Wet plate, albumen carte de visite photograph, mounted to 2 3/8 x 4 card. View showing the public receiving tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois. The slain president's remains are guarded by three Union soldiers. Backmark: A.C. Townsend, Photographer, Enterprise Gallery, Springfield, Illinois, with 2 cents orange revenue stamp. Period inscription on the reverse, President Lincoln's Tomb. Mr. Nye, June 22, 1865. Light age toning. Very fine.

After a very real agony of indecision, Mary Lincoln decided that Oak Ridge was the quiet place she wanted her husband's remains placed and directed that the president's coffin be put in the public receiving tomb until she could go out herself and choose the most beautiful spot in the whole cemetery for him. The tomb was then hurriedly made ready by adding a new brick foundation built in the center of the vault and on it placed a marble slab large enough to hold the coffins of Abraham Lincoln and his son Willie whose remains were transferred from Washington, D.C. to Springfield to lie next to his father.

Rare and very desirable image!