Columbus Ohio Remembers Abraham Lincoln

(Author's Note: For the past 15 days, I have been relating the story of the tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and his Funeral Train. On April 29, 1865 the city of Columbus, Ohio held the 8th funeral for President Lincoln as his remains lay in state in the rotunda of the Ohio Statehouse. Today is the 145th anniversary of the funeral, the story of which may be found in my previous post.)

Columbus, Ohio was honored to be one of the thirteen cities to host the remains of Abraham Lincoln when he lay in state in the rotunda of the Ohio Statehouse building on April 29, 1865. Roughly 50,000 mourners paid their respects in seven hours that day 145 years ago today.

Beginning in 2001, an annual re-enactment of Lincoln's repose in the Ohio Capitol has been held on April 29th, the anniversary of the funeral. The re-enactment is held to commemorate the historic event as well as to honor the memory of the nation's 16th president.

I travelled today to Columbus, about two hours from my home, so I could attend the re-enactment for the first time. The photos accompanying this post are ones I took myself at the ceremony.

During the actual funeral held in 1865, Union soldiers stood guard at the casket, one at each end of the catafalque. Every 30 minutes that day, a changing of the guard took place. Today's ceremony featured re-enactors from the 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery A, who recreated the scene. Like the real soldiers from long ago, the re-enactors stood at attention for 30 minutes, at which time a changing of the guard ceremony occurred for the next shift.

Today's event at the Statehouse also featured a female re-enactor who represented the thousands of mourners. Dressed completely in black, with a veil obscuring her face, the woman carried a sprig of lilacs, the flowers so closely and memorably associated with Lincoln's death. The photo below shows the woman mourner along with the soldiers at attention:


Mr. Gary Kearsey presented an informative lecture today about the Lincoln funeral obsequies in Columbus and about the Lincoln Funeral Train in general. It was heartening to see that close to 100 people attended the lecture, including many children. There were many questions from the young people especially, which shows to me that interest in Abraham Lincoln is not waning.

Lincoln visited the Statehouse a total of three times, including his funeral. In September 1859, a then mostly unknown Lincoln spoke to just fifty people at the Statehouse about the issue of slavery. A beautiful plaque marks the location in the building where Lincoln stood that day. The picture below shows the plaque.


Lincoln's next visit to Columbus and the Statehouse took place during his inaugural trip from Springfield to Washington as President-Elect. He addressed a joint session of the Ohio General Assembly (as the Ohio legislature is called) on February 13, 1861, discussing in generalities the policies he would pursue as president. After speaking to the Assembly, Lincoln later addressed members of the general public. It was there on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse that he found out that he had been officially elected President by the electoral college.

Abraham Lincoln's presence is felt throughout the Ohio Statehouse. Elsewhere in the rotunda is a magnificent sculpture which commemorates Lincoln and the Union victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1863. When he heard the news that Vicksburg had finally fallen, thus opening the Mississippi River to Union control, Lincoln wrote one of his most beautiful sentences in his announcement to the nation: "The Father Of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

Today that sculpture was draped in mourning as can be seen in the photo below:

I found today's commemoration of Abraham Lincoln to be very interesting and quite moving. His funeral on April 29, 1865 is an important part of local, state, and national history. As a native Ohioan, I am proud that my state capital chooses to honor Mr. Lincoln in such a memorable way. I thank everyone involved for a wonderful experience.

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Columbus Ohio Bids Lincoln Farewell

(Author's Note: This post is the latest in a series I began on April 14, 2010 documenting the assassination and death of Abraham Lincoln. Thirteen cities held massive funerals for the fallen president, 145 years ago this year. Today's post describes the events in the state capital of Ohio, the city of Columbus, on April 29, 1865.)

It was still raining in Ohio as The Lincoln Funeral Train made its way from the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland to the center of the state in Columbus. Determined mourners still lined the tracks along the way, bearing torches in spite of the sometimes heavy showers. Some had travelled many miles simply to catch a quick glimpse of the train carrying the dead president.

The train arrived in Columbus at 7:30 a.m. on April 29, 1865, 145 years ago today. Pulling into the depot which was on that city's High Street, people swarmed around the Funeral Car and other cars so much that authorities finally had to clear the people away for their own protection in case the train would lurch.

