in the future, for now indeed is it true that we are come to the crossroads, we stand at the parting of the ways. The rapid and enormous growth of scientific invention makes it obvious that violence ten times more potent and sinister than that which we are witnessing today may very shortly be available for our use or abuse in war. On the other hand, who can doubt that the rapid growth of interchange and understanding among the peoples of the world is daily making warfare itself and the barbarities inevitably connected with it more abhorrent to our common humanity. Which of these lines are we to follow? Along which path are we to go? This is a question which the mass, peoples of Europe in the future and not merely the governments, will have seriously to ponder and decide. That bodies of men, as has happened a hundred times in the trenches in northern France and even on the eastern front, should exchange mourning salutations and songs in humorous amity and then at a word of command should fall to shooting each other. That peasants and artisans and shopkeepers and students and schoolmasters who have no quarrel whatever, who on the whole rather respect and honor each other, should with explosive bombs deliberately blow one another to bits so that even their own mothers could not recognize them. That human beings should use every devilish invention of science with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against whom they have no personal grudge or grievance. All this is sheer madness. Only a short time ago a private soldier said to me, Yes, we had got to be such friends with those Bavarians in the trenches over against us that if we had returned there again I believe nothing could have made us fight with each other. But of course that point was perceived and we were moved to another part of the line. What a criticism in a few words on the whole war. A hundred times this or something similar has happened and a hundred and a thousand times these enemies who have madly mutilated each other have a few minutes later been only too glad to dress each other's wounds and share the last contents of their water bottles. By all the heart-rending experiences which have now become so common and familiar to us by the fact that today there is hardly a family over the greater part of Europe that is not grieving bitterly over the loss of some dearest member of its circle. By the white faces of the women clad in black, whom one sees everywhere in the streets of Berlin and Brussels and Paris and Vienna of London and Milan and Belgrade and Petrograd. By the sufferings of famine-stricken Poland ravaged already three or four times in the last two years by opposing in alternate armies. By the awful sufferings of the six or seven million Jews of the Russian Pale hounded homeless in winter to and fro over the frozen earth, the old men and women and children perishing of exposure, fatigue and starvation. By the agony of Serbia and the despair of Belgium this must not be again. By the five or six million actual combatants already slain and the strange spectacle of millions of women, over half a million in Britain, more in France, multitudes in Germany and America, manufacturing man-destroying explosive shells in ceaseless stream by day and night, and it is estimated that on the average some fifty shells are expended for every one man slain. By the terrified faces as of drowning men, of those suffering in countless hospitals from shell-shock, by their trembling hands and limbs and horrible dreams at night pursued by an ever-living horror. By the curses of the tender-hearted friend who collects in no man's land between the lines the scattered fragments of his comrade's body, the dabs of flesh, the hand, the head he knows so well, a boot with a foot still in it, and puts them all together in a sack for burial. By the silent stupefaction of wives and mothers trying vainly to picture themselves a death which cannot be pictured, by the insane laughter of those who, having witnessed these things, can no longer weep. This must not be again. By the beach at Gallipoli, covered with the prostrate and writhing forms of men exhausted and emaciated with dysentery, who have crawled down from the hills only to lie out there in the terrible sun tormented with flies and thirst, or to shiver through the frosty night waiting for the tardy arrival of the hospital ship. By the hundreds of bodies thrown at the last into the sea at sunrise for their unceremonious end, and each poor body for all its loathsome state so loved, so loved by someone far away. By the dear Lord, who, in the beautiful legend, descended for three days into hell, that he might redeem mankind. But these have lived in an actual hell for weeks and months together. This must not be again. By the growth and expansion of science, God forgive the word, which will inevitably make each future war more devilish and inhuman than the last. By the cry of the black and colored peoples of the earth, who have for long enough already said how hard and cruel the faces of the white men seem to them, and who now think how black their souls are. By the hardness of heart, the insensitiveness of a certain kind, which during a century or more now has been bred by the institutions of commercialism. By the habitual betrayal through long periods of prosperity and peace, of men by their fellows, of the weak by the