During the final days before his inauguration on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln stayed at Willard’s Hotel in Washington, D.C. The hotel was located at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street, as is today’s Willard Hotel which replaced the 19th century structure in 1901. Historians and biographers have detailed Lincoln’s meetings, remarks, and decisions at Willard’s before he became the sixteenth President. Biographer Ida M. Tarbell wrote that “nine busier days Mr. Lincoln had not spent since his election.” ¹ David Donald’s biography echoes, “The ten days between Lincoln’s arrival in Washington and his inauguration were among the busiest in his life.” ² They were the culmination of the four-month transition period after the November election that was dictated by the inauguration date then set in the Constitution and during which the seven Deep South states had seceded from the Union.

Why did Lincoln stay at Willard’s? Margaret Leech’s Reveille in Washington describes it as “the most famous of all the hotels” in the city. “Its reputation had been made under the efficient management of the Willard brothers, who hailed from Vermont; and, enlarged and redecorated, Willard’s had become the great meeting place of Washington. Much of the business of Government was said to be done in its passages and its bar.” ³ Another account says Willard’s was “a fortress like structure which boasted of running tap water in every room.” ⁴ (A picture of the 1861 hotel appears in Leech’s book and other sources.) According to Ernest B. Furgurson’s account of Washington in the Civil War, Freedom Rising, the Willard brothers had expanded their hotel in 1858 to F Street and in 1859 had “bought the adjacent F Street Presbyterian Church” with an “imposing columned facade” as a concert hall for lectures, performances, and political gatherings. ⁵

Furgurson’s account reports that arrangements had originally been made by allies of Senator Salmon P. Chase of Ohio for Lincoln to occupy quarters at a private home “to protect him from over-exposure” to the influence of Chase’s rival Senator William Seward of New York. Leech adds that the original plan was “changed on the advice of Thurlow Weed, the political manager of New York State. In a hotel, the incoming President would be accessible to the people, and Mr. Weed himself had written to Willard’s to make the reservation.” The best rooms were occupied by New York industrialist William Dodge, a delegate to a Peace Convention that was meeting in the concert hall. A friend of Weed persuaded Dodge to vacate his suite upon the Lincoln’s party’s arrival. When Lincoln arrived unexpectedly ten hours early, Dodge “had to be hastily dislodged from the suite connected with Parlor Number 6, a large corner apartment on the second floor, overlooking the Avenue and the grounds of the Executive Mansion.” ⁶

ARRIVAL AND FIRST DAY

President-elect Lincoln reached Washington at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 23, after traveling in secret from Harrisburg through Baltimore because of reported threats to his life. Press reports of his clandestine movements brought ridicule that broke the momentum of Lincoln’s pre-inaugural trip across country designed to build public support for his leadership. In that context Thurlow Weed’s advice was particularly prescient because of the public visibility provided by the base at Willard’s. Harold Holzer observes in Lincoln President-Elect that, “though fatigued by his sleepless overnight journey, Lincoln chose to plunge immediately and energetically into the daunting task of restoring his prestige, perhaps anticipating the derisive news coverage that would greet his arrival. …[T]he locale ultimately served as the perfect stage from which to restore his image of accessibility.” Holzer cites another occupant who was told by the owner “that he had 1,500 guests booked” for the 500 rooms in the hotel. Furgurson’s research reveals that by Inauguration Day “Willard’s was so overcrowded that the proprietors rounded up 475 mattresses and laid them in the corridors and public rooms....” ⁷

Nathaniel Hawthorne, as quoted by Holzer, said Willard’s could “be much more justly called the centre of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department.” There was “a miscellany of people” and a “constant atmosphere of cigar smoke.” You could find “governors of Sovereign States… illustrious men…generals…statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones… loafers,” as well as “office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, poets, prosers…clerks, diplomatists, mail contractors, railway-directors,” everyone enjoying their “mint juleps, whiskey-skins, gin cocktails, and brandy smashes.” ⁸

