About noon the town was thrown into the wildest excitement by the arrival of President Davis. He is traveling with a large escort of cavalry, a very imprudent thing for a man in his position to do, especially now that Johnston has surrendered, and the fact that they are all going in the same direction as their homes is the only thing that keeps them together. He rode into town at the head of his escort…and as he was passing by the bank…several…gentlemen were sitting on the front porch, and the instant they recognized him they took off their hats and received him with every mark of respect due the president of a brave people. When he reined in his horse, all the staff who were present advanced to hold the reins and assist him to dismount.
A rumor spread that Yankees in pursuit of Davis were advancing on the town from two directions, but there was nothing to it. Another wild rumor spread through town that Davis was there. Once “the president’s arrival had become generally known,” Eliza wrote with pride, “people began flocking to see him.” This was the warm welcome that Greensboro and Charlotte, North Carolina, had withheld from Davis. In Georgia, the people’s delight at his presence improved his morale.
Davis received a dispatch from Secretary of War Breckinridge reminding him of their conversation the previous night in Abbeville, urging him to flee, and reporting on the military situation. There were almost no Confederate soldiers in the vicinity to protect Davis: “The troops are on the west side of the Savanah, and guard the bridge,” Breckinridge wrote. “A pickett which left Cokesbury after dark last evening reports no enemy at that point. I have directed scouts on the various roads this side of the river. The condition of the troops is represented as a little better, but by no means satisfactory. They cannot be relied upon as a permanent military force. Please let me know where you are.”
Varina also sent a letter telling him to not make a stand, to leave his escort, and to flee.
In Springfield, the honor guard removed Lincoln’s body from the train, escorted it to the State House, where he had served as a legislator, given his famous “House Divided” speech, and, in another part of the building, set up an office after his election as president. His guards laid the coffin on a catafalque in the Hall of Representatives. Springfield was not a great American city, and its officials knew they could not hope to rival the pageantry displayed in Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, or Chicago. Nor could Springfield match the stupendous crowds or financial resources marshaled by the major cities. Indeed, Lincoln’s hometown had to borrow a hearse from St. Louis. However, what the state capital could not offer in splendor, it vowed to lavish in an emotional catharsis that would outdo every other city in the nation.
Few in Springfield were disappointed that Mary Lincoln was not on that train, even if it meant no Lincolns had made the trip from Washington. This morning, for the first time since the funeral train left Washington, the honor guard also removed Willie’s coffin from the presidential car.
The embalmer Charles Brown and undertaker Frank Sands opened Lincoln’s coffin. He had been dead for eighteen days, and his corpse had not been refrigerated. Only preservative chemicals and makeup had kept him presentable during the journey. At the beginning, at the White House funeral, Lincoln’s face looked almost natural. He changed along the way. People had started to notice it as early as New York City. The face continued to darken, making necessary several reapplications of face powder during the trip. Travel dust and dirt had settled on the corpse during each open-coffin viewing, and the body men had to dust his face and black coat faithfully. Lincoln no longer resembled a sleeping man. Now he looked like a ghastly, pale, waxlike effigy.
The doors to the State House opened to the public at 10:00 A.M. on May 3 and stayed that way for twenty-four hours. It was the first round-the-clock viewing of the entire funeral pageant. Mourners ascended the winding staircase to the Representatives’ Hall, approached the corpse from Lincoln’s left, walked around his head, and then departed down the same stairs. During the night, trains continued to arrive in Springfield, and people without lodgings wandered the streets until dawn.
By 10:00 A.M. on May 4, seventy-five thousand people had passed by the presidential body. The coffin was removed from the capitol and placed in the hearse waiting on Washington Street. The procession began at 11:30 A.M., passing by Lincoln’s home at Eighth and Jackson streets, then heading west to Fourth Street, and down Fourth to Oak Ridge Cemetery, about a mile and a half from town. Oak Ridge was not a traditional urban cemetery with tightly spaced headstones lined up in rows. Instead, it was a product of the rural cemetery movement that had swept America, which had transformed old-fashioned graveyards into nature preserves with brooks, sloping valleys, oak trees, and tombs situated in sympathy with the natural landscape.
