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Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Yo, yo, yo, yo. Can we get Thanksgiving first? I'm hungry. What's up, y'all? It's Kadeen. And DeVal, the host of the Ellis Ever After podcast. This holiday season, tune out the noise and tune in to Ellis Ever After. On Ellis Ever After, we get real with our crew about family, love and marriage.

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And we continue with our American stories.

Up next, the short, happy life of Abraham Lincoln, his final days. By all accounts, Good Friday, just two days

before Easter on April 14, 1865, was the happiest day of President Abraham Lincoln's life.

It had most certainly been the happiest few weeks of his life.

According to James Swanson, author of the New York Times bestseller, Manhunt,

The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer.

Here is what Swanson wrote.

Lincoln had won the war.

Richmond fell on April 3rd.

Lee surrendered on April 9th. And Lincoln gave his final speech from the White House grounds the evening of April 11th. The night before the night Lincoln was shot

by his assassin, local newspapers reported it being the most beautiful night in the history of Washington

as the city celebrated the ending of the bloodiest and costliest war ever fought on American soil.

Fireworks, flares, and other sources of every imaginable variety illuminated the evening sky.

Again, James Swanson.

One of the papers said that the Capitol Dome was so beautiful that night

that it looked like a second moon had descended upon the earth

...