Alonzo Chappel, “The Last Hours of Abraham Lincoln,” oil on canvas, 1868. CHM, ICHi-052425

On April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died in the Petersen family’s boarding house in Washington, DC, at 7:22 a.m. The night before, John Wilkes Booth shot him during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre, and soldiers carried Lincoln across Tenth Street so that he could pass his last moments peacefully and not risk a bumpy carriage ride back to the White House.

The bedroom at the Petersen House just after Lincoln’s remains were carried out, Washington, DC, April 15, 1865. CHM, ICHi-011209; Julius Ulke, photographer

After Lincoln’s body was removed, the bed on which Lincoln died followed a circuitous route to Chicago. The owner of the Petersen House, William Petersen, died in 1871. His wife died later that year, and their adult children auctioned off all the furniture at the inn. Washington William Boyd purchased the deathbed and some other furnishings and later gave them to his brother, Andrew Boyd, a New York City publisher and Lincoln biographer. In 1877, Andrew Boyd found himself in financial trouble and ended up selling the deathbed and other furnishings to Charles F. Gunther, a wealthy confectioner whose success allowed him to collect historic memorabilia. He acquired many Civil War items shortly after hostilities ended and traveled the country looking for what might have been considered junk at the time.

A group of schoolchildren viewing Lincoln’s deathbed at the Chicago Historical Society (now Chicago History Museum), c. 1975. CHM, ICHi-066997

In 1920, the Chicago History Museum (then the Chicago Historical Society) acquired thousands of manuscripts and artifacts from Gunther’s estate, which included materials from the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, and the Civil War. The objects relevant to the Lincoln family are now part of the Museum’s John and Jeanne Rowe Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln Collection. Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed is currently on display at the Museum.

You can see the bed up close or explore our online exhibition A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln, which delves into the institution of slavery, the economic development of the antebellum North and West, and traces the antislavery movement and the sectional political controversies that led to war.