STATEHOUSE CALENDAR

General John Curtis Caldwell had answered the call of duty at the outbreak of the American Civil War. As a brigade commander and eventual corps commander of the Army of the Potomac, he participated in some of the most ferocious fighting between North and South.  Travelling with the army from one battlefront to the next, Caldwell was wounded twice.

On April 20, 1865, General Caldwell received a letter from the War Department advising him that he had been appointed to the "Guard of Honor"  that was to accompany President Lincoln’s remains "from the city of Washington to Springfield, Illinois, and continue with them until they are consigned to their final resting-place."

A partial list of objects in the exhibit are: a War Department pass for the Lincoln funeral train, a silver tassel from the catafalque, a mourning badge and ribbon, a silk from the Cleveland service and funeral time table from the slain president’s Columbus repose.