Soon after his arrival at the hotel, Lincoln had breakfast with Illinois Congressman Elihu Washburne and New York Senator William Seward. Washburne, who had served as an informal representative of Lincoln in Washington during much of the transition, met the President-elect at the station and accompanied him to the hotel. Senator Seward, Lincoln’s choice for Secretary of State, had dispatched his son to Philadelphia with one of the two warning messages that persuaded Lincoln to make his surreptitious journey. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals cites conflicting accounts “as to whether Seward was actually there to meet the train. He wrote his wife that ‘the President-elect arrived incog. at six this morning. I met him at the depot.’ Nevertheless, Washburne later claimed that Seward had overslept and arrived at the Willard two minutes after Lincoln, ‘much out of breath and somewhat chagrined to think he had not been up in season to be at the depot on the arrival of the train.’” ⁹

After a visit to President Buchanan with Seward, an attempt to see General Winfield Scott who was away from his office, and several brief periods of rest at the hotel, Lincoln was prepared for visitors. One of the first was General Scott who, according to Ohio congressman Albert G. Riddle, arrived “in full dress sword, plumes, and bullion” and displayed “the gentlemanly art of bowing…as he swept his instep with his golden plumes of his chapeau.” ¹⁰

Mary, Willie, and Tad arrived in the afternoon. The family gathering is described by Harold Holzer: “While Mary commenced rummaging through her baggage to pick out clothes to wear at a reception planned for later that night, a happy Lincoln relaxed in an armchair, Willie and Tad ‘climbing joyously’ over him. But when a young Pennsylvania woman who had accompanied Mary from Harrisburg asked if he would like to hear a song, the mercurial Lincoln abruptly shifted moods and requested a sad one. Margaret Williams chose the appropriate ballad, ‘Alone.’ It was every bit as gloomy as Lincoln’s expression—‘among the saddest I have ever seen,’ the chanteuse remembered.” ¹¹

Hotel proprietor Henry A. Willard, who had greeted the President-elect upon his arrival, was called upon to solve a problem. As described by Ernest Furgurson, Lincoln discovered that “he had left his favorite slippers behind. This set off Willard’s first test as host to the incoming president.” After considering other options Willard “remembered that his wife’s grandfather…who was visiting at Willard’s house across the street, had ‘a good, large foot.’ The old man was delighted to have the honor of lending his slippers to a Republican he greatly admired, and so Lincoln wore them for days, perhaps weeks, before returning them with a note of appreciation. With the note, the slippers became a Willard family heirloom.” ¹²

The so-called Peace Convention was in session, presided over by elderly ex-President John Tyler with a variety of delegates of uncertain political status trying to prevent the outbreak of civil war. Holzer reports an episode at the Convention that may have confirmed the threats in Baltimore. Delegate Lucius Chittenden witnessed a servant delivered a note to delegate James A. Seddon of Virginia that announced: “Mr. Lincoln is in this hotel.” Seddon passed the note to delegate Waldo Porter of Missouri who exclaimed: “How the devil did he get through Baltimore?” Observer Chittenden “believed for the rest of his life that it testified convincingly that the threat there had been both genuine and serious.” ¹³

Peace Convention members called on the president-elect at nine o’clock on his first night. As described by Ernest Furgurson, “Lincoln’s friendliness and sincerity impressed those who had not met him before. They particularly appreciated the way he knew every man’s name and something about him.” In one memorable exchange, New York businessman Dodge confronted Lincoln: “It is for you, sir, to say whether the whole nation will be plunged into bankruptcy; whether the grass shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities.” Lincoln replied: “Then I say it shall not. If it depends on me, the grass will not grow anywhere except in the field and the meadows.” Pressed further, Lincoln insisted that the Constitution “must be respected, obeyed, enforced, and defended, let the grass grow where it may…. In a choice of evils, war may not always be the worst. Still I would do all in my power to avert it, except to neglect a Constitutional duty.” ¹⁴

Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The War Years devotes six pages to this meeting. The exchange with Virginia delegate Seddon captured what Sandburg calls one of the “core arguments that were in the mouths of millions of people.” Seddon complained that the North refused to “execute the laws for the return of fugitive slaves.” Lincoln responded, “You are wrong in your facts…. Your slaves have been returned, yes, from the shadow of Faneuil Hall in the heart of Boston. Our people do not like the work, I know. They will do w what the law commands, but they will not volunteer to act as tip-staves or bum-bailiffs. The instinct is natural to the race. Is it not true of the South? Would you join in the pursuit of a fugitive slave if you could avoid it? Is such the work of gentlemen?” ¹⁵

