The capture of Jefferson Davis dominates this Chicago Tribune front page, with the newspaper reveling in the humiliating details of how the Confederate president was caught fleeing "in female attire" through the woods of Georgia. The Tribune spares no mockery, calling Davis a "consummate scoundrel" and "shocking coward" who "took refuge in his wife's crinoline and surrendered without spilling a drop of his craven blood." Meanwhile, the conspiracy trial of Lincoln's assassins continues in Washington, with damaging testimony emerging against theater stagehand Spangler, who allegedly helped Booth escape and was heard telling someone "Hush! Don't say anything about it" after the murder. The paper also dedicates significant space to boasting about its own circulation numbers, claiming 47,000 daily readers and outselling all other Chicago papers combined.

This May 16, 1865 edition captures America in the immediate aftermath of Lincoln's assassination and the Confederacy's collapse. The nation was simultaneously seeking justice for Lincoln's murder while grappling with how to reunite a shattered country. Davis's ignominious capture in women's clothing provided Northern newspapers with a perfect symbol of the South's defeat, while the ongoing conspiracy trials kept the wound of Lincoln's death fresh in the public mind. The Tribune's aggressive self-promotion also reflects the fierce competition among newspapers to shape public opinion during this pivotal moment in American history.

• Gold closed at 131⅜ in New York yesterday — meaning it took $1.31 in paper money to buy $1 worth of gold, showing the wartime inflation
• The Chicago Tribune boasts that its Sunday edition announcing Davis's capture 'exceeded 18,000 copies, three fourths of which were sold in the city'
• A cotton boat called the Martin Weilt was robbed by just four guerillas of '$18,000 in greenbacks and $30,000 in boots, shoes, drygoods' while anchored at Gaines' Landing
• The paper plans to expand 'to a ten column sheet' at an additional cost of 'one hundred dollars per day' just for white paper
• In Detroit, William Holt was sentenced to life in prison 'in solitary confinement at hard work' for murdering Simeon B. Smith on March 18th

• The Tribune claims Massachusetts has 176 national banks while Pennsylvania has 182 — this was the era of wildcat banking before the Federal Reserve, when individual banks issued their own currency
• Jefferson Davis was educated 'at the public expense' at West Point, making his treason particularly galling to Northern readers who felt taxpayers had funded his military training
• The paper mentions Mr. Harlan entering duties as Secretary of the Interior — that's James Harlan, whose daughter Mary would later marry Robert Todd Lincoln
• Seven-thirty bonds worth 'a little over four millions' were issued — these were popular Civil War bonds paying 7.30% interest, helping fund the Union war effort
• The mention of a 'Mexican loan' reflects the complex situation where French forces under Maximilian occupied Mexico while America was distracted by civil war