John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

“ [114] nobis sed pro patria.” Ellsworth fell forward in death without even a groan; but the murder did not go unavenged, for in that same instant his assassin also expired by the double effect of a musket-charge and a bayonet-thrust from Ellsworth's foremost companion.

If there remained a possibility of a sensational climax of deeper import than Sumter and Baltimore, it was furnished by this hideous tragedy at Alexandria. The North had supposed that the first exhausted the cold-blooded recklessness of conspiracy. The second manifested the sudden fury of sectional excitement. But this last opened an unlooked-for depth of individual hatred, into which the political animosities of years between the North and South had finally ripened after four months of uninterrupted manipulation by the conspiracy. Under this unwelcome revelation there was no longer room to doubt the existence of widely pervading elements of an enduring civil war. Ellsworth was buried with imposing honors, from the famous East Room of the Executive Mansion, the President, Cabinet, and high officers of Government attending as mourners; and as the telegraph filled the newspapers with details of the sad event, every household in the North felt as if the dark shadow of a funeral had lowered over its own hearthstone.