Lincoln's coffin was removed and yet another funeral procession began. By then the rain had stopped and the sun shone beautifully for the ceremonies. It wound from High Street to Broad and through the business district as it made its way to the Ohio State House, where Lincoln would lay in state. The image above is a print of how the procession appeared that morning.

Columbus, like Cleveland, had chosen a pagoda-like structure for Lincoln's remains. The seventeen-foot long structure carrying the president's coffin was draped in black, and had a somewhat redundant "LINCOLN" along the sides in silver, as if the people wouldn't know who was being honored. The hearse was pulled by white horses and followed by soldiers, bands, and the ordinary people as in the other cities. Below is a real photo image of the the hearse being pulled by the matched horses.



People who attended the services and viewing of Lincoln that day remembered it as a funeral of flowers. They were everywhere. People threw roses in the street. Injured soldiers threw hundreds of lilac blooms on the streets so the hearse's wheels would crush them, causing the strong smell to waft along the route. The official mourners who had accompanied the train since it departed Washington were sickeningly reminded of the scent of lilacs in Washington. Through the remainder of their lives, they would relive the horrors of the assassination and funerals whenever they smelled that sweet fragrance. The memories of lilacs and Lincoln's various funerals were so powerful that the poet Walt Whitman wrote "When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd" to commemorate the assassination.

Unlike the other cities, Columbus chose a simple catafalque for placing the coffin upon. It had no columns and didn't tower over the setting at the rotunda. It was covered with still more flowers and moss in order to cushion the remains. The photo below is of the catafalque as it appeared that day.



People filed past, as many as possible, until the official funeral was held late in the afternoon. By the start of the official services, approximately 50,000 people had walked past the casket.

The funeral ended late in the afternoon that day and Lincoln's casket was returned to the Funeral Train by 6:00 p.m. The next stop was Indianapolis as Indiana prepared to sadly say goodbye to the man who spent his formative years living in the southern part of that state.

The flowers which adorned the platform on which Lincoln's casket rested were auctioned to the public at the request of the organization which had donated them, the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, The proceeds were given to the Ladies Aid Society of Columbus, who used the money for relief for families of soldiers and sailors. Some good had come out of the tragedy at last.

That's not the end of the story in Columbus. So many thousands of visitors had not had a chance to pay their respects that the catafalque was replenished with flowers, so people could still see how things appeared in those brief hours the president lay in state. The Ohio capitol rotunda remained thus for visitors until May 4, 1865, when Springfield, Illinois held the final funeral for Abraham Lincoln.

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Cleveland's Unique Funeral For Lincoln

(Author's Note: This year marks the 145th anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, on April 15, 1865. Thirteen American cities staged funerals for Mr. Lincoln on his way from Washington to his final destination of Springfield. Cleveland, Ohio got its chance to honor the remains of the martyred president 145 years ago today, April 28, 1865. Here is the story of that day)

The Lincoln Funeral Train and its precious cargo left Buffalo at approximately 10:00 p.m. on April 27, 1865 and arrived in Cleveland, Ohio at 7:00 a.m. on Friday April 28., where the next funeral for the late president was to be held. A thirty-six gun salute (one for every state in the Union at that time, including the "Confederate" states) fired as the train arrived. It had been just one week since the train had departed Washington, D.C. Funerals had since then been held in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, and Buffalo.

Along the way that night, the train passed through towns bordering Lake Erie. The town of Erie, Pennsylvania had been reached at 3:00 a.m. April 28, where city leaders had been mislead by the train officials into believing that no stops would be made between Buffalo and Cleveland. Erie officials hurriedly arranged a few dignitaries and a small torchlight gathering was held in honor of Lincoln, but it was far less special than they would have preferred.

Lincoln's Funeral Train arrived at the Euclid Avenue Station at 79th Street, the same station Lincoln as president-elect had come to on his triumphal inaugural trip barely four years earlier. In that visit to Cleveland, Lincoln had spoken to people huddled in a steady rain on that February 1860 day, telling them that the disaffected people of the South were creating an "artificial" crisis, that slavery was still protected. In essence, Lincoln said that day, the government had done nothing to interfere with their rights to hold slaves there those rights already existed.