Lincoln’s reference to Southern gentlemen was a sign of his apparent hope that there was enough sentiment in the South to prevent a full-scale war. As historian William C. Harris observes in Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency, “When Lincoln arrived in Washington on February 23, he still wanted to believe that the application of force to preserve the Union presence in the seceded states would not trigger a civil war. The people of the South, including those in the border states, knew that he was grievously mistaken.” ¹⁶

MEETINGS AND REMARKS

From his arrival at Willard’s Hotel on February 23, 1861, until his departure for the Inauguration on March 4, much of President-elect Lincoln’s time at the hotel was occupied with meetings and social gatherings; on several occasions he delivered formal remarks to the assembled groups. According to the sources cited in The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, the first night had ended with an “impromptu public reception for members of Congress and persons of distinction crowding parlor and anterooms” and a 10:00 p.m. visit to the hotel by President Buchanan’s cabinet. The next day, Sunday, after attending St. John’s Episcopal Church and visiting Senator Seward’s home, Lincoln continued receiving callers including Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Congressman Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts, and Vice President John C. Breckinridge. In the evening Lincoln spoke briefly from a hotel window to the crowd attending a serenade by the Marine Band. ¹⁷

Harold Holzer summarizes the morning visits on Monday the 25th when Lincoln welcomed “such dignitaries as Lewis Cass, the old Michigan Senator who had served as Buchanan’s first secretary of state; Republican senators Preston King of New York and James Doolittle of Wisconsin; and delegations of pro-Lincoln electors from Ohio and Pennsylvania. Shortly after noon, President Buchanan himself paid a fifteen-minute courtesy call.” The afternoon saw “a session at Willard’s with the clerks of the executive departments, all of whom undoubtedly arrived for the meeting fully aware that their jobs were in jeopardy at the hands of the first-ever Republican president.” ¹⁸

All three of Lincoln’s opponents in the fall election – Steven A. Douglas, John Bell, and John C. Breckinridge – visited with Lincoln separately. His recent electoral adversaries urged compromise. “Their talks were cordial; however, Lincoln remained steadfast in his opposition to making concessions to the South.” ¹⁹ Without making overt “concessions,” biographer Michael Burlingame observes, the President-elect “became more conciliatory in the week before his inauguration” as he “became more aware of the depth of secessionist feeling in the Upper South and Border States, where Unionism was more conditional than he had understood when he was in Springfield.” ²⁰

The meeting with Douglas in Suite 6 was most poignant in light of their long relationship and the Illinois Senator’s subsequent support for Lincoln after the attack on Fort Sumter and before his premature death a few months later. As described in With Malice Toward None by biographer Stephen Oates, Douglas “pleaded with Lincoln to endorse the…Peace Convention. They both had children, Douglas said, and exhorted Lincoln ‘in God’s name, to act the patriot, and to save our children a country to live in.’ Lincoln thanked Douglas for his visit, but still refused to approve of the convention” which soon adopted proposals that included evacuation of Fort Sumter. ²¹ Another biographer, David Donald, says Douglas “pledged that he and his Democratic followers would not try to gain political advantage from the crisis. ‘Our Union must be preserved,’ he told Lincoln solemnly. ‘Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I am with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.’ Touched and greatly cheered, Lincoln responded: ‘With all my heart I thank you. The people with us and God helping us all will yet be well.’ When the senator left, Lincoln exclaimed to another visitor, ‘What a noble man Douglas is.’” ²²