Lincoln’s guards removed his coffin from the hearse, carried it into the limestone tomb, and laid it on a marble slab. Willie’s coffin rested near him.
Bishop Matthew Simpson, who had officiated at the White House funeral, delivered the last oration at Oak Ridge Cemetery. “Though three weeks have passed,” he reminded his listeners, and “the nation has scarcely breathed easily yet. A mournful silence is abroad upon
THE SPRINGFIELD TOMB.
the land.” Simpson then set the unprecedented pageant in historical context: “Far more eyes have gazed upon the face of the departed than ever looked upon the face of any other departed man. More eyes have looked upon the procession for sixteen hundred miles or more, by night and day, by sunlight, dawn, twilight and by torchlight, than ever before watched the progress of a procession.” It was the end of an era, he said: “The deepest affections of our hearts gather around some human form, in which are incarnated the living thoughts and ideas of the passing age.”
Simpson read Lincoln’s second inaugural speech at tomb-side. Invoking the president’s mantra of “Malice toward none,” Simpson proposed forgiveness for the “deluded masses” of the Southern people: “We will take them to our hearts.” And we must, said Simpson, continue Lincoln’s work: “Standing, as we do today, by his coffin and his sepulcher, let us resolve to carry forward the work which he so nobly begun.”
But the bishop scorned Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders:
Let every man who was a Senator…in Congress, and who aided in beginning this rebellion, and thus led to the slaughter of our sons and daughters, be brought to speedy and certain punishment. Let every officer…who…has turned his sword against…his country, be doomed to a felon’s death. This…is the will of the American people. Men may attempt to compromise and restore these traitors and murderers to society again, but the American people will rise in their majesty and sweep all such compromises…away, and shall declare that there shall be no peace to rebels.
This shocking, tomb-side lust for revenge echoed Job Stevenson’s remarks in Columbus. It would have horrified Lincoln.
Lincoln’s pastor, the Reverend Dr. Gurley, who had completed the long journey from the assassination-night deathbed at the Petersen house to the grave in Springfield, again gave the last prayer, which was followed by a funeral hymn he had composed for the occasion. There was nothing more to say. They closed the iron gates and locked Abraham and Willie Lincoln in their tomb. Then everybody went home.
Carl Sandburg evoked the dénouement better than any witness present that day: “Evergreen carpeted the stone floor of the vault. On the coffin set in a receptacle of black walnut they arranged flowers carefully and precisely, they poured flowers as symbols, they lavished heaps of fresh flowers as though there could never be enough to tell either their hearts or his.
And the night came with great quiet.
And there was rest.
The prairie years, the war years, were over.”
The coffin was just one of the things that made the Washington, D.C., events the most expensive funeral in American history. In a bound accountant’s ledger titled “Funeral Expenses of the late Abraham Lincoln,” handwritten in a clerk’s neat script on twenty-eight lined, blue-gray
pages, is the itemized list of the costs. It is all here—the names of the vendors, the goods or services they provided, and the price. No matter how trivial the purchase or inconsequential the cost, the information did not escape the ledger. These facts and figures, dry and impersonal as they are, and most never published, form a strangely fascinating book of the dead.
The government purchased wagonloads of fabric to hang in mourning—several thousand yards of black cambric, fine white silk, alpaca, cotton velvet, black crepe, black Silesias, and black draping—along with boxes of nails and tacks to attach the textiles to the major public buildings. John Tucker & Co. billed the government $161.00 for “Labor and material at President’s House,” including “1260 feet of lumber plus 1 gross screws, and 40 pounds of nails plus labor.” The wood was used to build the bleachers for the funeral in the East Room. Another firm submitted an invoice of $358.14 for “Preparing East Room for President’s Funeral.”The largest bill—$4,408.09—was from John Alexander, which covered a variety of goods and services, including more than three thousand yards of fabric, twelve boxes of pins, and thirty packs of tacks, plus “putting front of President’s House in mourning ($50.00) [and] East Room ($30.00); upholstering catafalque East Room ($75.00); [upholstering] Funeral Car ($50.00); [upholstering] Rail Road Car ($85.00).” The last expense connected with the White House was not submitted until May 27, five weeks after the funeral: “Removing draping and platform from East Room. $45.20, less for lumber returned.”
