150 Years Ago: April 26

Beginning with the correspondence between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee on April 7 that preceded Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Gossips has been tracing the events of 1865 that led up to the brief stop of Lincoln's funeral train in Hudson, the sesquicentennial of which was commemorated last night. The remainder of the route seems an anticlimax, but having embarked on the journey, Gossips will see it through, until the funeral train reaches its final destination.

When the funeral train left Hudson, it was bound for Albany, where arrived at 11 p.m. The following account is from the Hudson Daily Star for April 26, 1865:

At 11 o'clock last evening, the cannon announced the arrival of the train at East Albany, and the bells of the city commenced tolling a funeral knell. Companies A. and F. of  the Tenth and Company C. of the 25th Regiment were detailed to meet the remains. Crossing the ferry the coffin was placed in a hearse drawn by four white horses, and the procession was soon formed, flanked by the firemen with torches. The procession immediately took up the line of march for the Capitol, preceded by Schriber's Band and Eastman's College Band. Maiden Lane, Broadway and State street were densely crowded with people, the ladies almost as numerous as the men. Good order and quiet prevailed throughout the march. Arrived at the Capitol, the coffin was removed by the bearers upon a Catafalque, which had been prepared for its reception, directly under the centre chandelier. Guards of the State Militia were immediately stationed in the Chamber, in the halls and side rooms, while companies from the 3d and 21st Regiments, United States Reserve Corps, were detailed for duty outside the Capitol, in command of lieutenant J. B. Blonding.

At half-past one this morning, the coffin was opened, and the immense throng of people in and about the park were permitted to enter [the] chamber, and view the remains of President Lincoln. They passed in and out at the rate of 60 or 70 a minute. All the visitors exhibited deep feeling and all were apparently more or less affected. 

Albany appears to have been the first and possibly the only city where Lincoln's remains were on view through the night. 

At 8 a.m. on April 26, the City of Hudson Common Council and other Hudson dignitaries boarded a special train for Albany to participate in the funeral ceremonies there. Lincoln's body lay in state in the Capitol for only about twelve hours--from 1:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.--but in that time nearly 50,000 people passed by the coffin. In the early afternoon, the grand procession from the Capitol to the New York Central station got underway. The hearse, this time drawn by six white horses, made its way to the train station, while "a mass of human beings, estimated at 60,000, crowded along the streets for more than a mile."

New York State Archives

At 4 p.m., the funeral train left Albany bound to Buffalo.

Before dawn on the day the funeral train was in Albany, Union soldiers caught up with John Wilkes Booth hiding in a tobacco barn on the Garrett farm near Port Royal, Virginia. When Booth refused to surrender, the soldiers set fire to the barn. Although the orders were to take Booth alive, Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him in the neck, claiming that Booth had raised his pistol to shoot at them. Booth was dragged from the burning barn to the porch of the Garrett farmhouse, where he died three hours later. Among the things found in his pockets was a diary, in which he had written this about Lincoln's death: "Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment."
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