Undertaker Frank Sands facilitated the transfer of Lincoln's body from the Petersen's boarding house to the White House, and may have wrapped the president's body in a bed sheet

The Washington Chronicle reported on April 16:

Shortly after nine o'clock Saturday morning the remains were placed in a temporary coffin, under the direction of Mr. Frank Sands, and removed to the White House, six young men of the Quartermaster's department carrying the body to the house.... (WASHINGTON CHRONICLE 1)

During the mid-nineteenth century, undertakers were also furniture makers. They provided coffins and transported the dead by informal arrangement; families or neighbors usually prepared the body for burial. (FARRELL 147) Frank Sands also assisted Dr. Charles Brown who embalmed Lincoln's body, an unusual procedure in the 1860s that was patented by Brown. As his techniques became more widely known and practiced, undertakers assumed a more comprehensive role in a rapidly commercializing funeral industry.

Julia's husband Samuel had received the sheet from Thomas Thompson. The relationship between the two men is unknown.

Thompson signed an 1871 notarized affidavit stating:

The sheet presented by me to S. Bridge Jr. of Pittsburgh Pa. is one of the sheets on which Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, died on, at the house of William Petersen... Being at that time Genl. Superintendant of the Quarter Masters Department, all the surplus articles after the funeral were turned over to me. This sheet I received from Frank Sands, the undertaker, on the 21st day of April 1865.

The 1865 Washington city directory confirms Thomas Thompson's appointment as Superintendent of the Depot of Clothing and Equipage.

Charles Gunther received a linen sheet from Julia Bridge in 1893 together with a letter:

Sir, I send you by express today the sheet upon which our lamented Lincoln died on.
The blood stains are the true blood of A. Lincoln.

Sheet attributed to Lincoln's deathbed at the Petersen's house (CHS 1920.253).