Just before 8 a.m. on Friday, April 21, 1865, an assemblage of dignitaries, soldiers and friends of Abraham Lincoln stood at the train depot in Washington, DC, to hear a brief prayer given by Rev. Phineas Densmore Gurley, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. Puffs of smoke from two waiting locomotives and dozens of tolling church bells across the city accompanied Rev. Gurley’s remarks. The men assembled had, two hours before, followed the president’s coffin through rain that would persist through much of the funeral train’s journey in a symbolic representation of the nation’s grief.
“God, watch over this sleeping dust of our fallen Chief Magistrate. Watch over it as it passes from our view and is borne to its final resting place in the soil of that sate which was his abiding and chosen home.” – Rev. Phineas Gurley (Kunhardt & Kunhardt, 1965, p. 140)
At ten minutes to eight, B&O locomotive No. 239 left Washington. Its duty as the pilot engine was to ensure safe trackage for the funeral train that would follow. As engineer William Galloway and fireman James Brown conveyed No. 239 north toward Baltimore, the telegraph operator at each station they passed immediately sent word to the next station on the line. Because the entire funeral train including all pilot locomotives was under the direct authority of the military, the train was granted the entire right of way over each line it passed. All other trains, regardless of type or purpose, were ordered into sidings to be kept out of the way of the funeral train (Trostel, 2002).
By military oder Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train was to be not less than nine cars in length. The hearse car itself, hurriedly refitted at the Alexandria rail yard by Benjamin Lamason and his crew just two days before the train’s departure, would be the second-to-last car in each consist. Behind it, for safety, was an officers’ car which carried high-ranking members of the military, friends of President Lincoln, and the Veteran Reserve Guard of Honor. Aboard “United States”–the official name given to the presidential coach–there were two coffins. In the rear parlor rested the elaborately decorated solid walnut coffin of Abraham Lincoln. It was covered in the finest black broadcloth and adorned with silver tacking, tassels and fringe. Four gleaming silver handles were fitted to each side. In the parlor at the front of the funeral car a smaller metal coffin rested. In it were the remains of Willie Lincoln who had passed away in the White House on February 20, 1862. The Lincolns had eleven-year-old Willie’s body interred in a crypt at Georgetown’s Oak Creek Cemetery; their intent had been to take him home to be buried when they returned to Springfield. Willie’s coffin remained on the train throughout the journey and was attended at all times by an honor guard.
A few April showers had seen the funeral train leave Washington, but rain was pouring when it reached Baltimore just before 10 a.m. Masses of people in every direction jostled for position along the procession route that led from Camden Station to the Merchant’s Exchange. Citizens and visitors to Baltimore would have little time to pay their respects; the tightly controlled schedule called for a mere four hours in Maryland. Despite the brevity of the layover and the inclement weather, an estimated 10,000 people passed by Abraham Lincoln’s open coffin. Many thousands more had to be content with viewing the procession as it made its way through muddy city streets. It was a scene that would become familiar as the Lincoln funeral train made its way west.