The Lincoln Special

Martyred president Abraham Lincoln's body lay in state in the East Room of the White House which was open to the public on Tuesday, April 18, 1865. On Wednesday, April 19, a funeral service was held and then the coffin was transported to the Capitol Rotunda, where a ceremonial burial service was held. The body again laid in state on Thursday, April 20 and early on the morning of Friday, April 21 a prayer service was held for the Lincoln cabinet. 

At 7 a.m. on Friday, April 21, 1865, the coffin was taken by honor guard to the funeral car and at 8 a.m. the train departed. At least 10,000 people witnessed the train's departure from Washington.

The funeral train consisted of nine cars, including a baggage and hearse car which contained the coffins of Lincoln and his son, William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln, who had died on Feb. 20, 1862 at the age of 11 of typhoid fever during Lincoln’s second year in office.

Lincoln's eldest son Robert Todd Lincoln rode the train to Baltimore and then returned to the White House to be with his mother and surviving brother, Tad. (Robert took a train to Springfield on May 1, 1865 to attend his father's final funeral.) Mary Todd Lincoln, who was too distraught to make the trip, didn't return to Illinois until May 22, 1865.

The train retraced most of the route president-elect Lincoln had traveled on his way to Washington and his first inauguration in 1861, and millions of Americans viewed the train along the route in the following cities:

• Washington, D.C.
• Baltimore, Maryland, April 21, 1865
• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, April 21, 1865
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 22, 1865
• New York City, April 24, 1865
• Albany, New York, April 25, 1865
• Buffalo, New York, April 27, 1865
• Cleveland, Ohio, April 28, 1865
• Columbus, Ohio, April 29, 1865
• Indianapolis, Indiana, April 30, 1865
• Michigan City, Indiana, May 1, 1865
• Chicago, Illinois, May 1, 1865
• Springfield, Illinois, May 3, 1865

The train passed 444 communities, 180 cities, and seven states. (Lincoln was not viewed in state in New Jersey).

However, assassin John Wilkes Booth was still on the run as of April 21, 1865.

Booth was not the hero he thought he would be. Newspapers called him an "accursed devil," "monster," "madman," and a "wretched fiend." Even in the South, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston called Booth's act "a disgrace to the age," and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee expressed regret at Lincoln's assassination.

Not all were grief-stricken, however. In New York City, a man was attacked by an enraged crowd when he shouted, "It served Old Abe right!" after hearing the news of Lincoln's death.

(Momma's great-great-grandfather, who had mustered out of the 58th OVI on Jan. 8, 1865, was back in Hocking County, Ohio when he heard of the assassination. When a local man cheered at the news, Momma's great-great-grandfather punched him in the face -- knocking him off the split-rail fence he was sitting upon and breaking his jaw.)

Booth would remain on the run until cornered, shot, and killed in a tobacco barn just south of Port Royal, Caroline County, Virginia on April 26, 1865.

Now he belongs to the ages

On the night Abraham Lincoln was shot, April 14, 1865, Associated Press correspondent Lawrence Gobright scrambled to report from the White House, the streets of the stricken capital, and even from the blood-stained box at Ford's Theatre, where, in his memoir he reports he was handed the assassin's gun and turned it over to authorities. Here is an edited version of his original AP dispatch:

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WASHINGTON, APRIL 14 - President Lincoln and wife visited Ford's Theatre this evening for the purpose of witnessing the performance of 'The (sic) American Cousin.' It was announced in the papers that Gen. Grant would also be present, but that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.

The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted with the scene before them. During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President's box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, 'Sic semper tyrannis,' and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the rear of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled.

The groans of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact that the President had been shot, when all present rose to their feet rushing towards the stage, many exclaiming, 'Hang him, hang him!' The excitement was of the wildest possible description...

There was a rush towards the President's box, when cries were heard - 'Stand back and give him air!' 'Has anyone stimulants?' On a hasty examination it was found that the President had been shot through the head above and back of the temporal bone, and that some of his brain was oozing out. He was removed to a private house opposite the theatre, and the Surgeon General of the Army and other surgeons were sent for to attend to his condition.

On an examination of the private box, blood was discovered on the back of the cushioned rocking chair on which the President had been sitting; also on the partition and on the floor. A common single-barrelled pocket pistol was found on the carpet.

A military guard was placed in front of the private residence to which the President had been conveyed. An immense crowd was in front of it, all deeply anxious to learn the condition of the President.

It had been previously announced that the wound was mortal, but all hoped otherwise. ...

At midnight the Cabinet, with Messrs. Sumner, Colfax and Farnsworth, Judge Curtis, Governor Oglesby, Gen. Meigs, Col. Hay, and a few personal friends, with Surgeon General Barnes and his immediate assistants, were around his bedside.

The President was in a state of syncope, totally insensible and breathing slowly. The blood oozed from the wound at the back of his head. The surgeons exhausted every effort of medical skill, but all hope was gone.

The parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for description....

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Lincoln's death at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865 was reported by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Friend or foe

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