And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

Meacham harkens back to the prologue by opening this chapter with Lincoln’s second inaugural address. During the vice-presidential swearing in the new vice president, Andrew Johnson, was visibly drunk, which caused a stir. Lincoln tried to downplay the problem. Lincoln’s inaugural address is another one of his most famous speeches. During this address, he had a conciliatory tone. For Meacham, Lincoln was genuinely humble in his mission and “did not assume himself or his allies to be morally superior” (367). Lincoln expressed his wish for a well-restored Union with little grievance or animosity. Meacham lengthily draws significant connections between Lincoln’s rhetoric to the Gospels and the morally virtuous movements of the Union to the Christian faith. According to Meacham, Lincoln’s goal in this speech was of “summoning the nation to see itself as a player in a divinely charged—and ultimately merciful and just—creation” (369). Lincoln’s speech was about moral action. Mecham is clearly a great admirer of this, making no attempt at objectivity here: “Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address—to sneer at his sentiments was to sneer at the possibilities of democracy” (372).

Lincoln’s speech was atypically complex and theologically idiosyncratic. The audience was quiet throughout the oration, only erupting with thunderous applause at its conclusion. Meacham then turns again to the experiences of Frederick Douglass, who had another meeting with Lincoln. The day after, Lincoln attended a service in the House of Representatives led by Methodist preacher Matthew Simpson. Simpson’s sermon showed strong support for the Union cause and the view that it was a holy affair. Lincoln openly wept on the House floor, struck by the beauty of the words and the cheering of Congress.

On March 11, 1865, Lincoln fell ill. Meanwhile, shockingly, the Confederacy was enlisting enslaved people to fight for the Confederacy under the promise that they would subsequently be granted freedom. The situation was growing dire for the Confederacy. On March 23, Lincoln went to meet with leadership from the Union army in the field. The president spent a little over two weeks there. During that time, he met with prisoners of war, wounded Union soldiers, and witnessed burials. Meacham notes that this was a time when the war took on a new tenor for Lincoln. The Union would soon capture Richmond, Virginia.

Meacham tells the story of Lincoln commanding a Colonel to tend to the needs of three unkept kittens. On April 1, 1865, two weeks before his assassination, Lincoln was delivered recently captured Confederate flags. Meacham quotes Lincoln: “‘Here is something material—something I can see, feel, and understand,’ the president said as he unfurled them. ‘This means victory. This is victory’” (381).

On Sunday, April 2, 1865 the Union captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Meacham documents Southern outrage and incredulity. Many Southerners apparently believed that the impossible had happened and that God wouldn’t allow it. When Lincoln arrived in Richmond two days later, the Black population, writes Meacham, was ecstatic for their liberation. Lincoln eventually arrived at Jefferson Davis’s house. Davis had fled two days prior, and Lincoln sat down at his desk.

On April 9, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy bartered for terms of surrender with the Union’s General Grant. The Confederacy realized the war was lost and slavery was ended. There was a salutary and celebratory mood in Washington, DC. Lincoln tells Mary Todd not to think of the Confederates as enemies. According to Meacham, Lincoln did not want to punish the former Confederacy and worked on a plan for Reconstruction. On April 11, Lincoln gives a speech focusing on Reconstruction. Meacham includes W. E. B. Du Bois’s summarization of Lincoln’s central tenets of Reconstruction, which are ambitious and progressive. They include education for formerly enslaved people, fair pay for work regardless of race, Black suffrage, and more.

Lincoln wanted to start with a limited form of Black suffrage. He spoke of advancing the Black right to vote in steps and wanted to use Louisiana as a pilot case for the nation. Meacham ends the capture with various abolitionist and egalitarians speaking of their admiration and thankfulness for Lincoln. Then he notes that John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin, also heard the speech. He is supposed to have said, “That is the last speech he will ever make” (393).

Content Warning: This section focuses on a virulently racist era of American history.

