tent, in the mourning for one who,
in their inmost hearts, they knew to have wished them well.

Within an hour after Mr. Lincoln's body was taken to the White House the
town was shrouded in black. Not only the public buildings, the shops,
and the better class of dwellings were draped in funeral decorations;
still more touching proof of affection was shown in the poorest class of
homes, where laboring men of both colors found means in their poverty to
afford some scanty bit of mourning. The interest and veneration of the
people still centered at the White House, where, under a tall catafalque
in the East Room the late chief lay in the majesty of death, rather than
in the modest tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the new President
had his lodgings, and where the Chief Justice administered the oath of
office to him at eleven o'clock on the morning of April 15.

It was determined that the funeral ceremonies in Washington should be
held on Wednesday, April 19, and all the churches throughout the country
were invited to join at the same time in appropriate observances. The
ceremonies in the East Room were simple and brief, while all the pomp
and circumstance that the government could command were employed to give
a fitting escort from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol, where the
body of the President lay in state. The procession moved to the
booming of minute guns, and the tolling of all the bells in Washington,
Georgetown and Alexandria; while, 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.

When it was announced that he was to be buried at Springfield every town
and city on the way begged that the train might halt within its limits,
to give its people opportunity of showing their grief and reverence.
It was finally arranged that the funeral cortege should follow
substantially the same route over which Lincoln had come in 1861 to take
possession of the office to which he added 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 mourn