Sunday, March 27, 2016

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Saturday, May 27, 1865

It is cloudy and still raining some. I received a pass and with six other boys of our company went to the city to spend the day. We went through some of the public buildings, the capital, patent office and the treasury building; they are fine buildings, all being built of marble. We viewed the White House from the street, and went through the Smithsonian Park, which is very beautiful indeed.

The city is full of soldiers viewing the sights. But there is one thing which seems to cast a gloom over the city, and that is, that our beloved President Lincoln is not in the White House, that he was not here to greet us when we passed down Pennsylvania avenue, and that he had to be taken off by the hand of an assassin just when the war was over.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 277-8

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