Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1865-06-14
EULoGY ON PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
DELIVERED BY LIEUT.. COL. H. c. BENTON.
On the occasion of the National Fast, at Hvde
Park, June l, 1865.

When the end of our great struggle
was at hand, when that proud city whose
battlements had so long resisted our ut
most efforts and before which we had ex.
pended such treasures of blood, had yield
ed; when the most skillful leader and
the best appointed army of the enemy
had surrendered, there was gladness.
Then did it, indeed, seem that the winter
of our discomfort was giving place to JOY
full spring Hopes 50 long deferred that
the heart had grown sick, now changed to
glad fruition, and our many anxious cares
were forgotten in the glories Of victory.
We were joyful people.
But in the midst of our gladncss came
tidings that changed all our joy into
mourning. He most loved and most hon.
ored through the whole land was dying
That President whose clear head and hon
est heart had chiefly wrought our great de-
liverance was murdered by an assassin.
AS the day before had been joyous, so was
this gloomy. No other tidings were ever
so sad. Not any of the great misfortunes
of the war, not the fall of Sumpter nor
the disaster at Bull Run, not the retreat on
the Peninsula nor the defeat at Frede-
ricksburgh, not the disappointment at
Chancellorville, the invasion of Pennsyl-
vania nor the forty thousand brave men
dead and wounded in the Wilderness and
Spottsylvania, not any nor all of these
chilled the hearts of us all like the story
of the murder Of that one great and good
man.
The voices that the day before had rails.
: ed the glad shouts of victory were hushed
! in sorrow. The bells that had rung in
joyful peals, now tollcd in funcreal time
The wall of bereaved people was heard
over the whole land.
And when his body was borne to its
y last resting place in his western home
even as they bore Jacob from the land o.
= Egypt to Canaan, whole nation thronget
to do honor to his memory. His politica
! opponents forgot their hostility and shec
: tears over his coffin. The rich and grea
> We'd with each other in splendid testmo
l. malls of sorrow, while the poor and lowly
wept as for their father. Wounded sol
s diers hobbled on crutches to pay thei
last tokens of respect, and mourning wild
. ows wove crowns of flowers to lay on hi
:. coffin. The world has never before seel
}; such procession.
Not such was the passage of that othe
President. During all the time our deaf
n President held rule, another man claime'
r to divide the sway and to be likewise Pres
i ident of goodly portion of this fai
t. land. Not many days from the tim
when the funeral train started t
J. convey the body of him whom we love-
# to its last home, this other President start
I. ed from his capital towards his wester
i. home. His was not funeral train, bu
}, it was scarcely less sad. No crowd
thronged around him to take a last lovin
e farewell. Disappointed, broken down
v an outcast and fugitive, his were n
1t pleasing thoughts as he wended hi
). dreary way.
n AS iu his course there came continual
lie in his sight fruits of his own ambition
- the desolation and ruin he had brough
upon the gallant people that had honore
1t him, as he thought of his disappointe
N ambition, the empire he had sought bu
- - could never attain, who would have ez
m changed places with him for all his empt
i, honors? And when after fatiguing march
r es, wearsome days, and anxious nights
lie pursued as a felon through all his deVlou
courses he is like the hunted stag brougf
T. to bay, aud, when, unlike the stag he ha
not the courage to meet his fate with dil
r. r. nifty, when. soldier, he is found in vi
70 manly disguise. who has drained th
N IN cup of his humiliation to its bittere'
" dregs. and, captive, he lays him dow
to brood over his disappointments and b
" n. shamc,-what would he not give to
laid in the coffin of our dead Presidel
= and be borne to bis grave full Of hon'
amid the thronging testimonials Of
o. o. grateful people, rather than endure Il
IT'S living death to which he is subjected ?
II Il Ia t.I