Funeral March Composed for Lincoln
New-York Daily Tribune
May 1, 1865
Serial and Government Publications Division, Library of Congress
6 a. m.—All the avenues leading to the depot were closely packed with people when the pilot engine arrived. Every moment the crowd increased in density. Every street poured out its contribution of men, women and children, eagerly seeking with sad and solemn faces to obtain a view of the train. At 7 o’clock the funeral train arrived. In the meantime the military had been drawn up in open order, facing inward, extending from Illinois and Washington-sts. up to the State-House door.
After some little delay the corpse was taken charge of by the local guard of honor under command of Col. Simonson, and tenderly to the hearse, the City Band playing a sad and sorrowful dirge called “Lincoln’s Funeral March,” composed expressly for the occasion by Charles Hess of Cincinnati.
Through the open ranks of soldiers standing at present arms the procession then took up its line of march to the State-House in the falling rain, and amid the sound of tolling bells and the occasional firing of cannon. All along, the entire line of march the citizens thronged the sidewalks, balconies and door-steps, catching fleeting glimpses of all that is mortal of Abraham Lincoln.
THE HEARSE.
The hearse conveying the remains is 14 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 13 feet high, and covered with black velvet. It is curtained with black, trimmed with silver fringe. The roof of the car bears 12 white plumes, trimmed with black. On the top is a beautiful eagle, silver gilt. The sides are studded with large silver stars. The car was drawn by eight white horses, in black velvet covers, bearing each a black plume trimmed with white. Six of these same horses were attached to the carriage, over four years ago, in which Abraham Lincoln rode through Indianapolis while on his way to Washington to be inaugurated.