Two of today’s outstanding Lincoln biographers disagree on Lincoln’s final role in the work of the Peace Commission. Harold Holzer’s account says the group was deadlocked until “in the predawn hours of February 27, after yet more haggling on language defining slave territory, a dramatic moment arrived. In a climactic vote—one that Lincoln evidently did nothing to encourage—the Illinois delegation switched from ‘no’ to ‘yes,’ enabling a final, if watered-down, compromise plan to pass by a vote of 9-8. Illinois’s Thomas J. Turner quickly wrote to assure Lincoln the delegates had made the decision ‘of our own volition.’” ²³ Michael Burlingame tells a different story, asserting that “Lincoln may have persuaded his fellow Illinoisans serving as delegates at the Peace Conference to change their minds.” Burlingame cites the roles of two other delegates, including Lincoln’s “political ally, Steven T. Logan,” and the recollection of a Massachusetts delegate that the Illinois decision “was attributed to the interference of Mr. Lincoln or his recognized friends.” Lincoln had real incentives to prevent the conference from ending in a failure that, he had been told, could result in the immediate secession of Maryland and Tennessee. While not unequivocal, Burlingame says Lincoln approved the final Peace Commission plan and “perhaps even maneuvered behind the scenes to have that plan adopted.” ²⁴

A New York newspaper correspondent reported the activities of the Lincoln entourage during the week: “Mrs. Lincoln receives nightly at her parlors at Willard’s. She has won all hearts by her frank, unaffected cordiality of manner, and the unconventional simplicity with which she greets those who call to pay the respect due the wife of the President. Young Bob has been extensively lionized, and a good deal of regret is expressed by the ladies at his approaching departure for Harvard. The private secretaries of the President, Nicolay and Hay, are toiling early and late with a mass of correspondence, of the extent of which I can convey no adequate idea.” Michael Burlingame’s analysis in Lincoln’s Journalist has persuasively demonstrated that John Hay himself wrote this and other anonymous press articles in 1860-1864. ²⁵

In line with Thurlow Weed’s advice and his own political instincts, Lincoln received a wide range of pre-inauguration visitors at Willard’s. “He was overwhelmed with callers,” said Iowa Senator James Harlan as quoted by Ida Tarbell. “The room in which he stood, the corridors and halls and stairs leading to it, were crowded full of people, each one, apparently, intent on obtaining an opportunity to say a few words to him privately.” ²⁶Lincoln’s secretary John Nicolay recalled, “In his rooms at Willard’s Hotel he also held consultations with leading Republicans about the final composition of his cabinet and pressing questions of public policy.” ²⁷ Biographer Oates calls inaugural week “a nightmare. For one thing, a mob of rabid and persistent office seekers would not leave Lincoln alone…. Then there were the endless delegations—Buchanan and his cabinet, senators, congressmen and others who pestered him about his Cabinet choices and Southern policy.” ²⁸

Lincoln also received the congressional committee that officially reported to him the results of the Electoral College. In a prepared response he emphasized his “firm reliance on the strength of our free government, and the ultimate loyalty of the people to the just principles upon which it is founded, and above all an unshaken faith in the Supreme Ruler of nations.” ²⁹

Newspapers published the texts of two brief responses that Lincoln delivered to visitors at Willard’s. Ralph Raymond of the New York Times stated in his biography, “On Wednesday, the 27th, the Mayor and Common Council of the city waited upon Mr. Lincoln, and tendered him a welcome.” ³⁰ Lincoln’s reported “Reply to the Mayor of Washington, D.C.,” delivered a message of friendship to the slave-holding states:

“Mr. Mayor: I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities of this city who accompany you, for this welcome. And as it is the first time in my life, since the present phase of politics has presented itself to this country, that I have said anything publicly within a region of country where the institution of slavery exists. I will take this occasion to say that I think very much of the ill-feeling that has existed and still exists between the people of the section from which I came and the people here, is dependent upon a misunderstanding of one another.

“I therefore avail myself of this opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, and all the gentlemen present, that I have not now, and never have had, any other than as kindly feelings toward you as to the people of my own section. I have not now, and never have had, any disposition to treat you in any respect otherwise than as my own neighbors. I have not now any purpose to withhold from you any of the benefits of the Constitution, under any circumstances, that I would not feel myself constrained to withhold from my own neighbors; and I hope, in a word, that when we shall become better acquainted—and I say it with great confidence—we shall like each other better. I thank you for the kindness of this reception.” ³¹

The reference to “benefits of the Constitution” was understood to include the advantages to the slaveholding southern and border states of the Fugitive Slave Act which required the return of escaped slave to their lawful owners and was grounded in Section 2 of Article IV of the Constitution (made obsolete by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865).

