Lincoln's Last Trip Back to Springfield

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What is the number one issue for you? To the national stage. And I welcome you to the final 2020 presidential debate. When critical votes were counted. Still too close to call. And when power was held to account.

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Listen to find strength and community on the MG journey on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Dancing with the Stars, Tuesdays on ABC and Disney Plus, next day on Hulu. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. For his inauguration in 1861, Abraham Lincoln took a 13-day train ride from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C., facing assassination attempts and a union splitting apart at the seams along the way. Four years and a civil war later, he'd take the same trip in reverse under very different circumstances. Here to tell the story of Lincoln's assassination and funeral train is Louis Pecone, author of The President is Dead, the extraordinary stories of presidential deaths, final days, burials, and beyond.

Take it away, Louis. On April 14th, 1865, this was Good Friday, and it was also the first Friday since Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Grant at Appomattox. This was a very festive and jubilant Washington, D.C., as well as a jubilant Abraham Lincoln. For his entire presidency, Abraham Lincoln had been fighting the Civil War. One of his children died, too.

Willie died while in the White House. So this was a man whose entire presidency was filled with misery. And for the first time, he can be happy. He could celebrate.

He can be joyful. So even though it was Good Friday, which is probably the most solemn day on the Christian campaign, which is probably the most solemn day on the Christian calendar, Abraham Lincoln, at the suggestion of Mary Todd Lincoln, decided that evening he was going to go see a comedy play called Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. So he woke up that morning in a good mood, and the people who saw him said that Abraham Lincoln was more cheerful and jubilant than he had been in a long time and probably they had really ever seen him. He had breakfast with his son, Robert Todd. In the last months of the Civil War, Robert Todd had convinced his father and mother to allow him to go into the military because he didn't want to grow old, thinking that he didn't take part in the seminal event, in the seminal war of his youth when he was of age to fight in it. So he finally convinced his father, and Abraham Lincoln reached out to Ulysses S. Grant, who took him on as an aide. So Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, was with Ulysses S. Grant at the surrender of Robert E. Lee. So that morning, Abraham Lincoln was having breakfast with Robert Todd and he was telling him all about the surrender. At about 11 o'clock, he had a cabinet meeting, including Ulysses S. Grant, and at that cabinet meeting, they discussed the peaceful restoration of the Union. He was committed to honor his pledge in his second inaugural speech of malice towards none and charity for all. That was the approach that he was taking, not vindictiveness.

He wasn't looking to punish the South. He was looking to welcome them back in. So he had lunch with Mary after his cabinet meeting, and then they took a carriage ride to the Washington Navy Yard. On that carriage ride, Mary Todd Lincoln later recalled how happy Abraham Lincoln was and how he was imploring Mary Todd Lincoln that finally, this misery is behind us.

We must be happy. They were trying to figure out together how to move forward as a couple. And they had talked wistfully about the travel they would do. Abraham Lincoln wanted to go to the Holy Land.

He wanted to travel internationally. For the first time, he can think more about the day in front of him and the week in front of him and the battles in front of him, which really makes his assassination just so much more tragic. So about 830, Abraham Lincoln walked into the theater and they took their seats in the balcony.

A little bit late, tried to be discreet. He arrived during the first act, but Abraham Lincoln couldn't be discreet in a setting like that. So he received a standing ovation and the orchestra struck up Hail to the Chief. So Lincoln acknowledged the crowd at Ford's Theater.

There was about 1,700 patrons at Ford Theater that day. And then he took his seat. At about 10 o'clock during the performance, Mary Todd Lincoln, she was holding his hand and hugged him very self-consciously though. And she whispered, What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so? And Abraham Lincoln was trying to make her feel better and said she won't think anything about it.

These were Abraham Lincoln's last words. Now, this was before Secret Service protection, but Abraham Lincoln did have a personal bodyguard that would accompany him. But once Abraham Lincoln was in the balcony and the door to the balcony was locked, the personal bodyguard decided he was going to leave and go out and get a drink. So there was no guard there.

