The entire country was stunned by Lincoln’s Assassination in 1865.

New York’s Electoral Votes

By 1860, New York had been the most populous state for more than a half-century. It accounted for a whopping 35 electoral votes, and gave them all to Republican Abraham Lincoln. It tipped the election balance in that convoluted four-way race. Had the votes gone otherwise, it would have been an even bigger mess than it was. 

Despite the electoral votes, the popular votes were much closer, mainly due to the huge population of New York City and its immediate environs (the five-boroughs were not incorporated until the 1890s). The Empire State had a population of a little under 1.09 million; the City and its surroundings accounted for more than 800,000! 

The NYC-area not only voted against Lincoln, but did so again in 1864.

New York City was the financial hub of the entire country. The banks, the financiers, the industrial magnates, railroads and shipping and the places of big-business – all were centered (or had major facilities) in New York City. When the Civil War was ramping up, and southern secession was becoming far more than foolhardy blather, NYC was far more interested in what it would (or wouldn’t) do for business. 

Very few New Yorkers were actual secessionists, although many were “sympathetic.” Very few were radical abolitionists. While respectable New Yorkers never condoned brutality or mistreatment, many believed that southern slaves were by and large in better circumstances than the influx of recent immigrants living in squalor and populating the factories of the north.

But when secession did happen, and Lincoln’s election did happen, and the Civil War did start in earnest, there was a serious movement in NYC to secede from New York State and become its own neutral entity. This way, they could trade with both the North and the South, and the European nations that did business with them – and they would make a fortune!

It was all about money. And a huge number of said bankers, financiers, etc. managed to make a huge amount of money, anyway. 

Lincoln’s assassination in April, 1865 drastically changed their collective attitude. They were as horrified by the event as everyone else, and were quick to realize that whatever faults they found in Lincoln-the-President, were more than offset by the virtues of Lincoln-the-Man.

General Townsend and the Procession

Abraham Lincoln had very little blood kin. His closest relative was his 21-year-old son Robert. Thus Secretary of War Edwin Stanton took charge, and assigned the complete mechanics of Lincoln’s Funeral (with few exceptions) to the Military. Brevet Brigadier General Edward. D. Townsend was placed in charge of orchestrating the final circuitous journey of the fallen President from Washington back home to Springfield, IL. The train-processional would follow the route Lincoln had taken when he first was elected in 1860. 

Every step was immaculately planned, coordinated and followed to the minute. The train itself, which made several “exchanges” with competitive/ancillary railroad lines across state borders. The speed of the train, where it stopped, and for how long. Where it “slowed” to accommodate local citizens lining the tracks and tossing flowers. 

While the military honor guards included a permanent escort for the full ride, thousands of soldiers from local units were interchanged along the way. Most were engaged in crowd control for the hundreds of thousands of citizens who wanted to lay a wreath or bear witness and say a prayer at his coffin. 

Staff officers under General Townsend vetted and choreographed placing the plethora of dignitaries wishing to pay formal or private respects. State governors and past governors, mayors, council members, prominent citizens, Union veterans of all ranks, clergymen, local undertakers, civic groups, ladies’ clubs, choirs… and occasionally old personal friends of Lincoln. The numbers were overwhelming. Old records show that each mourner was allowed one second to pass by the coffin. Some even less. And thousands upon thousands did just that. Some were even turned away for lack of time. 

And then there were the crowds of just-plain-citizens come to pay their tearful respects. 

The Core of the Big Apple 

From New Jersey, where Lincoln’s bier and catafalque were rowed with muffled oars on a barge across the Hudson River, nearly a hundred thousand silent New Yorkers stood waiting at the pier where the trappings of grief were hitched for the slow march to City Hall. Nearly everyone was in mourning garb, or wore a respectful black sleeve or hat band, available for purchase from vendors on nearly every street. Along the route, choirs sang requiems and bands played funeral dirges. And rows upon rows of veterans marched in respectful silence behind the hearse.

Along the way, the procession stopped briefly for various smaller ceremonies for “invited” mourners.

Photographs of the President in his coffin was expressly forbidden, requested by a deeply grieving Mrs. Lincoln, and honored by Secretary Stanton. Nevertheless, dozens of photographs from a respectful long distance were taken of the procession for the newspapers, and for posterity.

Nearly a century later, one of those photographs of New York City’s funeral procession down 23rd Street, was studied minutely and enlarged by historian Stefan Lorant. In an upstairs window of a townhouse, two little boys were watching the event: Six-year-old Theodore Roosevelt and his five-year-old-brother Elliott bore witness, and TR never forgot.

A Final Salute

When the coffin finally came to the station to be carried aboard the special train to Albany, there was a carriage waiting a couple of blocks away. General Townsend was nearby, and recognized the carriage. He walked over, and greeted his old, retired commander.

Winfield Scott, General of the Army since the War of 1812, now past eighty, would die the following year. The younger Townsend offered to have Scott’s driver bring the carriage closer to the station, but the ailing Scott insisted on walking the distance to pay personal respect to his commander-in-chief.

Sources:  

Searcher, Victor – The Farewell to Lincoln – Abington Press, 1965

https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/a-city-divided-new-york-and-the-civil

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/lincolns-assassination-stuns-the-nation

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/scott-winfield-1786-1866/