Now Abraham Lincoln had returned in death. His coffin was slowly removed from the Funeral Car as a crowd gathered in silence to witness history being made, albeit tragic history. A woman dressed in horizontal stripes of red, white, and blue held an American flag trimmed in black. Bells rang as in the other cities, bands played mournful hymns, and tears flowed freely.

After a short time at the station, the funeral procession got under way. It was raining that late April day in Cleveland, which is no surprise to those of us who live in northern Ohio. The rain matched the mood of the mourners, for it seemed that Heaven itself was crying. A positive about the rain was that it held down the dust in the streets during the procession, and the crowds could see the hearse, soldiers, and other marchers quite clearly. In the previous cities, the processions had been greatly obscured by huge clouds of dust.

The remains of Abraham Lincoln were taken to Cleveland's Public Square (still in existence) where placed under a structure which strangely resembled a Chinese pagoda. It was an odd choice for a man who had never left the United States, but somehow, it worked. The image I've provided at the beginning of the post shows the pagoda and the team of horses still hitched to the hearse, containing the coffin. Below is another image of the pagoda-like funeral structure.



Cleveland had thought of something no other city along the funeral route had considered. By holding Lincoln's viewing outdoors, there was essentially no limit to the number of people who could file past the coffin. All the other cities had selected the largest possible building to hold Lincoln, which restricted the mourners in those locations, leaving thousands disappointed. Cleveland , on the other hand, saw 180 people a minute file past in double lines on each side of the coffin, or 10,000 per hour. In the fifteen hours Cleveland was allotted, an incredible 150,000 people were able to pay their last respects. By contrast, New York City could achieve only 80 persons a minute.

The steady rain turned into torrential downpours as the massive crowds waited in line. As in Buffalo, and unlike Philadelphia, the crowds were orderly and mannerly, and no major incidents were reported. Viewing continued until 11:00 p.m. that night, when the remains of Abraham Lincoln were once again place on the waiting Funeral Train.

There was still another night run ahead, with the next destination Columbus, the state capital of Ohio. The funeral in that city will be the subject of my next post.

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Robert Redford's Film "The Conspirator"

I'm briefly interrupting the series about the Lincoln assassination and ensuing Funeral Train journey to inform my readers about a story in the April 28, 2010 edition of USA Today. The "Life" section of the paper features a "first look" at Robert Redford's upcoming film about Mary Surratt, convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Surratt was the first woman ever executed by the U.S. Government, hanged for her crime nearly 145 years ago on July 7, 1865.

Surratt ran a boarding house in Washington, D.C. in which her son John lived along with her daughter Anna, as well as various boarders. The home was the scene of numerous meetings of Lincoln conspirators, including Booth, David Herold, Lewis Payne, and her son. It was to her house where Payne returned and was captured after he nearly killed Secretary of State William H. Seward on the same night that Lincoln was shot. Mrs. Surratt was arrested primarily due to her home being the site of the conspirator meetings, but also because she had guns waiting for Booth at a tavern she owned in Surrattsville, Maryland.

The film, The Conspirator, tells the story of Mrs. Surratt's arrest, trial by a military tribunal (all the conspirators were tried by it and not by a civilian court), and eventual execution. The assassination itself serves only as a "setup" to the main subject of the film. Redford directs, but does not star in the movie. Robin Wright stars as Surratt, while her lawyer is portrayed by James McAvoy.

Redford is briefly interviewed in the article (which features an additional five photos at the link which I provided) and quite accurately states that there are still questions surrounding Surratt's involvement in the conspiracy. To this day, some claim she was not as entwined in the conspiracy as the government claimed, while others claim she was far more involved than investigators realized at the time. Many people in 1865 felt that she should not have been executed, no matter her guilt.

The Conspirator is at this point an independent film which has not yet found backing from a studio. There is no release date. Let's hope that changes, because the story of Mary Surratt is compelling even today.

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Lincoln's Funeral In Buffalo, New York

(Author's Note: This posting continues my series about the assassination, death, and ensuing funerals for Abraham Lincoln in thirteen American cities. This year marks the 145th anniversary of one of the most tragic episodes in our nation's history.)