There was no guard there. At about 10, 15, John Wilkes Booth entered the balcony during the third act. And Booth had performed at Ford's Theater. Abraham Lincoln had even seen some of John Wilkes Booth's performances. And Booth was probably one of the most famous actors in America at the time, very well known. So when John Wilkes Booth came into Ford's Theater, he didn't have to sneak in. People knew him.

When he went towards the balcony, he went rather freely because he was John Wilkes Booth. So he was very familiar with the play too. And he knew one of the scenes in the third act had a big laugh line. So he knew when to time his assassination. He planned that during this big laugh line, the shot would be muffled by the laughter and it would give him a little more time to make his escape. So during that scene, John Wilkes Booth snuck in.

He had the cover that he needed. He had a single shot Derringer in his hand. He managed to get right behind the president and shoot the pistol. John Wilkes Booth leapt onto the stage, jumped off of the balcony. In the process, he got his foot tangled on a flag and he actually broke his leg in the fall.

But he had a boot on and in the adrenaline, he managed to escape anyway, even with the broken leg. He held up his dagger and he yelled, the south is avenged, see Semper Tyrannus, which was Latin for thus always to tyrants. And you're listening to Louis Pecone tell the story of President Lincoln's assassination and what would follow on his trek, his body's trek back to Springfield.

More of this remarkable story, Lincoln's last trip back home here on Our American Story. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to politics to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.

Go to hillsdale.edu to learn more. For each person living with myasthenia gravis or MG, their journey with this rare neuromuscular condition is unique. That's why Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis, a new podcast from iHeartRadio in partnership with Argenics, is exploring the extraordinary challenges and personal triumphs of underserved communities living with MG. Host Martine Hackett will share powerful perspectives from people living with the debilitating muscle weakness and fatigue caused by this rare disorder. Each episode will uncover the reality of life with myasthenia gravis from early signs and symptoms to obtaining an accurate diagnosis and finding care. Every person with MG has a story to tell. And by featuring these real life experiences, this podcast hopes to inspire the MG community, educate others about this rare condition, and let those living with it know that they are not alone.

Listen to Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Available in select locations. See app for details. Throughout history, electricity has inspired some pretty incredible inventions. For instance, those little robot vacuums people name like pets and smartphones, which brought us the winky face emoji. But of all the great things, nothing quite compares to the Hyundai IONIQ 5. I mean, this thing has all the tech you would ever want. 100% electric, two-way charging capability up to a 300 mile range.

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Your actual range will vary. And we return to our American stories and the story of President Lincoln's assassination and funeral train with Arthur Louis Bacon. When we last left off, amidst the clamor and celebration of a country finally at peace with itself, the man who had seen it all to fruition lay dying in a theater in Washington.

Lincoln had gone to Ford's theater that night with his wife, Mary Todd, Henry Lee Rathbone, and Clara Harris, his wife. He'd soon be joined by others rushing to his aid. Let's get back to the story.

Here again is Louis Bacon. Someone yelled, is there a doctor in the house? And there was a 23 year old assistant surgeon of the US volunteers there who just happened to be in the audience. He had heard that Abraham Lincoln was going to see the play that day, so he wanted to get a chance to see Lincoln. His name was Charles Augustus Leal. He became the chief doctor who cared for Lincoln until his death the next day, despite being the first one there. He found Lincoln on the floor. Mary Lincoln was trying to cradle him and he examined him. He thought he was stabbed because there was blood everywhere from Rathbone. He saw that John Wilkes Booth had the dagger in his hand, so he just assumed that Abraham Lincoln was stabbed. He couldn't find the wound and he couldn't find the pulse. Finally, he put his hand behind his head and he discovered the bullet hole.

Two more doctors arrived, Charles Taft and Albert King. Between them, they basically performed CPR and artificial respiration to get him breathing again. But Mary Todd asked him, is he going to recover? And Leal was honest because he knew that no one had ever recovered from a bullet wound to the head like this. And he had told her, the wound is mortal.

It is impossible for him to recover. Leal had implored someone to get brandy and water, which was one of the medicine practices of the day, a stimulant to the body. That was the only medication that Abraham Lincoln was to receive the entire evening.

So the three doctors discovered what to do next. They knew that Abraham Lincoln was going to die. It wasn't a question of if he was going to die. It was a question of when and where Abraham Lincoln was going to die.

