I walked the width of the great plaza and turned down the Avenue. As far as I could see the people were massed—one block, two blocks, three blocks, four—and from every direction you could see men and women hurrying to fall in line. I had had no idea of joining that line, of passing through that rotunda. My only notion was to take a glimpse of the crowd. But to have gone on, to have been no part of something which came upon me as tremendous in its feeling and meaning, would have been a withdrawal from my kind of which I think I should always have been ashamed. And so I fell in.
The mass moved slowly, but very steadily. The one strongest impression was of its quietness. Nobody talked. Nobody seemed to want to talk. If a question was asked, the reply was low. We moved on block after block—turned the corner—now we faced the Capitol—amazingly beautiful, proud and strong in the dim light. I never had so deep a feeling that it was something that belonged to me, guarded me, meant something to me, than as I moved slowly with that great mass toward the bier. The sentinels stood rigid, as solemn and as quiet as the people. The only murmur that one heard was now and then a low singing, “Nearer My God to Thee.” How it began, who suggested it, I do not know; but through all that slow walk, the only thing that I heard was women’s voices, now behind me, now before me, humming that air. It took a full three-quarters of an hour to reach the door and pass into the rotunda. It took strong self-control not to kneel by the bier. They told me that there were women, bereft mothers, to whom the appeal was too much—mothers of missing boys. This might have been hers. Could she pass? The guards lifted them very gently, and in quiet the great crowd moved forward. I fancy there were thousands that passed that place that day that will have always before their eyes that great dim circle with bank upon bank of flowers, from all over the earth—flowers from kings and queens and governments, from great leaders of armies, from those who labor, from the mothers of men, and hundreds upon hundreds from those who went out with the dead but came back. The only sound that came to us as we passed was the clear voice of a boy, one of a group, once soldiers. They came with a wreath. They carried a flag. The leader was saying his farewell to their buddy.