The Lincoln Funeral Train slowly pulled out of the station at Albany, New York late in the afternoon of April 26, 1865. It would take the train fifteen hours to reach the next funeral city, Buffalo, New York. Along the train route, as along all the others, mourners lined the tracks, holding banners and signs, singing hymns, knelt in prayer. Twenty-five thousand people waited in Utica in pouring rain. In Syracuse, not reached until around midnight, at least thirty-five thousand stood to pay their respects as the train passed through. Former President Millard Fillmore (the 13th president) boarded the train in Batavia at 5:00 a.m. on April 27 and rode the rest of the way on the train to Buffalo.

The funeral which was held for Abraham Lincoln on April 27, 1865 was actually the second one the city staged. On the very day of the state funeral in Washington, D.C. (April 19), Buffalo held a mock funeral, it's citizens feeling that attending church services was simply not enough to express their grief. They built a catafalque, held a large procession, gave prayers. All that was missing that day in Buffalo were the remains of Lincoln. The citizenry were stunned, then, to find out that their city on Lake Erie had been selected to hold an actual funeral!

Somehow, though, there seemed to be a bit of a letdown when the real ceremonies began once the Funeral Train arrived at 7:00 a.m. that day of the 27th. The same catafalque and hearse were used, the same order of the procession was staged, even the same hymns and music played. Massive crowds still swarmed the streets. (In the image above, you can see the crowd surrounding the hearse which is visible toward the left side, it's canopy high above the people.)

At the same time, however, the crowds were so well-behaved and so silent, that many observers who had attended the previous funerals felt that the grief was not as palpable as in Philadelphia, where a near riot broke out. Looking back, though, perhaps it simply means that Buffalo citizens were better behaved than those in Philadelphia.

Lincoln's casket was placed in St. Jame's Hall, tilted at an angle so people could better view his face. Nearly 100,000 mourners filed past the coffin until 8:00 p.m. until the doors were closed. Through it all, not one disturbance was recorded by the police.

Among the mourners paying their respects 145 years ago today in Buffalo was a young man of 28 who would go on to achieve some measure of fame later in his life. His name was Stephen Grover Cleveland, better known by his middle name. He would go on to become county sheriff, Mayor of Buffalo, Governor of New York, and most importantly, the 22nd and 24th President Of The United States. He is still the only president who served two non-consecutive terms.

The Lincoln Funeral Train departed Buffalo at approximately 10:00 p.m. for another night run to the next city to be selected to hold an official funeral for Lincoln. That city was Cleveland, Ohio, the subject of my next post.

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Lincoln's Funeral At Albany

(Author's Note: By April 26, 1865 five cities had already held funerals for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Washington, Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New York had honored the late president with prayers, hymns, and processions. Between the cities, tens of thousands of mourners lined the tracks, simply to doff their hats or kneel in prayer as the Funeral Train passed by. Albany, New York was the next city to hold services for the martyred president, 145 years ago today.)

The Funeral Train of Abraham Lincoln arrived in Albany, New York (that state's capital) at around 11:00 p.m. on the night of April 25, 1865. It had traveled that day from New York City, where a stunning procession which took almost four hours to complete had taken place just nine hours earlier. Upon arrival in Albany (actually East Albany), the coffin was transported across the Hudson to Albany proper where it was taken to the capitol.

Like New York City, Albany had hosted Abraham Lincoln four years before on his inaugural trip to Washington. He had spoken on February 18, 1861 to a joint session of the New York legislature in the capitol building, thanking the politicians for their support, expressing hope that the sectional crisis would be solved by "cooler heads." Now but a few feet where he had spoken that day full of hope, the remains of Abraham Lincoln lay in state.

The Funeral Train had taken longer than expected to bring the fallen president from New York to Albany. In small towns and big, mourners lined the tracks by the thousands in order to see the train and to pay their respects. Towns such as Peekskill fired cannons while the train halted there. Men lined up and simultaneously raised their hats in respect in other towns as the train passed. Near West Point, uniformed Army cadets, many with tears in their eyes, boarded the Funeral Car and filed silently past to honor their late commander-in-chief. As daylight gave way to darkness, bonfires, torches, and other illuminations lit the way for the train. The engineers were so moved that the train slowed or stopped far more often than planned, so that the people could say goodbye to Mr. Lincoln.

