Description:

Abraham Lincoln
Owego, NY, April 26, 1865; May 4, 1865
"Dreadful News" Letter on Lincoln's Assassination to Professor at Naval Academy from His Sister
ALS

[LINCOLN ASSASSINATION.] Katharine Bayard Johnson, Autograph Letters Signed, to William Woolsey Johnson, April 26, May 4, 1865, Owego, NY. 10 p., 5" x 8". Includes one envelope, postmarked in Owego. Expected folds; light toning; very good.

In the first of these letters, Katharine Bayard Johnson discusses the "dreadful news" of Lincoln's assassination and wonders how Andrew Jackson will perform as president. She wrote the two letters to her brother William W. Johnson, who was a new professor of mathematics at the United States Naval Academy in Newport, Rhode Island. He went on to teach at the Naval Academy for a total of forty-six years.

Excerpt
[April 26, 1865:]
"I met Ham Jones who told me of the dreadful news about Lincoln I felt it was the death-blow of our liberties I am afraid they will visit the deed of a crazy actor on all the south & all the Copperheads of the North. There seems no data as to how Pres Andy will conduct & I supposed we must wait to see. Yesterday, funeral services were held in our church. Our church was put into mourning for Bp Delaney and had come extra festoons of black for the President. They sang very well and we had a beautiful service."

Historical Background
News of Abraham Lincoln's assassination spread by telegraph throughout the nation on Saturday, April 15, often with inaccurate details. Coming only days after the news of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, the first assassination of an American president struck the people of the nation with particular force.

Newspapers reassured the public that the nation was safe, that Johnson had been inaugurated as president, and that all resources were devoted to finding the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. This broadside brings the immediacy of these transformational events to life.

The U.S. Naval Academy was established in 1845 at Annapolis, Maryland. It was temporarily relocated during the Civil War to Newport, Rhode Island. On May 8, 1861, the USS Constitution, also known as "Old Ironsides," and the steamer Baltic arrived in Newport with the officers, professors, and some 130 midshipmen of the Academy. The Academy returned to Annapolis in 1865.

William Woolsey Johnson (1841-1927) was born in New York and graduated from Yale College in 1862. His maternal uncle, Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801-1889), was president of Yale at the time. Johnson's first assignment was at the United States Nautical Almanac Office at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He taught mathematics at the U.S. Naval Academy in Newport, Rhode Island (1864-1865), the Naval Academy when it returned to Annapolis, Maryland (1865-1870), Kenyon College (1870-1872), St. John's College, Annapolis (1872-1881), and the U.S. Naval Academy again (1881-1921). In 1869, he married Susannah Leverett Batcheller (1850-1916), with whom he had at least two children. In 1913, he was commissioned in the Navy and retired with the rank of commodore. He also authored many books on mathematics.

Katharine Bayard Johnson (1844-1906) was born in New York, the daughter of Charles F. Johnson (1805-1882) and Sarah Dwight Woolsey Johnson (1806-1870). She was the younger sister of William Woolsey Johnson. In 1865 and 1870, she still lived with her parents in Tioga, New York. She applied for a passport in 1872. She never married and died in Paris in January 1906.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 5" x 8"
  • Medium: ALS

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