The story of Lincoln's remains after his death is perhaps one of the most interesting, and bizarre stories of Lincoln, though very few have ever heard the tale. From the time of his last breath in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865 it would take decades, along with his remains being moved 17 times and his casket being opened 5 times, before Abraham Lincoln's remains would finally rest in peace.
The drama around Lincoln's remains begin almost immediately after his death. At the time of the assassination, there were members of Illinois legislature in Washington D.C., including Governor Oglesby. Shortly after learning of the assassination of Lincoln, these men got together and decided to put a request to Lincoln's family that his remains be returned to Springfield IL for burial. However, this proved to be an uphill battle for the delegation members, as Mrs Lincoln preferred Chicago or the crypt in the U.S. Capitol that had been prepared for George Washington that was unused. Finally, Mary's eldest son Robert was able to convince his mother to agree to the Springfield burial location on the condition that the body of her son Willie (who had died while Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln lived in the White House) would be taken back to Springfield and buried with his father.
After receiving the agreement of Mrs. Lincoln, the men of the Illinois delegation set out finding a suitable place to build a tomb for the remains of the assassinated President. After searching Springfield, the men settled on a plot of land known as the Mather Block. The Mather Block was selected as it was a hilltop that was centrally located in downtown Springfield. There was hope that having Lincoln's tomb in the middle of Springfield would help to draw tourists/guests to the area. After the selection of this piece of land, they had a temporary receiving vault erected. However, despite finally agreeing to a burial in Springfield, Mrs. Lincoln did not to such a public final resting place for her husband. Mrs. Lincoln recalled Mr. Lincoln telling her that he wanted to be buried in the more quiet and rural Oak Ridge cemetery that was located outside of town. Despite many efforts to change her mind, Mrs. Lincoln was adamant that her husband would be buried in Oak Ridge. After again threatening to bury her husband in either Chicago or Washington DC, the delegation relented. Having Lincoln buried in Oak Ridge cemetery was better than in a different city.
However, there was not even time to build a tomb elaborate enough for a President, however Oak Ridge Cemetery had an unused vault that would suffice until the actual tomb could be completed. After the 1700 mile train ride, Lincoln's remains finally returned to his adopted home town, where, to use his words he had "grown from a young, to an old man." On May 4, 1865 Lincoln's remains were interred at the public receiving vault at Oak Ridge Cemetery. Lincoln's remains would lay in this temporary tomb for 6, guarded by Civil War soldiers, before it was moved to another temporary holding vault on December 21, 1865. (The original holding vault is still standing and can be viewed at Oak Ridge Cemetery today. However, the second temporary fault no longer stands.) His remains would then stay in the second temporary tomb from December 1865 until a more permanent vault was completed in 1874. However, it would reside in this tomb only until 1876, when an attempt to steal Lincoln's remains came uncomfortably close to succeeding.
Although there were various plots to steal Lincoln's remains (body snatching in the 19th century was actually very lucrative), one of the most famous (and most successful) of these plots happen in 1876. In 1876, Big Jim Kennally and his gang of Chicago Irish counterfeiters were desperate to get their best engraver, Benjamin Body, out of jail. With Benjamin Boyd in jail, their business of printing of counterfeit money had come to a grinding halt. They determined that if they stole Lincoln's body they could put pressure on Illinois Governor to release Boyd, and they would be able to get their business up and running again. The gang decided that they would demand $200,000 and a full pardon for Boyd as ransom for returning Lincoln's body.
Although the idea of stealing a body, letting alone that of a President, may seem fool hardy to us today, back in 1876 it actually would have been a fairly straight forward plan to execute. Lincoln's body lay in an above ground marble sarcophagus in a tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Oak Ridge cemetery lay outside Springfield city limits essentially unguarded. No grounds keepers spent the night, there was no security. All that protected the body was a simple padlock on the tomb's door. The sarcophagus that the body rested in was not burglar proof either. Instead of being sealed with something permanent like cement, it was simply closed with plaster of Paris. It seems odd that more protection was not given to the tomb of the martyred President, but people at the time didn't see the point. Much like Lincoln assumed no one would assassinate a President, people simply assumed no one would try to steal the body of a President. Unfortunately, both assumptions would proof incorrect.
