April 30, 1865---Requiem For A President: Abraham Lincoln's Indianapolis Funeral

APRIL 30, 1865:       

“The President . . . is an indifferent judge of men . . . guided by prejudice.” --- General Josiah Gorgas, C.S.A.

I

Jefferson Davis continues to move southward through the heart of what is left of the eastern half of the Confederacy. 

Against the advice of everyone including his wife, Davis continues to flesh out plans with Braxton Bragg his new General-in-Chief for an escape into the Trans-Mississippi. 

But even the intransigent Davis is beginning to acknowledge signs of dissolution amongst his citizenry. More than once his caravan is turned away from a Confederate doorway: “Get on!” one man tells him. “Do you want to bring the damned Yankees down on our heads, you fool?”  

II

 

While Bragg and Davis detail their plans to take their caravan across Alabama and Mississippi, the local Confederate commander of those Military Departments, General Richard Taylor (son of U.S. President Zachary Taylor and former brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis) contacts the local Union commander, General E.R.S. Canby, to ask for a 48-hour cease- fire to discuss terms of surrender. Taylor has less than 10,000 men spread across the two States, facing Canby’s 45,000. With the formalization of the cease-fire, Jefferson Davis’ only overland route to Texas is blocked.   

   

III

After chugging slowly through the Midwestern farm country with thousands of mourners --- great and small, rich and poor, farmer and mechanic, factor and businessman --- lining the tracks to salute and wave flags as the train passes, Abraham Lincoln’s body reaches Indianapolis. 

The grief for Lincoln in Indiana is palpable, almost a solid mass, for Indiana is one of the three States that claim him as a Native Son.

When the Funeral Train arrived in Indianapolis it was raining in such a torrent that Lincoln’s funeral procession had to be canceled. The coffin was instead taken directly to the State Capitol where he lay in state for eleven hours. 110,000 mourners passed his bier, and, as at Columbus, the arrangement was left in place, sans Lincoln himself, until his burial in Springfield, Illinois.