U.S. At War: Bugler: Sound Taps

In the capital’s hush every sound was audible—the twitter of birds in new-leafed shade trees; the soft, rhythmic scuffing of massed, marching men in the street; the clattering exhaust of armored scout cars moving past, their machine guns cocked skyward. And the beat of muffled drums. As Franklin Roosevelt’s flag-draped coffin passed slowly by on its black caisson, the hoofbeats of the white horses, the grind of iron-rimmed wheels on pavement overrode all other sounds.

Men stood bareheaded. Few people wept, so that the occasional sounds of sobbing seemed shockingly loud. As the coffin went past, part of the crowd began jostling quietly to move along, to keep it in sight. On Pennsylvania Avenue an elderly weeping Negro woman sat on the curb, rocking and crying:

“Oh, he’s gone. He’s gone forever. I loved him so. He’s never coming back. . . .”

To the White House. The caisson and its bright-colored burden rolled slowly along, small in the broad street from which Franklin Roosevelt had so often waved to cheering thousands. The sun seemed to grow hotter, the drums throbbed and muttered on & on. At last, the caisson ground up the graveled White House drive. The coffin was carried out of sight into the executive mansion.

It was put in the East Room. Here, on another April afternoon, Abraham Lincoln’s body had lain, his little sons Tad and Robert sitting at his feet, General Ulysses S. Grant in sash and white gloves at his head. Lincoln’s coffin had rested under a black canopy so high it almost touched the ceiling. Windows, mirrors and. chandeliers had been smothered in crepe and the room had been ostentatiously gloomy. Now the East Room was just a corner of a big house, long lived-in.

Franklin Roosevelt’s wheel chair stood near the wall. Chairs had been arranged, a small lectern, and a piano. The warm, flower-scented room filled with Franklin Roosevelt’s family and friends, the top men of the U.S., representatives of the foreign world—the new President, Harry Truman, the cabinet, Britain’s Anthony Eden, Russia’s Andrei Gromyko, King Ibn Saud’s son Emir Faisal, stately in an Arab burnoose. The pianist struck a chord, the mourners stood to sing the hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”

Mrs. Roosevelt listened, pale but dry-eyed, beside her son, Brigadier General Elliott Roosevelt, her daughter Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Boettiger.*But many near her could not control themselves. Harry Hopkins, who had hurried East from the Mayo Clinic, stood almost fainting beside his chair, white as death and racked by sobs.

As the 23-minute service drew to a close, the voices joined in another hymn: Faith of Our Fathers. Bishop Angus Dun repeated once more the remembered words from the President’s first inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Then: “Through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Slowly the room emptied.

To Hyde Park. That night, aboard a special train again, the President’s body traveled his old route, along the Pennsylvania Railroad’s main line through Philadelphia, and into Manhattan; then across Hell Gate and up the New York Central’s Hudson division to Hyde Park.

In the morning, the Hudson Valley countryside—where as a boy Franklin Roosevelt had run and played and ridden his pony beside his father’s horse—lay fresh and green in the sunshine. Once more the coffin moved on a black caisson. This time it was followed by a black-hooded horse, with a saber hung on the near side and empty boots in the stirrups of an empty saddle. It was the old military tradition for a leader who was dead. The valley began to echo with the sound of cannon, firing the presidential salute from the Hyde Park grounds.

In the green-hedged garden of the ancestral home—the “boxed-in garden” where Franklin Roosevelt had asked years ago that he be buried—two carloads of flowers lay heaped beside the open grave. Near it were gathered friends, relatives, the new President of the United States, old neighbors, the secretaries and ambassadors. The Rev. Dr. W. George W. Anthony, a white-haired, white-surpliced clergyman, spoke the Episcopal burial service:

“. . . We commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, dust to dust. . . . Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. . . . Lord have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. . . .”

A squad of West Point cadets raised rifles at the graveside, fired a volley, then another and another. A bugle sounded the long notes of taps. The crowd heard the order “March!” The grey-clad cadets swung smartly away. It was 10:45 am’ The crowd slowly scattered.

After a while Eleanor Roosevelt walked back through a wide opening in the hedge. She stood alone, silently watching the workmen shoveling soil into her husband’s grave. Then, silent and alone, she walked away again. On her black dress she wore the small pearl Fleur-de-Lis whichhe had given her as a wedding present.

<FOOTNOTE* Colonel James Roosevelt, who flew to the U.S.from Manila, arrived an hour and a half afterhis father’s burial.