On the next evening, as described by historian Harris, the Lincolns held “a levee” at Willard’s for “invited guests including members of Congress, army and navy officers, and the diplomatic corps. During the reception, the Marine Band and a large of supporters gathered in front of the hotel. The band played ‘Hail to the Chief,’ and the crowd cheered and called for Lincoln.” ³² As cited in The Willard Hotel: An Illustrated History, one observer recalled, “The higher public functionaries and their wives had been notified rather than invited to come to the hotel on a certain evening for a first glance at the new chief magistrate. Into this presence stalked the lank, loose jointed, oddly clad ‘Old Abe’ with his little, simple, white-shawled wife at his elbow, and the never failing jest on his lips as he made his own announcement, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, let me present to you the long and the short of the Presidency.’” ³³

According to Raymond of the Times, “A serenade was given to Mr. Lincoln by the members of the Republican Association, and after numerous calls he addressed the crowd.” ³⁴ In his reported “Reply to a Serenade” Lincoln sought to reinforce the message of the day before by speaking as if this audience were hostile opponents and not Republican supporters (a rhetorical device he had used in critical pre-nomination speeches in Cincinnati and at Cooper Union in New York ³⁵ ):

“My Friends: I suppose that I may take this as a compliment paid to me, and as such please accept my thanks for it. I have reached this city of Washington under circumstances considerably differing from those under which any other man has ever reached it. I am here for the purpose of taking an official position amongst the people, almost all of whom were politically opposed to me, and are yet opposed to me, as I suppose.

“I propose no lengthy address to you. I only propose to say, as I did on yesterday, when your worthy mayor and board of aldermen called upon me, that I thought much of the ill feeling that has existed between you and the people of your surroundings and that people from among whom I came, has depended, and now depends, upon a misunderstanding.

"I hope that, if things shall go along as prosperously as I believe we all desire they may, I have it in my power to remove something of this misunderstanding: that I may be enabled to convince you, and the people of your section of the country, that we regard you as in all things our equals, and in all things entitled to the same respect and the same treatment that we claim for ourselves; that we are in no wise disposed, it if were in our power, to oppress you, to deprive you of any of your rights under the Constitution of the United States, or even narrowly to split hairs with you in regard to these rights, but are determined to give you, as far as lies in our hands, all your rights under the Constitution."

Lincoln’s meetings at the Willard’s suite on ways to avoid war included two lengthy encounters with prominent men from the Border States of Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia. Carl Sandburg covers the details in eight pages of The War Years based on the single-source accounts by one participant in each meeting. To defuse difficult issues Lincoln told an Illinois courtroom anecdote and an Aesop fable and was said to have declared about Fort Sumter, “If you will guarantee to me the State of Virginia I shall remove the troops. A State for a fort is no bad business.” Lincoln agreed to oppose (privately, not publicly) the Force Bill pending in Congress that would have given the President extraordinary authority over all regular and militia troops of the nation; the legislation was killed by an adjournment motion in the House on the night before the inauguration. ³⁶

Perhaps the most prominent visitor from an antislavery viewpoint was tall, serious-minded Massachusetts Senator William Graham Sumner. Again citing a single source, Lincoln’s biographers say he told subsequent guests that he had tried to lighten the atmosphere by asking Sumner “to put backs with” him to measure their heights, but Sumner had refused saying “this was a time for uniting our fronts and not our backs before the enemies of our country.” Lincoln reportedly added, “I have never had much to do with bishops down where I live; but, do you know, Sumner is just my idea of a bishop.” ³⁷

According to historian William C. Harris, “Lincoln’s remaining days before the inauguration were intense and filled with meetings, receptions, dinners, and visits from well-wishers and office-seekers. Lincoln told [journalist] Henry Villard, who had come from New York for the inauguration, that the demands on him were ‘bad enough in Springfield, but it was child’s play compared with the tussle here. I hardly had a chance to eat or sleep.’ Lincoln turned down all demands for office, preferring to wait until after the inauguration before making appointments to mid-level and minor positions. He still had to complete his cabinet, including coaxing Seward on the day of the inauguration to withdraw his letter declining the position of secretary of state.” ³⁸