Meacham opens the final chapter reflecting on Lincoln’s dismissive indifference to the possibility of assassination as expressed in 1863. However, Lincoln is also noted for saying that there is no way to prevent an assassin from achieving their ends: “If I wore a shirt of mail, and kept myself surrounded by a bodyguard, it would be all the same” (394). April 14, 1865 was the night of Lincoln’s assassination. It was Good Friday, as well as the fourth anniversary of the Fort Sumter incident, which had precipitated the Civil War. Lincoln had a serious headache that night. Mary Todd invited Grant to come with her and Lincoln to the theater that night, but Grant declined.

Meacham then details some of the life of Lincoln’s murderer, John Wilkes Booth. Booth was born and raised in Maryland, and was only 26 at the time of his infamous decision. He had long been a Confederate sympathizer, was present at the execution of John Brown (the militant abolitionist), and had previously expressed regret that he had not assassinated Lincoln on the day of the second inauguration. In August of 1864 he dreamt up a plan to kidnap Lincoln to exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war. Booth was a theater actor whom Lincoln had probably seen on stage before.

During the day, Lincoln held a long meeting on Reconstruction. This would include discussions, according to Meacham, on fairness, both in leniency (for the South) and enfranchisement (for Black Americans), and projects for the reconstruction of infrastructure projects in the South. Meanwhile, Booth worked with co-conspirators to “decapitate” the government. The president, the vice president, and the secretary of state were all to be killed. Seward would be shot but recover. Johnson would avoid his assassination plot. Only Lincoln would be killed.

That night, while at the theater watching Our American Cousin, Lincoln was shot. Booth slashed at Lincoln’s guard and fled, jumping from the theater box to the stage. Interrupting the play, he yelled the Latin words for “death to tyrants,” and continued fleeing. Mary Todd shrieked in horror, exclaiming, “My husband’s blood, my dear husband’s blood” (402). Hiding in the Virginia countryside while fleeing pursuit, Booth writes that he did not want to kill but that he felt he had essentially done the right thing and that Lincoln had destroyed the country.

Lincoln did not die immediately. He died later that night after moaning quietly and attempting to swallow a tablespoon of brandy. His son was in shock and denial. The next morning hundreds of Black individuals congregated in front of the White House to mourn the loss of Lincoln. That morning, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th president of the United States. Meacham notes that “The news [of Lincoln’s death] was refracted through the nation’s religious prism” (407). In some cases, Lincoln was idolized as a hero and martyr. In other case, he was vilified as a sinner and minion of evil. At the Presbyterian church Lincoln had attended, his seat was draped in black to mourn his absence.

Twelve days after the assassination, on April 26, the manhunt for Booth reached an end. Booth was discovered in a barn in Virginia. Whilst trapped therein, the barn was burnt to force Booth to come out alive, but he was shot and killed anyway. Meacham notes that, in July of 1865, four of Booth’s co-conspirators were convicted and executed.

Funeral services for Lincoln were held across the North as Lincoln’s body was transferred from Washington, DC to Springfield, Illinois. Consumed with grief, Mary Todd did not attend the funeral service. Meacham concludes with quotes from various influential figures, like Frederick Douglass, reflecting on the loss of Lincoln and his importance to the country.

Meacham follows this final chapter with a brief Epilogue. In this Meacham laments the awfulness of President Johnson’s tenure in office, a time when many of Lincoln’s plans were reversed or ignored. The post-war period saw the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and the attempt of many Southern states to make life difficult for Black Americans through, for instance, Jim Crow laws. Plessy v. Ferguson instituted the racists precedent of “separate but equal” that would define much of American apartheid through the mid-20th century. In short, the moral progress of the nation halted. Meacham wants his readers to understand that the death of Lincoln was an incredible tragedy for the future of the nation. He also wants to make sure, and his book reflects, that the reader knows that Lincoln did not accomplish his goals alone, nor was he an inhumanly perfect person. That said, Meacham writes, “Lincoln was essential, and his ultimate vision of the nation—that the country should be free of slavery—was informed by a moral understanding” (419).