150 Years Ago: April 19

The funeral of Abraham Lincoln took place 150 years ago today, April 19, 1865. Throughout the previous day, his body lay in state in the East Room of the White House. The New York Times reported, "It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that 25,000 persons passed through the rooms, and that as many more, seeing the immense throng, left without trying to get in." The account in the New York Times continues:

The expressions and appearance of the people, as they looked for the last time on the face of the honored dead, were conclusive, if further proof were needed, that the great majority regard the President's death as a personal and individual loss, as well as a national calamity. Hundreds addressed words of farewell to the cold and inanimate body; and thousands passed from the platform with weeping eyes. Every class, race, and condition of society was represented in the throng of mourners, and the sad tears and farewells of whites and blacks were mingled by the coffin of him to whom humanity was everywhere the same. The most touching exhibitions of sorrow were made by many whose dress marked them as of the poorer classes of society. "He was the poor man's friend," was a very common remark.

April 19, 1865, was a bright and beautiful day, called by some observers "the loveliest day of the season." The funeral service in the East Room was restricted to 600 hundred invited guests, but the public lined the streets to witness the funeral procession from the White House to the Capitol, where the body would lie in state for a day before the funeral train, bound for Springfield, Illinois, began its journey on the morning of April 21. "Every house top thus early was freighted with spectators," a local reporter observed, "and the trees bordering the avenue and the public grounds bore a perilously heavy burden of human beings."

Harper's Weekly, May 8, 1865

The funeral services began at 12:10 p.m. The funeral sermon was delivered by Dr. Phineas D. Gurley of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, a few blocks east of the White House, where the Lincolns rented a pew. Gurley had conducted Willie Lincoln's funeral three years before, was with Lincoln when he died, and accompanied Lincoln's body on the funeral train to Springfield. The following is a passage from Gurley's funeral sermon:  

He is dead; but the cause he so ardently loved, so ably, patiently, faithfully represented and defended--not for himself only, not for us only, but for all people in all their coming generations, till time shall be no more--that cause survives his fall, and will survive it. The light of its brightening prospects flashes cheeringly to-day athwart the gloom occasioned by his death, and the language of God's united providences is telling us that, though the friends of Liberty die, Liberty itself is immortal. There is no assassin strong enough and no weapon deadly enough to quench its inextinguishable life, or arrest its onward march to the conquest and empire of the world. This is our confidence, and this is our consolation, as we weep and mourn to-day. Though our beloved President is slain, our beloved country is saved. And so we sing of mercy as well as of judgment. Tears of gratitude mingle with those of sorrow. While there is darkness, there is also the dawning of a brighter, happier day upon our stricken and weary land. God be praised that our fallen Chief lived long enough to see the day dawn and the daystar of joy and peace arise upon the nation. He saw it, and he was glad. Alas! alas! He only saw the dawn. When the sun has risen, full-orbed and glorious, and a happy reunited people are rejoicing in its light--alas! alas! it will shine upon his grave. But that grave will be a precious and a consecrated spot. The friends of Liberty and of the Union will repair to it in years and ages to come, to pronounce the memory of its occupant blessed, and, gathering from his very ashes, and from the rehearsal of his deeds and virtues, fresh incentives to patriotism, they will there renew their vows of fidelity to their country and their God.

After the funeral, Lincoln's coffin was transferred to a hearse that would carry it from the White House to the Capitol. The hearse was drawn by six horses, and it was followed by a riderless horse with empty boots turned backward in the stirrups.

In Mourning Lincoln, Martha Hodes relates this detail about the funeral procession's order of march.

First in the procession of infantry and cavalry were black soldiers, though not by design. The Twenty-Second U.S. Colored Troops, which had marched into Richmond, were called to Washington "to represent the Colored Soldiers." Arriving by boat in the nick of time, they had met the procession head-on. In a metaphorical reenactment of their service to the nation, the men turned about-face to lead the parade, just as they had run to Union lines before they were permitted to enlist, then turned about-face to fight when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

COPYRIGHT 2015 CAROLE OSTERINK