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On April 14, 1865, President and Mrs. Lincoln attended the evening performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington. A few minutes after 10:00PM, angered by the defeat of the Confederacy and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to emancipated slaves, American stage actor John Wilkes Booth entered the State Box where Lincoln was seated and shot him in the back of the head. Lincoln died the next morning.

According to Lincoln's long-time friend Ward Hill Lamon, no song "touched his great heart as did the song of Twenty Years Ago . Many a time, in the old days of our familiar friendship on the Illinois circuit and often at the White House when he and I were alone, have I seen him in tears while I was rendering, in my poor way, that homely melody."

Journalist and frequent visitor to the White House, Noah Brooks, wrote, "I remember that, one night at the White House, when a few ladies visiting the family were singing at the piano-forte, he asked for a little song in which the writer describes his sensations when revisiting the scenes of his boyhood, dwelling mournfully on the vanished joys and the delightful associations of forty years ago (sic). It is not likely that there was anything in Lincoln's lost youth that he would wish to recall; but there was a certain melancholy and half-morbid strain in that song which struck a responsive chord in his heart. The lines sunk into his memory, and I remember that he quoted them, as if to himself, long afterwards."

On May 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest in Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived twenty years earlier.

lyrics

I've wandered to the village, Tom
I've sat beneath the tree
Upon the schoolhouse playing ground
Which sheltered you and me
But none were there to greet me, Tom
And few were left to know
That played with us upon the grass
Some twenty years ago

The grass is just as green, dear Tom
Barefooted boys at play
Were sporting just as we did then
With spirits just as gay
But the Master sleeps upon the hill
Which coated, o'er with snow
Afforded us a sliding place
Just twenty years ago

The river's running just as still
The willows on its side
Are larger than they were, dear Tom
The stream appears less wide
The grapevine swing is ruined now
Where once we played the beau
And swung our sweethearts "pretty girls"
Just twenty years ago

The spring that bubbled 'neath the hill
Close by the spreading beech
Is very low; 'twas once so high
That we could almost reach
And kneeling down to get a drink
Dear Tom, I started so
To see how much that I was changed
Since twenty years ago

Near by the spring, upon an elm
You know I cut your name
Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom
And you did mine the same
Some heartless wretch had peeled the bark
'Twas dying sure but slow
Just as that one, whose name was cut
Died twenty years ago

My lids have long been dry, dear Tom
But tears came in my eyes
I thought of her I loved so well
Those early-broken ties
I visited the old churchyard
And took some flowers to strew
Upon the graves of those we loved
Some twenty years ago

Some now are in the churchyard laid
Some sleep beneath the sea
But few are left of our old class
Excepting you and me
And when our time shall come, dear Tom
And we are called to go
I hope they'll lay us where we played
Just twenty years ago

credits

from Ballad of America Volume 3: Songs in the Life of Abraham Lincoln, released February 12, 2009

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Matthew Sabatella and the Rambling String Band Florida

With vocals, guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and bass fiddle, Matthew Sabatella and the Rambling String Band bring to life music that is woven into the fabric of the United States: traditional folk songs, fiddle tunes, old-time country, bluegrass, Appalachian music, ragtime, blues, spirituals, railroad and cowboy songs, work songs, sea shanties, reels, breakdowns, ballads, and more. ... more

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