The Discovery of Abraham Lincoln's Coffin Photo

it was 1952 in the City of Springfield Illinois when a young college student made a discovery of something that was not supposed to exist the student was working on a research project in the Illinois Historical Society his work was to go through the historical papers of an obscure figure from history a man named John nicolay nicolay had been the private secretary to Abraham Lincoln while digging through papers the student came across what looked like an old black and white photograph now this photo seemed to show a scene of mourning it was a wide shot and in the background could be seen a coffin two men in the photo stood in front of this coffin as if they were guarding it an American flag could be seen in the far corner of the picture convinced of what he had found the kid rushed the photograph to the head of the library who made his own shocking judgment to confirm what the boy had believed you've probably already guessed it but the man in the coffin being guarded was none other than Abraham Lincoln buried in this Trove of paper the student had stumbled onto the only known picture of President Lincoln in his coffin and it was one that was supposed to have been destroyed more than 30 years prior here is the story of how the United States mourned President Abraham Lincoln and how the only photograph of Lincoln in his coffin came to be for Americans living in the year 1865 death had become an inescapable reality of everyday life over the last four years of bitter and bloody Warfare more than 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers had lost their lives the fighting and disease there was almost nobody in the entire country who hadn't grieved for a son brother father during the course of the war and yet even after mourning half a million Souls Lost Americans were still unprepared for the shock of the news they awoke to on April 15th 1865 for the first time in its Short History the US had to learn to grieve for a fallen president now after President Lincoln had taken his last breath in a small boarding house off of 10th Street in Washington DC Secretary of War Edwin Stanton knew that he couldn't remain lying there so Stanton gave an order that Lincoln's body should be transported to the White House where decisions on the president's funeral could be made a group of soldiers brought over a wooden box to use as a makeshift coffin and Lincoln was carefully laid inside coffin was placed in a horsedrawn carriage and A procession of Lincoln's officers followed it to the White House on foot once there a group of Union Soldiers dressed in full uniform carried the president's flag draped coffin into a guest room with the White House Lincoln had only been dead for 5 hours but there was no time to waste if what was going to happen next was really going to be attempted to the surprise of much of the country the decision had already been made President Lincoln's body was going to be EMB bombed now the practice of embomb wasn't an entirely new thing to the American public but for most of the early years of American History it was a rare practice like many other parts of American life though the Civil War uprooted the practices of how Americans cared for and mourned their dead as the war progressed a number of wealthy Northern families became willing to pay lots of money to bring their beloved sons and husbands back one final time these families increasingly paid to have deceased soldiers and bombed and shipped home estimates are that of the approximately 600,000 soldiers that died during the war about 40,000 were inbombed swept up in this growing craze was none other than Abraham Lincoln himself when Lincoln's 11-year-old son Willie died of typhoid fever in the White House in February of 1862 the president had surprised many people by having the young boy him bombed and so now 3 years later a decision was made to call the very same pair of doctors that had prepared the president's body in order to perform the same task on the president himself and once Lincoln's body had been prepared Stanton began work on preparation for the largest public funeral that Washington DC had ever seen But Stanton was busy with all the responsibilities for overseeing the end of the war pressing on him he needed someone to step in and handle the logistics of the funeral and the man he chose for planning and organization of the event was the assistant Secretary of the Treasury a guy named George Harrington now the next day was Easter Sunday which was referred to across the country as black Easter Harrington wrote out a vision of what he hoped Lincoln's funeral might look like at the heart of the ceremony would be an opening of the door of the White House to a public group of 600 regular men and women who would be allowed to enter the executive mansion and view the slain president's body in the East room after public viewing had concluded Lincoln's body would be celebrated in a religious ceremony before finally being carried by a procession to the Capitol rotunda where he would lie in state and finally when a train was ready to carry Lincoln to his final resting place in Springfield Illinois special military escort would accompany his body to the depot now the Journey that Lincoln's body would take from there was to be planned and handled by ston himself now it would not be an easy task for the war department to oversee and organize this but Stanton felt that giving the public outside of Washington the chance to mourn and say farewell to their beloved president would give the union the same reassurance that it had three years earlier when Lincoln had taken a similar trip after he had first been elected president so between the work of Harrington and Stanton the ultimate goodbye to the Fallen president had been organized and through it the nation that mourned Lincoln would never be the same the morning of April 19th was set to be a day of Memorial not just in Washington DC but across the entire Union in cities all across the North Memorial Services were planned to correspond with the timing of Lincoln's funeral in Washington but while the whole country was grieving for the president those who had the privilege of experiencing services in the capital city witnessed a truly Unforgettable experience there were 600 coveted fun funeral tickets and guests who had managed to get their hands on