I flipped through my Midwest Living magazine this month and found something I had to
mark on my calendar. This April will mark 150 years since our 16th
president was assassinated. In remembrance, a replica of Abe Lincoln’s funeral
train will roll through Springfield, IL and ML
says that a “replica horse-drawn hearse will carry a replica coffin to Oak Ridge Cemetery on May 3, where a memorial
ceremony honors Lincoln’s life.”
I researched the details of the funeral train when I
was writing a story for my Traveling
through Illinois: Stories of I-55 Landmarks and Landscapes between Chicago
& St. Louis book. The newspaper’s description was so eloquent I
had to quote them directly. When the railroad tracks separate from their long
journey along the highway and veer away toward the center of Springfield, near mile
marker 108 southbound, I imagine that mournful train bringing Lincoln home.
Here is our entry for southbound mile 108:
108 Funeral Train
During your
journey, you may have seen a passenger or freight train traveling between
Chicago and Springfield on these rails paralleling I-55. On May 3, 1865, the
most memorable train in Illinois’ history passed along this same route.
President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train brought him home to Springfield. When
Lincoln left Springfield on February 11, 1861, (the day before his 52nd
birthday) he stood at the train depot and bid his friends a sad farewell.
Friends, no one who has never been placed
in a like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive
sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have
lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness
at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here
the most cherished ties of earth were assumed. Here all my children were born
and here one of them lies buried. To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have,
all that I am… With these words I must leave you -- for how long I know not.
Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell.
Four years
later, a train brought him back to the Springfield depot, once again among
tearful friends. On April 21, 1865 the funeral train left Washington and began
its 1700-mile journey to Springfield. Over 30 million mourners, with bowed
heads and teary eyes, waited alongside the tracks for their moment to pay
respects to him as the train passed. In the late evening of May 2, the train
left Chicago and followed the future route of I-55. In Joliet, Bloomington, and
Lincoln large silent crowds had gathered, and in the smaller towns hundreds
more mourners lined the tracks, sometimes illuminating the route with torches
held high and sometimes even paying tribute with funeral arches placed over the
tracks. The town of Williamsville, which you’ve just passed, had an arch that
said, “He has fulfilled his mission.”
On the morning of May 3, the train moved slowly into Springfield—taking
two hours to go about a mile and a half. The New York Tribune reported that:
The
pall-bearers, those old men, friends of his, lang syne, approach. The stillness
among all the people is painful; but when the coffin is taken from the car,
that stillness is broken, broken by sobs, and these are more painful than the
stillness. The coffin is borne to the hearse; the hearse moves slowly, almost
tenderly, away, followed by the mourners, and the pallbearers walk by the side.
The cortege, more solemn than any that had gone before, reaches the States
House, where he was wont to speak face to face with his neighbors – where at
this hour those neighbors press to behold his face locked in death. All night
they will pass by with eyes searching through tears for resemblances and
recognition of the features they knew so well.
On this eve of President's Day, and in the month of his birth, I envision Abe through Springfield poet Vachel Lindsay in "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight":
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down...
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
