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April 29
- From Columbus Governor John Brough and others changed the train's route, which resulted in a trip through Champaign County where it stopped several times. The Funeral Train arrived in Woodstock on April 29 at 9:46 p.m. for a brief ceremony and to take on fuel and water.
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The Funeral Train arrived in Woodstock on April 29 at 9:46 p.m. for a brief ceremony and to take on fuel and water. With nearly 500 people present, bouquets were laid on Lincoln’s coffin. The Woodstock Cornet Band, led by Warren U. Cushman, played hymns of grief, including “Pleyel’s Hymn.”
On April 29, 1865, the Lincoln funeral train stopped in Woodstock for water and a memorial service. The image is a link to a page in "The Lincoln Funeral Train" by Scott D. Trostel describing the stop.
- Overview
- Connecting a Nation
On the 150th anniversary of that trip, historian Adam Goodheart reflects on the rail splitter’s special connection to railroads.
Several months ago, at the behest of National Geographic, I retraced the route of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train from Washington, D.C., halfway across the continent to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. (Read “Lincoln: Looking for his Legacy Today.”)
Early in my pilgrimage, I found a railroad spike in the weeds along a section of abandoned tracks. I knew it couldn’t date back to the 1860s—it was probably a few decades old—but nonetheless, I kept it in the cupholder of my car for the next 1,500 miles. I liked its look, somehow both industrial and homemade, roughened and angular—Lincolnesque. It seemed to evoke not just the fallen leader’s final journey, but also his legacy as America’s great “railroad president.”
On the drizzly morning of April 19, 1865, when the train carrying the murdered president’s coffin pulled out of Washington’s central depot, it embarked on a journey that resonated deeply with many chapters of his life.
In a sense, Lincoln and the new technology had come of age together in the 1830s, the first decade of major American railroad construction. As a 27-year-old novice state legislator, he was already advocating the construction of new train lines, and later served as an attorney for the Illinois Central and other companies.
In 1861, when it came time for him to journey to Washington for his first inauguration—traveling farther to reach the White House than any previous president-elect—Lincoln did so on a meandering rail journey through the midwestern and northern states. As he traveled, he made speeches to reassure his fellow Americans that the nation would be saved.
It was also an unprecedented technical feat. Before the Civil War, America’s rail system was a patchwork of small local lines, many using different gauges of rail, necessitating frequent changes of engines and cars. On the 1865 trip, however, two cars made the entire journey, coupled and uncoupled repeatedly from different locomotives. One of those two was the “officers’ car,” carrying high-ranking military personnel and members of the Lincoln family. The other was the funeral car itself. Dubbed the United States, it had actually been designed to carry the living Lincoln—but in a tragic twist, he was fated to ride on it only in death.
The United States Military Railroads had completed it in February 1865 as a lavish presidential office on wheels, a sort of 19th-century version of Air Force One, with elaborately painted and gilded wood and etched glass, and wheels designed to accommodate tracks of varying gauges. For the funeral trip, it was draped inside and out in heavy black cloth fringed with silver. Together with the president’s body, the United States also carried homeward that of Willie Lincoln, who had died in Washington in 1862, age 11, and was exhumed to be reburied alongside his father.
The train’s passage through towns and villages, usually in darkness, was an unparalleled event. "As we sped over the rails at night, the scene was the most pathetic ever witnessed, wrote one member of the entourage. "At every cross-roads the glare of innumerable torches illuminated the whole population from age to infancy kneeling on the ground, and their clergymen leading in prayers and hymns."
Especially in the rural Midwest, ordinary Americans felt a connection with Lincoln that went beyond just the tragedy of his assassination. Like him, they had suffered the agonies and triumphs of four years of war, and this emotional journey was bound up with memories of the railroad, too. It was at the local depots—the same ones where the funeral train now passed—that, long before, many had caught their last glimpses of sons and brothers who would never return. It was here that civilians brought the bandages and clothing, food and flags, that they contributed to the war effort. It was here that the first news of defeats and losses on distant battlefields arrived, carried by the telegraph lines that ran along the tracks.
The funeral car had originally been intended as a lavish presidential office on wheels, a sort of 19th-century version of Air Force One.
Both the telegraph and the train are now gone from most of the rural Midwest, where many local lines closed in the late 20th century, after steadily dwindling use due to competition from interstate highways. Many old villages that grew up around rural depots are now dwindling as well. The train yards where bonfires blazed in April 1865 are now nondescript parking lots shadowed by rusting grain silos.
- Adam Goodheart
Sep 17, 2011 · From Columbus Governor John Brough and others changed the train's route, which resulted in a trip through Champaign County where it stopped several times. The Funeral Train arrived in Woodstock on April 29 at 9:46 p.m. for a brief ceremony and to take on fuel and water.
Aug 21, 2018 · The clock at the train station in Jersey City, N.J., had been stopped at 7:20 a.m.—the approximate time of Lincoln’s death—but the train arrived on schedule at 10 a.m. Monday, April 24. The coffin was transported by ferry across the Hudson River to New York City and brought to City Hall.
Jul 4, 2015 · On its way the Funeral Train stopped in Columbus and Lincoln's coffin was moved to the Statehouse Rotunda for a day-long viewing. From Columbus Governor John Brough and others changed the train's route, which resulted in a trip through Champaign County where it stopped several times.
