Just before 11:00 o’clock on April 25, 1865, mourners waiting at the East Albany Station (in Rensselaer, NY) heard the sound of a train emanating out of the darkness to the south along the Hudson Valley. All doubt was soon removed by “the whistle of the locomotive, announcing the approach of all that was mortal of the martyred dead.” Further confirmation was added by the boom of artillery.
By order of Albany Mayor Eli Perry, a minute gun was to commence a measured fire from the moment of the train’s arrival until the President Lincoln’s casket was placed in the capitol building. Commanded by Captain Harris Parr, the battery performed exactly as directed.
Maintaining a steady cadence of fire, the cannon added to the surrealistic aura of a night like no other before it in the city’s history. Also hidden from sight to those on the capital city’s side of the river were the people gathered around the black crepe draping the East Albany Station.
“The whole vicinity of the train was crowded with residents of the villages upon the opposite side,” an observer recalled, “anxious to see the mournful line and to get a view of the coffin which enclosed the remains of the lamented chief.”
That brief look was about all folks who had turned out at such a late hour could expect to see: the transfer of the casket from the railroad car to an intermediary hearse pulled by four gray horses and then to the waiting ferry.
Since no ceremony was planned there, all those who were in attendance would see was a lot of the procedure and possibly a glimpse of a closed coffin. In keeping with the solemnity of the moment, the spectators maintained the proper order and decorum throughout the unloading and loading that took place before them.
In addition to the locals who had come down to the station, a delegation had previously traveled over from Albany to provide a ceremonial escort for the remains, as they were borne across the river. Constituting this honor guard were members of the city’s Common Council, the leaders of both houses of the state legislature, and its fire department.
A ferry, under the command of Captain Seth Green and aptly christened the New York, had transported them over and was now moored at the dock, waiting for the return trip.
Guided by light from blazing torches, the hearse was loaded onto the boat for the short trip across the channel. All was shrouded in silence among those on-board, with the only exceptions to the stillness being the pulsating sound of the steam engine below deck and the constant swishing of the paddlewheels as they churned through the Hudson’s dark waters.
In the distance, the measured boom of minute guns and the tolling of church bells could heard, their alternating sounds becoming louder as the opposite shore grew closer. The scene left the impression on a member of the party as being one in which “civilians and chieftains, legislators and people, governors and governed, alike stood in mute awe around his cold remains. Sacred moments!”
From the Albany shore, the ferry’s transit was seen as “a bright fragment on the river, amidst the gloom of night, deepening as the Hudson’s course is northward to the dense shadows of the mountains, and as it hid in the foliage of the group of islands that act as sentries to the upper river.”
For those onlookers steeped in classical literature, the eerie sight of the torch-lit boat slowly gliding toward the near shore may have brought to mind a story from mythology. To the ancients, the dead were taken to the Underworld by a ferryman named Caron, borne across the rivers Styx and Acheron in his boat.
On these voyages, the way through the darkened waters was lighted by a burning torch. This passage to the land beneath the earth gave rise to the common practice — still in vogue in Victorian America — of putting a coin in the mouth or over the eyes of the deceased, for these tokens were intended to serve as payment for Caron’s services.
The alternative for not compensating the boatman — the first undertaker — was for the body to be left behind, doomed to wander the earth for eternity as a ghost.
In a similar phantasmagorical vein, but in a more updated twist in keeping with the beliefs of some in the 19th century, the coins served to keep the eyelids closed, “because a corpse whose were not closed was thought to be a threat to its living relatives.”
Once the New York had docked and the casket removed, the second and last of the coffin’s waterborne transports was over. At the ferry landing, along the adjacent wharf, and onto the nearby streets, a sizable crowd had gathered. Mirroring the one that had greeted the train in East Albany in its subdued demeanor, it differed only in that its numbers were significantly greater.
As would later prove to be the case on the journey from Albany to Buffalo, the lateness of the hour was no deterrent to the turnout of mourners. These people, like their neighbors across the river, also entertained the hope of seeing the casket.
Unlike the situation in 1861 when Lincoln’s inaugural train made a stop in Albany, a significant police presence was on-hand to control the spectators, but on this occasion no physical restraint was necessary.
Everyone in the waiting throng demonstrated the proper respect and dignity for which the occasion called. Considering that there had been no rehearsal, the procession formed up quickly for the march to the state house, moving out at a little past midnight. In the lead was a contingent of policemen, followed by a drum corps, and then Schreiber’s Cornet Band and the Eastman College Band playing dirges that served as dead marches.
Next were Companies A and F from the 10th Infantry Regiment of Albany and Troy’s Company C of the 25th, marching with their rifles held in the reverse position. Behind them was the hearse, drawn by six white horses and flanked on either side by a Guard of Honor. Several carriages carrying the pallbearers, the Governor, committee members, and councilmen brought up the rear.
Along the column’s outer edges marched one hundred firemen, holding torches aloft to help illuminate the way. Starting at the dock, the sad, slow-moving procession went up Ferry Street and turned right onto Broadway. After heading several blocks to the north, a left turn was made which placed the cortège moving west on State Street toward the capitol building on the hill.
