The autopsy completed, Dr. Charles D. Brown, of the Washington undertaking firm of Brown and Alexander began making the president presentable for viewing. The body was cleaned and embalmed and a fine, white cloth placed over it. Later that afternoon Stanton personally supervised the dressing of the body. He used the Brooks Brothers suit worn by Lincoln at his second inauguration ceremony. The suit Lincoln had worn to the theater would be returned to Mary Lincoln, who would give it to Alphonso Donn, the White House doorman. Donn, a favorite of young Tad Lincoln, had taken the boy to Grover’s Theatre on the night of April 14 to see the performance of Aladdin! Or His Wonderful Lamp. Tad, twelve years old, learned of his father’s assassination from the theater manager who had interrupted the play to announce to the audience that the president had been shot. Grief stricken, the young boy was taken back to the White House by Donn, who watched over him until Mary Lincoln returned.
The Monday morning papers carried a brief announcement concerning the arrangements for the funeral. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury George A. Harrington was entrusted with the overall responsibility for the funeral procedures.13 Benjamin B. French, Lincoln’s commissioner of buildings, was put in charge of the corpse. The funeral service was scheduled to begin at noon on Wednesday, April 19. The East Room of the White House was chosen as the site. After the funeral service a special procession would escort the body to the Capitol where it would lie in state. Major General Christopher Columbus Augur was placed in charge of the military procession that would accompany the body to the Capitol.
Under Harrington’s direction an army of carpenters invaded the East Room and began fashioning the “Temple of Death” that would hold the president’s coffin. The East Room ran the entire width of the building, a total of eighty feet. It was forty feet deep and its ceilings were twenty-two feet high. It was an impressive hall able to accommodate the six hundred guests who were invited to witness the service. The windows, cornices, mirrors and chandeliers were draped with the finest black cloth.
The catafalque measured sixteen feet along its side by ten feet across its end. At each corner was a seven-foot-tall post that supported a large arched canopy that reached a height of eleven feet. The canopy was so tall that the central chandelier that hung over the catafalque had to be temporarily removed to accommodate it. The entire structure was covered in a variety of fine silks, satins, and velvet of the deepest blacks and purest whites obtainable. Resting in this magnificent temple was the ornate coffin holding the body of the president. The base of the coffin rested four feet off the floor. Bordering all four sides of the central body of the catafalque was a ledge approximately two feet wide and elevated one foot from the floor. Those viewing the body would step up onto the ledge and slowly walk past the casket gazing directly into the face of the dead president.
On Monday evening the president’s pallbearers entered the second floor Guest Room where Lincoln’s body reposed. They had removed their shoes to muffle the tread of their steps as they walked past the room where the grieving widow lay in a fitful state.14 Assuming their positions on either side of the large casket, they carefully lifted it by its ornate silver handles and quietly carried it down the stairs into the East Room where it was placed on the waiting catafalque. All the while Mary Lincoln lay in a terrible state of anguish in her bedroom upstairs. She could not bear to face anyone outside of her immediate family and personal servants.
By early morning a line, seven abreast, stretched for over a mile down Pennsylvania Avenue. For the next several hours it continued to grow, the end no closer to the White House than it had been at dawn.15 At 9:30 A.M. the gates surrounding the White House lawn were thrown open and the great mass of humanity began walking slowly toward the south portico. The large number of soldiers lining the way to enforce order were not needed. The sanctity of the event was enough to ensure the civility of those who came to see their President one last time.
For eight hours the mass of people came and passed the ornate casket on either side. Two people glimpsed the president’s face every two seconds, sixty every minute, thirty-six hundred every hour until over twenty-five thousand persons had filed through the room, and still there were thousands waiting when the doors closed.16 They would have to wait until the following morning when the body would lie in state in the Capitol. From 5:30 P.M. until 7:30 P.M. a special delegation of four hundred people from Lincoln’s home state of Illinois were admitted into the White House for a private viewing.17 Upstairs, Mary Lincoln remained in seclusion unable to greet her husband’s old friends.
After the final visitor was ushered out of the East Room at 7:30, Harrington’s special crew of carpenters moved back into the great room. They began building a set of raised steps that ran the entire perimeter of the room, transforming the great hall into an amphitheater. In this way many more people would be able to witness the funeral ceremonies, which would take place the next day. Working through the night, the crew of carpenters toiled away, finally completing their task just in time for the invited guests to begin taking their places in prearranged sections that Harrington had marked off with white ribbons. The room would hold just over six hundred dignitaries and guests.