powerful, of the generous by the mean, of the simple and thoughtless by the crafty and selfish. By the huge dividends declared by armament firms, by the international agreements of these firms with one another, even to cousin their own respective governments. By the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent folk trampled underfoot in the ditch of competition, the mad race in which the devil takes the hindmost. By the treacherous internal warfare of the ordinary industrial life of every country, the secret betrayal and murder of bodies and souls for profit, at last written out in letters of blood and fire across the continents for all to behold, this must not be again. Let the allies by all means accuse Germany of world ambition and world plunder, and let the German people accuse their Prussian lords, but let every nation also search its own heart and accuse itself. For have not the lords of every nation set before themselves the same goal, the goal of world ambition and glory and empire and plunder? And have not the mass peoples of every nation stood meanly by and acclaimed the fraud, nor spoken out against it, silently consenting to these things in the prospect of some advantage also to themselves? Have not all the nations without exception acted meanly and dastardly towards the outlying black races, and even towards those more civilized peoples whom they thought weaker than themselves? And now in the stress of war are they not finding that their own rights and liberties are being slowly filched from them? Yes, that is the end of glory and of greed. But the day of glory is departed. The newspapers, it is true, still keep up the phrase. They talk of a battalion covering itself with glory. But the men themselves do not talk so. They know too well what it all means. They see no glory in covering themselves with the blood of their brothers of the opposing trenches, with whom a few moments before they were joining in songs and jokes. They only say, Now that we have begun we will see it through. But it must not be again. Never, I think, in all the history of the world has there been a thing so great in its way as the present British army and navy. This enormous force, raised, except for a small remnant, by voluntary enlistment from all classes of the nation, and inspired more by a general and protective sense towards the motherland than by anything else, has fulfilled what it considered to be its duty and its honor with a devotion and a heroism unsurpassed. It were impossible to stay and recount its many wonderful deeds. A young officer said to me one day, Horrible as the whole thing is, yet it almost seems worthwhile when you think of the splendid things done, and done too in such a simple matter of fact way. When you think of all the love and devotion poured out, and the lives our men have given, one for the sake of another. Great indeed is the spirit of such an army. Great is its magnanimity, its simplicity of mind, its unself-consciousness, its single concentration on its purpose. Yet perhaps the most surprising thing about our men is that they have done all this with so little hatred in their hearts for the enemy. Whatever the Germans may have felt, and whatever the French, the Britishers have just done their fighting in their own nonchalant way because they had to, with scarcely a shadow of malice or revenge, rather with that respect for a dowdy opponent who always distinguishes the true fighter. Think of that quaint story, Between the Lines by Boyd Cable, of the German abortion in their trenches, singing with pious enthusiasm the song of hate, probably commanded and compelled poor devils to sing it, and our men for days secretly listening, learning the words, practicing the tune on their muffled mouth organs, till having got it all complete, they one morning burst it forth in full chorus on the astonished two taunts, nor failing at the end to blaze out Goch Traffa Englund at the top of their voices as if they really meant it, and then subsided into a roar of laughter. They simply would not take the German hate seriously. Well, what can an enemy do with such an army? It would seem indeed to be invincible. The other surprising thing about this army is, but it is also in part true of the Russians and others, that the members of it not only bear so little malice in their heart of hearts against the enemy, but that all the time they, or nine-tenths of them, are giving their lifeblood for a country which in hardly any available or adequate sense can really be said to belong to them. Not one man of ours in ten, probably not one in a hundred, has any direct rights or interests in his native soil, and the motherland has too often, at any rate in the past, turned out a stepmother who disowned him later when crippled in her service. He is told that he is fighting for his country, but he finds that his real privilege is so die at the foot of a trespass board on some rich man's estate, singing bravely to the last that Britain's never, never shall be slaves. He is told that he is defending his hearth and his home, and to prove that this is so, he is sent out on a far campaign to further some dubious scheme in Mesopotamia. I think we cannot refuse to say that the good temper and the single-heartedness and the single-mindedness of the British soldier are beyond all praise. But in another way, how admirable and how great has