Abraham Lincoln's last stop in Columbus was memorialized on April 29, 2008 with a ceremony reserved for only the most revered of America's fallen leaders.
The memorial included a re-enactment, by the 1st Ohio Light Artillery Battery A, of events of April 29, 1865, when 50,000 mourning Ohioans filed past Lincoln's body lying in state in the rotunda. To this day, it is a record for the most people to attend a single Statehouse event.
The uniformed honor guard re-enactors changed every 20 minutes between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. They guarded a mock casket placed in the exact position where Lincoln's body lay in repose.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and historian John Ward, an expert on Lincoln's funeral train, also spoke at the observance marking the 143rd anniversary of Lincoln's final visit to Columbus. Goodwin spoke before a private function sponsored by the Ohio Telecom Association and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University.
Ward offered two 30-minute public presentations in the Statehouse crypt, or basement, describing the Lincoln funeral train that covered nearly 1,700 miles during 20 days, from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill., stopping in Columbus and 11 other cities along the way.
The train arrived in Columbus, from Cleveland, about 7:30 a.m. on April 29, two weeks after he was felled by a bullet shot at point-blank range by John Wilkes Booth. Historical records and photos indicate that Lincoln's coffin was taken from the train and mounted on a 17-foot-long hearse pulled by white horses.
The funeral train left for Indianapolis about 8 p.m., then on to Chicago and finally to Springfield for Lincoln's burial on May 4. Lincoln's body was on display in the rotunda from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Lincoln's 200th birthday, on Feb. 12, 2009, will be observed nationally and in Ohio next year in cooperation with the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
Information about Ohio-specific events can be viewed at http://www.ohiostatehouse.org/.
