"Court honored Lincoln as a fellow lawyer"

Following is an excerpt:

This past April, America commemorated the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. On Sunday, April 9, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. But the elation in the North from Lee’s surrender would last but five days.

On Good Friday, April 14, celebration turned to disbelief, anguish and sorrow as telegraphs clicked away in cities and towns across the nation with the news: Abraham Lincoln had been shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

During the two weeks after Lincoln’s death, his body would travel by a funeral train, westward back to Illinois, stopping in cities along the way — Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, N.Y., Buffalo, N.Y., Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis and Chicago. Millions waited in line to pass by his coffin. Millions more waited by the tracks as the train passed slowly by.

Originally published in Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, May 5, 2015