one of them entered the White House and were Amazed by the spectacle the entire East room where Lincoln rested was filled with flowers and other decorations at the center of the room was the cattle Falk the wooden structure supporting Lincoln's casket one of the fascinating and unfortunate things about Lincoln's funeral is that we have no photos of what the White House or the East room looked like that day and this had been the result of an insistence of stin himself who had chosen not to invite any photographers to memorialize the day after the lucky 600 MERS in the East room had a chance to take in the elaborate display the service for Lincoln began at 10 minutes past noon was decided in planning that not just one Minister but three would proceed over the religious portion of the funeral all three of the ministers delivered moving words to the gathered crowd but the final message was reserved for Lincoln's personal Minister who had been at his side in his final hours in Peterson house Dr Phineas D Gurley overall the service went on for almost 2 hours during that time the crowd outside had grown larger and larger as the residents of Washington waited for the president's body to emerge from the funeral more than 100,000 mourners had gathered outside the White House and another 50,000 people Lin the Streets between the executive mansion and the Capitol building this crowd surrounded the hearse and marched alongside the coffin as Lincoln left the White House for the final time and made the mile and a half trip to the capol building for the next two nights Lincoln's body rested there as thousands more mourners walked through the Rotunda every hour to catch a glimpse of the slain president finally on April 21st exactly one week after Booth had shot the president in Ford Theater the funeral train arrived to carry Lincoln off on his final Journey Lincoln's body was not the only one to make the journey alongside of him was his inbombed son Willie who had been carried to Springfield to rest alongside his father now the first stop on the journey was Baltimore and this is where it reached 4 hours after departing from Washington there were some nerves among Lincoln's cabinet about how the president's body would be received in his first city because the population had widely opposed Lincoln during his life but these worries were put to rest when the train arrived in the city despite the weather and the day of Lincoln's arrival being rainy and cold thousands of mourners still line the muddy streets to receive the president the crowds in Baltimore were so thick that it took nearly 3 hours for the train to crawl through the city and reach the post where a catapal had been prepared there Lincoln's body sat on display for 4 hours after thousands had a chance to pass through Lincoln's body was loaded back on the train and taken to the next stop along the journey the reason why we're highlighting this is that the pattern that was established in Baltimore became reflective of every stop along the funeral Train's 1600 mile long route over the next 11 days the train traveled through more than 400 cities and towns across seven different northern states it stopped in 13 different locations for extended periods like it had in Baltimore and at the stop in New York a fascinating incident took place that would end up unintentionally preserving the moment of mourning for Lincoln for future Generations while the president's body was on display in City Hall a photographer named Jeremiah gurnie managed to do something that had been strictly forbidden up to that point he convinced one of the Union Generals a man named Edward townzen to allow him to take two photographs of Lincoln's body lying in the casket gurnie quickly set up his camera and captured two identical images showing the entire scene of the president lying in state guarded by Townsen and rear Admiral Charles Davis Lincoln's face in the resulting photo was blurry but the scene was still powerfully captured but taking such a photograph had been strictly against the agreement that Sten had made with Mary Lincoln and when he found out about the image is he demanded that gurnie destroy all traces of the photographs yet Stan must have had a change of heart while following through on his command instead of destroying every copy of gurn's photograph he decided to allow one single image to be secretly preserved and for the rest of Stanton's life he kept this secret copy of the photograph in his personal papers after Stanton himself passed away his son gave it to Lincoln secretary named John nicolay who had held on to the secret for the rest of his life and it wasn't until 1952 that the teenage student we mentioned in the opening was going through the secretary's papers and discovered the preserved photograph it has become the only confirmed photograph of Abraham Lincoln in his casket but for those who were living at the time and who witnessed the president's body travel through their City the memory of that day was preserved more clearly than any Photograph by the time the funeral train reached Chicago where it passed through an elaborately constructed 40ft tall Gothic funeral art it was becoming clear that the trip across the union had brought more of an effect on the public than anyone could have imagined When the Crowds gathered to see the president's body in so many cities they were not just mourning the loss of one man they were mourning the devastation that had stolen thousands of lives ripped apart families and left the once hopeful dream of American Liberty at its Breaking Point the death of the president had been the cap on a half decade of heartbreak for the American public and yet by looking upon the body body of Lincoln and accepting what had happened to the man that had been so admired and loved at least in the north the first stage of healing finally began the nation that Lincoln had sacrificed his life for was not broken when Booth pulled the trigger at Ford's Theater instead a new start was being born for the country one that might one day live up to the Ambitions of the great emancipator become a more perfect [Music] union

Channel: Historyfeels

Views: 541,365

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln, last photo, Abe, Honest abe, Lincoln, john wilkes booth, lincoln funeral

Id: YKm9L1KHd9k

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 11 2023