Seated before the catafalque at the foot of the coffin was Robert Lincoln along with two of Mary Lincoln’s sisters, Mrs. Elizabeth Todd Edwards and Mrs. Clark Smith. Elizabeth was Mary Lincoln’s eldest sister, who had become her surrogate mother after the death of their mother in 1825. Also seated with them were two of Mary Lincoln’s cousins who had remained faithful to the Union, Dr. Lyman Beecher Todd and General John B. Todd, and Lincoln’s two secretaries and close friends, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. At the head of the coffin, sitting all alone, was General Ulysses S. Grant.18
Wednesday dawned to the booming of cannonade that continued at fifteen-minute intervals throughout the day. By 10:00 A.M. the city had swelled with thousands of people who began lining the route from the White House to the Capitol. For the next three hours the people would wait in solemn quiet for the entourage to pass. Inside the White House preparations were complete for the funeral service to begin. Shortly after eleven o’clock various groups began arriving at the Treasury Department, which served as a staging area for the many dignitaries. Once again Assistant Secretary Harrington had arranged for an orderly process, ensuring the utmost efficiency and convenience for those who represented the nation and the family’s close friends. These included the various officers of the executive and judiciary branches of government, and members of the Senate and House of Representatives, governors of several states, prominent members of the military, the diplomatic corps, foreign representatives, and members of various committees and commissions. Also present were sixty clergymen from all parts of the country, who were given the honor of being the first group to enter the hall where the ceremonies would take place.
At noon President Johnson entered the room accompanied by his cabinet, except for William Seward who was still recovering from his injuries. At ten minutes past twelve the Reverend Phineas D. Gurley approached the catafalque, signaling the beginning of the service. Reverend Thomas Hall, pastor of Epiphany Episcopal Church in Washington, began the formal service by reading from the gospel of St. John, “I am the Resurrection and the Life saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”19
These words heralded the Episcopal burial service and were meant to comfort the bereaved with the belief that the soul of the deceased would live forever in the Kingdom of Heaven.20 It mattered not to many of those present that Abraham Lincoln was not a member of any religious denomination and had not been baptized into the Christian faith. The question of Lincoln’s religious beliefs was one that had been turned against him time and again by his enemies.21 Now, all that was past.
Timed to coincide with the service taking place in the White House, churches all across the United States were holding their own services on behalf of the president. Record n
umbers of people attempted to crowd into houses of worship. Many people had to be turned away. In several instances services had to be moved from church sanctuaries to larger municipal buildings to accommodate the large throngs.22 It was a remarkable tribute to one man.
Back at the White House the chaplain of the Senate, Edwin H. Gray, closed the religious ceremonies beseeching “the God of Justice” to bring treason to an end and the perpetrators of the horrible crime to final justice.23 With the obsequies ended, eight members of the Veteran Reserve Corps, all sergeants, walked from the north doorway where they had been waiting.24 The lid of the casket was gently closed and the eight sergeants took their places, four on a side. Clasping the handles they lifted the coffin to their shoulders and slowly carried it to the magnificent hearse waiting outside the north portico. The official service over, Abraham Lincoln was about to join the people who knew him best, loved him most, and had stood by him through good times and bad.
The coffin was placed on a hearse pulled by six grand white horses. On either side walked a specially chosen contingent of soldiers of the Veteran Reserve Corps whose duty it was to attend the coffin day and night. It would never be out of their sight or out of their reach.25 As the solemn procession began to move down the avenue toward the Capitol building, cannons increased their rhythmic booming to every sixty seconds.26 Known as “minute guns,” the firing at sixty-second intervals denoted distress according to military tradition.27 The military units that would form the procession accompanying the hearse had been waiting for several hours. Now each group fell into line at their designated place as the cortege approached the point where they had been stationed. The honor of leading the procession was given to a detachment of the Twenty-second Regiment, United States Colored Troops.28
The cortege that made its way to the Capitol was so great that it had to double back on itself as it marched up the avenue. Victor Searcher, in his book Farewell to Lincoln, described the procession:
Five thousand government workers, seventy abreast, stretched from curb to curb, a solid phalanx of marching men. Delegations from nearby cities; workers from the Navy Yard; local railroad employees and transportation people from docks and shipyards and from Alexandria and Baltimore; a fire hose company from Philadelphia of which the late President had been an honorary member; a host of fraternal lodges and societies; church bodies by the dozens; clergymen; school children and teachers; state and city officials; convalescents from military hospitals (the saddest sight in the march; some bandaged, some armless, others hobbling on crutches, all determined to pay their last respects); survivors of the War of 1812; Fenian brotherhoods and German singing societies; Italian, Swiss, French, and Polish clubs; saddle and harness makers; Seth Kinman, eccentric California hunter attired in moccasins and buckskin breeches; Chief Agonagwad of the Winnebago Indians; these and many, many more, evidenced the public urge to venerate the honored dead.29
The final leg of the march stretched down Pennsylvania Avenue for a mile and a half. All along the great avenue the buildings were draped in black. Windows were somberly decorated and displayed posters that proclaimed “Memento Mori.” The Capitol flew its flags at half-staff. Every window, every housetop, every available spot had been filled two hours before the funeral cortege was scheduled to begin.30
Reaching the east side of the Capitol building the honor guard removed the coffin from its platform and carried it up the broad stairway into the rotunda. Inside the building the coffin was set upon a great catafalque draped in black and bordered with silver fringe. Above the dais was the recently completed dome. Early in his administration Lincoln had been advised to suspend work on the dome because its great expense would only add an additional burden to the mounting debt caused by the war. It would be a symbol of government largess during a war of great sacrifice. But Lincoln’s vision went beyond the moment. “No,” he said. “Let the work go on. It will be a symbol to the people that we intend for the Union to go on.” Now the newly painted interior and its eight large murals depicting the nation’s stirring history were shrouded out of respect for the republic’s savior. “Abraham Lincoln lay in the ark of the Republic.”31
The next morning, at 8:00 A.M., the large doors were slowly swung open, and the people began to stream into the great hall. Throughout the day and into the night they came in columns of two. Reaching the catafalque the two lines split, each passing alongside the open coffin and merging on the far side. By the thousands they continued to arrive until it was time for Abraham Lincoln to leave.