the French soldier proved himself to be. The passion of patriotism, the sheer love of their own country, in the case of the French, more truly their own than in the case of the British, has swept through France in a wave of devotion which consumed in its flame, one may almost say, the energies and the treasures of every household. To protect their beautiful land, their divine mistress, from violation by the German hordes, was a thing for which all men, artists, literary men, and all, were glad to die. When at Moe, the French army, reorganized and reinforced, broke through the German center and fell upon von Kluck's left flank, his right being already threatened by the French Sixth Army, they were surely not men who fought, but spirits rather, many of them almost ghosts, white with the fatigues and privations of a long retreat. But to save their beloved Paris, they faced the enemy with a fury that nothing could resist. A miracle was wrought, talk of angels at Moe, it was devils at Moe, and Germany in that moment was defeated, even though it took two years more to make her acknowledge her defeat. Think of Lieutenant Pericard, who in a trench full of corpses at Bois Brûl, cried, suddenly entranced, in a loud voice, débu les morts, and in a moment, as it were, the souls of their dead comrades were around his men, inspiring them to victory. When again at Verdun, week after week and month after month, the French army endured almost hourly mass attacks of the enemy and battalions and the deluge of their shells, eight million shells that is estimated the Germans threw in ten weeks. It still, though heavily punished, stood solid and the whole of France stood solid behind it. France never doubted the conclusion, and the conclusion was never doubtful. We have spoken of glory, but the day of la gloire has departed. France herself has ceased to speak of it, and there can be no better proof than that of the change that has come over the minds of men. France has emerged from the war a changed nation. The people who in 1870 made ribald verses and sang cynical songs over the plight of their country are now no more, and France emerges serious, resolute to the great work which she has before her, of building the great first democratic state of Europe and becoming the cornerstone of the future European confederation. And what shall we say of the German army? In the moment, and merely for the sake of brevity, I leave the Belgians, Russians, Italians, and Serbians aside. When I think of the great German army now scattered over Europe, fighting along that immense line, including the Austrian portion, of some 1400 miles in extent. When I think of this on the whole so wonderfully good-hearted, genial, sociable people, these regiments of Westphalians, Fortenburgers, Saxons, Bavarians, Hungarians, these men and boys from the fields and farms of Pozen and Pomerania, the forests of Turingia, the vineyards of the Rhine or the vegetable gardens of the Palatinate, these students from the universities and scholars from the technical schools plunged in this insane war, fighting in very truth for they know not what, and pouring out their lifeblood like water in obedience to the long-prepared schemes of their rulers. I am seized with an immense pity. They have been told that they are fighting to save their fatherland. And as far as our argument is concerned, it does not matter how falsely they have been instructed, or what grain of actual truth there may be in the contention. The point is that the vast majority of them believe this to be true, and they too, dear children, are giving their lives for their hearths and homes. They too are leading this hateful existence in the trenches and mines, called to it by what seems to them good conscience, and carried onward in company with those they have left at home in the mad mill race of public opinion. However, we may blame the German High Command, and certainly we must blame those in power, who over such a long period deliberately prepared this war, and at the last so suddenly launched it upon Europe. However, we may blame the German High Command, and certainly we must blame those in power, who over such a long period deliberately prepared this war, and at the last so suddenly launched it upon Europe. However, we may blame the German High Command, we cannot refuse to acknowledge the really great qualities of their general army, its extraordinary courage and devotion, its versatility and resource. As to its good heartedness, that is proved by the endless stories of spontaneous friendliness, shown by the German troops, even to their enemies, the individual rapprochements on occasions, the sucker to the wounded, the Christmas songs and celebrations, and by the fact of advances of this kind so often coming first from the German side. As to its good sense, that element certainly has not been wanting. Among the stories above mentioned, as coming from the front, is one which I have every reason to believe is true. The Saxons one day in their trenches, thirty or forty yards away, put up a blackboard on which was written, the English are fools. The board was of course peppered with bullets and went down. Presently it reappeared with the French are fools written on it. Being duly peppered again, it went down and came up with the Russians are fools, same treatment. But when it, or a similar board, appeared for the fourth