The plot may have been successful if not for Jim Kennally unknowingly recruiting an undercover secret service agent as part of the group. After a secret service agent in Indianapolis was tipped off about the plot, he notified the Chicago Bureau Chief, who recruited Louis C. Swegles to infiltrate the gang. IT is because of Swegles, and him telling a reporter all about the plot, that we even know about it today. The attempted assassination was done on November 7, 1876. It played out like a comedy of error. From tools being broken, to confusion between who was a thief and who was a secret service agent, and failure to plan how to actually move the body once removed from the grave caused the attempt to fail. The would be grave robbers did get away, but not with the body. They were apprehended a few days later and after a trial all served jail time for their grime, although grave robbing was not technically against the law so they were charged with “did unlawfully and feloniously attempt to steal, take and carry away certain personal goods and property, to-wit: One casket, otherwise called a coffin … the personal goods and property of the National Lincoln Monument Association … against the peace and dignity of the People of the State of Illinois.” The value of the coffin: $75.
A few days after this attempted body snatching, the tomb's custodian John Power and a group of trusted confidants, decided to bury Lincoln's body in the basement of the tomb, in a location only known to them. However, the basement was often water logged so they placed the coffin on the floor and covered it with wood until the following July. However, when Power was approached about moving the coffin, he said the unventilated basement was not able be accessed in the warm summer months, and he had no desire to move the coffin again as he suffered pain for months after the first time. (The coffin weighed between 400 - 500 pounds). So the coffin sat in the basement, disguised under a wood pile for another year. Finally, a group of men in their 30's were hired to move the coffin and it was buried in a shallow grave at the far end of the basement.
In 1880 Powers and his associated formed the "Lincoln Guard of Honor" and besides Robert Todd (Lincoln's son) no one knew of this association. In 1882 when Mary Lincoln passed, Robert instructed the men to bury her wherever they had buried his father. Therefore Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln remained buried in the basement until 1887 when their remains were moved to a brick vault.
However, the original vault was in constant need of repairs so in 1900 a complete over haul of the tomb was done, and Lincoln's remains were returned to the same marble sarcophagus that the grave robbers so easily broke into in 1876. In April of 1901, Robert Lincoln would visit the grave and be unhappy with the state in which his father was buried. He wanted to ensure that Lincoln's remains would no longer be disturbed. He wanted the coffin buried in a steel cage, encased in cement 10 feet under ground. In September of 1901, before permanently burying Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's coffin would be opened one final time, to ensure that the coffin did still hold his remains. It is said that Lincoln was still perfectly recognizable, even 30 years after his death, and it was surmised that he had been essentially mummified by the extensive embalming done on the body during the funeral procession.
However, the 1901 reconstruction of the tomb was not the end of the story of Lincoln's remains. In 1930 the tomb would need to be redone again, and would be redesigned to better allow for visitors to the tomb. The white sarcophagus that marked Lincoln's grave was replaced with a red granite marker, and the white sarcophagus would be destroyed by souvenir hunters when it was placed outside the tomb during the construction.
Today, Lincoln's tomb draws people from all over the world to pay their respects. The cemetery itself is serene, and you can easily understand why Lincoln selected it to be his final resting place. Despite the many years of turmoil, Lincoln's remains now finally rest, secure and peaceful under a stunning monument to a man who is larger in death than he was even in life.
To plan your visit to Lincoln's Tomb, you can visit https://lincolntomb.org/. They even offer a virtual tour of the tomb.
For more reading on the attempt on stealing Lincoln's body, I suggest "Stealing Lincoln's Body" by Thomas Craughwell.
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