The Baltimore and Ohio train depot was located three blocks from the Capitol. By exiting from the east side of the building the hearse and its entourage left the grounds and once again passed by tens of thousands of people who had remained along the streets waiting for still another glimpse of the fallen president. Order continued to be the rule of the day. While pickpockets were out in force, there seemed to be few incidents as if even this predatory segment showed a level of respect unprecedented in the capital city’s history. The short trip to the depot was conducted in complete silence. No bands or drums were heard. Only the rhythmic cadence of the soldiers’ feet broken by the clop of horses’ hooves. The hearse was attended at all times by the special sergeants who marched by its side. In front were four companies of the Veteran Reserve Corps. Immediately behind the hearse were General Grant and his staff along with other military dignitaries. These units were followed by government officials led by President Johnson, who rode in a carriage escorted by a military guard.
At the depot a special nine-car train waited, its boiler fired and ready to drive the large pistons that turned the massive wheels of the engine. Immediately in front of the engine was a second locomotive that would run in advance of the funeral train by ten minutes. This “pilot engine” would ensure a clear track for the president’s return home. It would precede the funeral train all the way to Springfield. The journey would cover 1,664 miles and require fourteen days, making stops in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, and finally, Springfield. The route would follow Lincoln’s inaugural trip to Washington in February 1861. Only Pittsburgh and Cincinnati would be bypassed, shortening the trip by two hundred miles.32
The first six cars were brand new passenger coaches provided by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Next came a baggage car. The eighth was the special presidential coach built in anticipation of carrying a victorious president around the reunited country during the four years of his second term. Now it would carry the body of the president on his first and last trip in the magnificent coach. The last car was the private coach of the officers of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad that had been offered to the President as his own private car during his first term in office. It would now carry the members of the Lincoln family and the guard of honor.
Route of the funeral train from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois. The train traveled 1,664 miles and made scheduled funeral stops in eleven cities.
The special coach carrying the president’s body had never been seen by the commander in chief while he was alive. In fact, the public had never seen it. It was completed only two months before Lincoln’s death. He had been invited to inspect the car for the first time and take a trial ride on Saturday, April 15.33 The events of Friday, April 14, caused a delay of six days.
The special car was forty-eight feet in length and eight and one half feet in width. The enclosed part of the car was forty-two feet long by eight feet wide. A corridor, or hallway, extended the entire length of the car along one wall. The car consisted of three compartments: a large stateroom, a drawing room, and a parlor or dining room. The drawing room contained a small washroom. The stateroom was designed as the president’s quarters and was located in the center of the car. It was considerably larger than the two end rooms. The stateroom doubled as the president’s office and bedroom. It contained four sofas, two of them seven and a half feet long with hinged backs th
at folded down making a double bed large enough to accommodate the president’s six foot, three and three-quarter inch frame. The dining room contained no facilities for storing or preparing food, or for storing linens, dishes, and silverware. A separate car was provided for preparing and serving meals. In a recent study for the City of Alexandria, Virginia, H. Robert Slusser described the interior: “Woodwork in the interior was black walnut and oak. The walls were upholstered from the seat rail to the headlining with rich corded crimson silk that had a tufted pattern. The headlining, also of crimson silk, was gathered in each panel to a rosette in the center. The clerestory above was painted zinc white and decorated with the coat of arms of the states. The curtains were of light green silk.”34
There were chandeliers of cut glass and wall-to-wall carpeting. Twelve windows ran along each side of the car and the spaces between the windows were decorated with oil paintings. In addition to the four sofas there were several reclining armchairs used in furnishing the car. Certainly a desk must have been provided for Lincoln’s use while traveling. Although the United States Military Rail Road made an inventory of all of the car’s furnishings when it was completed, the inventory list has never been located.
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