Blood on the Moon

by Edward , Jr. Steers

  One of the more intriguing episodes occurred during the procession to the Hudson River Railroad Depot where the president’s body would leave for the state capital at Albany. As the hearse moved along Broadway a large Saint Bernard dog by the name of Bruno bolted into the street as the hearse passed by and took a place beneath the carriage, where it remained for the rest of the trip to the docks. The New York Times marveled at what faithful instinct caused the dog to follow the president as he made his way out of the city.64

  From New York City the entourage made its way to the state capital of Albany. On the way the train made a half-hour stop in the town of Poughkeepsie where a young soldier glimpsed a view of the special car and its contents. He wrote to his brother back home:

  President Lincolns remains passed through here last Tuesday. It stopped here half an hour. The train consisted of nine cars. They were all trimmed beautifully in mourning and other appropriate emblems for the occasion. I saw the coffin but it was not allowed to be opened. I can not describe the coffin to you. It was trimmed beautifully and splendid wreaths of flowers ornamented it. It was a solemn sight to see the train and to hear the bells toll and the fare well salute fired in memory of the departed dead. It was estimated that there was as many as 25,000 persons at the depot when the train came in. The corpse was carried in the same car that he went to Washington in four years ago last March. It was the nicest car That I ever saw.65

  Arriving in Albany at 11:00 P.M. the casket was taken to the state house where it was opened for public viewing through the night and early morning hours. The crowds of people coming into Albany from the surrounding countryside by train were so great that the Northern Railroad had to resort to using freight cars to carry all of the people demanding passage to the capital.66 It was Tuesday, April 25, and the president was only a quarter of the way home. He had been dead for ten days and his killer was still loose. Four hundred miles to the south, John Wilkes Booth was told that he and his friend would have to sleep in the Garrett tobacco barn. During the early morning hours of April 26, while thousands of Albany citizens filed past the coffin of their president, John Wilkes Booth would meet his end at the hands of New York cavalrymen.

  Wednesday morning dawned overcast for the Lincoln entourage. At noon another grand procession took place carrying the casket from the state house back to the depot. At 4 P.M. precisely, the locomotive E.H. Jones chugged out of the station and headed for Buffalo. For the next three hundred miles the funeral train would cut across the widest part of New York State, all the way from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Along the way it would pass through a half dozen major towns and cities and be seen by over a million people. Heavy rains accompanied the entire trip. Yet at every major population center the people arrived by the hundreds of thousands. The long ribbon of track that ran west seemed to be a magnet pulling vast numbers of people from the surrounding countryside. From small villages and rural farms the people came to catch a glimpse of the great train and pay their respect to the man who had become their martyred president. Bonfires and torches formed a ribbon of orange and yellow light that stretched across the rolling farmland of central New York. Along the way women stood by the tracks and held out bouquets of wildflowers as the funeral coach slowly rolled past, then cast them onto the tracks when it had passed them by. A reporter for the New York Times traveling aboard the train wrote that every crossroad along the way was filled with men and women in country wagons. A party of thirty young women lined a clearing bowing their heads in rehearsed unison as the train slowly ambled past. At Johnsville the train stopped briefly for lunch. Twenty-two women uniformly dressed in black skirts and white waists with black scarves carefully tied about their left arm waited on the passengers, providing them with refreshments. In return for their kindness the ladies were allowed to walk through the funeral car and see the coffin.67

  The train continued on, passing through Schenectady, Little Falls, Herkimer, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Batavia. At Batavia the train switched engines and former President Millard Fillmore climbed aboard to ride the final leg into Buffalo. Like Andrew Johnson, Fillmore acceded to the presidency as a result of the president’s untimely death. Zachary Taylor had served seventeen months before he succumbed to what doctors in that day called “cholera morbus.”68

  At 7:00 A.M. the train pulled into Buffalo. Rather than devote precious hours to a time-consuming procession through the city, Buffalo decided to use the time to let the public view the president. The casket was taken to St. James Hall where it was placed on a special catafalque. For the next eleven hours the people passed by the flower-covered casket paying their respect. A reporter for the Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser wrote to his readers back home that the body looked more like a mummy than a corpse. “Still,” he wrote, “the expression of the face was beautiful—a calm, mild, yet determined look, and just a trace of good humor about the mouth. We have never seen a corpse which had more the look of a sleeper than this.”69

  At ten minutes past ten o’clock on the evening of April 27, the train departed Buffalo for Cleveland, 183 miles away. At 1:00 A.M. the train made a brief stop in Westfield, New York, to take on wood and water. Although not part of the schedule, five young women were permitted to board the funeral car and place a special floral arrangement on the coffin. The modest tribute was allowed out of deference to young Grace Bedell who, four and a half years earlier, had written to Lincoln the candidate urging him to grow a beard because his face was so thin.70 Grace had lived in Westfield at the time of Lincoln’s inaugural trip in February of 1861. Lincoln had greeted the little girl with a hug and a kiss and said, “You see Grace, I have grown these whiskers just for you.”71 Grace, now sixteen years old, was not among the five young ladies to enter the funeral coach and place flowers on the president’s casket. She had moved with her family to Albion, New York, some ninety miles to the northeast of Westfield.

