Description:

Lincoln Abraham


Abraham Lincoln Lies in State in Springfield; Silver Decorative Edging from Catafalque from Holzer Collection

 

This piece of silver fabric, which decorated the catafalque on which the body of Abraham Lincoln rested in Springfield, was owned by prominent Lincolniana Collector Harold Holzer.

 

[ABRAHAM LINCOLN.] Piece of ornamental silver fabric in an envelope with period annotation, “Gimp from the catafalco on which rested the remains of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield Ills,” c. 1865.  4" x 0.75".

 

Historical Background


After a twelve-day journey through many northern cities, Lincoln’s body arrived in Springfield, Illinois, on May 3, 1865. Although Springfield had only 15,000 residents, more than 100,000 people were on hand to pay their respects. Pallbearers loaded the President’s coffin into an elaborate hearse drawn by six black horses. At the state capitol, soldiers carried the coffin upstairs to the Hall of Representatives, where seven years earlier, Lincoln had delivered his “House Divided” speech in his Senate contest with Stephen A. Douglas. Having prevented the house from dividing, Lincoln now returned to Springfield for burial.

 

Over the next twenty-four hours, approximately 75,000 mourners passed through the room. The coffin rested on a catafalque covered with black velvet, trimmed with sliver and satin, and bordered with evergreens and white flowers. The ceiling was lined with lace and glittered with gold stars. Two inscriptions adorned the room: “Sooner than surrender this principle, I would be assassinated on this spot,” which Lincoln had uttered at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on his way to Washington in 1861, and “Washington the Father, Lincoln the Saviour.”

 

On the morning of May 4, relatives and close friends viewed the body one last time, then the coffin was closed and the lead lining soldered shut. Pallbearers carried the body back to the hearse, and Lincoln’s former horse, riderless, accompanied the ten-thousand-person procession to Oak Ridge Cemetery beginning at noon. The procession passed Lincoln’s home and the Governor’s Mansion before heading north to the cemetery.

 

At the cemetery, six Protestant ministers—four from Springfield, and two from the East Coast—participated in the funeral ceremonies. Lincoln’s body was placed in a temporary vault. It would be ten more years before a permanent tomb was built on the hill above. That tomb now attracts millions of visitors, making it the second most-visited burial ground in America.

 

Provenance: This piece is from the collection of Harold Holzer (b. 1949), a prominent Lincoln scholar and collector of Lincolniana. He is the author or editor of fifty-two books, most on Abraham Lincoln, and specializes in representations of Lincoln in visual culture. Holzer was senior vice president for public affairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1992 to 2015 and served as co-chair of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission from 2000 to 2010.

 

 

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