time low, the inscription was the Austrians are fools, and when it appeared for the fifth time the Germans are fools, and the sixth time we are all fools. I don't think there could be much better sense than that. And to think that the insane policy of a government or governments should bring about the wholesale slaughter of such men as all these that I have described. To think that the longer such a war goes on, the less heroic and generous it becomes, and the more dominated by hatred and revenge, by the wish to score a military victory or the desire to secure mere political and commercial advantages. To think that nations who consider themselves civilized should be thus acting, so contrary to the natural laws and instincts of humanity that often in order for a bayonet charge men must be primed with liquor to the verge of intoxication, we need not go further. Of the three great nations primarily involved, those indeed of which we can speak most confidently, knowing them best, it is intolerable to think that they should thus mutilate and destroy each other. All we can say is, never again must this thing happen. When one thinks of the whole dread coil and entanglement, and what it is for, the mind reels in despair. When one thinks of the marvelous scientific ingenuity and skill directed in a kind of diabolic concentration on the one purpose of slaughter, of the huge guns, the twelve point fives weighing forty tons apiece and boxed and rifled to the nicety of the thousandth part of an inch, I have watched them being made at Sheffield. Of the larger fifteen inch guns with range of thirteen or fourteen miles so accurate that the shells thrown at that distance will deviate hardly a couple of yards to the right hand or the left of their line of fire, and in the Jutland battle the firing opened at nearly eleven miles. Of the still larger guns even now being constructed, of the shells themselves varying from a few pounds to nearly a ton in weight, and so delicately fashioned that the moment of their explosion can be positively timed to the tenth part of a second. When one thinks of the ingenuity put into airplanes and airships, and almost entirely with a view to the destruction of life, of the automatic steering of submarine torpedoes by means of gyroscopes so that when deviated by any obstacle or accident from their set course they will actually return of themselves to that course again. Of the everlasting duel going on in any one country between armor plates and projectiles, but of course always between the armor plates of one firm and the projectiles of another, since obviously for any one firm to prove its own inferiority in either line would be bad business. Of the competition even now in progress between the Russian universities for the invention of a new explosive or a new gas more devastating than any hitherto produced. Of the weighty advisory committee of scientific experts sitting permanently in Britain for the discussion and handling of the technical problems of the war. When one thinks of what a paradise all this ingenuity, all this expenditure of labor and treasure might make of our mortal earth if it were only decently employed. That Great Britain alone has already spent on the war enough to provide every family in the whole kingdom with a comfortable cottage and an acre of land. When further one thinks of all the mass of human material there is such as we've already described of the very finest quality and fit to build the most splendid races and cities the sun ever shown upon and then that it is being used for these utterly senseless purposes. How heart-rending the waste and the folly. How disgusting the sin of those who are responsible. But today surely the armies themselves of these three countries are beginning to see through the illusions which have been dangled before them so long by those in power. The my country right or wrong kind of patriotism which has so often been evoked only in order to serve the plots of private schemers. They are surely beginning to see that the directing of state policy and foreign relations must no longer be left in the hands of a few high-born diplomats mostly ignorant of the actual modern world amid which they live but must be subject to the severest scrutiny and surveillance by the people at large and their representatives. They are beginning to see that if courage devotion to an idea love of the father or motherland fidelity of comrade to comrade efficiency daring in adventure exactness in organization and so forth are the qualities which in the past have made the profession of arms great and glorious it is these very qualities which will be demanded and evoked for all future time in the great free armies of industry for with the cessation of militarism as the leading principle of national life must inevitably come the liberation of industry else the last state of our societies will indeed be worse than the first truly there is nothing very exhilarating about industry as it has in modern times been conceived and one does not altogether wonder that all down the centuries the man with the sword has despised the man with the hoe since the latter has generally been little better than a slave but when once labor is freed or rather when once it frees itself from the thralldom of the old feudal system and finally from the fearful burden of modern capitalism when once it can lift its