How many times was lincoln embalmed

Civil War upended this tradition. During the war, most bodies were left where they fell, decomposing in fields and trenches all over the South, or rolled into mass graves. Some wealthy northern families were willing to pay to have the bodies of deceased soldiers returned to them. But before the invention of refrigeration, this often became a mess , as the heat and humidity would cause the body to decompose in a matter of a couple of days. Updating an ancient preservation technique to solve this problem led to a seismic change in how we mourn the dead in America.

Ancient Egyptian embalmings removed all internal organs and blood, leaving the body cavity to be filled with natural materials. Catching wind of these medical advances, opportunistic Americans began performing rudimentary embalmings on the corpses of northern soldiers to preserve them for the train ride home.

Results improved, but not on a grand scale. Results were unpredictable, with issues involving circulation, length of preservation and overall consistency. It is estimated that of the , that died in the war, 40, were embalmed.

Business was doing so well that the War Department was forced to issue General Order 39 to ensure only properly licensed embalmers could offer their services to mourners. But the technique was limited to the war — to make embalming part of a traditional American funeral would require Abraham Lincoln, who you might say was an early adopter. Nothing like this had happened for any president previously, or since, and the funeral procession left an indelible effect on those who attended it.

After enlisting the help of Jack Hughes and Lewis Swegles, the trio hid in the cemetery the night of November 7, , and awaited their chance. Unfortunately for them, just about everything that could go wrong did so. In his haste, he broke the blade and therefore had to use a file, which took much longer.

Secret Service assigned to keep an eye on Hughes. Moreover, more agents were also onsite in Oak Ridge Cemetery that night in anticipation of the kidnapping attempt! Despite this, Mullins and Hughes somehow still managed to escape but were eventually arrested and sent to jail for their body-snatching attempt. Your mortuary science curriculum probably included a course on the history of the funeral service in America.

But the time from death to interment could be days or weeks while families waited for loved ones to arrive by stage or train. In warmer climates, especially, the effects of decomposition inevitably would begin to take their toll.

This is exactly what happened on the Civil War battlefields. At the beginning of the war, hundreds of bodies could lie where they fell until they could be interred in impromptu cemeteries, rolled into mass graves, or personally retrieved by family members or caring strangers. Around this same time Thomas Holmes , a physician in Brooklyn, New York, was researching phrenology, which involved the measurement of cranium shape and size in relation to mental traits.

President Lincoln also had the distinction of having the largest funeral throughout the world, until President John F. Additional Information. Home Home. Obituaries All Obituaries. Directions Directions.