Fabrics were purchased not only to clothe the public buildings but to dress Mary Lincoln too. On April 19, the day of the funeral, Harper & Mitchell submitted its bill for “1 mourning dress ($60.00); 1 shawl ($25.00); 1 crape veil ($10.00); 5 yards black crape ($20.00); Gloves and handkerchiefs ($7.50); 5 pair hose ($5.00); 1 crape bonnet ($15.00) TOTAL $142.50.” Mary Lincoln, who remained in seclusion, had no public use for the black mourning dress and accessories.
Decorating the Capitol and preparing it to receive Lincoln’s corpse involved additional costs. Benjamin Brown French submitted a bill for “services superintending the draping of the Rotunda & erection of Catafalque $15.00, plus $2.50 reimbursement for cash paid for ribbon,” and John R. Hunt invoiced the government $20.00 for “upholstering catafalque and draping west wing U.S. Capitol.” E. H. Litchfield and eight additional carpenters, riggers, gasfitters, and assistants were paid $33.50 to get the rotunda ready for Lincoln to lie there in state on April 19 and 20: “Extra services draping the Dome and lighting the gas and attending the same.” And George Whiting submitted bills of $28.50 and $25.05 for “refreshments sent to Capitol for Officers in charge of the President’s remains” on the two days that Lincoln lay in state.
Then there were the expenses connected to the president’s body. Cooling & Bros. billed the government $6.00 for the hearse used to remove the corpse from the Petersen house, $75.00 for the six horses that pulled the hearse on the funeral day procession, plus one hearse for “removing President and son,” on April 21, the day Lincoln’s train left Washington. Drs. Brown and Alexander charged $100.00 for “embalming remains of Abraham Lincoln late President of the U.S.,” and $160.00 to ride the train: “16 days Services for self & Asst. @ $10.00 per day.” The single most expensive item recorded in the ledger was the casket, from the firm of Sands & Harvey: “Coffin covered with fine Broad Cloth, lined with fine White Satin silk trimmed with best mounting, solid silver plate, bullion fringe tassles & etc, heavy lead lining & walnut outside case for the late President, Abraham Lincoln. $1500.00.”
The funeral expenses totaled $28,985.31. As an addendum, one last entry was written on an otherwise blank page in the ledger: “Money actually expended in attending the Widow from Washington D.C. to Chicago Illinois. $47.00.” That expense closed out the book.
Back in Washington, D.C., the federal government shut down the day of the funeral. Offices were closed, flags flew at half-staff, public buildings remained draped in black, and military officers wore black crepe ribbons around the coat sleeves of their uniforms. John Wilkes Booth lay in a secret, unmarked grave on the grounds of the U.S. Army penitentiary at the Old Arsenal along the river, and at that walled, fortress prison eight of his accused conspirators languished in shackles and hoods awaiting their trial by military tribunal. Those proceedings would begin in a few days. Ford’s Theatre remained closed and under guard. Secretary of State William Seward recovered from his wounds. At the White House, Lincoln’s office had been sealed like a ship in a bottle, preserved just as the president left it on the afternoon of April 14. His widow continued her refusal to vacate the Executive Mansion, thus denying its proper use by the new president, Andrew Johnson. She had become the subject of much talk. At the Petersen house, Private William Clarke went to sleep each night covered by the same quilt that had warmed the dying president. Soldiers back from the war once again got drunk in saloons, and people dining out at public houses gorged themselves on the delicacy of the day, fresh oysters. George Harrington, back to his routine, went about his usual business at the Treasury Department. And Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton thought about Jefferson Davis.
