At the moment of victory, the great emancipator had been shot dead by John Wilkes Booth—on Good Friday, no less. Three days later, Pruyn observed in Albany, “All buildings in the city almost without exception, are hanging emblems of mourning for the death of President Lincoln. Accounts from every part of the country show this to be the case everywhere. The grief seems to be universal & profound.”28 Lincoln’s death was one of an estimated 620,000 in the Civil War: 360,000 from the North and 260,000 from the South, not including civilian casualties.
