When the Lincoln Special departed Indianapolis the night of April 30, 1865, its schedule–tightly controlled by the War Department–called for a run to Chicago that included a meal stop but no formal funeral services until it reached the Windy City. Preparations had been underway in Chicago for several days. Many in town had known Lincoln and were proud to count him among their friends. The city, like others before it, had spared little expense to honor the fallen chief executive and the results were spectacular, but a delay at Michigan City, Indiana, resulted in a ceremony that perhaps best symbolized the humble nature of the man it honored.
Each state through which the funeral train passed sent an official delegation to receive the president’s remains and travel to the next major stop where the process would begin anew. Michigan City, just 54 miles east of Chicago, was reached at 7:45 a.m. on May 1. Plans called for a brief respite for the train crew and passengers, and an elaborate breakfast that featured whitefish was prepared by the women of the city, but no public viewings or other services were to occur. However, when word reached the station that the special train carrying the delegation from Chicago that was to escort the president’s remains into Illinois was running nearly an hour behind schedule, townspeople decided to make the most of the time.
As the crew attended to the needs of the locomotives for the next leg of the journey and the funeral train sat idle, a group of 18 ladies made their way through the crowd surrounding the hearse car. They carried various floral arrangements and were permitted to board the car and place the flowers on Lincoln’s coffin. Following this, another group of 36 young ladies accompanied by another who was dressed as the Goddess of Liberty came aboard to file past the closed coffin. This second group also left flowers–a bouquet formed in the shape of a cross. The scene was not lost on the crowd and many near the train pressed forward toward the funeral car.
It is not known who made the request on behalf of those gathered to be allowed to come aboard, but for the next hour until the Chicago delegation arrived throngs of people streamed onto the train car. The Veteran Reserve Guard of Honor, 29 men who had been hand-selected in Washington to accompany the president’s body along the entire journey, had their hands full at one point as the crowd surged toward the funeral car, but order was soon restored and several hundred people were able to pay final respects to President Lincoln.
Decorations at Michigan City were elaborate, as was the scheduled breakfast, and both of those endeavors met with favorable reviews from all who were there. Yet the simplicity of an unplanned gift of extra time is what mattered most. No procession with thousands of marchers; no ornate horse-drawn hearse to convey the coffin to a grand building; no mile-long lines with tens of thousands waiting for hours. Just a modest assemblage united in sorrow, who gave what they could in the short time that they had to honor the man who had spent his formative years on their soil.
“This Michigan City meeting with the people would have been just right with Lincoln.” (Kunhardt, 1965, p. 231)