The front page is entirely devoted to the solemn final journey of Abraham Lincoln's body as it makes its way from Cleveland through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to his final resting place in Springfield. The detailed coverage follows the funeral train as it stops in Columbus, where thousands filed past the coffin in the Capitol rotunda for seven hours straight, with bands playing dirges and guns firing at intervals. In Indianapolis, the elaborate hearse was 14 feet long and drawn by eight white horses draped in black velvet—six of which had actually carried Lincoln through the same city over four years earlier on his way to his first inauguration. The most spectacular scene unfolds in Chicago, where a massive Gothic arch spanning 51 feet was erected across Park Place, reaching 40 feet high and decorated with 50 American flags. Major-Generals Hooker and Alfred Sully led the grand procession to the Court House rotunda, where Lincoln's body lay beneath a canopy studded with thirty-six silver stars. Throughout the journey, every small town turned out with floral tributes, tolling bells, and crowds standing in the rain to catch a glimpse of their martyred president.

This coverage captures America in its deepest moment of national grief, just three weeks after Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. The elaborate funeral procession—stretching over 1,600 miles from Washington to Springfield—became a unifying ritual for a nation that had been torn apart by four years of civil war. The war had officially ended just days before Lincoln's death, and now the president who had held the Union together was being mourned by the very people he had fought to keep united. The massive outpouring of grief, from the Gothic arches to the flower-covered platforms to the former Confederate soldiers marching in the Chicago procession, showed a country desperately seeking to heal and honor the man who had preserved it.

• The funeral hearse in Indianapolis was drawn by eight white horses, six of which had actually pulled Lincoln's carriage through the same city 'over four years ago' when he was traveling to Washington for his first inauguration—a poignant full-circle moment
• The Chicago procession included 'a full regiment composed of men formerly in the Rebel service, who, taking the oath of allegiance, were recruited at the several prison camps'—former Confederate soldiers honoring the president they had fought against
• At Michigan City, the funeral train stopped under elaborate Gothic arches where 'Miss Colfax, a niece of the Speaker' and fifteen other ladies entered the funeral car to place flowers directly on Lincoln's coffin
• The newspaper's subscription price was '$5.00 a year' (about $85 today), with individual copies selling for 'ten cents' from news agents—and Canadian subscribers had to pay an extra 26 cents for American postage
• Advertising rates in the paper ranged from 30 cents per line for 'Walks About Town' to 15 cents for regular advertisements, with 'cuts and fancy display' charged extra

• The 'Speaker' whose niece Miss Colfax placed flowers on Lincoln's coffin was Schuyler Colfax, who would become Vice President under Ulysses S. Grant just four years later—and later be implicated in the Credit Mobilier scandal
• Major-General Joseph Hooker, who led the funeral procession in Chicago, was the same 'Fighting Joe' Hooker who Lincoln had famously replaced after his devastating defeat at Chancellorsville in 1863, yet here he was honoring his former commander-in-chief
• The thirty-six silver stars on the canopy above Lincoln's coffin represented each state in the Union—including the Confederate states Lincoln had died trying to bring back into the fold
• The elaborate funeral train journey took 13 days and covered 1,662 miles, becoming the most extensive funeral procession in American history and establishing the template for presidential funeral trains that would be used for decades
• The Gothic revival architecture of the memorial arches reflected the same romantic medieval revival movement that was transforming American cemetery design—Lincoln would help popularize the 'rural cemetery' movement that made burial grounds into park-like spaces for public mourning