"One little month" after President Harrison's inauguration multitudes again assembled to attend his funeral. Minute-guns were fired during the day, flags were displayed at half staff, and Washington was crowded with strangers at an early hour. The buildings of either side of Pennsylvania Avenue, with scarcely an exception, and many houses on the contiguous streets, were hung with festoons and streamers of black. Almost every private dwelling had crape upon its door, and many of the very humblest abodes displayed some spontaneous signal of the general sorrow. The stores and places of business, even such as were too frequently seen open on the Sabbath, were all closed.
Funeral services were performed in the Executive Mansion, which, for the first time, was shrouded in mourning. The coffin rested on a temporary catafalque in the centre of the East Room. It was covered with black velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and over it was thrown a velvet pall with a deep golden fringe. On this lay the sword of Justice and the sword of State, surmounted by the scroll of the Constitution, bound together by a funeral wreath, formed of the yew and the cypress. Around the coffin stood in a circle the new President, John Tyler, the venerable ex-President, John Quincy Adams, Secretary Webster, and the other members of the Cabinet. The next circle contained the Diplomatic Corps, in their richly decorated court-suits, with a number of members of both houses of Congress, and the relatives of the deceased President. Beyond this circle a vast assemblage of ladies and gentlemen filled up the room. Silence, deep and undisturbed, even by a whisper, prevailed. When, at the appointed hour, the officiating clergyman said, "I am the resurrection and the life," the entire audience rose, and joined in the burial service of the Episcopalian Church.
After the services the coffin was carried to a large funeral car drawn by six white horses, each having at its head a black groom dressed in white, with white turban and sash. Outside of the grooms walked the pall-bearers, dressed in black, with black scarves. The contrast made by this slowly moving body of white and black, so opposite to the strong colors of the military around it, struck the eye even from the greatest distance.