All across America, cities marked the hour of Lincoln’s entombment. One newspaper stated: “by the open grave of Abraham Lincoln stood this day the American people…a nation in…mourning looking into the open grave of a President…do not forget that open grave, nor the unparalleled crime which caused it to be dug.” It was true. On this day, at the precise hour—noon, Springfield time—tens of millions of his fellow citizens “all across this broad land,” in the words of his first inaugural address, paused to honor Abraham Lincoln.
In Washington, Georgia, a few hundred of Jefferson Davis’s fellow citizens honored him on his second day with them. Eliza Andrews was thrilled to have Davis in her town: “I am in such a state of excitement…Father and Cora went to call on the President, and…father says his manner was so calm and dignified that he could not help admiring the man. Crowds of people flocked to see him, and nearly all were melted to tears.” Not only did the townspeople gather around Davis but they put together an enormous feast. “The village sent so many good things for the President to eat,” recalled Eliza, “that an ogre couldn’t have devoured them all, and he left many little delicacies, besides giving away a number of his personal effects, to people who had been kind to him.”
It was in Washington that Mallory left the president’s caravan. Davis understood that it was time for Mallory to return to his family and despite the desperate situation, he took time to compose a warm farewell letter: “It is with deep regret that I contemplate this separation. One of the members of my first cabinet we have passed together through all the trials of war and not the less embarrassing trials to which the Congress has of late subjected the Executive…I will ever gratefully remember your uniform kindness and unwavering friendship to myself.” Davis did not know it then, but it was the last letter he would write as president of the Confederate States of America.
Next he made what would be his last official appointment. A clerk drafted the document for his signature: “M. H. Clark Esq is hereby appointed Acting Treasurer of the Confederate States, and is authorized to act as such during the absence of the Treasurer.”
Davis then finally agreed to take action he should have chosen days ago. “After some delay at Washington,” Reagan remembered, “we induced Mr. Davis to start on south with an escort of ten men, his staff officers and secretary, and to leave General Breckinridge to wind up the business of the War Department, and me to close the business of the Post Office Department and the Treasury…We were then to go on and overtake him.” Davis left Washington in the morning. Reagan stayed behind in the town, planning to catch up with his president sometime that night. After Reagan wasted valuable time burning piles of Confederate currency, he left Washington by midnight.
Eliza Andrews watched Davis ride out the night of May 4: “The President left town about ten o’clock, with a single companion, his unruly cavalry escort having gone on befo
re. He travels sometimes with them, sometimes before, sometimes behind, never permitting his precise location to be known.” She had heard rumors that the Union army did not want to capture Davis: “The talk now is…that the military authorities are conniving the escape of Mr. Davis…The general belief is that Grant and the military men, even Sherman, are not anxious for the ugly job of hanging such a man as our president, and are quite willing to let him give them the slip, and get out of the country if he can. The military men, who do the hard and cruel things in war, seem to be more merciful in peace than the politicians who stay at home and do the talking.” Davis’s departure from Washington made the feisty and irrepressible Eliza sad: “This, I suppose, is the end of the Confederacy.”
But Davis’s war years were not over yet. Abraham Lincoln’s journey may have ended, but Jefferson Davis was determined to press on. That night Davis’s party camped near the Ogeechee River. The next day Union cavalry rode into Washington. Eliza Andrews had been right. Davis’s departure was the end, at least in her town.
Northern newspaper editorials reflected upon the meaning of the assassination and the funeral train:
Twenty days after the terrible night on which the assassin’s bullet destroyed the most precious life in the American nation, the body which that great and good man animated, is deposited in the humble cemetery…in ceremonies which are the saddest that may ever be performed on American soil.
What do those twenty days suggest! Twenty days of National mourning; twenty days with flags at half-mast; twenty days with emblems of sorrow on the peoples’ dwellings, with sable drapery and solemn mottoes on all public buildings; twenty days of such tokens of love, such tributes as never before were paid to mortal man?