The three doctors determined that he would never survive a ride, a carriage ride on the bumpy cobblestone streets of Washington, D.C. in 1865. So they brought him outside. First thing they looked to was a tavern next door.

Tartables Tavern. And that's where the bodyguard had gone. They decided the president couldn't die in a tavern that was so undignified. One of the reasons they brought him out of the theater was that it was too undignified for the president to die in a theater.

And certainly he couldn't die in a tavern. So across the street, there was a home and there was a man standing outside one of the residents, Henry Safford, and he was calling them, bring him in here, bring him in here. So this home was owned by a man named George Peterson. It was known as the Peterson home. That's where they brought Abraham Lincoln.

They brought him in a room towards the back of the home that had been rented by a Massachusetts private named William Clark. Now, Clark was out celebrating the end of the war like much of Washington, D.C. Little did he know that the president of the United States was now lying on his bed in his final hours of life. But there was all these crazy rumors running through Washington, D.C. as well. Andrew Johnson had been assassinated, Grant had been assassinated.

It was just mass confusion in the city and people tended to think the worst had happened, that the entire government had been decapitated. Eventually, most of the cabinet members came. It was reported that Andrew Johnson arrived at the home too. He was in the hospital, he was in the hospital with his wife, Andrew Johnson arrived at the home too. But Mary Todd Lincoln did not like Andrew Johnson. At the inauguration, Andrew Johnson was sick and he tried to treat that with whiskey and he became drunk and he gave an outrageous inauguration speech and Mary Todd Lincoln had really despised him ever since. So reportedly when Andrew Johnson arrived at the home, Mary Todd Lincoln was so upset that she sent him away that wouldn't let him inside. But the other members of the cabinet did arrive, except for Secretary of State William Seward, who there was an assassination attempt that night. They realized that this was an historic evening and they wanted to make sure that the conversation, that everything was said was recorded. So they managed to find someone who knew shorthand that was just outside of the Peterson home, a 20-year-old veteran named James Tanner who had lost both legs during the war. And at 7 21 and 55 seconds, Abraham Lincoln took his last breath. 15 seconds later at 7 22 and 10 seconds AM, Abraham Lincoln's heart stopped and he died.

It was very appropriate that it started to rain in the city. Now reportedly, Edwin Stanton said, now he belongs to the ages. Some people believe that he said, now he belongs to the angels.

But what was written down was now he belongs to the ages. Charles Leal in an old custom that dated back to ancient Greece put coins over Abraham Lincoln's eyes. And it was a custom where the ancient Greeks believed that those coins over the eyes of the deceased would help pay for safe passage across the river of death. And Leal crossed his arms, crossed Abraham Lincoln's arms and he smoothed his hair and he covered his face with a white sheet. One of the first questions for the funeral planters was where Abraham Lincoln would be buried.

As always, that decision is made by the spouse. And Mary Lincoln wanted her husband buried in Illinois. That was their home. Springfield, Illinois was where they had last lived.

It's where they planned to return to. And that's where she wanted Abraham Lincoln buried. So now the funeral planners had to decide how to properly memorialize President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. and then how to return his body to Springfield, Illinois.

Now, the only option was by funeral training. The first funeral train in history was after John Quincy Adams death. But Abraham Lincoln's funeral training would be much larger and much grander. So the planners decided to generally recreate the route that Abraham Lincoln had taken in 1861 after he was inaugurated and left Springfield, Illinois to come to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration. He took a roundabout route that went north and along the route, he'd stop. He'd give speeches along the route. This was really a way at a time when very few people saw a president in person.

Obviously, there was no television at the time. So in this era, Lincoln felt that it was important for him to introduce himself to the north. He tried to stop in as many cities and as many places on his inaugural route in 1861.

So the planners decided to generally recreate that route in reverse. And there was petitions from governors of states. Once they knew that there would be a funeral train to have that train stop in their state. So a 10 person committee, congressional committee was formed to make arrangements for the funeral train. And the Abraham Lincoln funeral train almost becomes a character in the story of Abraham Lincoln.

It was a 20 day pageant. The funeral train was 1,700 miles. One and a half million people personally laid their eyes on the body of Abraham Lincoln of the martyred president.

