Abraham Lincoln Assassination The Independent Memorial Issue Published on the Day of Lincoln’s Burial 1865

Abraham Lincoln

Periodical

Tilton, Theodore, editor of The Independent, May 4, 1865, issued this Lincoln memorial coverage nineteen days after the president’s death and on the day of his burial in Springfield, Illinois. Tilton edited the New York newspaper from 1863 to 1870, during a period in which its longstanding antislavery editorial position placed emancipation and the consequences of the Civil War prominently before its readers. The front page preserves contemporary Northern responses to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination through both memorial verse and attention to his final public statements, appearing as the country confronted presidential succession, emancipation, and the political consequences of Union victory.

The Independent. New York. May 4, 1865. One page, 18 × 25 inches, twice folded. The front page includes the poem “President Lincoln Dead” and the prominent central headline “The Last Word and Deed of Abraham Lincoln.” Published less than three weeks after Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre on April 14 and died on April 15, the sheet places commemoration alongside an account of his final words and actions. Its May 4 publication date coincides with Lincoln’s burial in Springfield, giving the issue a particularly precise place within the national mourning that followed the assassination.

Lincoln’s death came only days after the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and before the Civil War had fully concluded, while the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery awaited ratification by the states. The Independent had advocated against slavery since its antebellum years, making its treatment of Lincoln’s death part of a newspaper history closely connected to abolitionist politics. Some spotting and tearing around the edges and at the creases, not affecting the text, with a small amount of paper loss from the upper right corner of the banner. Good condition overall, with the principal headlines and memorial content intact.

Item #12717

Price: $120.00