Lincoln Funeral (Train procession concluded 12 days of travel on May 3, 1865)

After a circuitous, 12-day journey which retraced much of Lincoln's inaugural route and included funerals in major Eastern and Midwestern cities, the train pulled into the Chicago & Alton station near Springfield's business district. The nine-car train included a presidential car for Lincoln and his son Willie, who died in the White House three years earlier, a baggage car, and seven Pullman sleeping cars for the funeral entourage. Years later Lincoln's eldest son Robert would become president of the Pullman company, based in Chicago.
The reporter watched as the train "moved slowly into the town, moved slowly through masses of 'plain people' who had come from all the country round about." Springfield, with its 15,000 residents, now welcomed more than 100,000 visitors on this historic occasion. As the train stopped and pallbearers approached it, "The stillness among all the people is painful; but when the coffin is taken from the car, that stillness is broken, broken by sobs, and these are more painful than the stillness." Soldiers from the Veteran Reserve Corps loaded the president's coffin into an elaborate borrowed hearse, "splendidly adorned" with "A.L." engraved on a silver plate surrounded by a silver wreath, two inverted torches, and 36 stars symbolizing the states in the Union. While a band played funeral music, six black horses slowly pulled the hearse in a formal procession toward the city square. On the west side of the square stood a building which housed the Lincoln-Herndon Law Office. Now it wore a banner: "He Lives in the Hearts of His People." Just before Lincoln left for Washington he told his law partner William Herndon, "If I live I'm coming back some time, and then we'll go right on practising law as if nothing had ever happened." Years later Herndon wrote, "He always contended that he was doomed to a sad fate, and he repeatedly said to me when we were alone in our office: 'I am sure I shall meet with some terrible end.'"
LYRIC (by Phineas D. Gurley):
"Rest, Noble Martyr"
Rest, noble martyr! Rest in peace;
Rest with the true and brave,
Who, like thee, fell in Freedom's cause,
The Nation's life to save. Thy name shall live while time endures,
And men shall say of thee,
"He saved his country from its foes,
And bade the slave be free." These deeds shall be thy monument,
Better than brass or stone;
They leave thy fame in glory's light,
Unrival'd and alone. This consecrated spot shall be
To Freedom ever dear.
And Freedom's sons of every race
Shall weep and worship here. O God! before whom we, in tears,
Our fallen Chief deplore;
Grant that the cause, for which he died,
May live forevermore.