The ceremonies in the East Room were brief and simple--the
burial service, a prayer, and a short address; while all the pomp and
circumstance which the government could command was employed to give a
fitting escort from the White House to the Capitol, where the body of
the President was to lie in state. The vast procession moved amid the
booming of minute-guns, and the tolling of all the bells in Washington
Georgetown, and Alexandria; and to associate the pomp of the day with
the greatest work of Lincoln's life, a detachment of colored troops
marched at the head of the line.
As soon as it was announced that Mr. Lincoln was to be buried at
Springfield, Illinois, every town and city on the route begged that the
train might halt within its limits and give its people the opportunity
of testifying their grief and reverence. It was finally arranged that
the funeral cortege should follow substantially the same route over
which he had come in 1861 to take possession of the office to which he
had given a new dignity and value for all time. On April 21, accompanied
by a guard of honor, and in a train decked with somber trappings, the
journey was begun. At Baltimore through which, four years before, it was
a question whether the President-elect could pass with safety to his
life, the coffin was taken with reverent care to the great dome of the
Exchange, where, surrounded with evergreens and lilies, it lay for
several hours, the people passing by in mournful throngs.
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