WASHINGTON >> Nearly 44 years after Jimmy Carter left the nation’s capital in humbling defeat, the 39th president returned to Washington for three days of state funeral rites starting Tuesday.

Carter’s remains, which had been lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center since Saturday, left the Atlanta campus Tuesday morning, accompanied by his children and extended family. Special Air Mission 39 departed Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta and arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. A motorcade carried the casket into Washington for a final journey to the Capitol, where members of Congress will pay their respects.

In Georgia, eight military pallbearers held Carter’s casket as cannons fired on the tarmac nearby. They carried it to a vehicle that lifted it to the passenger compartment of the aircraft, the iconic blue and white Boeing 747 variant that is known as Air Force One when the sitting president is on board. Carter never traveled as president on the jet, which first flew as Air Force One in 1990 with President George H.W. Bush.

The scene repeated outside Washington. The former president’s casket was removed from the plane, cannons fired and a military band played. A hearse emblazoned with the seal of the president joined a motorcade that steered toward Washington.

A bipartisan delegation of members of Congress were led into the Capitol Rotunda by Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, Democrats who represent Carter’s home state. Vice President Kamala Harris, members of President Joe Biden’s cabinet and three of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices — John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan — also were present.

The U.S. Army Band Brass Quintet played as people awaited the casket. The room fell silent as three knocks on the rotunda door marked Carter’s arrival. The casket was placed in the middle of the room on the Lincoln catafalque, a platform built in 1865 to hold slain president Abraham Lincoln’s casket in the same place.

Harris, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson delivered eulogies celebrating Carter’s faith, military service and devotion to service, including his hands-on contributions to building homes for those in need through Habitat for Humanity.

“Jimmy Carter was that all too rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty and grace,” Harris said, recalling his unpretentious approach to campaigning. He slept in the homes of his supporters to “share a meal with them at their table and listen to what was on their minds,” she said.

The U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club performed the patriotic hymn “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” before bipartisan congressional leaders and Harris, accompanied by her husband Doug Emhoff, placed wreaths beside the casket. Members of Carter’s family, including some of his grandchildren, wiped tears.

Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, will lie in state Tuesday night and again Wednesday. He receives a state funeral Thursday at Washington National Cathedral.

There are the familiar rituals that follow a president’s death — the Air Force ride back to the Beltway, a military honor guard carrying a flag-draped casket up the Capitol steps, the Lincoln catafalque in the rotunda.

There also will be symbolism unique to Carter. As he was carried from his presidential center, a military band played hymns — “Amazing Grace” and “Blessed Assurance” for the outspoken Baptist evangelical who called himself a “born-again Christian” when he sought and won the presidency in 1976.

In Washington, his hearse stopped at the U.S. Navy Memorial, where his remains were transferred to a horse-drawn caisson for the rest of his trip to the Capitol.