The fall of Richmond and removal of the Confederate capital to Danville filled all hearts with joy at the beginning of April, as it was realized that the end could be a matter of days only, and the tidings of’s surrender at Appomattox Court House was welcomed with jubilant demonstrations all over the county. Homes and public buildings were decorated with the national colours by day and illuminated at night, while bonfires lit the heavens, salutes of cannon and musketry rent the air, bands played, and exultant people ran to and fro, shaking each other by the hand in congratulation.
Into the midst of this universal rejoicing the news of Lincoln’s assassination came like a bolt from the blue, bringing revulsion of unspeakable terror to all. As after the taking of Fort Sumter, so again the fatal message reached Perry County by boat at an early hour upon a Sunday April 16, the morning of Easter Day. But not even the spiritual joy of the Risen Lord could comfort the first outbursts of indignant grief over the martyred chief of a mighty nation, nor soften the furious passion felt toward his murderer.
By the following day mourning draperies had supplanted the tri-coloured bunting, and a public mass meeting was held pursuant to call, at Cannelton, in the Court House solemnly festooned with black. Joshua B. Huckeby presided as chairman, Gabriel Schmuck acting as secretary, and the object of the meeting was impressively stated by Judge Charles H. Mason, with a sadness befitting the unprecedented occasion. A committee was appointed to draw up resolutions, during their absence the large audience listening to brief remarks from Edwin R. Hatfield, Walter Bynum and G. B. T. Carr. The series of resolutions, eight in number, were then read by Judge Mason, eloquently voicing the sorrow of Perry County over the dastardly crime, at the same time expressing a fixed determination to spare no effort nor sacrifice toward vindicating the supremacy of the government, reuniting the Union, and accomplishing complete restoration of national authority.
After unanimous adoption of the resolutions by a rising vote, Major de la Hunt was called upon and spoke, with deep emotion, of how “all over the land from where ‘the mournful and misty Atlantic’ moans under the beetling cliffs of New England, to where the sunbeams and zephyrs of California’s golden shores slightingly whisper their story to the great Pacific” the people were bewildered with sorrow. “The lover of his country,” he said, “has lost the noblest of presidents; the vanquished, the most benevolent of conquerors.”
A further brief address was made by Maj or Nicholas L. Lightfoot, of Hancock County, Kentucky, who had spoken on the preceding day at the Court House in his own home town of Hawesville, where all other plans for Easter Day had been entirely set aside, flags draped in mourning, and bells tolled incessantly as for a funeral, In the morning, the Rev. Samuel C. Helm had preached an appropriate discourse at the Methodist Church South, and in the afternoon a becoming funeral sermon was delivered by the Rev. James H. Brown, in the Baptist Church, the entire community, whether Union or Confederate, acting and feeling truly alive to the great and unexpected calamity which had bereft Kentucky of a native son no less than a national executive.
That undaunted loyalty which has been a characteristic of the Switzer race from the days of Walter Fuerst and Herrman asserting itself in Arnold Winkelried, and again in the deathless courage of ill-starred Marie Antoinette’s Garde Suisse, immortalized by Thorwaldsen in his Lion of Lucerne shone with its olden luster under Indiana skies, and the valiant colonists of Tell City who went forth in ’61 to fight for the altars and fires of their infant community, mourned with profoundest sorrow the loss of their beloved president in ’65. Nowhere in Perry County was deeper sentiment manifested than in the memorial exercises at Tell City, and meetings of similar nature were held in Troy, Rome, Leopold and other places. On the day of the funeral St. Luke’s Church, Cannelton, was opened for solemn service which a large congregation attended. The Episcopal bu rial office was read by the rector, the Rev. William Louis Githens, and the Methodist pastor, the Rev. J. B. Likely, delivered an address which brought tears into many eyes unaccustomed to weep.