The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

10 x 8 in. printed broadside. (Old folds, mild toning.)

A RARE ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE EMBALMERS OF WILLIE AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The American Civil War prompted a great sea change in mortuary science, as the bodies of soldiers who died far from home needed to be properly preserved for safe return to their loved ones. The body of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the first casualty of the Civil War, had been prepared by the "Father of Modern Embalming," Thomas Holmes, and had been brought to the White House to lie in state for several days before burial. So impressed was the United States government and others who had viewed Ellsworth's body that business for embalmers boomed. Some even followed Union and Confederate armies across the country, embalming dead soldiers and then withholding their bodies from their families until their fees were paid.

The Brown & Alexander firm was founded by Drs. Charles Brown and Joseph Alexander, who employed Brown's stepson, Henry P. Cattell, as chief embalmer. Following the death of Willie Lincoln in 1862, his body was brought to Brown & Alexander, with the effects considered so lifelike that Lincoln is said to have visited the crypt often, sitting inside for hours on end with Willie's casket open so that he could look upon his face. Following Lincoln's own death three years later, his body was also prepared by Cattell, who was dispatched at various points during Lincoln's final journey to Springfield to administer touch-ups to the body.

Before Lincoln's final internment in a concrete vault at Robert Lincoln's request in 1901, his coffin was opened one last time to verify that his remains were still inside. According to witnesses, Lincoln was still perfectly recognizable, thirty-one years after his death.

EXCEEDINGLY RARE: According to online records, this is the only copy extant.