THE BIZARRE FINAL JOURNEY OF LINCOLN'S BODY

Lincoln's Tomb

We all know the story of how John Wilkes Booth crept into Abraham Lincoln's box at Ford's theater on the night of April 14, 1865 and fired a bullet into the brain of Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln died at 7:22 A.M. the following morning Secretary of War Edwin Stanton uttered the immortal words, "Now he belongs to the ages". Between Lincoln's death in 1865 and the placement of his "hopefully" final resting place on September 26, 1901, the story surrounding Lincoln's mortal remains is one of the most bizarre stories in American history.

After Lincoln died at the Peterson boarding house where he was moved just after being shot at Ford's theater, his body was moved to a guest room in the White House. There Army assistant surgeons J Janvier Woodward and and Edward Curtis performed an autopsy. The following is Dr. Curtis's account of the autopsy. “Dr. Woodward and I proceeded to open the head and remove the brain down to the track of the ball. Not finding it readily, we proceeded to remove the entire brain, when, as I was lifting the latter from the cavity of the skull, suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger — dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize.”

Master embalmer Henry Cattell made an incision into Lincoln's right upper thigh and pumped in Zinc Chloride which gave Lincoln a statue like appearance. As a final touch he set Lincoln's mouth in what appeared to be a slight smile. Lincoln was dressed in the same black suit that he had worn to his 2nd inaugural on March 4th 1865. He was then placed in a walnut coffin and by the evening of Monday April 17, 1865 he was ready for his first official public viewing in the East Room of the White House where thousands of people would view his body. Just after noon on Wednesday the 19th his funeral began. After the funeral he was transported in a funeral procession to the Capital building where thousands more would view his body until Friday morning April 21st. From the Capital his body was taken over to the B&O railroad terminal for the long trip home to Springfield Illinois. Over the next two weeks Lincoln's body would be put on display in ten cities for the public to see. They were Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis and Chicago. Lincoln's funeral train pulled by the locomotive "Old Nashville" named after my hometown, finally pulled into Springfield Illinois on May 3, 1865. He was put on display for a final time where as many as 150,000 people viewed his remains. Before the public viewing, however; undertakers opened the coffin and noticed that Lincoln's color was growing darker. Undertaker Thomas Lynch went to the nearest drugstore and purchased chalk. He said “I at once set about coloring the President’s features, placing the materials on very thick so as to completely hide the discoloration of the skin. In half an hour I had finished my task and the doors were thrown open to the public.”

Lincoln's funeral procession

On May 4 Lincoln was finally laid to rest at the bottom of a hill in Oak Ridge cemetery alongside his son Willie Lincoln who had died in the White House on February 20, 1862 of typhoid fever. This should have Lincoln's final resting place but it was not to be. Just seven months later in December 1865, he and Willie were moved up the hill about halfway to a temporary vault. They would stay here for six years and would again be moved in 1871. Lincoln was placed in another tomb with his three youngest sons. This tomb was to be his final resting place and construction had begun 3 years earlier. The tomb was unfinished, however. Besides Willie, he was buried with Eddie, who was the youngest and first of his sons to die. Ed, or Eddie died one month before his 4th birthday in Springfield on February 4, 1850. Official cause of death was listed as consumption, which was the 1800's name for tuberculosis. Modern doctors believe that he died from a childhood cancer. Tod, or Tad Lincoln survived President Lincoln by a few years. He would die at the age of 18 on July 15, 1871. There is some argument as to what killed him. Four possible ailments have been listed. It could have been pneumonia, tuberculosis. pleurisy, and congestive heart failure. The tomb was finally completed in 1874 and Lincoln's body was placed in a white marble sarcophagus. The only thing protecting Lincoln's body from a possible grave robber was one door and a padlock.

In the 1870's one of the nation's largest counterfeiting rings was headquartered in central Illinois. Problems arose for the gang when Ben Boyd, the gang's master engraver, was imprisoned. Soon their supply of counterfeit money was almost gone. The gang needed an idea for freeing Ben Boyd. Therefore, "Big Jim" Kinealy, the crew's leader, hatched a plot to steal Abraham Lincoln's body. President Lincoln's remains would be held as ransom until the government paid $200,000 in gold and freed Ben Boyd. One night in Springfield one of Kinealy's conspirators drank too much and revealed the entire plot to a woman. She told some others, and the story soon spread throughout the entire town. The gang of grave robbers fled the city. Kinealy would not give up, however. He moved his headquarters to Chicago. A man named Lewis G. Swegles patronized the saloon Kinealy operated there. Kinealy accepted Swegles into his gang. Little did Kinealy know that Swegles was actually a Secret Service agent. Ironically Lincoln had signed the bill into law that created the Secret Service just before leaving for Ford's theater on the day he was shot. Unfortunately the Secret Service would not be tasked to protect the president until 1901 on the heels of the McKinley assassination. Their main job until then was catching counterfeiters. The plans were made - Lincoln's body would be stuffed into a long sack, put in the back of a horse-drawn wagon, taken to northern Indiana, and temporarily hidden amidst the sand dunes. While the nation was in an uproar, the ransom terms mentioned above would be announced.

