Lincoln in the Bardo

Jack Manders writes in Oak Hill Cemetery’s watchman’s logbook about seeing President Lincoln arrive at the cemetery gate at one in the morning. Manders explains to Tom—an unidentified character—that he had no choice but to let Lincoln into the graveyard, though “protocol states” that nobody should be allowed in after the gate has been locked. Nonetheless, Manders was tired from a long day playing with his three children, so he wasn’t in the mood to protest Lincoln’s wishes. “Did not question Pres as to what he was doing here or something like that only when our eyes met he gave me such a frank friendly somewhat pained look as if to say well friend this is rather odd I know it but with eyes so needful I could not refuse him as his boy is just today interred,” Manders writes.

Manders remarks that Lincoln arrived at the cemetery alone on a small horse, upon which his feet dangled almost to the ground. The President, he writes, asked for the key to the Carroll crypt, which Manders gave him without question. “I handed it over and watched him wander off across grounds wishing I’d had courtesy at least to offer him loan of lamp which he did not have one but went forth into that stygian dark like pilgrim going forward into a trackless desert Tom it was awful sad,” he writes. Now, hours later, the President hasn’t returned. “Where is he Tom,” Manders wonders. “Lost is he lost. Lost in there or fell and broke something lying there crying out. Just now stepped out listened no cries. Where is he at this time do not know Tom. Maybe out there in woods somewhere recovering from visit indulging in solitary cry?”