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Laurie Verge · (This post was last modified: 08-15-2012 04:00 PM by Laurie Verge.)

I agree with you, Roger. I thought it was Dr. Brown and an assistant from Alexandria, Virginia (?) who did the embalming and went with the corpse for "touch ups" along the way.

Maybe the Smithsonian failed to make a link between Mrs. Lincoln requesting Dr. Holmes, but ending up with Dr. Brown??? Does anyone know where Dr. Holmes was from?

Upon further investigation (as they say on TV), I found that Dr. Thomas Holmes offered to embalm the body of the Lincolns' friend, Col. Elmer Ellsworth, upon his murder at the beginning of the war. Mrs. Lincoln was so impressed with the results that she requested Holmes when Willie died.

However, Dr. Charles Brown was the embalmer of the President.