Now, as they managed a public still desperate to lay eyes on Lincoln, they fretted about keeping spectators locked into a proper posture of mourning. From April 21 to 25, officials debated how to maximize spectatorship and maintain order.
Intensifying alarm about the body’s state gave the last week of the funeral journey a very different feel from that of its first five days. Who was right-Brown and Sands or the New York City papers? Had no perceptible change taken place, or had “the embalmer’s labors,” as the New York World contended, been “set at naught by the organic forces with which the King of Terrors completes the sentence ‘Dust to dust’ ”? Reporters on the scene in Albany added support to the World’s vivid speculation by noting that Lincoln’s face was “evidently growing yet darker in spite of the chemicals used as preservatives” “the kindly face is discoloring.” But dueling claims about the condition of the corpse now colored the rest of the journey.