  From Westfield the train headed southwest to Cleveland. Again a heavy downpour accompanied the trip. The heavens seemed to be pouring all of their grief onto the funeral procession. All through the rain-soaked night the way along the tracks was illuminated by lanterns held aloft by villagers and farmers who stood for hours waiting for the train to pass.72 Arriving in Cleveland at 7:00 P.M., the casket was carried once again by a magnificent hearse to Cleveland’s Public Park, where it was placed on a catafalque under a large pagoda-shaped tent. It was Friday, April 28, exactly one week since the president had begun his long journey home.

  Cleveland was allotted fifteen hours to honor the president. The outdoor arrangements greatly facilitated the handling of the large crowd that gathered in the city’s Monument Square. One hundred fifty thousand people comfortably passed the open coffin. At midnight it was off again, this time to the capital city of Columbus.

  The train reached Columbus at 7:30 A.M. The casket was taken to the capitol building escorted by the Eighty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry.73 It was the hardest service the Eighty-eighth had performed since being designated the Governor’s Guard at the time of its formation in 1862. During its three years of service it had never left the state of Ohio.

  Twelve hours later the train was on its way to Indianapolis. Scioto, Hilliards, Pleasant Valley, Unionville, Milford, Woodstock, Vagenburgh, and Urbana—it was the same everywhere. Bonfires lighted the tracks allowing the thousands of spectators to see the funeral car as it slipped past in the night. Within a few minutes it was all over. Hours of waiting were met with a momentary glimpse, but those that witnessed it would never forget it. At Urbana there was music from an instrumental band and a touching hymn by a choir that stood on the station platform. When the train stopped briefly to take on water, several women were permitted to enter the funeral car and place a floral cross on the casket.74 Shortly after midnight the train crossed the border into Indiana.

  The train arrived in Indianapolis at 7:00 A.M. in a heavy downpour. It was now Sunday, April 30. The papers described the hearse in detail. It was fourteen feet
long, five feet wide, and thirteen feet high and covered in black velvet. It was curtained in black with silver fringe. Twelve white plumes sat atop the roof, and the sides of the car were studded with large silver stars. Eight white horses covered with black blankets, each topped with a black plume, pulled the car through the streets.75 The committee in charge of events had decided that all of the children from each of the Sunday schools throughout the city would have the honor of walking past the open casket first.76 The heavy rains forced the city to curtail their plans for an outdoor ceremony.

  The train left Indianapolis at midnight on the thirtieth. At 1:40 A.M. it passed through the small village of Lebanon where a hundred Chinese lanterns were suspended above the tracks. Bonfires continued to illuminate the tracks all across the prairie. Bells in every hamlet and village tolled continuously while small bands stood on station platforms and played dirges.77 It was the same scene repeated at each place where people congregated. Within a few hours the train had crossed over the border onto the prairie land of Illinois. Abraham Lincoln was home at long last.

  At eleven o’clock on the morning of May 1 the train slowly made its way into downtown Chicago. Chicago was unique among all of the cities that hosted Lincoln’s remains in that it had decided it would not have any formal ceremonies: no speeches, prayers, or eulogies. It would pay a silent respect to its neighbor and let the people have their time. For the rest of the day and all of the next, people from miles around poured into the great city. The New York area had turned out just over a million and a half people, but Chicago, while unable to match New York’s aggregate, turned out a much higher percentage of Illinoisians. This was Lincoln’s home. In front of one house the owner erected a bust of Lincoln “supported by black velvet and studded with thirty-six golden stars, with the motto: We loved him much, but now we love him more.’”78

  At 8:00 P.M. Lincoln ended his stay in the city of broad shoulders. The casket was carried from the Cook County Court House and placed on a hearse drawn by eight large black horses. At 9:30 P.M. the train began the final leg of its fourteen-day odyssey. The small engine with its long tail of cars headed out across the black prairie toward Springfield. Lincoln would soon be home and with the people he knew best: “To this place and to the kindness of these people I owe everything,” he had said four years earlier on bidding his neighbors goodbye.79

  At forty minutes past eight o’clock on the morning of May 3, the funeral train pulled into the Chicago and Alton Depot in Springfield, Illinois. After fourteen days and sixteen hundred miles the train arrived only forty minutes behind schedule. As it approached the capital city of Illinois it passed beneath several specially erected banners strung across the tracks: “Come Home,” and “There is Rest for Thee in Heaven,” and “Home Is the Martyr.” Lincoln had returned to the friends and neighbors he had bid farewell just four years before. Somehow his words at the time of his leaving on February 11, 1861, now seemed strangely poignant, “I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever, I may return.” He ended his goodbye by bidding all “an affectionate farewell.”80

