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gathered to see the distinguished party safely off. After the latter had entered the car the people closed about it until the President appeared on the rear platform.
He stood for a moment as if to suppress evidences of his emotion, and removing his hat made the following brief but dignified and touching address;1 “Friends: No one who has never been placed in a like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting.
For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands; Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed.
Here all my children were born; and here one of them lies buried.
To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind.
To-day I leave you. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington.
Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me I shall not fail — I shall succeed.
Let us all pray that ”
1 I was not present when Mr. Lincoln delivered his farewell at the depot at Springfield, and never heard what he said. I have adopted the version of his speech as published in our papers. There has been some controversy over the exact language he used on that occasion, and Mr. Nicolay has recently published the speech from what he says is the original Ms., partly in his own and partly in the handwriting of Mr. Lincoln. Substantially, however, it is like the speech as reproduced here from the Springfield paper.
The Herndon's Lincoln Pubishing Company, Springfield, Ill., 1888.
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