Lincoln Funeral Car Mystery Solved

[Linda Anderson]

http://news.discovery.com/history/us-his...130430.htm

[J. Beckert]

Very neat, Linda. Our man Roger is going to dig this!

[RJNorton]

Several years ago a gentleman sent me a photo his dad had taken of the burned out car. I have it at the very bottom of my web page here.

I also have a pamphlet entitled The Lincoln Train Is Coming by Wayne and Cay Wesolowski. I highly recommend it for those folks who have a special interest in the car. There is more information on Dr. Wesolowski here. And there is a website about the 2015 Lincoln Funeral Train here.

The best book by far on the funeral train was written by forum member Scott Trostel. I highly recommend it. Scott also has an excellent book on the inaugural train. Scott's website is here.

[Jim Garrett]

Absolutely amazing. This thread is an example of why this site is so important.

[LincolnMan]

Neat story. I know we would have all left the farm and went trackside to see it! Its one of those never to see again events that will be talked about forever. We'll never know who was the last living person who had seen the train. At least, we know further what it really looked like.

[jonathan]

That's very interesting. The whole funeral train story is just so fascinating. I try to imagine what it must have been like to witness it, in particular for those out in the country, waiting by the tracks for hours sometimes for the train to come easing by in the dark. The thought of it actually gives my arm hairs a little jump.

[Gene C]

Are there some ghost stories associated with this train?

[jonathan]

I believe there are, but somebody else here would surely know more about it than me. Seems like I've read somewhere about people claiming to see the ghost train coming through. Then again, it may have been some "history" show on cable where I saw that, in which case it's anybody's guess what the real story is.

[RJNorton]

Jonathan, I think several stories exist. Here's one I really like:

********************************************

Lincoln Death Train
A New York Ghost Story

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

I'd been transferred to the Hudson Division of the New York Central system, and was working the rails on the main line between New York and Albany. I was on the late shift to start with, since I was a bit of a night owl. After six weeks of stomping the tracks and mending the rails, I was feeling right at home in my new job.

Then, just before midnight on a clear spring night in late April, we got a report of some brush on the track near our station. I was sent out immediately to clear it away before the next train came. I had nearly an hour before the next train, and so I did not hurry as I walked along the rails. It was surprisingly pleasant and rather warm. Overhead, the clouds were obscuring the moon, but the light from my lantern made a cheerful glow in the night.

Suddenly, a chilly wind swept over the rails with a whoosh, like a wind just before a thunderstorm. It was so strong that it nearly knocked me over. I staggered backward, swearing and wind-milling my arms to try to keep my balance. I almost dropped the lantern, but managed to get my balance just before it slipped out of my hand.

Shivering in the sudden cold, I squinted down the track and saw a huge blanket of utter darkness rolling toward me. It blanked out the rails, the trees, the sky, everything. "Good lord, what is that?" I gasped. I leapt away from the track and started to run back toward the station, but the darkness swept up and over me before I had moved a yard. The lantern in my hand was snuffed out instantly.

I stopped, unable to see more than a few paces around me. To my right, the rails began to gleam with a strange blue light. I staggered backwards from the tracks, my pulses pounding in fear and dread. What was going on?

Then the headlight of a train pierced the thick darkness. It gleamed blue-white in the strange black fog, and when it appeared, the rails brightened in response. A huge steam-engine draped in black crepe approached, stacks bellowing forth a steady stream of smoke. The brass on the engine gleamed, and it pulled several flat cars along behind it. I stared into the windows of the engine, but couldn't see any crew.

Just at the edge of hearing came the faint sound of music and turned to look at the flat cars behind the engine. I gasped and back up so far that I bumped into the trunk of a tree growing near the tracks. There was a glowing orchestra of skeletons seated in a semi-circle. They were playing a nearly-soundless funeral dirge on glowing black instruments. A violinist played passionately; a skeleton lifted a flute to its lipless mouth; a lone drummer sat waiting patiently for his cue from the skeletal conductor.

Then the orchestra was gone and another glowing headlight pierced the blackness. I was trying unsuccessfully to push my way through the bark of the tree by this time. Another black crepe draped train was approaching. A funeral train, I thought. Again, there was no one manning the engine, and no one appeared on the flat car behind it. The only thing there was a single black-crepe draped coffin. But swirling in the air around the train were the ghostly figures of soldiers dressed in the blue uniforms worn by the North during the civil war. They lined up before my eyes, saluting the solitary coffin as it passed. Some of the ghosts staggered under the weight of their own coffins; some limped on one leg or sat in a wheeled chair, legless. Their eyes were fixed upon the flat-car and the black-creped coffin. Then they were joined by soldiers from the Southern army, and all these lads saluted too, honoring the one who had fallen.