  As the train slowly made its way toward the station the tracks were lined with neighbors, their hats removed and their hands carefully placed on their hearts. The prairie town had swelled with thousands of visitors who came from all over the region to pay their respects to the fallen president. The local hotels soon filled, leaving hundreds without accommodations. Still they came. Trains arrived at their respective depots disgorging passengers from Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and all parts of the country. Ten state governors arrived with their delegations. The cities of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Louisville, Milwaukee, and St. Louis sent large delegations. From Washington, D.C., came senators, congressmen, government officials, and dignitaries. Clergymen, politicians, lawyers, doctors, university and college students and faculties, fraternal societies, firemen, policemen, soldiers, and veterans representing their respective organizations and groups. The assemblage was overwhelming. The city of 12,000 swelled until it overflowed its capacity to handle the enormous influx.

  The committee on arrangements published notices in the local newspapers that called on the residents to “throw open their homes and exercise the most liberal hospitality to strangers.” Farmers were asked to bring to town “good dry straw” and food to share with the multitude of visitors.81 In keeping with the spirit of Lincoln, the citizens responded to the committee’s appeal by opening their houses to people they had never met before. The local Masons set up a large kitchen and dining area where they provided free meals to their visiting brothers. No one was asked if he was a Mason, however, and the women cheerfully fed anyone who showed up hungry. It seemed as if Lincoln’s ideal of brotherhood had been finally reached in one great moment of sharing. The man who had waged war had now brought peace and brotherhood in its wake, if only for a brief few days.

  Battery K of the Missouri First Regiment of Light Artillery had served in Tennessee all of 1863 and in Arkansas all of 1864 and 1865. Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Helena, and Little Rock were names displayed upon its regimental colors. Now it was given the distinction of firing its guns in honor of its wartime commander in chief who, like them, was a veteran of the greatest war ever waged in the history of conflict. Every ten minutes, beginning at sunrise and continuing until sunset, the guns of Battery K boomed. At the end of the day they concluded by firing a thirty-six-gun salute, one for each of the states now comprising the reunited United States of America. Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, and even South Carolina along with all their sister states had salutes fired on their behalf.82 To the men of Battery K, the Union was whole once again thanks to Father Abraham.

  A group of local dignitaries designated the “Committee on the Order of Procession” was formed to determine just who would march and where their place would be. It was an immensely important task as every group sought a place of special honor. In charge of the Order of Procession was Lincoln’s old Springfield acquaintance and political adversary, Major General John A. McClernand. McClernand had proven to be a mixed blessing to Lincoln. A Democrat who generally sided with Lincoln’s opponents, McClernand also brought large numbers of Illinois’s young Democrats into Lincoln’s army. Major General Joe Hooker was named marshal in chief. The committee divided the funeral procession into eight segments called divisions. Each division was headed by a designated marshal who was accompanied by special aides made up of various dignitaries, both military and civilian.83

  Leading the First Division and serving as marshal was Colonel C.M. Prevost of the Sixteenth Regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps. Six military aides followed by several military units accompanied Prevost. The 146th Illinois Volunteer Infantry led the military escort. Following the 146th Illinois were several other military units. The Twenty-fourth Michigan Volunteer Infantry was one such unit. Entering the war in 1862, the regiment quickly made up for lost time serving in the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. At Gettysburg it had sustained a sixty-four percent casualty rate, losing 316 men out of 496 engaged. Along with the Twenty-fourth Michigan were the 146th Illinois, Company E of the Twenty-third Regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps, the Forty-sixth Wisconsin, and a battalion of the Fourteenth Iowa. All were veterans of some of the war’s bloodiest battles.

  The Second Division followed with more officers and military units. Not formally scheduled but spontaneously falling in among the uniformed troops in this division were large numbers of disabled veterans who wanted to show their respect. No one protested the unscheduled appearance. These battle-hardened soldiers were “Lincoln’s men,” and they were determined to march up for their fallen commander.

  The Third Division consisted of the “Officiating Clergy” who were followed by the “Surgeons and Physicians of the Deceased.” Next came the “Guard of Honor” followed by the magnificent hearse pulled by six black horses. The hearse and horses had been loaned to
Springfield by the city of St. Louis. Cost for its transportation had been donated by the railroads. On either side of the hearse walked the honorary pallbearers. Immediately behind the hearse walked Old Bob, Lincoln’s horse. He was draped in a large black blanket trimmed in silver fringe specially prepared for him. The Reverend Henry Brown, a Black minister who had done odd jobs for the Lincoln family and had become one of their many friends, led the horse in the procession.84 Old Bob needed special care since his fame was spreading rapidly. If left unprotected, souvenir hunters would have trimmed all the available hair from the poor horse, leaving him practically denuded. Missing from the procession was Fido, the family dog. Fido was every bit a Lincoln. A common mixed breed that wagged his tail constantly, he was everyman’s dog. An instant hit following Lincoln’s election, Fido was taken to the studios of photographer F.W. Ingmire where the enterprising photographer took several images of the dog that he offered for sale.85