Once the coffin was placed in the state capitol rotunda, the doors were opened to the public at the early hour of 1:15 a.m. on April 26. Mourners filed past at a rate of about 60 per minute. They continued through the entire night, past dawn, and until the capitol doors were closed at 1:30 p.m. Even then, the line of mourners hoping to see Lincoln's remains was at least one mile long, disappointing many thousands.

The procession was not as majestic as that in New York or Washington, of course, because Albany was a far smaller city than those. But it was still special. In this procession, the specially built hearse was pulled by six white horses. Every other participant, the requisite officials, governor, bands, and so on walked behind the hearse. There were no carriages, banners, or portraits of Lincoln present. The 250-300 mourners who had been riding The Funeral Train chose not to participate in this procession as by then they were exhausted emotionally and physically, and had stayed in a hotel for the night, paid for by the city. They re-boarded the Funeral Train at the depot for the 4:00 p.m. departure to the next funeral city, Buffalo, New York.

The image above shows one of two American flags which flew from the engine which pulled The Funeral Train from Albany to Utica, New York the day of the Albany services. It is housed in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. I couldn't find any photos of the procession in Albany.

April 26, 1865 also brought some joyful news when for twelve long dark days only grief and horror had filled the papers. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton announced that day that Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had been cornered and shot to death in Virginia early that morning. The hunt for the most notorious murderer in U.S. history was, at long last, over.

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Lincoln's Funeral In New York

(Author's Note: For the past twelve days, I've been publishing a series of posts marking the 145th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. His death on April 15, 1865 plunged the nation, already stricken by the horrors of a war which had cost 600,000 lives, into a new spasm of grief as it mourned the president. The national spectacle which followed as thirteen cities hosted funerals for Lincoln has never been repeated. New York City had its chance to pay its respects to Abraham Lincoln 145 years ago today, on April 25, 1865.)

Abraham Lincoln was no stranger to the city of New York. It was the scene of his dramatic "right makes might" speech at Cooper Union on February 27, 1860, a speech which Lincoln himself later said made him president. On his inaugural trip to Washington, D.C. as president-elect, Lincoln spent two more days in New York on February 19-20, 1861 as he addressed crowds about the developing secession crisis. New York newspaper editors, such as Horace Greeley ("Go West young man") exerted their powerful influence on Lincoln during his presidency, especially when an editorial demanding the end of slavery resulted in a personal letter from the president. Now New York City would play host to the president's remains on April 24 and 25, 1865 as it put on a display of mourning rivaled only by that of Washington, D.C.

The Lincoln Funeral Train had departed in the early morning hours on April 24 from Philadelphia on its way to the nation's largest city, New York. The train entered New Jersey and pulled into the station at Trenton, the state capital, at dawn. City leaders and residents were a bit hurt because Trenton was the only state capital which was not honored with the opportunity to host a grand funeral service for the president. They had to make do with a brief 30 minute stop as people got as close as they could to get a glimpse of the coffin in the Funeral Car. There was a schedule to keep and New York was waiting.

The train arrived in Jersey City, New Jersey at around 10:00 a.m. where it was greeted by a large crowd. The depot's large clock did not read the current time, but instead had been fixed to 7:22 a.m., the moment of Lincoln's death nine days earlier. There on the shore of the Hudson River, Lincoln's casket was placed onto a small hearse and transported across to New York. Following in a second ferry was the Funeral Car itself, still containing the coffin of Willie. Ships in the river at the time tolled their bells as their crews lined at attention.

The ferry arrived on the New York shore to be met by that state's famed Seventh Regiment, which had been among the first troops to arrive in the nation's capital for the defense of Washington. Now they were to escort their fallen commander-in-chief's remains to City Hall, where he would lay in state.

New York's City Hall was covered in black mourning while flags flew at half-mast. Over the entrance to the building, the words "THE NATION MOURNS" appeared in giant white letters placed on a backdrop of black. The image below shows how the building appeared that day, April 24, 1865, just after Lincoln's body had been taken inside to be placed in the rotunda.

