The department supplied the Union army with clothing, equipment, and transportation. Other Lincoln relics deposited at the Quarter Master's stores include the flag that covered his body en route to the White House, a sleeve of his undershirt, and an envelope filled with hair.

Bird's-eye view of Washington, D.C. in the 1860s. From John B. Ellis's The Sights and Secrets of the National Capital, 1869. (ICHi-30937)

In her letter to Gunther she described how plans to display the sheet at an 1881 Pennsylvania state fair were dashed following the assassination of President James Garfield earlier that year. A friend advised her to cancel the exhibit, but added, "do not give up the thought of bringing it before the public for I can see thousands of dollars in that sheet." Julia lamented to Gunther that "I have had no one that I could have trusted with the sheet or I would have had it exhibited at the world's fair in Chicago."

C.F. Gunther particularly valued the sheet and Lincoln's Petersen house deathbed with its original mattress.

The bed, sheet, and several other Lincoln relics from Gunther's Libby Prison War Museum were sent to Omaha, Nebraska for exhibition at the 1899 Greater America Exposition. An associate who helped C.F. Gunther catalog his collection for the Omaha display wrote:

That old husk mattress on the Lincoln Death Bed - C.F. said was the genuine article - and made a great holler when I nearly had it junked in Omaha. The blood stained sheets etc. were very precious to C.F.

The Time Saver and Catalogue of America's War Museum of the Greater America Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska, 1899.

The Quarter Masters Department where the "surplus articles after the funeral" were deposited was located within a block of the White House.
Julia Bridge had hoped to profit from the sheet after her husband passed away.
Souvenir book from the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (ICHi-25164).