powerpoint_about_the_poem.pptxWhen Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
Walt Whitman
1865
Elegy on the Death of Abraham Lincoln
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" may be placed in contexts both historical and literary. The historical facts need only brief mention. While attending a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on the evening of 14 April 1865, President Lincoln was shot by the actor John Wilkes Booth; mortally wounded, he died the following morning. On 20 April his body lay in state at the Capitol, and the next day it began a 1,600-mile journey by rail across the landscape and through major cities on its way to Springfield, Illinois, for interment on 4 May. (1)
The Lincoln Special
Abraham Lincoln's funeral train left Washington on April 21, 1865. It would essentially retrace the 1,654 mile route Mr. Lincoln had traveled as president-elect in 1861. . . . The Lincoln Special, whose engine had Mr. Lincoln's photograph over the cowcatcher, carried approximately 300 mourners. Willie Lincoln's coffin was also on board. Willie, who had died in the White House in 1862 at age 11, had been disinterred and was to be buried with his father in Springfield. A Guard of Honor accompanied Mr. Lincoln’s remains on the Lincoln Special. (2)
Funeral Train Route
7,000 people / hour
NOTES
(1) 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd' [1865] Author: French, R.W. Print source: J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds., Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), reproduced by permission.
(2) http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln51.html