To onlookers, the sight was stirring and worth the wait. One observer was moved to comment that “no arena could be more impressive or solemn than the torchlight route of the dead President through the crowded streets.” For anyone present four years ago, this was the point where their memories of 1861 surely returned.
Back then, on a cold February day, President-elect Lincoln stood tall in a barouche, bowing to the right and then to the left in acknowledgement of the cheers and applause showered on him by the excited crowds, as he passed along the same street to the capitol.
A challenging destiny then awaited him in Washington, one which the people fervently hoped that he would capably fulfill and wished him Godspeed in so doing. He had not let them down and, in the process of preserving the Union, had won over many converts who had not initially been in his corner.
Then, he was honored here by comparatively few; now he was most sincerely and deeply mourned by a vast multitude of citizens and strangers. Then, “hurrahs rent the air, and handkerchiefs were gaily waved; now the hearts of the most stalwart are melted with anguish.”
But winning the war was only part of the task; more heavy lifting was still to come, if a successful Reconstruction was to follow. His remarkable wisdom and guiding hand were needed yet. But instead of sleeping for the night in his White House bed and gaining strength to tackle the problems of another day, he lay before them instead at rest for eternity in a casket and forever free from his unfinished earthly labor.
Given the time of night, the expectation might have been for the mournful cavalcade to pass relatively unheralded to its destination, particularly since public viewing hours were not scheduled to commence until six am. However, such was not to be the case.
From Pearl Street — one block above Broadway — up the incline of State Street north to the imposing iron fence surrounding the capitol grounds was a sea of humanity. An observer commented that “the crowd of people… was the greatest we have ever seen in that Avenue.”
Beyond the numbers, the most noticeable difference between this gathering and its predecessor in ‘61 was in its demeanor. This time there were no joyful expressions, waves, and applause at the sight of the marchers, for in their stead could be seen only distraught faces, as “tears trickled from the eyes of tender women, and the heads of stalwart men drooped as with an overwhelming sorrow.”
That whole sad drama was played out in the dark of night seemed most fitting to one reporter who saw the scene as an appropriate reflection of the peoples’ feelings. “Darkness, lighted only by the gleam of a hundred torches overcast the spectacle,” he wrote, “and darkness overcast every heart.”
Once the procession reached the entrance to the Capitoline Park, the front gates were opened by the sentries, part of the larger contingent posted around the perimeter. The exterior of the venerable old building had been appropriately decorated with black cloth, with some bolts being wound horizontally around its pillars.
Inside, mourning drapery had hung in the halls, with both the Senate and Assembly chambers equally adorned. An added touch in the lower house was the presence of the following motto suspended over the spot where the speaker presided: “I have as an oath registered in Heaven to preserve, protect, and defend the Government. —A. Lincoln.”
The heavy coffin was carefully removed from the hearse and taken into the Assembly Chamber. This gigantic room, the very one in which President-elect Lincoln had humbly addressed a packed house in 1861, was now devoid of furniture. Looking ahead to the public viewing, the legislators’ desks and chairs were taken out in order to open up the space and thereby expedite the flow of mourners past the casket.
Borne to the center of the room, the bearers placed the heavy box under a huge chandelier. By using a desk, suitably festooned with crepe and affixed with silver mountings, a makeshift catafalque was created. In an impromptu gesture of personal grief, a silk American flag was wrapped around the casket by the daughter of Lincoln’s old Republican confident, Thurlow Weed.
At this point, the military companies left to assume positions of the building. The 3rd and 21st Regiments of the United States Reserve Corps were assigned to picket and patrol the state house grounds, while guards drawn from the state militia would be stationed throughout the interior of the building.
These troops would man their posts until the President’s remains were on their way back to the train. For the remainder of the night and the next day, members of the Veteran Corps and the Guard of Honor — divided into three-hour rotations — would remain in the room to watch over the remains and assure smooth passage of the hundreds who would come to pay their respects.
All through the next day, the citizens of Albany and the surrounding area solemnly passed through the assembly chamber until altogether too soon the time came for a procession to take Lincoln’s remains to the train station. Waiting there, bedecked in appropriate mourning fashion was the engine assigned to pull the funeral train on its first leg to the west.
Promptly at 4:00 o’clock, the engineer slowly opened the throttle. The train gathered speed, and soon it was gone, heading through the Mohawk Valley corridor toward the setting sun. In its wake, a crowd of solemn mourners stood watching, most lost in their own thoughts. Many had only seen the great man twice.
The first time he passed through their community, it was as an unknown commodity, heading for Washington and bearing their hopes for the preservation of the Union. Now he was departing as a martyr to the cause which he had so successfully defended.
As one among them later described the scene, perhaps in his personnel eloquence sharing the feelings of his fellow townsfolk, “after a splendid tribute of our affection and reverence, he whose life was devoted to his country, and whose death was a sacrifice for us, whose virtues are enshrined in our hearts was borne from our midst.”
Illustrations, from above: Lincoln’s funeral train; the Lincoln hearse car; Mourners lined Broadway to view Lincoln’s funeral procession through Albany on April 26, 1865 (Courtesy NYS Military Museum); Lincoln’s hearse at the NYS Capitol; the Lincoln funeral train engine.
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