Seven states and 180 cities following the funeral train’s departure on April 21 from Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln‘s body is buried today in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois in a specially built tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Son Willie’s coffin is laid next to that of his father. The only immediate family member is Lincoln’s…
On display in Chicago this day, Lincoln‘s body is viewed by some 125,000 mourners. In this the third week following Lincoln’s assassination and the fourth following the Confederate General Robert E. Lee‘s surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia, late in the afternoon in Abbeville, South Carolina former Confederate president Jefferson Davis presides over his…
Today in Charleston, South Carolina some 10,000 mostly black persons, of whom Baptists are predominant, gather in the city’s Hampton Park in what becomes America’s first Memorial Day observance, also known as Decoration Day. Among the crowd are church leaders, women’s organizations and freedmen. All gather to honor the fallen Union soldiers whose death brought…