There are a myriad of different places to visit, especially if you are going to be spending time in the great city of Springfield, Illinois. Whether you want Lincoln history, or you like the railroads, and then there are so many other things that you can do while I was there. I had been down to the Springfield area multiple times over the years, but that is the thing, there is a lot in that area to think about. There are the many different things to learn about, but today I actually want to talk about one of the sites that really has always impressed me.
In the middle of Oak Ridge Cemetery there is a large obelisk. It is one of the best built buildings that I have ever seen. I think the first time I remember seeing it was when I was 8 or 9 years old, and I had gone down with my parents and they took us in. It has some of the best marble work that I have ever seen. When I was there the first time, I was taught that respect and reverence were things that needed to be practiced. For many, visiting a cemetery, well, it might not be the first thing that is on their mind.
While in many photos, there are times when we see such places and they are just impressive. As I have been there many times over the years, I have to say that it is one of the many places that still impresses me to this day. I can remember that day, because I can remember that as we walked in, and as we talked to the gentleman who was there that day, he told us a little about the tomb itself, but I would soon discover that there was a reason for the tomb in the first place.
But as a person walks through, there are some little statues that are scattered throughout the tomb walk ways. They are miniatures of the Lincoln statues that are scattered across this nation. And I have always been so very impressed by the things that they keep drawing me back over and over. I guess that is because there are so many times when I just want to spend time back in the past. It is not that they were easier times back then, but rather they were different times altogether.
Exploration of this place does not fully explain the things that are going on, and that we are seeing. As you walk down the halls, and you look at the walls, there are words from some of his speeches. And then it opens up, and there are several flags that are set in the background of the grave stone that says Abraham Lincoln. There are no other words on that stone. And you would typically think that there might in some possible way that the grave would be right below the stone, but it is not. Abraham Lincoln is 10 feet below that stone, and between the stone and where Lincoln’s body is, there is 10 feet of solid concrete.
Now you might think that 10 feet of concrete is a little much, right? Well, it is there to discourage those who might want to rob the grave of Abraham Lincoln. And you might even think that there were those who would never dare to try to rob the grave of the 16th President of the United States. Well, that is where you might be more wrong than you know. It is not that people would think of this, but there was a group of individuals who plotted to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln, not long after it was delivered to the temporary tomb, where the body would await the relocation to the grave that would be the permanent placement of the body.
These men, the ones who were plotting to kill Lincoln, they made their move. They had made several observations about the location of the temporary tomb, and the guard that Abraham Lincoln’s body had. They were sure that this was going to be their perfect bargaining chip in an effort to get away with them printing their own money. It was not that they really wanted to steal anything that was in the grave with Lincoln, it was that they really wanted to have it as a “get out of jail free” card. But they were thwarted in the attempt to get the body. There was a last minute intervention, and the Springfield authorities, they were able to capture those who wanted to steal the body, and they were arrested.
The thing is, that if the idea to steal Lincoln’s body had come to one set of individuals, it more than likely would come into the mind of others. This is the thing, we must remember that the world in 1865, it was not the same as the world we live in to this day. But the authorities came up with the ultimate way to protect the body of the 16th President. But the thing is that there was a need to provide protection for the remains of what would easily be considered the greatest president in American history.
We can choose to ignore, as we enter Springfield, to think that the tomb of Lincoln would be no big deal, but that is the thing, with the amount of storied history, we need to know that there were so many aspects of our history, so many chapters that were begun during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
It took 19 days, from April 15, 1865, and the time that LIncoln’s body was taken to the temporary or receiving vault in Springfield. It had made a 1,654 mile journey, and there were 12 places where the body was removed from the train, the “Lincoln Special.” This was all setup and approved between Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary Todd had advocated for a direct trip from Washington to Springfield, but Stanton thought that the 12 stops that the train made were necessary for the grieving world that would have surrounded the nation at that time.
So, as I look back on the trips that I have taken, I have to say that the Lincoln Tomb is one of those places that few people ever seem to set foot inside. It is not a place that I have ever seen a lot of people there. It is not one of those places that I could easily forget. While I was not sure what age I really was when I set foot for the first time in the tomb, but I know that there were many years when we had been down there and I was within walking distance, and that is the thing, I think that it always seemed so far away.
We sit there and as we look back on the many presidents who have come between the time when Lincoln walked the halls of the White House, and the day that we live in, and that seems to bring more questions than it does answers. If Lincoln had lived, maybe things would have looked different, but that is the thing have we learned from the death of Lincoln that the world is not always ready for the changes that need to be made. As we know that when John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box of Ford’s Theater, that he was there, and possibly with the sanction of the Confederate government, because he did not want to change.
While there are those who think that the American Civil War was not about the issue of slavery, when we have learned over the years that there were those who lived in the 1920s and 1930s who were willing to try to bring about a time of memorialization, but they started to erase the ideas that we know now to be very true, mostly because we can see that there were places where the halo effect was taking over and the committee, and most historians felt that they had not given enough credit to the southern generals, and that is the thing, during this time, historians managed to bring up the ideas that Lincoln was the aggressor, and so there are more who think that this transferred to the idea that the slaves were happy. I can tell you now, if you really think this, then you have been duped by the “Lost Cause” myth.
