The Last Eleven Days of Abraham Lincoln

I just finished reading "Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. I have read many books about the assassination of President Lincoln. This  one approaches the tragedy from the last few weeks of Lincoln's life. Beginning with final days of the siege of Petersburg to the surrender at Appomattox and the final weeks of the conspiracy leading up to his tragic death. I highly recommend it.

The siege at Petersburg lasted nine and a half months. 70,000 casualties, the suffering of civilians, thousands of U. S. Colored Troops fighting for the freedom of their race, and the decline of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of No. Virginia all describe the Siege of Petersburg. It was here Gen. Ulysses S. Grant cut off all of Petersburg's supply lines ensuring the fall of Richmond on April 3, 1865.


Six days later, Lee surrendered.

Eleven days later, Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 at 10:15 p.m. by John Wilkes Booth, but he did not pass away into death until the early morning of Saturday, April 15.

The following, from pages 229-230 of "Killing Lincoln" , reveals how fragile life is. For all that anyone may accomplish in life, death is only heartbeat away. This is very poetic, descriptive prose of the soul  and death of Abraham Lincoln.

"The human brain is the most complex structure in all the world’s biology, a humming and whirring center of thought, speech, motor, movement, memory and thousands of other minute functions. It is protected on the outside by the skull and then by a layer of connective tissues membranes that form a barrier between the hard bone of the cranium and the gelatinous, soft tissue of the brain itself. Lincoln’s brain, in which a Nelaton’s probe (a long porcelain, pencil-like instrument) is now being inserted in hopes of finding a bullet, contains vivid memories of a youth spent on the wild American frontier. This brain dazzled with clarity and brilliance during great political debates. It struggled with war and the politics of being president, then devised and executed solutions to the epic problems of the times. It imagined stirring speeches that knit the country together, then made sure that the words, when spoken, were uttered with exactly the right cadence, enunciation, and pitch. It guided those long slender fingers as they signed the Emancipation Proclamation, giving four million slaves their freedom. In side his brain, Lincoln imagined the notion of "One country, one destiny." And this brain is also the reservoir of Lincoln’s nightmares – particularly the one in which, just two weeks earlier, he envisioned his own assassination.

Now, thanks to a single round metal ball no bigger than a marble, Lincoln’s brain is finished. He is brain-dead."