head and see the great constructive vision of the new society which awaits it then surely it will perceive that all the great qualities we have named as exhibited in the past in the old destructive warfare and now become the splendid heritage of the peoples of europe will be necessary and will have a field for their exercise in the beneficent constructive conquest of nature and the building up on earth of that great city of the sun which for so many ages has been the dream and inspiration of man and of the old mad warfare it will then say this odious and inhuman thing must never be again in conclusion and to look to the future i think we may see that the new conception of life will only come through the peeling off in the various nations of the old husks of the diplomatic military legal and commercial classes with their antiquated narrow-minded and profoundly irreligious and inhuman standards those husks which have so long restricted and strangulated the growing life within it will only come with the determination of the workers that is of everybody to produce things useful profitable and beautiful in free and rational cooperation things useful because deliberately made for use things profitable for all because not made for the gain of the few and things beautiful because of the joy and gladness wrought into their very production simultaneously with this peeling off of the old and disclosure of the new will of necessity appear indeed it is taking shape already the blossom of international solidarity and federation the common cause of humanity and of labor liberated over the world naturally such process will not mature all at once it may be that the four western nations england france italy and belgium combining with some of the neutral states will constitute the first european federation or at any rate the nucleus of a federation destined as it expands to absorb within its borders germany herself of course when she shall have taken on her true republican form and the other states induce succession such federation when firmly consolidated might it is not unlikely still retain for a long period a military system of some kind if only for its own protection against outlying and non-european dangers but that military system would be small and secondary it might reasonably be no more dominant or meddlesome than the military system of china has been during the last thousand years in comparison with the massive imperturbability of the great chinese empire itself meanwhile let us remember how important it is for the future of the world that each nation and people should be free to contribute its special quality and character to the whole nor be ridden over roughshod by others that each contribute in trade or otherwise its special gifts or facilities and that the internationalism which already rules in labor affairs and in commerce and science and fashion and finance and philanthropy and literature and art and music should at last be recognized in politics let us further remember how important it is that every man and woman should insist on the rights of personality to preserve sacred his or her most intimate sense of selfness and duty the very essence of freedom though i do not for instance think that a refusal to fight under any condition or circumstances can reasonably be maintained to its logical conclusion and though i certainly would not engage myself to refuse to fight in any and every case still i do honor and respect the genuine conscientious objectors of whom there are great numbers very sincerely some of them may be narrow-minded and fattest as conscience often is but let us remember that the great things of history have been initiated by such folk it was they who barred and broke the gladiatorial games at Rome it was they who steered the Mayflower across the Atlantic and started the great republic of the United States and it is they who are possibly sowing the seed of a great movement which will spread all over Europe and ultimately by opposing compulsory military service inaugurate a world era of peace for certainly without conscription the continental powers would never have become involved in the present war let us recognize the right and the duty of each man to ponder these world problems for himself to play his part and to make his own voice heard in the solution of them let us recognize the falsity of science divorced from the heart and begin today to create a political and economic and a material world which shall be the true and satisfying expression of the real human soul let us acknowledge even at the last that the war may have been unnecessary evil to show us by contrast the way of deliverance let us render homage to those who have given their lives in it let us vow that their great sacrifice shall not be in vain but shall consecrate for us a new purpose and a new ideal let us believe that love not hatred is the power by which in the end the world will be saved and let us pray that a heroism equal to that shown today in the cause of destruction may urge us in the future towards a great and glorious constructive era in social life and inspire us with a new hope out of purgatory to build a paradise in which the ugliness vulgarity sordidness and cruelty of the present scheme of things will be repeated August 1916 end of never again by Edward Carpenter read by Kalinda in Raymond, New Hampshire on January 1st, 2008