This national calamity must postpone our Lowell ceremonies, which at present I regard impossible. I pray you at once order the postponement. I suggest the 17th of June as a proper occasion.The ceremonies were postponed as requested. The Adjutant-General was directed to issue an order for the firing of minute guns on Boston Common, and at Cambridge, near the State Arsenal, on the day of the funeral, which order was successfully obeyed. The Legislature of Massachusetts passed resolutions expressing the sorrow felt by our people on the death of the President, a copy of which Governor Andrew was requested to forward to Mrs. Lincoln, which he did on the 26th of April, in a letter of which the following is a copy:—
This letter, with the resolutions inclosed, was sent to Hon. F. P. Blair, to be by him delivered to Mrs. Lincoln; ‘for,’ as he says, ‘it seems more in earnest and more genuine for such a delivery to be made by the hand of a friend than by the course of the mails.’ Among the memorials of affection and regard which Governor Andrew received during the war from friends in the army and elsewhere, who appreciated and loved him, was the original copy of General Lee's farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia, after his surrender to General Grant, which was
