April 14th - a day like any other day - a beautiful spring day. A day with a promise of new beginnings and new life ahead. Destruction and loss had been left behind and a new future waited ahead for a nation and for immigrants planing on a new life and in a moment..disaster. This is the story of two separate April the 14ths - one in 1865 and the other in 1912. 

April 14, 1865 -

Good Friday. What a day it must have been. The Civil War was over and President Abraham Lincoln was beginning his second term. After four long years it was time to build a nation back together.  He had freed the slaves and had kept the Union together but now seemed to be the hardest part - to forge the nation back together again as a whole and to not hold ill will towards the South.   One can only imagine how it must have been to live daily with the stress he was gong through regarding the war and the loss of life throughout the nation and also bearing the loss of his own child at a time of great sadness.  Here he had to take care of his wife and family and also maintain the preservation of the Union.  As the day dawned the story is told that the President seemed in a much better spirit than he had been in years...he conducted his Cabinet meetings and then went on a carriage wife with wife, Mary.  I wish I could have known the talk the two had...did they plan for their future after Washington, did they share memories of the past few years, did they small talk?  It has been said that the President had dreamed that he would not survive his second term and we know Mary was afraid he would be killed, did that cross his mind as they planned for their evening at Ford's Theater? We know how it ended...John Wilkes Booth ended the life of the President on the evening of April 14th sparking a conspiracy to last through the ages.  The rebuilding of the nation began a different path and a life was cut short..

April 14, 1912 -

The greatest ocean liner was sailing from England to New York. On board were various classes of people - the wealthy and top of society - famous names as Astor filled the manifests.  Third class passengers mostly Irish immigrants also came over - yearning for a new life in America. As it was in 1865 the promise of a new life and a new future was in the hearts and minds of the Titanic passengers.  Another beautiful day to awake to in the middle of the ocean on a path to a bright future.  What a fasciniating group of people it must have been  although much different in social statuses.  A promise for a new life ahead tragically cut short as the ship hit an iceberg and sank, taking with it the dreams of many families and people.

In both cases, April 14th was a brand new day, full of hope and promises for the future and on both days - the world was changed.   As lives ended during the morning hours of April 15th it changed the world and people whose lives were touched by each of the tragedies.  

I always hold April 14th and 15th a little more special in my life as an avid lover and reader of all things Abraham Lincoln and the Titanic.  Although vastly different circumstances, both tragedies marked a moment when the world came together as one in mourning of what might have been.