Tools used to by grave robbers to open Lincoln's crypt

The date for the grave robbery was set: November 7, 1876. This was an election day, and Kinealy figured Oak Ridge Cemetery would be deserted that night as Springfield citizens waited for the votes to be counted. The gang went to the cemetery, sawed the padlock off the iron door of Lincoln's tomb, pried the marble lid off the sarcophagus, and attempted to lift the heavy wooden coffin. At this point Swegles was ordered to bring the horses and wagon up to the tomb. Instead, Swegles alerted the eight detectives who were in hiding. These men, with revolvers cocked, rushed to the tomb. The thieves, however; had been waiting a hundred feet away in the darkness. The tomb robbers escaped out the east gate of the cemetery. Nevertheless, they were captured in Chicago 10 days later. Robert Lincoln, Abraham's son, hired the best lawyers in Chicago to prosecute Kinealy's gang. The case didn't come to trial for eight months. The trial finally began and the grave robbers were found guilty. They were sentenced to one year in Joliet State Prison. They began serving their term on June 22, 1877.

The funeral of Lincoln

Lincoln's 1st tomb

The Lincoln Sarcophagus- In the background is left to right Eddie, Mary Todd Lincoln, an empty space and Tad Lincoln.

The custodian of Oak Ridge cemetery John Carrol Power was deeply disturbed that someone had actually tried to steal Lincoln's body in such a sinister plot. Therefore he devoted the rest of his life to protecting Lincoln's body. After Lincoln's body was returned to his sarcophagus Power and John Todd Stuart, chairman of the Monument Association, removed Lincoln's body again on the evening of November 15, 1876. Five workmen under Power and Stuarts direction moved the 500 pound casket to the basement of the tomb where it was placed in a wooden crate. The next morning they started digging a grave but struck water. Not wanting to lay the president in water they laid the box on some lumber and piled more lumber on top of the crate. For the next two years Lincoln's body lay in a damp basement while visitors to the tomb upstairs thought they were visiting the presidents body in the sarcophagus. They were being charged an admission price of 25 cents to see the presidents fake tomb. Power realized that his custodial assistant was talking too much so he and Stuart decided to move Lincoln's body again. to another grave in a different part of the basement but in an area where the water wasn't a problem. This was almost 3 years after the attempted theft of Lincoln's body. This time they covered it with debris and bricks. When Mary Todd Lincoln died in July 1882 her body was placed in the upstairs tomb. At Robert Lincoln's direction she was also taken to the basement and placed in a shallow grave next to her husband.

In 1884 a portion of the tomb collapsed and it took all summer to fix it. This meant that workers, who were not aware of Power and Stuarts secret, had access to the basement. In 1887 Power consulted a contractor about how he could protect the presidents body better. He proposed digging a 6 foot vault big enough to accommodate an 18 inch brick wall. Then it would be filled in with concrete. It was decided to place Lincoln and his wife in the vault and seal it on April 14, 1887, which would be the 22nd anniversary of Lincoln's assassination. The word had been out for 11 years that Lincoln was not in the sarcophagus and because his body had been moved so much members of the Monument society agreed that it would be necessary to open the casket before reburial and confirm that Lincoln was actually in the casket. As the lid was pulled back the body a little shrunken but there was no doubt that the it was the remains of Abraham Lincoln. “almost as perfect as they are in the bronze statue on the Monument and the color is about as dark as the statue.” A newspaper reporter stated that “The remains were a remarkable case of preservation,” “Those who stood around and had known Lincoln when alive easily discerned the features. They were very distinct.”

In 1900 it was discovered that the Lincoln Memorial was in bad shape. It had water seepage on the inner and outer walls. The tomb would have to be reconstructed and the entire Lincoln family would have to be removed from the tomb while the work was ongoing.It took a week for workers to drill through the concrete to reach Abe and Mary's coffins where they found that water had also seeped into the tomb. On March 10, 1900 a crane placed all of the Lincoln's into a temporary grave where they would reside for another 18 months until the permanent tomb could be rebuilt. Lincoln's oldest son Robert had a 16 year old son who had died so now there were six Lincoln's buried together. September 26, 1901 was chosen as the day that the Lincoln family would be placed in the permanent tomb. Although it was Robert Lincoln's wish that Lincoln's casket would not be opened a 2nd time his Guard of Honor chose to ignore the request and the coffin was opened for one final time.

Thirteen year old Fleetwood Lindley was in school when he received an urgent message from his father to come to Oak Ridge cemetery. He hopped on his bike and pedaling as fast as he could made his way over to the cemetery. After he arrived Leon Hopkins, the same man who had opened Lincoln's casket 14 years earlier, opened it a 2nd time. Fleetwood Lindley said “a sharp, unpleasant odor filled Memorial Hall, yet in spite of that, everyone moved forward to look inside the casket.” The assembled witnesses all agreed that it was Lincoln. Some of the undertakers make-up was gone but there was Lincoln's unruly black hair and beard. There was also the wart on his cheek, He had the appearance of a statue because his skin had darkened to bronze color. There were red, white and blue specks on his chest, which was determined to be an American flag that had rotted over the years. Fleetwood Lindley died in 1963 and was the last living person to have ever seen Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's coffin was sealed, placed in a steel cage and lowered into his tomb hopefully for the last time. Then the tomb was sealed with wet cement.