NEW YORK WEEKLY DAY-BOOK CAUCASIAN, April 22, 1865

• Abraham Lincoln assassination (1st report)
• Ford's Theater - John Wilkes Booth
• In a pro-white publication

A decidedly racist newspaper which began well before the Civil War & lasted a few years after. As such their reporting on war events provides a contrasting perspective beyond most other Northern newspapers.
With this issue, all factious leanings and biased commentary is set aside to report the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The entire front page reports--with considerable detail--the tragedy of the era with first column heads: "A Terrible Crime!" "ASSASSINATION of PRESIDENT LINCOLN" "Attempted Assassination of Secretary Seward" "Full Details of the Shocking Events" "Inauguration of Andrew Johnson As President".
The reporting is considerable, an advantage of a weekly newspaper, consuming the front page with carry-over reports inside.
Inside has: "Sketch of John Wilkes Booth" "The Death of The President" being a lengthy editorial; "Deliberate Preparations For the Murder" "The Funeral Solemnities" "Inauguration of President Johnson" and more as seen in the photos.
Interesting to have these reports in this pro-South newspaper.
Eight pages, very nice condition.

Background: This April 22, 1865 edition of the New York Weekly Day-Book (publishing under the title The Caucasian) is a remarkably rare and significant historical artifact because it captures an extreme editorial anomaly: a notoriously virulent, pro-slavery Northern "Copperhead" newspaper setting aside its standard hostile bias to report on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Prior to April 1865, the paper routinely vilified Lincoln and championed Southern rights; however, this eight-page issue devotes its entire front page to detailed, heavily headlined coverage ("A Terrible Crime!", "ASSASSINATION of PRESIDENT LINCOLN", "Attempted Assassination of Secretary Seward") alongside extensive interior reporting that includes an early biographical sketch of assassin John Wilkes Booth, accounts of the deliberate preparations for the murder, the funeral solemnities, and Andrew Johnson’s inauguration. Because weekly newspapers possessed the lead time to aggregate comprehensive dispatches rather than initial fragmented wires, this issue offers an extraordinarily thorough primary-source narrative of the tragedy, making its preservation in very nice condition a scarce and compelling testament to the moment national shock temporarily muted the 19th-century American press's most radical partisan divides.