CABINET, INAUGURAL ADDRESS, AND AFTER

Ida Tarbell’s biography summarized the final work on the cabinet that took place at Willard’s: “Lincoln had made his selections, subject to events, before he left Springfield. When he reached Washington he sought counsel on his proposed appointments from great numbers of the leading men of the country…. In short, it was a day-and-night battle of the factions of the Republican party, which raged around Lincoln from the hour he appeared in Washington until the hour of his inauguration. In spite of all the arguments and threats from excited and earnest men, to which he listened candidly and patiently; Lincoln found himself on the eve of his inauguration, with the Cabinet which he had selected four months before unchanged.” ³⁹

During his meetings at Willard’s Hotel, Lincoln’s tactics for bringing together Seward at State, Chase at Treasury, and Cameron at War exhibited (in Harold Holzer’s words) the skills of a “master political puppeteer—self-effacingly maneuvering the wires” to mold his government. When Pennsylvania party factions finally united on support of allegedly corrupt Simon Cameron for the cabinet, they “insisted that he must head Treasury.” ⁴⁰ Biographer David Donald’s account says: “To settle the controversy, Lincoln sought the advice of the Republican senators. Sending for them in alphabetical order, he asked their preferences for Secretary of the Treasury. Of the nineteen who responded…eleven favored Chase. With that, Lincoln had a mandate, and he offered the Treasury Department to Chase. Cameron was given the choice of the War Department or the Interior Department and rather grumpily chose the former.” ⁴¹

Now Seward had second thoughts about serving in a cabinet with Chase who appeared too willing to risk a war that was expected by New York businessmen to result in an economic catastrophe. Seward sent Lincoln a note withdrawing his acceptance of the appointment to State. David Donald explains what happened next in the suite at Willard’s: “Lincoln… needed the New Yorker in his cabinet, but as he told Nicolay, ‘I can’t afford to let Seward take the first trick.’ He signaled that Seward was not irreplaceable. When a deputation of New York merchants friendly to Seward descended on the President-elect to protest the appointment of Chase, he listened to their arguments…. Agreeing that he needed a harmonious administration, Lincoln brought out two lists—one his preferred choice of cabinet members, which included both Seward and Chase, and the other, he said, a poorer one naming Dayton as Secretary of State with Seward as minister to England.” ⁴²

Lincoln said nothing to Seward, but passed this message indirectly through his Illinois political associate Norman Judd to Seward’s political advisor Thurlow Weed. David Donald’s account continues: “On Sunday, the day before the inauguration, just as though nothing had happened, the President-elect gave a dinner party for all the prospective members of his cabinet, including both Seward and Chase. The next morning, while the inauguration procession was forming, he sent Seward a brief note, asking him to reconsider his decision. Lincoln’s tactful handling of a difficult situation gave Seward time to reflect.” ⁴³ Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes Lincoln’s note: “It is the subject of most painful solicitude with me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal. The public interest, I think, demands that you should; and my personal feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction.” Seward agreed to serve. The “team of rivals” that Goodwin so thoroughly portrays were “strong men. But in the end, it was the prairie lawyer from Springfield who would emerge as the strongest of them all.” ⁴⁴

The night before the inauguration after a dinner for cabinet members, according to Goodwin’s account, “Mary Lincoln was unable to sleep. She stood by her window in the Willard Hotel and watched strangers in the darkened streets below. Though all the major hotels had laid out mattresses and cots in every conceivable open space, filling parlors, receptions rooms and lobbies, thousands were still left to wander the streets and wait for the great day to dawn.” ⁴⁵

Up to the last minute Lincoln was making changes in his inaugural address based on revisions urged by Seward and others with whom he had shared his draft. The cumulative effect, as characterized by Holzer, “was to markedly palliate its tone.” Seward’s most substantive suggestion “was that Lincoln conclude his speech on a more uplifting, less threatening, note than the harsh words that originally constituted its final phrase: ‘Shall it be peace or the sword?’” The new final paragraph, after “almost magical” editing by Lincoln in his hotel room, became one of the most “sublime and unforgettable” passages in all his public addresses ⁴⁶:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” ⁴⁷

