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Rubenstein Center Scholarship

Abraham Lincoln Funeral

April 19, 1865

Six hundred invited guests attended the funeral of President Lincoln, felled by the assassin John Wilkes Booth. The East Room overflowed with mourners out into the Green Room. Inconsolable, Mary Todd Lincoln would not attend the funeral services. General Grant was seated alone at the head of the catafalque in full uniform, the hero on a pedestal, his face glistening with tears. Andrew Johnson stood with the Cabinet. Rev. Dr. Phineas D. Gurley compared Lincoln with Moses in his long and sentimental sermon. When the service ended the mourners filed out in orderly lines, emerged through the north door, and stood on the driveway awaiting the procession to the Capitol. Thousands of mourners spread beyond the fence. At two o'clock the coffin was carried by an honor guard from the White House and placed on a black-draped funeral car drawn by six white horses. Church bells tolled throughout the city as the car rolled down the driveway, through the iron gates, and away to the Capitol rotunda where Lincoln's body first lay in state and then was taken onto cities across the nation.

Abraham Lincoln Funeral - Photo 1

Lincoln's Funeral in the East Room, April 19, 1865. Mrs. Lincoln, though shown in the artist's depiction, did not attend.

Harper's Weekly

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