Yes, historians really have been wondering that for years. In the spring of 1865, a train carried the body of Abraham Lincoln on a nearly two-week-long funeral procession from Washington DC to Springfield, Illinois. It’s said that millions of people watched the procession and many held memorial services along the route.
However, one detail was lost to history: What color was it? And yes, they had spent many years trying to figure it out, until it was finally solved this year. The original car had been sold at an auction and was lost to a fire in 1911, which is why this detail had been lost until today.
A chemist found a scrap piece of the original railcar’s window frame. He and his friends analyzed a small piece of the window trim under the microscope, and managed to get microscopic flecks of paint and finally came with an answer: A brownish-red described as a ‘dark maroon.’ Finally we can all rest easy.