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A Library of Congress Primary Source Starter

Lincoln’s Assassination from a Friend’s Diary

Quick and easy activity ideas to start using Library of Congress primary sources in the classroom

Teacher Instructions

GoalAnalyze a friend’s personal response to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Background“O, fatal day. O, noble victim. Treason has done its worst. The President has been assassinated.” This hand-written diary entry, dated half past 10 o’clock PM, April 14, 1865, concludes simply, “I have just come from near the scene, it is too True.”

The writer, Horatio Nelson Taft, is mourning the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. For Taft, though, Lincoln was more than just a political leader—he was a family friend. An examiner for the U.S. Patent Office, Taft lived in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. His younger sons played regularly with the Lincoln boys, Willie and Tad. His older son, Charles, was one of the doctors who attended the wounded president from Ford’s Theater to the nearby boarding house where Lincoln ultimately died.

Taft’s diaries chronicle many events in the war-torn nation’s capital, but the relationship between the Taft and Lincoln families provides a unique lens on the events. And Taft’s raw, unfiltered emotional response to the assassination raises many questions about the ways in which personal perspectives contribute to the record of history. Subsequent entries add context, with Taft telling additional details of Lincoln’s death as he learns them. ActivitiesTeachers can have students:• Read entries from the days immediately following the assassination and construct a timeline of events• Identify clues to Taft’s emotional state as he wrote the diary• Compare Taft’s response to other accounts of the assassination, such as a newspaper of the time or a

textbook, and analyze the point of view in each.You can use the Library’s primary source analysis tool and teacher guides to help students analyze Taft’s diary in further depth.

For more of Taft’s descriptions of life in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War:Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Tafthttp://memory.loc.gov/ammem/tafthtml/tafthome.html

For more classroom materials and other teacher resources from the Library of Congress, visit loc.gov/teachers

Primary SourceThe Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 3, January 1, 1864-May 30, 1865Horatio Nelson Taft. January 1864-May 1865. From Library of Congress: Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft.http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtaft:@field(DOCID+@lit(mtaftmtaft3div51))

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loc.gov/teachers

LOC.gov/teachers