These words concerning the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were penned a couple of years after the event took place, for an 1867 history on the American Civil War. The author referred to a popular allegation that was a common among Northerners at the time:
"It was alleged, and with some reason, that the plot was known to, and approved by, the Rebel government in Richmond, and that [Jefferson] Davis and some of his cabinet, and their agents in Canada, were accomplices in the crime. Whether this be so or not, certain it is that propositions to assassinate President Lincoln and other prominent members of the government were received and entertained by Davis and his associates, and were not rejected at once, and with the scorn which became civilized and Christian men."
- from Amazon: Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder
More on the assassination can be read here...
"The pistol ball entered the back of the President's head and penetrated nearly through the head. The wound is mortal. The President has been insensible ever since it was inflicted and is now dying... A common single-barred pocket pistol was found on the carpet." "Examine Lincoln's prose and the fruitage of his reading will appear... The easy quickening of Lincoln's mind came from books like Aesop's Fables, Robinson Caruso and Pilgrim's Progress... To a man who knew intimately so many creatures, both wild and domestic, the fables seemed natural." Jesse W. Weik (1857 - 1930) was one of the earliest of Lincoln scholars. "In preparation for "Herndon and Weik's Life of Lincoln " (1889), he visited every place in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky where Abraham Lincoln lived; examined the records of all the lawsuits in which Lincoln was engaged, and talked to everyone he could find who knew Lincoln. For thirty years and more he has made a special study of the sources, written and unwritten, of the personal history of President Lincoln".
President Abraham Lincoln told many parables during the Civil War; he told this one to General A.J. Cresswell on the last day of his life. To read the story behind Lincoln's beard, click here. The attached article is a segment from a longer one about the history of Brooks Brothers and it confirms that the Great Emancipator was one of their customers, as were the Union Army Generals Grant, Sherman and Hooker.
Click here if you would like to read the entire article about the first 132 years of Brooks Brothers. | 
