Citizens of the Miami Valley learned of Abraham Lincoln's funeral train from local newspaper announcements, and on Sunday, April 30, the train entered Darke County on a wet and chilly night. It briefly stopped at Union City Junction, later known as Bradford, to take on fuel and water, and a small number of citizens were permitted onto the funeral car to pay their respects. The train then reached Gettysburg at 1:10am and Greenville at 1:36am. Greenville, the only town in Darke County to hold a memorial, drew about 500 people to its station at the crossroads of the Dayton and Union Railroads. The station was decorated, two 15 foot bonfires lit the night, thirty-six young ladies dressed in white waved the Star Spangled Banner, men and women sang Lafayette's Requiem, and Company C, 28th Ohio Infantry, stood in formation. As the train moved through Darke County, hundreds from rural areas gathered along the tracks, with small bonfires and torches dotting the landscape. At 2:41am it passed through New París, the last station in Ohio, where an arch of evergreens 30 feet wide and 20 feet high spanned the tracks before the train switched onto the Dayton line and continued to Indianapolis, Indiana. Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809, and killed April 15, 1865, was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination by John Wilkes Booth while attending Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC., with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. After debate, his burial place was chosen as Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, although Mrs. Lincoln had first preferred Chicago and did not want an extended public route that would make a spectacle of her husband. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton directed the arrangements and burial and appointed Ohio governor John Bough as co-chair of the committee overseeing the funeral train's planning and operation. Determining the route was the greatest challenge and remained tentative until late April 19th, before a compromise was reached among cities, time, and Mrs. Lincoln's wishes. Brigadier-General Daniel C. McCallum, director and superintendent of United States Military Railroads, was assigned to assemble the funeral train, while General Edward D. Townsend oversaw daily operations. The train operated under military command on the authority of the U.S. Government. The railroad car United States, originally built for presidential and government use, was altered for funeral duty. At least 42 steam-powered locomotives and around 80 train cars were used during the journey, though never fewer than 9 cars at one time, and the train was not to exceed 5 miles per hour when passing a station or town. It left Washington DC. at 8:00am on April 21, 1865, and arrived in Springfield, Illinois, on May 3, 1865. Over 13 days it traveled more than 1,600 miles through Washington, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and an estimated one third of the population, about 12 million Americans, saw the train en route, while 1.3 million viewed the open casket at stops along the way.