It was in the rotunda of New York City Hall where the only known photo of Abraham Lincoln in death was taken. The photo, which is shown at the beginning of this post, shows Lincoln in the casket, while an admiral and general pose at opposite ends. It was taken by a New York photographer, who stood in a high section of the balcony at the opposite end of the rotunda. When Secretary of War Edwin Stanton heard that such a photo had been taken, he was furious and ordered all the plates of it destroyed. Pleas from New York to preserve the scene for posterity went unheeded and eventually the plates were destroyed. However, a single print was sent to the Secretary to show him how dignified the photo was. Stanton fortunately kept the print in his papers, where it was discovered by his son twenty-two years later. Ultimately, the print found its way to the Illinois State Historical Library, where a young Lincoln enthusiast discovered the photo in 1952.

Lincoln's remains were displayed at New York City Hall for the remainder of the day and night on April 24. The coffin was placed at an angle, so people approaching on the staircase leading to the rotunda could see his face all the way up. However, the approach to the staircase was so narrow and dark that just 80 people per minute could file past the remains while a crowd of at least 500,000 waited outside under brilliantly sunny skies. It was a poorly conceived decision by the city fathers to host the president's remains in such cramped quarters. Countless thousands of mourners never got their chance to enter the building by the time it closed for the night.

New York's Funeral Procession April 25, 1865

The morning of April 25 dawned with mourners still lined up in desperate, if unrealistic, hope of passing by Lincoln's remains at City Hall before the removal of his casket for the grand funeral procession scheduled to get under way at 2:00 p.m. later that afternoon.

The funeral hearse for the procession was in a word, magnificent. People who saw it were awestruck at its beauty and size. It towered over the city streets and crowds below, measuring 14 feet long by 7 feet wide. It was topped by a "Temple of Liberty" while national flags rose in groups of three out of the four columns. From the roof of the canopy, a gilt eagle hung freely so it would be directly over the coffin. The hearse was so massive and heavy that sixteen matching gray horses would pull it along the procession route. The two images below are a real photo of the hearse as it appeared that day in 1865, and a print of how the horses and hearse appeared during the procession itself. You may click the images to see larger versions.

The funeral procession began on schedule at 2:00 p.m. It was led by mounted police, who were followed by high ranking generals and their staffs. The hearse was next, followed by approximately 11,000(!) soldiers marching to the sounds of muffled drumbeats. More representatives of foreign nations rode in the procession, their bright colors offering a marked contrast to the sea of black throughout the city. Union and trade groups, Masons, singing societies, various ethnic organizations and groups of children marched along. In addition to the 11,000 soldiers taking part, it's estimated that at least 75,000 other people marched in the procession. Indeed, it was so massive that the parade of mourners took nearly four hours to cross a particular point from beginning to end. There were 100 bands playing, cannons fired, and church bells throughout the city tolled while the procession seemingly lasted an eternity.

Among the throngs of people watching the funeral procession that April day in 1865 was a young boy only six years of age. He watched from his grandparents' home located close to Union Square. That child was Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1901 would become the 26th President of the United States upon the assassination of another president, William McKinley.

Perhaps the most pathetic group of marchers in the procession were 300 African-Americans who had to practically fight to be included in the wave of white faces. At first orders had come down from the mayor and city council that NO black people were to be permitted to take part in the procession, which would be almost unbelievable were it not sadly true. Originally, a contingent of 5,000 African-Americans had plan to take part until the orders from city hall came down. There was outrage among the population, for if Lincoln had worked so hard to achieve their freedom, they should surely be permitted to honor the man who freed them. Finally, a telegraph from Secretary of War Stanton arrived, ordering New York to allow the black mourners to march. But by then it was too late to organize such large numbers. In the end, there were only those 300 African-American people, and they had thoughtlessly been placed at the very tail of the procession.

Finally at around 4:00 p.m. that day of April 25, 1865, Abraham Lincoln left New York for the final time, even though his funeral procession would take nearly two more hours to complete. The next destination was the state capital of Albany, which waited to hold its own funeral for the 16th president. That will be the subject of my next post.

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