Star decoration

This small star was a witness to an event that began with tragedy but also helped unite a nation. Near the end of the American Civil War in April 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated while attending the theater in Washington, D.C. The country was stunned. His body was carried by train from Washington to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, for his funeral. Along the way, the train made stops along a 1,700-mile path so people could pay their final respects.

 

“The martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive,” declared preacher Henry Ward Beecher. “The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and states are his pallbearers.”

 

The star was part of the decoration on a carriage that carried Lincoln’s coffin from the train through pouring rain to the Indiana Statehouse, where close to 50,000 people attended a public viewing. The star was later removed by Samuel Graham, a railroad employee at Union Station, who was serving as a special officer for the day.

 

S. Chandler Lighty, executive director of the Indiana Archives and Records Administration and an expert on Lincoln, reflected that “To me, this star is a symbol of the nation’s great mourning, not only for the death of President Lincoln, but of a Civil War that claimed an estimated 620,000 American lives. Indiana greatly grieved Lincoln’s assassination. Thousands of Hoosiers lined the tracks and train platforms to pay their respects. We can preserve Lincoln’s legacy for future generations through analyzing the artifacts he used and the documents he produced during his lifetime. Sometimes the mundane things that are preserved can tell a lot about what a person meant to their family, their community, or their nation.”