Seven million more people either saw the funeral train or watched the hearse pass in the streets as part of one of the many public processions. It was nine cars to fit the large delegation of people who would be on that funeral train. The engine was called the Old Nashville.

A picture of Abraham Lincoln was affixed to the cowcatcher. The last car was the 16 wheeled United States was the name of the car. And this was a car that had been specifically designed for Abraham Lincoln. He had used it during his presidency. It had 12 windows on each side, an interior paneling of deep chocolate cover. It was a maroon colored car and it almost served as Abraham Lincoln's air force one when he was traveling the country.

And he had used it several times for trips to New York city. And you're listening to Louis Pecone tell a heck of a story about Lincoln's assassination and the funeral train that took him back home to Springfield. When we come back more of this remarkable story here on Our American Story. For each person living with myasthenia gravis or MG, their journey with this rare neuromuscular condition is just as exciting as it is. Their journey with this rare neuromuscular condition is unique. That's why untold stories life with myasthenia gravis, a new podcast from I Heart Radio in partnership with Argenics is exploring the extraordinary challenges and personal triumphs of underserved communities living with MG. Host Martine Hackett will share powerful perspectives from people living with the debilitating muscle weakness and fatigue caused by this rare disorder. Each episode will uncover the reality of life with myasthenia gravis from early signs and symptoms to obtaining an accurate diagnosis and finding care. Every person with MG has a story to tell. And by featuring these real life experiences, this podcast hopes to inspire the MG community, educate others about this rare condition and let those living with it know that they are not alone.

Listen to untold stories life with myasthenia gravis on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Available in select locations. See app for details. Hyundai is back with the all electric IONIQ 6. It has a range of up to 360 miles and can charge from 10% to 80% in as little as 18 minutes on a DC ultra fast charger. But are there any drawbacks to the EV lifestyle?

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Let's return to the story. So as they brought the coffin outside, Mary Lincoln escorted her husband and stepped outside and looked across the street at Ford's Theater. It said, oh, that dreadful house, that dreadful house before she entered the carriage.

About 11 o'clock, the carriage arrived at the White House and Abraham Lincoln was brought inside. They performed an autopsy of Abraham Lincoln inside of the White House. There was seven doctors who performed the autopsy.

Certainly not that many doctors were required. Everyone knew how Abraham Lincoln had died, but this was one of those gruesome events where people just wanted to be there. And this was a time when doctors believed in the practice of phrenology, where a person's intelligence could be measured by his brain size or by his skull size.

So they measured the brain and they found that it was normal size. After the autopsy, there was undertakers who were called to the house to embalm Abraham Lincoln's body. Now they had developed a new embalming practice during the Civil War when 750,000 people died. There was a mass death that had occurred in America, carnage that had never been seen before. And there was this urge for families to have the remains of their sons brought back from the battlefield to their hometown so they can be buried at home. Now embalming had existed for thousands of years.

It dated back to the ancient Egyptians. But during the Civil War, the practice of embalming really became perfected. And it also became big business. Embalmers would set up shop near battlefields and soldiers were able to basically purchase insurance before going out to battle, where if they died, their bodies would be embalmed and sent back to their families.

So it became really big business during the Civil War. And Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be embalmed. Now for this very important task, they called Henry P. Cattle. And Cattle was considered a master embalmer. But even Henry Cattle, being a master embalmer, was tasked with doing something that nobody else had done before, because Abraham Lincoln's body would be above ground for 20 days while it was being brought around the country for public viewings, open casket public viewings, before he was finally placed in a crypt.

An embalmer had never done anything like this before. It had to prepare a body, not only for public viewing, but for three weeks of public viewing. On April 18th, there was a viewing in the East Room of the White House. This was reminiscent of a dream that Abraham Lincoln had had several months earlier. And it was a dream that he had told several people about, including his cabinet. Where in his dream, he was walking through the White House and he walked into the East Room and he saw a crowd gather around something that he couldn't see what it was. And he asked somebody, what's going on here? And that person told Abraham Lincoln that the president is dead, he's been assassinated.

