Sacred Relics of Lincoln
July 27, 2005
There is a certain religious cast to each Abraham Lincoln historical site. In Kentucky, when Emily and I visited the place where Lincoln was born, we found a small log cabin of rather doubtful authenticity surrounded by a towering and formidable classical temple. That structure was located on a landscaped grassy hill that inclined gently, and local sites, such as the spring where his family must have gotten water, were marked for visitors. The site was an object lesson as to the way reverence will sweep aside preservation, if given half a chance.
Ford Theater is perhaps the most interesting of the Lincoln sites here in Washington. Downstairs from the theater is a small museum which contains displays of clothing and weapons connected to the death of the president who led us through the Civil War and ended slavery.
I would have guessed that the cult of Lincoln grew slowly, gaining strength as people looked back upon his words and actions and found them ever more valuable. But the displays at the museum proved that the cult of Lincoln was present from the moment of his death.. Our first inkling of this came from a display which showed the heavy coat Lincoln was wearing and how a sleeve had been torn to shreds by people looking to clip souvenirs from the blood-spattered coat. Then there were black ribbons which featured a small image of the president and read “Our Martyred Father, We Mourn His Loss.” Finally there were the numerous examples of pieces of clothing, or even scraps of his funeral train, which had been framed and presumably hung upon some family’s wall.
One of these is pictured on the left, and the handwriting reads:
Piece of Crepe used in draping the Catafalque of Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois, and presented to E.H. Pierce by H.P.H. Bromwell, of Denver, Colorado, who attended the funeral as Acting Grand Master of Masons for Illinois.
Presented by
E.H. Pierce,
Denver, Colorado , Sept 11, 1905
I marveled at the care taken to document the origins of this poor piece of black cloth.. it almost rivals the chains of transmission used by early Muslim historians: “so and so reports that so and so reported that so and so heard the prophet say..”
The man who first came into possession of this fragment of cloth is a certain H.P.H. Bromwell. We are told of his official position in order to allay any doubt we might have about his ability to procure such a grim memento. The writer of the note clearly considered the scrap of cloth the important item.. the relic, so to speak.. but the note itself is far more interesting than the cloth, for it demonstrates how already at the Illinois funeral of Abraham Lincoln a man was interested in getting hold of such a relic and carefully preserving it, and further that there was a continuity of interest in Abraham Lincoln in the fifty years after his death. Perhaps in 1905 such a relic was thought too important to stay in the possession of a single aging individual, and it was formally presented to another party.. and from there it made its way to the Ford Theater Museum. The value of this cloth lies not in its ability to aid a visitor to re-imagine the catafalque used during the funeral (whatever that was), but in letting us glimpse the importance that relics of Lincoln had from an early date..
We then entered Ford Theater itself and listened to an interpreter from the National Park Service give a dramatic account of the minute-by-minute actions that led to the death of Lincoln as he sat in that small flag draped room overlooking the stage. As music played gently in the background, she pointed here and there to re-create in our minds the fateful events.. down to the gunshot and the botched leap of John Wilkes Booth from the box windows and his cry of “sic semper tyrannis.”
Lincoln never regained consciousness and died some hours later in a small room of a house across the street from the museum. The interpreter explained how certain man in that house, having heard the commotion, came down and offered his house as a place for the wounded president to lie. There were many houses on the street then, but only this one has been preserved and continues to stand in the midst of modern Washington.
