150 Years Ago Today, We Mourned as a Nation for the First Time [PHOTOS]
150 years ago today, a man from the midwest who was working to heal the nation, became the first sitting president to be assassinated. The killing of Abraham Lincoln started an outpouring from all over the country.
I've visited Springfield, Illinois where Abraham Lincoln is buried, the Lincoln Memorial and Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., where Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth. The visit to the theater literally made me feel queasy. President Lincoln is credited with keeping the nation together in the midst of the civil war. He also started the process of abolishing slavery by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, on September 22, 1862. (below)
The next week, Lincoln was visiting troops on the battlefield.
March 4, 1865 the President made his second inaugural speech.
Just over five weeks later, Lincoln was shot in the back at Ford's Theater and his funeral train would make a 13-day 1,600 mile journey from Washington to Springfield, Illinois.
In 1914, construction on the Lincoln Memorial was started. Pictured below around 1920, the carving of the Lincoln statue took four years to complete. The finished memorial (at bottom) opened in 1922. It's a beautiful and bigger-than-life tribute to a man whose life was cut far too short.