And now, April 18th, his dream was coming true. 25,000 people lined up and waited hours as they would do at the Capitol and as they would do in cities all across the country over these next weeks. They waited hours to somberly walk past the coffin of Abraham Lincoln.

The next day, there was a service for 600 people, again, in the East Room. Andrew Johnson was at the funeral service and weeping openly, sitting beside the coffin was Ulysses S. Grant. On April 19th, the coffin was removed from the White House and taken to the nation's Capitol for another public viewing. This is the template for state funerals that would occur many times over the years. Very similar to the modern state funeral of a service and a public viewing at the nation's Capitol before the body is transported to its final resting place. There was a military procession, the first of many military processions that would escort the remains of Abraham Lincoln. And this procession brought the body to the nation's Capitol. Now, there was an order to this military procession, but entirely by accident, one of the regiments that was planning to participate in the military procession was the 22nd U.S.

Colored Infantry. Just by happenstance and by accident, they had found themselves leading the military procession. So this was entirely accidental, but entirely appropriate for a regiment of African-Americans to be leading the procession. There was 50,000 marchers and it took two hours to pass. Hundreds and thousands of people stood along the streets. There was bands that were playing solemn dirges, honorary gunfire, the church bells were tolling.

It was an uncoordinated and unharmonic cacophony of noise. But the New York Times called it the greatest pageant ever tended to the honored dead on this continent. The spectacle has been the most impressive ever witnessed in the nation's Capitol. And this scene would play out again and again and again all throughout cities until Abraham Lincoln's funeral train reached its final destination.

The next day, there was another public viewing in the nation's Capitol where 30,000 people waited in the rain hours. The next day at 6 a.m., the dignitaries and cabinet members and pallbearers arrived in the rotunda. This was the day that Abraham Lincoln's funeral train would begin.

Now, this wasn't intended to be a ceremonial procession to the train station, but despite the bad weather in the early hour, massive crowds were on hand to see this procession. At 7 30 a.m., the coffin was placed on board. Now, one of the stipulations for Mary Todd Lincoln for the funeral train, because originally she wasn't on board with this massive public spectacle, was she wanted her son Willie, who had been temporarily buried in Washington D.C. for the past three years after he died in 1862, she wanted him very quietly and very discreetly for Willie to be reinterred along with his father in Springfield, Illinois. So at 7 30 a.m., when Abraham Lincoln's coffin arrived at the train station and was placed on board, nobody in the crowd knew that Willie's coffin had earlier been placed on board the train as well. And at 8 a.m., the train departed Washington D.C. And we're listening to author Louis Bacon tell the story of President Lincoln's assassination and then the trip back home, his body's trip back home to be buried in Springfield, and my goodness, what a tale this is. From the embalming, I didn't know who knew that this was the first president that was embalmed. 20 days in an open casket, something his bride was not thrilled about, but in the end, the country demanded it. The country wanted to mourn their leader, and my goodness, did they ever. 1.5 million people, we learned, would view Lincoln's body. Another seven, almost seven million would view or see the train pass by.

Enormous numbers for the then small country of about 30 million. And what a story we heard about Grant. I can just see that image, all the carnage that Grant had seen, all the death. And there he was in front of that open casket, the great general weeping, just weeping.

When we come back, more of the story of Lincoln's last trip back to Springfield, here on Our American Stories. For each person living with myasthenia gravis, or MG, their journey with this rare neuromuscular condition is unique. That's why Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis, a new podcast from iHeartRadio in partnership with Argenics, is exploring the extraordinary challenges and personal triumphs of underserved communities living with MG. Host Martine Hackett will share powerful perspectives from people living with the debilitating muscle weakness and fatigue caused by this rare disorder. Each episode will uncover the reality of life with myasthenia gravis, from early signs and symptoms to obtaining an accurate diagnosis and finding care. Every person with MG has a story to tell. And by featuring these real-life experiences, this podcast hopes to inspire the MG community, educate others about this rare condition, and let those living with it know that they are not alone.

Listen to Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Throughout history, electricity has inspired some pretty incredible inventions. For instance, those little robot vacuums people name like pets and smartphones, which brought us the winky face emoji. But of all the great things, nothing quite compares to the Hyundai IONIQ 5. I mean, this thing has all the tech you would ever want. 100% electric, two-way charging capability up to a 300-mile range.

