‘At breakfast this morning B A Hill, in talking of the events of the past few days [Abraham Lincoln’s assassination], said, in a very excited manner, that there was now but one course to pursue - that the entire South must be depopulated, and repeopled with another race, and that all the “Copperheads” among us must be dragged from their houses and disposed of. I have heard similar sentiments expressed by others, and if this shall become the prevailing doctrine terrible scenes are before us. The mob will reign supreme, and slaughter and fire desolate the land till anarchy is succeeded by despotism.’ This is from the diaries of Orville Hickman Browning - born 220 years ago today - an attorney and a close political associate of Lincoln.
In 1836 he married Eliza Caldwell; the marriage produced no surviving children, though the Brownings raised foster children and were prominent figures in Quincy society. His legal reputation led to election to the Illinois House of Representatives and then the State Senate, where he became a close political ally and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. By the 1850s he was among the most influential antislavery lawyers in Illinois and a key organiser of the emerging Republican Party in the state.
During the Civil War he served as Senator for Illinois (1861-1863) and in 1861 acted as minister to Russia, helping to secure diplomatic goodwill at a critical moment for the Union. In 1866 Andrew Johnson appointed him Secretary of the Interior, where he steered Reconstruction-era land, Native American, and western development policies through a fractious Congress. He also served briefly as Acting Attorney General in 1868, giving him influence in two major federal departments. In later life he was widely respected as an elder statesman of Illinois, a careful constitutional thinker, and one of Lincoln’s most trusted political confidants. He died on 10 August 1881 in Quincy. Illinois. See Wikipedia and Mr Lincoln’s White House for more biographical information.
Browning kept an extensive personal diary spanning much of his public life, particularly from the 1850s through the end of his life in 1881. Because he was deeply involved in the political currents of his era, his diary entries provide unique firsthand observations of Illinois and national politics during the antebellum decades, the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination, and the fraught Reconstruction period. Extracts from his journals have been used by scholars to understand daily reactions to major events - for example, entries on his experience of Lincoln’s assassination and its aftermath were later published in historical collections.
Interest in Browning’s manuscripts grew in the early 20th century as historians sought primary sources on Abraham Lincoln and mid-19th-century American politics. In 1923 Theodore Calvin Pease delivered a lecture before the Chicago Historical Society titled The Diary of Orville H. Browning, a New Source for Lincoln’s Presidency, highlighting the value of Browning’s diaries for Lincoln scholarship.
Following this advocacy, the Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library published his diary in two volumes - The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning - between 1925 and 1933, edited with introduction and notes by Pease and James G. Randall. The first volume covers approximately 1850-1864, and the second covers 1865-1881, each with annotations and bibliographical references. Subsequent editions and reading editions - including modern unannotated trade paperback reprints - have made Browning’s diary more accessible to general readers and Civil War historians.
Here are several extracts, including those for the day of Lincoln’s election as president, and the day of his assassination (see also Hunted like a dog).
7 November 1860
‘We were beaten in this City & County yesterday, but the pain of our defeat was greatly mitigated by the news of this evening, giving assurance that we had carried the state, and that Lincoln was elected President.
Attended Court to day and argued motion for new trial in the case of People vs Boon. New trial granted Cloudy, misty day.’
14 April 1865
‘At War Department and got passes for some refugee Germans to return to their families in Richmond. At Treasury Depart: about Singletons business At 3 P. M. went with Senator Stewart of Nevada to see the President, but he was done receiving for the day, and we did not send in our cards. At 7 P. M. we went back to the Presidents. I went into his room and sat there till 8 O’clock waiting for him, but he did not come. He was going to the Theatre and was not up at his room after dinner.
After 11 at night, and after Mrs Browning and myself had retired, but were not yet asleep, the bell rang - I went to the front window and looked out, and found Judge Watts there who made the astounding announcement that the President, Secretary Seward and Mr F W Seward had just been assassinated - the former at Ford’s Theatre - the two latter at their residence - the Secretary being in bed from the effects of recent injuries sustained by being thrown from his carriage. We were overwhelmed with horror at this shocking event.
