Source 1: Statement from the Governor of Kentucky
State of Kentucky
Executive Department
Frankfort, April 17, 1865
By the hand of an assassin a great grief has been brought upon our country. The Chief Magistrate of the Nation, the President of the United States, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, had fallen a victim to rebellious hate under the vengeful blow of an assassin. He has fallen at a time when his great qualities of humanity were so hopefully invoked for the healing of our National woes! With no stain of vindictive nature upon his soul - with a great heart of generous sympathies and broad humanities - his untimely fall has bowed a Nation's head in mourning.
Source 2: Order from a government official in San Francisco, California
GENERAL ORDERS,
No. 27.
Hdqrs. Department of the Pacific,
San Francisco, Cal., April 17, 1865.
It has come to the knowledge of the major-general commanding that there have been found within the department persons so utterly infamous as to exult over the assassination of the President. Such persons become virtually accessories after the fact, and will at once be arrested by any officer or provost-marshal or member of the police having knowledge of the case. Any paper so offending or expressing any sympathy in any way whatever with the act will be at once seized and suppressed.
By command of Major-General McDowell:
R. C. DRUM,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Source 3: Diary Excerpt from the diary of Mary. B. Chesnut, a Southern woman originally from South Carolina
Colonel Cadwallader Jones came with a despatch, a sealed secret despatch. It was for General Chesnut. I opened it. Lincoln, old Abe Lincoln, has been killed, murdered, and Seward wounded! Why? By whom? It is simply maddening, all this.
I sent off messenger after messenger for General Chesnut. I have not the faintest idea where he is, but I know this foul murder will bring upon us worse miseries. Mary Darby says, “But they murdered him themselves. No Confederates are in Washington.” “But if they see fit to accuse us of instigating it?” “Who murdered him? Who knows?” “See if they don’t take vengeance on us, now that we are ruined and can not repel them any longer.”
The death of Lincoln I call that a warning to tyrants. He will not be the last President put to death in the capital, though he is the first.
Source 4: A Union soldier’s reaction to Lincoln’s death
Father we have heard that President Lincoln has been killed by some traitor in Washington. If that is true I say that we ought to hang every damn rebel in the Southern Confederacy. I go in for killing every one and burn every traitor up north by a stake. I think instead of taken Lee's Army prisoners it would have been better to have hoisted a black flag and butchered every one but now they have paroled them and what are they doing. They are awaiting an opportunity to kill some of our best men. Last Saturday the devilish rebs tried to blow the arsenal at City point but we here caught it because they had done it and some that were paroled and on their way to Richmond tore up the railroad but they were caught and ought to hang and I say they ought to hang every one. I tell you it is a very hard blow for this nation to lose our President at this present time but I still hope it is not true but I fear it is for there are many traitors up North that are first the ones that would kill him. If it had not been for the traitors of the north this war would have ceased long ago but they are trying to destroy this government. They are aiding the South every day. Now, if true, they have killed President Lincoln to aid this rebellion.…