It’s been 150 years, and we still remember our Abraham   Lincoln—A tragic end to a noble man’s existence.   The entire nation mourned.  After the assassination of Lincoln, his body was carried by an honor guard to the White House on  Saturday, April 15th.  He lay in state in the East Room of the White House which was open to the public on Tuesday, April 18th.  On the first day of Lincoln’s last journey, April 19, 1865, the line of soldiers, officials, and citizens following the hearse from the White House to the Capitol stretched well over a mile.  One reporter would say it was “the grandest procession ever seen on this continent.”  During the weeks after Lincoln’s death, as his funeral train journeyed from Washington D.C. back to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, perhaps as many as a million Americans filed past the open coffin for one last glimpse at their fallen leader.   It was 7 A.M. on Friday, April 21, 1865, and the coffin containing the body of Abraham Lincoln, a man larger than life, was taken to the depot.  Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant was present as the train departed Washington, D.C. at approximately 8 A.M..  The train retraced the route Lincoln had traveled to Washington as the  president-elect on his way to his first inauguration.  From Washington to Springfield was approximately 1,654 miles, and  historians have called the event “The Greatest Funeral in the   History of the United States.”  The funeral train consisted of nine cars, including a baggage and hearse car.  Eight of the cars were provided by the chief railways over which the remains were transported, the ninth was the President’s car, which had been built for use by the President and other officials.  The car was draped in mourning and contained the coffins of President Abraham Lincoln and his son, William Wallace “Willie” Lincoln. 

Read the article in its entirety in the September 2015 Bevil newsletter, which accompanies the cover.