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Your actual range will vary. And we return to our American stories and the final portion of our story of President Lincoln's assassination and his funeral train back home to Springfield with Arthur Lewis Pecone. Let's get back to the story.

Here again is Lewis. The first stop was in Baltimore, Maryland. Now Baltimore was a state that had been a slave state when the Civil War first started, but it remained loyal to the Union. Many of the people from Maryland had Confederate sympathies. When Abraham Lincoln's inaugural train traveled through Baltimore in 1861, there was reports of an assassination plot.

Pinkerton agents were watching. They were warning Abraham Lincoln about trying to dissuade him from even going to Baltimore. Abraham Lincoln did go to Baltimore, but he reportedly switched from one train to another almost in disguise under a shawl. But now the city was eager to show its loyalty. It was very gloomy weather when the train pulled into Baltimore and this bad weather eerily and appropriately seemed to follow the funeral train almost in every city along the way. But the city was eager to show its loyalty. There was a bounty that was created to capture John Wilkes Booth because at this time John Wilkes Booth was still on the run and for 12 days he would remain from authorities. So Baltimore officials chipped in $10,000 for the capture of John Wilkes Booth. But this was not a very well organized funeral procession.

It was the first one. It took about three hours for the leaders of the procession to remove the coffin and to bring it to the merchant exchange building which was one of the most prominent buildings in the city for the public viewing. There was only about an hour and a half of public viewing and there was a lot of disappointed and frustrated people that had waited on line for hours to see the remains. Now other cities would hear about some of the stumbles from Baltimore. It almost turned into a competition along the funeral train. Each city, the further that the funeral train got would hear reports of the previous city and would look to outdo it.

Whether it was funeral arches, more elaborate funeral hearses, it would get bigger and bolder throughout the funeral train. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, two of Abraham Lincoln's adversaries boarded the train to pay their respects. Thaddeus Stevens from the Radical Republicans and 15th President James Buchanan.

The next stop was in Philadelphia and this was a massive procession to Independence Hall. The coffin was placed beneath the statue of George Washington. The image of George Washington would be prominent throughout the funeral train. The president who created the union and the president who saved the union side by side. Above the coffin was a sign that read, sooner than surrender these principles, I would be assassinated on the spot.

Those words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 when he had visited Independence Hall. 300,000 people marched past the coffin inside Independence Hall. They would march through on both sides.

There would be two lines, one on the right of the coffin, one on the left of the coffin. It was written that never before in the history of our city was such a dense mass of humanity huddled together. It was a scene of mass chaos. In New York City, people waited on line for three quarters of a mile. One of them was Captain Parker Snow who had commanded expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic circles.

He presented relics of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition that consisted of a tattered leaf of a prayer book on which the first word legible was the word martyr. So after the public viewing in New York City, there was another procession that returned the remains to the train station. Now this was a procession that was much larger than the procession that brought the remains to City Hall. There was 60,000 marchers and the procession was five miles long and a half million people witnessed the procession.

The New York City Herald reported, the city never saw a greater throne. So a funeral train is a way for the public to participate in this public mourning and there's several ways that they could participate. There was the thousands and thousands who could see the remains of Abraham Lincoln who managed to enter Independence Hall and New York City City Hall and the approximately 10 other public viewings that were held throughout the funeral train. But for the people that didn't live near those cities or weren't able to gain access, they would gather along the train tracks and they would light bonfires and in the middle of the night, two, three o'clock in the morning, there would be thousands of people gathered around the bonfire, singing and praying. Men would take off their hats. Women were weeping. Men and women were weeping.

People would bring their children. In these distant towns where people didn't have the means, didn't have the time, didn't have the ability to travel to the larger cities. It was in Albany when John Wilkes Booth was captured and killed. It stopped in Batavia, New York, where Millard Fillmore, former President Millard Fillmore, boarded the train. It stopped briefly in Westfield, New York and this was the town where a young Grace Bedell had sent Abraham Lincoln, candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860, a letter.

