Exploring the Land of Lincoln by Charles Titus

Author:Charles Titus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2021-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

President Abraham Lincoln’s Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield. Illustration by Phil Glosser.

Lincoln’s remarkable capacity as president during the great national crisis of the Civil War, his authorship of the Emancipation Proclamation, and his untimely and tragic death remain familiar to many Americans as well as to people from other nations. Vachel Lindsay’s elegiac depiction of Lincoln as “a bronzed lank man” attired in “his suit of ancient black, a famous hightop hat and plain worn shawl” evokes yet a commonly held image of the extraordinary man who rests here. The tomb that holds Lincoln’s remains sits at the top of a moderate slope and is fronted by a trimmed greensward that sweeps toward a low, abbreviated, semi-circular granite wall. Beyond the wall is a cement plaza, accessible by broad walkways that lead from a parking lot a short distance to the west. Here one encounters the familiar bronze rendering of Lincoln’s head, the nose rubbed shiny by the touching of countless hands. Resting on a tall pedestal, the work is a reproduction of a marble piece created by Gutzon Borglum, perhaps best known as the artist who carved the enormous likenesses of four presidents into the face of Mount Rushmore. Just beyond Borglum’s iconic sculpture, steps ascend to a second plaza and the tomb’s entrance.

The Lincoln Tomb is a square, gray structure made of smooth Quincy granite. It is surrounded by a cement walkway, with semi-circular edifices extending from the front and back of the building.2 Large shields, each representing a state of the Union and linked to each other to indicate national solidarity, adorn the exterior walls. The door to the tomb’s interior is in the center of the southern extension, and just above the door is a bronze plaque of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Granite bannisters guard stone stairs that ascend to the top of the tomb, where two balconies and a base for the obelisk rise above it. At the corners of the base are plinths holding sculpted bronze figures signifying the military forces under Lincoln’s command during the Civil War. Extending skyward 117 feet from the monument’s center is the obelisk that forms the striking focal point of the tomb.3

At the obelisk’s foot is a sculpture of the martyred president. Holding the Emancipation Proclamation in his left hand, a careworn Lincoln gazes to the southeast. This piece, as well as the rest of the statuary here (except for Borglum’s sculpture of the president’s head), was created by the American artist Larkin Goldsmith Mead, who also designed the tomb itself.

A movement to create a special burial place honoring Lincoln emerged shortly after his assassination. A group of prominent Illinois political leaders, along with some of the late president’s friends, formed the National Lincoln Monument Association on April 24, nine days following Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865, to perpetuate Lincoln’s memory with a monument marking his grave in Springfield, and they soon began a widespread effort to solicit funds to build it.4 The association aimed to construct

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