During his last hours in Suite 6 on the morning of the inauguration, as recounted by Holzer, “Lincoln decided he must hear—rather than speak—the address for himself. He asked his son Robert to do the honors, and for half an hour the president-elect, perhaps the most discerning and demanding of all his audiences, listened to his own words read back to him one final time.” ⁴⁸ According to biographer Oates, “When at last the mantel clock stroke twelve noon, Lincoln was dressed in a new black suit, shined black boots, and a stove-pipe hat which went well with his chopped Quaker’s beard. He carried a gold-headed cane. Mary very much approved of his appearance; he looked distinguished, almost handsome.” ⁴⁹

After Lincoln and President Buchanan left the hotel for the ceremonies at the Capitol, the inaugural parade followed them and passed in front of Willard’s. As reported by Sandburg, “[T]he procession, headed by Marshal in Chief Major French, with aides in blue scarfs (sic) and white rosettes, moved down Pennsylvania Avenue with representations from the judiciary; the clergy; foreign Ministers; the diplomatic corps; heads of bureaus; governors of States; the army, navy, marine corps, militia; veterans of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 in carriages, followed by a variety of organizations and citizens afoot…. Double files of a squadron of District of Columbia cavalry rode alongside the [presidential] carriage. A company of West Point sappers and miners marched in front of it, and infantry and riflemen of the District of Columbia followed it.” ⁵⁰

Historian James G. Randall describes the procession: “For hours the human stream poured on toward the Capitol, the majority being Northerners according to the quaint remark of a reporter who noted the ‘lack of long haired [i.e., Southern] men in the crowd.’ Part of the pageantry was a car decorated to symbolize the Union, the states and territories being represented by girls in white, the float being drawn by six white horses whose housing bore the word ‘Union.’ The parade was a Republican affair; marching delegations were politically sympathetic toward the incoming President.” ⁵¹

Thus ended Abraham Lincoln’s historic stay at Willard’s Hotel in the final event-filled days before his inauguration.

Today’s Willard Hotel management preserves two handwritten communications from President Lincoln to the hotel after his inauguration. The first is a letter: “Executive Mansion. April 19, 1861. Messrs Williams, Gents. I am annoyed to know that my bill at your house has not yet been paid. Receipt it & hand it to Mr. Nicolay & he will give a check for the amount. Yours truly, A. Lincoln.” The second is a note written along the side of a duplicate bill from “Willards’ Hotel” dated April 26, 1861: “I will procure the government to pay this bill or pay it myself. April 30, 1861. A. Lincoln.” ⁵²

Visitors to the Willard Hotel in 2009 may remember Lincoln’s sojourn by reading the hotel history, by examining a display at the Willard History Gallery adjacent to the main hall, Peacock Alley, and the F Street entrance, and by telling a children’s story.

The Willard Hotel: An Illustrated History, by Richard Wallace Carr and Marie Pink Carr includes photo of a portion of a page captioned “Lincoln’s Willard Registry” from the Willard family Papers, Library of Congress. A copy of the page is on display in the Gallery with a description stating, “Lincoln paid his bill when he received his first paycheck as president. The Lincoln party was charged $2.75 per room for a multiroom suite and three meals a day. Among additional items billed to the president-elect were $50 for champagne, $8 for liquor, and a total of $100 for room service.” ⁵³ Examination of the displayed copy of the registry page (which differs from the “Duplicate” bill dated April 26, 1861) shows other charges including $50 for a private dinner and $20 per day for Parlors No. 6 and 8 on March 4, Inauguration Day; the windows would have offered a prime view of the inaugural parade. ⁵⁴

The hotel history also shows a photo of “The Slippers Lincoln Borrowed.,” and a description in the Gallery says “the slippers were donated by the Willard family to the Lincoln Museum at Ford’s Theater.” ⁵⁵ Hotel history co-author Richard Wallace Carr subsequently wrote the children’s story, Abraham Lincoln’s Slippers, illustrated by Mary Ashby Parrish. ⁵⁶