It implored him that he would look better if he grew whiskers. At the time, Abraham Lincoln was clean-shaven, but he took young Grace Bedell's word to heart and he grew a beard. Perhaps if it wasn't for Grace Bedell, Abraham Lincoln may never have been present. In Chicago, one of the few cities where the funeral train arrived in good weather, there was a massive memorial arch that had been created to prepare for the funeral procession. Some of these arches were set up so the train would go through the arch. Some of them had elaborate ceremonies where young women, 36 young women, one for each state, would be singing near or on these arches.

There was also original music. The great Western Light Guard Band played the Lincoln Requiem. Thirty-six high school girls placed flowers on the coffin. It was a custom-built hearse that was 18 feet long by 15 feet tall.

The public viewing lasted 27 hours and 125,000 people saw the remains. Finally, on May 3rd, almost 20 days after Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, the train pulled into Springfield, Illinois. Here in Springfield, people knew Abraham Lincoln. They didn't know President Lincoln. President Lincoln was in Washington, D.C.

In Springfield, he was just old Abe. The grief was deep all throughout the country, no doubt, but there was much more pomp and ceremony and circumstance in these other cities, more of a competition. But at Springfield, there was a very deep sense of personal grief. There was family members there.

The president's horse, Old Bob, and the president's dog, Fido, were part of the funeral procession. The procession passed his old home on 8th and Jackson Street. This home was still owned by the Lincoln family. It was being rented out and the tenant decorated the home with evergreens and with black mourning, knowing the attention they would get. But this was the home where the Lincolns planned to return to.

After being president, it was likely that Lincoln would return to being a lawyer. There wasn't any presidential pensions at this time, so this is where Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were planning to return to. This was a very personal ceremony that had taken place in Springfield. It was a relatively humble ceremony at the crypt.

In first, Willie's coffin was brought inside of the crypt, and then Abraham Lincoln's, after the brief ceremony at the tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery. So all throughout the funeral procession, the 20-day pageant, this was something that was arranged very quickly. But it went off almost perfectly with the advent of the telegraph and the improvement of the railroad lines.

It was really, it went off almost without a hitch. In the end, it cost the government $28,985.31. The funeral train was 1,700 miles. One and a half million people laid their eyes on the body of Abraham Lincoln of the martyred president. Seven million more people either saw the funeral train or watched the hearse pass in the streets as part of one of the many public processions.

An amazing amount of people got their personal moment on this funeral train, whether they saw it from the side of the tracks, huddled around a bonfire, whether they were one of the people who waited hours to march solemnly past the coffin. So Abraham Lincoln, like today we look at Abraham Lincoln as like this, more of a monument than a man. It's hard to imagine that Abraham Lincoln had any adversaries in the north.

But he did. There were people that just wanted him to end the war regardless of slavery. There were people that thought that Abraham Lincoln had become too powerful of a president. This was the first draft in American history, so he had a lot of opposition during the war. But the further that that train traveled, the Abraham Lincoln that we came to know, the Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore and the Lincoln Memorial, that wasn't Abraham Lincoln on April 14th. That was what Abraham Lincoln started to become on April 15th. And by the time he arrived in Springfield and was placed in a temporary tomb on May 4th, he'd become the martyred president.

And to many, he had been sanctified as a secular saint. And a terrific job on the editing, production, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to Louis Pecone. His book, The President is Dead, Lincoln's final trip to Springfield, Illinois, here on Our American Stories. I'm Jonathan Strickland, host of the podcast, Tech Stuff. I sat down with Sunun Shahani of Surf Air Mobility, which recently went public. We talked about flying in electric planes and regional air mobility. The future of travel doesn't have to include crowded airports, cramped seats, or long road trips.

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Dive in deeper at Bose.com forward slash iHeart. ABC Tonight, The Bachelor is entering its golden era with the premiere of The Golden Bachelor. For the first time in The Bachelor franchise history, 72-year-old Gary Turner is setting out to prove it's never too late to fall in love again. Millions are swooning over The Golden Bachelor. The LA Times raves, the series is a love story years in the making. Glamour Magazine exclaims, there's no expiration date on romance. This is must-see TV. The Golden Bachelor premieres tonight on ABC and stream next day on Hulu.