That's when I knew what I was seeing. This was the funeral train of Abraham Lincoln. I straightened up and saluted myself, having done my bit for the North many years ago.

The steam train moved slowly away and with it went the darkness and the chill and the clouds that had obscured the moon. In my hand, the lantern sprang back to life. I blinked a few times and brushed away a tear. As the world around me brightened, I saw the reported brush littering the tracks right in front of me. Mechanically, I cleared it away and made sure the track was safe for the next train. Then I went back to the station.

The next morning, all the clocks on the Hudson Division were six minutes behind and all the trains were running six minutes late. When I asked the stationmaster about it, he shook his head and told me not to worry. It was caused by the Lincoln Death Train, which had stopped time as it ran by in the night.

[RJNorton]

Here is another article about the original railcar.

[Linda Anderson]

Frances Seward died on June 21, 1865. According to Thomas Goodrich in The Darkest Dawn, "The body of Mrs. Seward was escorted to New York in the same train that had carried Lincoln." The source is the Charles C. Appel diary which can be found in the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

It seems fitting that Mrs. Seward was given this honor as she was also considered a martyr as a result of Powell's attack on her family on April 14.

"That she didn't die immediately was a tribute to her nerve and her love. Instead, she called upon her slender reservoir of strength and began the arduous, anxious work of caring for the sick. The instant that it became clear that William Henry and Frederick would survive, Frances' energy and will collapsed."

Sensitivity and Civil War by Patricia Carley Johnson.

[Lincoln Wonk]

The diary of Sgt. Luther E. Bulck or Bulock, who was assigned to carry President Lincoln’s coffin on its 25-day funeral journey, contains a mystery.

The hand-written diary includes this entry for May 3, 1865: “On the way near Bloomington a young lady was found dead — supposed to have been killed by the pilot engine.”

The train stayed very close to its timetable state-by-state, but it was an hour late arriving in Springfield, Ill. The last stop prior to Springfield was Bloomington, Ill.

Dr. Wayne Wesolowski, co-author of “The LIncoln Train is Coming” and the researcher who is working on the exact color of the Lincoln train, wants to solve the mystery. He could not find accounts of a death in the area newspapers or in other personal accounts of the train stops in that area.

If you have any information about the event, the identity of the young lady, any delay because of a death or names of the trainmen or those who worked at the Bloomington station, please contact Dr. Wesolowski at weso@email.arizona.edu

---

The diary of Sgt. Luther E. Bulck or Bulock, who was assigned to carry President Lincoln’s coffin on its 25-day funeral journey, contains a mystery.

The hand-written diary includes this entry for May 3, 1865: “On the way near Bloomington a young lady was found dead — supposed to have been killed by the pilot engine.”

The train stayed very close to its timetable state-by-state, but it was an hour late arriving in Springfield, Ill. The last stop prior to Springfield was Bloomington, Ill.

Dr. Wayne Wesolowski, co-author of “The LIncoln Train is Coming” and the researcher who is working on the exact color of the Lincoln train, wants to solve the mystery. He could not find accounts of a death in the area newspapers or in other personal accounts of the train stops in that area.

If you have any information about the event, the identity of the young lady, any delay because of a death or names of the trainmen or those who worked at the Bloomington station, please contact Dr. Wesolowski at weso@email.arizona.edu

[RJNorton]

On the face of it, Kathy, I sort of have my doubts on this. I checked Scott Trostel's book. Scott is traveling to Indianapolis today for a speaking engagement on the Lincoln Funeral Train and the Lincoln Inaugural Train. Scott mentions the incident on p. 190 of his funeral train book, but adds "surviving records provide no detail." It's obvious Scott has doubts. I would think that if an incident like this really happened then there would be newspaper accounts, additional accounts besides Luther E. Bulock's, etc. On p. 188 Scott mentions a couple of ladies fainted as the train arrived in Joliet. It makes me wonder if Bulock's memory was confused and possibly erroneous. It was raining and nighttime; perhaps Bulock was mistaken in what he saw.

[79ttocs]

Lots of unanswered questions with the suggestion of the death at Bloomington. It is not reported in any of the existing papers in that area. It most surely would have been reported because the funeral train consisted of five trains that night and if any one or all were stopped for any time on account of a trackside death, it would have been reported in the papers, probably even nationally, but it wasn't. I made an effort to try and find the report while writing THE LINCOLN FUNERAL TRAIN, but came up empty-handed. I have to wonder if VRGE Bulock got the fainting of a couple of ladies confused. If he was on the train as it passed, and they were trackside when they fainted, he may have been speculating as to the end result in his notes.

Scott Trostel