After a week of bonfires, fireworks and bright lights, Washington marked Black Easter.

The president’s death on Holy Saturday 1865 meant the red, white and blue bunting celebrating the war’s end was replaced with black crepe. Merchants sold out of every type of black material, from cheap muslim to the expensive black alpaca that draped the pulpit of President Lincoln’s pastor, The Rev. Dr. Phineas Gurley.

Sources: 1865 newspaper accounts.