Life in the late-1800's came alive in downtown Columbus as the Statehouse commemorated the death of President Abraham Lincoln. Statehouse correspondent Andy Chow reports.
It was cold and damp the day President Abraham Lincoln's body was brought to the Ohio Statehouse to lay in repose before reaching his final resting place.
The weather was warm and sunny 150 years later as the Statehouse officials commemorated the event. However many other parts of Capitol Square were designed to replicate the day Lincoln's body laid in repose. The giant columns on the west side of the Statehouse were wrapped in black ribbon, the 36-star American flag flew at half-mast, and a black coffin sat in the middle of the Rotunda for visitors to pay their respects.
"You're gonna see the scene that was there in 1865. You're gonna smell it-we have flowers so you're gonna get the olfactory so it's a whole body experience."
That's Luke Stedke, spokesperson for the Ohio Statehouse. He says a great way to educate people is to make history come alive.
"Just to be able to be in that space that 150 years ago-50,000 Ohioans came to pay their respects to the savior of the Union. I think people just want to connect with that event and with the building itself," said Stedke.
To further strengthen that connection, the Statehouse held a Civil War encampment, with reenactments sprawled across the lawn outside the building.
Valerie Hamill, dressed in Civil War-era attire, talked about the importance of women during that time.
"We'd have to take care of our home front, the gardens, the food, the children and still keep everything rolling for the men. So women had an intricate part in helping with the Civil War," said Hamill.
With whip in hand, Deann Lewis explained how wagons were used to keep soldiers fully stocked with supplies as they traveled to battle.
"The war wasn't just about the soldier. You had supply lines to allow that soldier to be out on the fields. You can't have a war without bullets. They can't without food and stuff. We're teaching the kids how big a wagon is-a lot of times people see the wagons and say 'is that all the bigger it is,'" said Lewis.
Among the crucial items for wagons to carry were cannonballs.
That's the kind of blast that shook downtown Columbus all day long as a crew demonstrated how an actual Civil War-era cannon worked-without the use of actual cannonballs of course.
Leading the crew was Joe Patchen who finds that using the cannon is the ideal way to recreate just part of what life was like 150 years ago.
"People, particularly children, just light up with recognition of something that's just not part of their lives today. It makes real something they may have read about or would never have read about but for the fact that we're out here making a tremendous amount of noise," Patchen said.
Inside the Statehouse Rotunda, buglers played "Taps" people gather around the coffin. Stedke says this is a way to truly convey the mood of the state and of the country at the time of Lincoln's death.
"We kind of forget today-in this day and age-what type of event it was. So less than two weeks after the end of the American Civil War where 2% of the nation is dead, the President of the United State is shot. So it'd be like World War II, Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination kind of all wrapped up into one," Stedke explained.
The Statehouse also had a Lincoln impersonator deliver an address on the Ohio House floor.
Andy Chow at the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.