As an act of revenge against a man whom he hated, he
accomplished nothing, for he did not inflict upon Mr. Lincoln so much as
one minute of mental distress or physical suffering. To the South he
brought no good, and at least ran the risk of inflicting upon it much
evil, since he aroused a vindictive temper among persons who had the
power to carry vindictiveness into effect; and he slew the only sincere
and powerful friend whom the Southerners had among their conquerors. He
passed a miserable existence for eleven days after the assassination,
moving from one hiding-place to another, crippled and suffering, finding
concealment difficult and escape impossible. Moreover, he had the
intense mortification to find himself regarded with execration rather
than admiration, loathed as a murderer instead of admired as a hero, and
charged with having wrought irreparable hurt to those whom he had
foolishly fancied that he was going to serve conspicuously. It was a
curious and significant fact that there was among the people of the
North a considerable body of persons who, though undoubtedly as shocked
as was every one else at the method by which the President had been
eliminated from the political situation, were yet well pleased to see
Andrew Johnson come into power;[84] and these persons were the very ones
who had been heretofore most extreme in their hostility to slavery, most
implacable towards the people of the Confederacy.
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