days later thus repelled the Gen. Early's attack on Washington at the Battle of Fort Stevens on the capital's northwestern outskirts of the capital. After the battle, President Lincoln commended Garrett as "The right arm of the Federal Government in the aid he rendered the authorities in preventing the Confederates from seizing Washington and securing its retention as the Capital of the Loyal States." In 1865, Garrett organized the funeral train that took the assassinated president's corpse from Washington to Springfield, Illinois. The several-week procession included stops and ceremonies in Baltimore; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia; New York City; Albany, New York; Buffalo, New York; Cleveland; Columbus; Indianapolis; and Chicago. Postbellum activities After the war, Garrett acquired three gunboats that had been used in the blockade service and refitted them into packet boats, establishing the first regular line service from Baltimore to Liverpool, Pennsylvania. He was also associated with several telegraph companies. Garrett also expanded the B&O by purchasing competing railroads in Ohio and Virginia. The B&O had reached Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before the war, where it competed with the Pennsylvania Railroad for western traffic. However, the route west from Pittsburgh continued through the Appalachian Mountains, which raised costs as well as engineering headaches. The easier route west, along either bank of the Ohio River, was initially owned by competing railroads. Garrett bought the Central Ohio Railroad, which reached Sandusky, Ohio, from which a relatively level expanse continued through Ohio into Indiana and Illinois. In the early 1870s, Garrett expanded the B&O westward from Chicago Junction (later Willard, Ohio) through Nappanee, Indiana, reaching "Baltimore Junction" at the edge of Chicago on November 15, 1874. Railroad strikes of 1877 Garrett was president of the B&O during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which was a result of his wage-cutting response to the widespread depression caused by the Panic of 1873, as well as his need for capital to expand the railroad. On July 20, 1877 he asked Maryland Governor John Lee Carroll to move troops from Baltimore, Maryland to Cumberland, Maryland, where large crowds had gathered at a B&O facility and the situation deteriorated. This troop movement erupted into riots in Baltimore, which continued to spread throughout much the country. President Rutherford B. Hayes ultimately used federal troops to end the strike (which had spread to other railroads) by force. Following the strife, in 1880, Garrett helped organize the B&O Employees' Relief Association. The