I had been to both the Presidents and Mr Sewards since night, only a few hours before, and it was hard to realize that such fearful tragedies had been realized. The Marshal W H Lamon has several times within the last two months told me that he believed the President would be assassinated, but I had no fear whatever that such an event would occur. I thought his life of very great importance to the rebels - He was disposed to be very lenient and merciful to them and to smooth the way for their return to their allegiance. I thought him the best friend they had among those in authority and that they were beginning to appreciate that fact, and that his life would be dear to them as to us. It seemed to me that the people in rebellion had many reasons for desiring the continuance of his life - none to wish his death - and I did not think any of the disaffected among us could be insane and fiendish enough to perpetrate the deed. It is one of the most stupendous crimes that has ever been committed, and I pray God that all the guilty parties may be ferreted out and brought to condign punishment. I am at a loss as to the class of persons who instigated the crime - whether it was the rebel leaders - the copperheads among ourselves in conjunction with foreign emissaries, gold speculators, or the friends and accomplices of Bealle who was recently hung at New York. I am inclined to the latter opinion. But however this may be of the fearful fact of the Presidents murder there is no doubt; and the consequences may be exceedingly disastrous to the Country. It must, necessarily, greatly inflame and exasperate the minds of the people, and, I fear lead to attempts at summary vengeance upon those among us who have been suspected of sympathy with the rebellion, and hostility to our government. This would be followed by anarchy and the wildest scenes of confusion and bloodshed, ending in military Despotism. My only hope for the salvation of the Country is in reverence for and obedience to the law, and the constituted authorities, and every good man should inculcate this both by precept and example. And now, more than ever, wisdom, calmness & discretion are needful. Now more than ever we should take counsel from reason - not passion. This is the hour of our greatest peril. I have never feared what the rebels could do to us - I do fear what we may do to ourselves.
I was very hopeful that the war was substantially over, and that the measures of the administration would soon restore unity and prosperity to our unhappy Country; but this atrocity may blast all my hopes. It may inspire the rebels with some new, insane hope, and greatly protract the struggle. But whether this or not it will certainly retard the pacification of the Country, and the restoration of fraternal relations.
To my apprehension it is the heaviest calamity that could have befallen the country. But we are in God’s hands. His dealings are mysterious - his ways past finding out, but we must trust to his wisdom & goodness.
This is good Friday, and the anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter’
15 April 1865
‘A dismal day. After breakfast I went to the Whitehouse. Soon after the body of the President was brought in, he having died at 7.20 this morning. The corpse was laid in the room on the North side in the second story, opposite Mrs Lincoln’s room. His eyes were both very much protruded - the right one most - and very black and puffy underneath. No other disfiguration. The skull was opened under the supervision of Surgeon Genl Barnes & Dr Stone, and the ball removed. It was a Derringer ball, much flattened on both sides. It entered at the base of the brain an inch and a half or two inches back of the left ear, and ranging upward and transversely in the direction of the right eye, lodged in the brain about two thirds of the way from where it entered to the front. He never had a moments consciousness after he was shot. Mr Stanton told me that he was at home last night - Quite a number of the Military had assembled at his house, and he had been making them a speech, which probably protected him, if designs were entertained against him. He said that a young man ran from the Theatre to his house to inform him of the assassination of the President, and that he arrived he found a man hiding in the shadow of a tree in front of the house, the crowd having dispersed a short time before. When the young man arrived this other man left the tree, ran across the street and disappeared.’
16 April 1865
‘At breakfast this morning B A Hill, in talking of the events of the past few days, said, in a very excited manner, that there was now but one course to pursue - that the entire South must be depopulated, and repeopled with another race, and that all the “Copperheads” among us must be dragged from their houses and disposed of. I have heard similar sentiments expressed by others, and if this shall become the prevailing doctrine terrible scenes are before us. The mob will reign supreme, and slaughter and fire desolate the land till anarchy is succeeded by despotism It matters not that the man who uttered the sentiment is a coward - It still alarms me, for cowards are fermenters and leaders of mobs. At Church the Rev Mr Chester delivered an inflammatory stump speech - the first one I ever heard in an old school Presbyterian Church. He thought the President might have been removed because he was too lenient, and trusted that we now had an avenger who would execute wrath.’