As we people look back on the life of Lincoln, we often think that there were few mistakes that he made, if he made any at all. But I can tell you, Lincoln was a man, someone who was not afraid to try things, but there is this problem when we make the Lincoln of the past this heroic design, but that is the thing, Lincoln was one who simply find a way to reconcile the nation, and he knew that the South had no interest in coming back, but that is the thing, he was not the kind who was above racist ideology.
It was not long ago that I heard someone say that racism was not a factor, that the men and women of the past, even if they did not like something, didn’t make them racist. That those who taught, or teach, that this nation was a racist nation must hate the country that they are living in. But that is the thing, does recognizing that we come from a nation that had a system in place that it was not built on all this racist ideology. We can only ignore the fact that almost every single Northern states all put in place a set of laws that dictated that they did not want any more blacks to enter the state.
We cannot talk about the history of our nation without recognizing that in most every place around the nation, we have “black codes” or rules that governed the way that Blacks could act and where they could be. And so, we must realize that to tell people that there was a system of racism in our nation, that we are not telling our kids to hate their country. What we are trying to do is raise up a generation that might be able to rise above the racism. It is nice to think that maybe one day we will move past hating those who do not look like us, or that we will not be afraid of those who do not look like us. This was a dream that Lincoln started. It was not something that was going to happen overnight. The thing is that when Lincoln was assassinated, it was not clear how he was going to handle the freedom of those who had been enslaved up to this point.
We can come to the conclusion that Lincoln had no intention of ever making it so that the blacks who were now free, after the Civil War be totally equal, raising up the one argument that has been paramount to the American Experiment from the beginning: are we totally equal, or are we totally free. To be all one is to limit the other, and Lincoln had wrestled with this very issue when it came to the now free blacks.
Like said above, we have no real story for the United States without the racial divide. In other words, to think that the people of the United States of the 19th century, that they were like us, that their lives were that of our present world is to ignore that the issue of slavery should be the one taking center stage. There are those revisionist historians who want to tell people that slavery was a non-issue, but that is the thing, we have enough evidence to convict anyone who was involved of being racist. And while Lincoln is working toward the amendments to the US Constitution, the ones that would grant the many freed blacks the right to equal treatment, and also the chance for those same freedmen to have the chance to vote. Both of these amendments, they are started on that path by the man who was shot in a box at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865, and then took his last breath at about 7:22am on April 15, 1865.
So, I leave it to you, are we really desiring to erase the truth all in an attempt to keep the ideal that Lincoln saw, the one he dreamed of, all in an attempt to make a few policies which will limit others in the scope of the life they were dealing with. The man that we call the Great Emancipator, he was one who floated the idea of establishing a nation in Africa called Liberia, where those who were freed from the bonds of slavery were going to feel free enough to be themselves. Lincoln knew that there were going to be issues, and there were going to be those who were going to try to revert the nation to what it was before the war started, and that meant that they were going to see those now freedmen, that they were nothing more than slaves. The Black Codes that many states, whether it be north or south of the Mason-Dixon Line, were extremely harsh in their scope. They limit when they can come into given communities and states. It limited them to a certain number of people at gatherings. It was all of this that Lincoln was concerned with. He knew that the America that he saw, that it was not going to treat the blacks with decency and respect, and he was working to assure that someone would one day want to use the lack of protections in order to shut down the rights that these people deserved.
It was the nation and those who were going to call it home, it was this that Lincoln would come to die for. While he was watching the play “My American Cousin,” Lincoln’s attention was focused on the play. John Wilkes Booth, slips into the box, shoots Lincoln, and then jumps down onto the stage, while the play is still ongoing. And then he makes his remarks, and then he takes off out of the theater. He will lead people on a 12 day manhunt, and then is killed in a barn, when an army officer corners him in the barn and he orders his men to burn the barn to the ground, thinking that it would force Booth to come out of the barn, but Booth does not come out.
During this time, the body of Abraham Lincoln begins its trip home. And over time they build the tomb, and Lincoln is buried here, under 10 feet of concrete, so that no one would be able at any time be able to access the vault the body was actually sealed in.
So many people pass up the tomb while they are in Springfield, Illinois, to see the historic sites. They often go to the Old Capitol, or they go to the Lincoln Home, or they go to so many other places, but many do not take the time to go and visit the grave, and few even know just why certain things were done, until we hear the story of all the things that made the existence of the tomb a necessity. Also, while you are visiting the tomb, if you turn around and look behind you on the wall you will find the marble that separates you from the graves of 3 of Lincoln’s children and Mary Todd Lincoln, they were all moved here to be in the same place. The children who are buried here are Eddie and Willie, both of whom had died before the assassination of Lincoln. The third child who is buried here is Tad, who died in 1871, about 6 years after Lincoln died.
Thank you once again for taking the time to read this, and sign up for the newsletter, and you will receive information about things like, in the June 2026 issue, we will be discussing the insanity trial of Mary Todd Lincoln. Look forward to sharing more with you.
Leave a Reply