On this episode of Our American Stories, on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln looked forward to peace for the first time in four years. By the following morning, the president lay dead after John Wilkes Booth's assassination at Ford's Theatre. What followed became one of the largest public displays of mourning in American history.

Over the next 20 days, Lincoln's funeral train carried him 1,700 miles from Washington, D.C., back to Springfield, Illinois. Nearly 1.5 million Americans viewed his coffin, while millions more gathered along the tracks to pay their respects. Louis Picone, author of The President Is Dead, shares the remarkable story of Abraham Lincoln's final journey home.

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