Coming down from his room with a soft hat in his pocket and a shawl over his arm, he stepped into the waiting carriage of the Governor of Pennsylvania. A loud order was given to the driver to take them to the Governor's mansion, but when the carriage was safely away from the hotel, the order was changed and they were driven to the railway, where the train was in readiness. An official secretly climbed a telegraph pole outside the city and grounded the wires leading to Baltimore, so there would be no chance of any communication of the news in that direction.

At Philadelphia the President-elect entered a general sleeping car and went to his section unrecognized. Only Pinkerton and one other man were with him, the latter a lawyer of giant build and courage from the old circuit, Ward H. Lamon, who was loaded down with ugly weapons.

The train passed safely through sleepy and unsuspecting Baltimore, and at dawn, when it drew into the station at Washington, an Illinois Congressman stood behind a pillar scanning the passengers as they came out of their cars. Lincoln and Lamon were the last to appear, and, joined by the Congressman, they went into the street, where they hired a carriage like any other strangers. At the hotel · it was some time before the flurried attendants

could prepare suitable quarters for the unexpected guest.

Meanwhile the anxious and sleepless waiters in Harrisburg, who had restored the wires to working order at the hour when the train was due to arrive at its destination, were relieved by the receipt of this cipher message, "Plums delivered nuts safely."

The startling information that the President-elect was in the city quickly spread over waking Washington, and was sped on the telegraph to every corner of the land. And thus Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, entered the capital of the republic.

THE INAUGURATION

Washington, a part of the "enemy's country," in no welcoming mood toward Lincoln and his party. The clamor of office seekers and the intrigues of leaders filled the air. The struggle "If that slate

of factions to dictate the choice of a cabinet.

breaks again, it will break at the top." - Seward resigned,

but Lincoln refused to "let him take the first trick." - Assassination feared. The President-elect driven from Willard's Hotel to the Capitol, surrounded by soldiers, March 4, 1861. A historic group. Guarded by rifles and cannon while taking the oath. A melancholy ceremony. - Lincoln's earnest and eloquent plea for peace and union.

WASHINGTON received Lincoln in no welcoming mood. The Federal city really was in the "enemy's country." It was It was a southern slaveholding community which hoped and believed the Northerners would soon be driven out by the secessionists, whose open emissaries were everywhere, even in places of power.

The new party about to be installed in office was a stranger to the people of the city, who were mostly Democrats. Their party had administered the government for nearly sixty years with slight interruption, and there was a feeling that no other party was capable of governing the country. Wash

ington, therefore, frowned upon the eager Republican office seekers, largely wearing the manners and garb of the new West, as they thronged the streets and swarmed the Capitol and the hotel lobbies.

Clamor and intrigue filled the air which the President-elect breathed, and a faction fight raged around him over the formation of his cabinet.

It was generally believed that some one of the more distinguished Republican leaders, or at least some group of experienced politicians, would control this new and inexperienced man. Few dreamed that it was to be a Lincoln administration. One day it looked as if Seward had captured the President-elect; but the next day the Chase element or some other appeared to have gained the upper hand of the kindly, simple man who told stories to his callers and sent them away without permitting them to draw from him a positive opinion on any subject.

Finally, when an Illinois friend rushed in with the rumor that the Seward faction had "broken the cabinet slate," Lincoln said firmly, "If that slate breaks again, it will break at the top." This proved to be true. Seward, whose name was written at the top, failed in his effort to dictate other appointments, and only two days before the inauguration sent the President-elect a letter declining to accept the Secretaryship of State.

Lincoln made no reply until he was about to go to the Capitol to be sworn in. Remarking then to his private secretary, "I can't afford to let Seward take the first trick," he wrote urging him to accept and giving him two days in which to reconsider his refusal. In the end, the framework of the cabinet stood as he had constructed it in his mind on election night in Springfield.

On the day of the inauguration, when the White House carriage drew up in front of Lincoln's hotel, President Buchanan, an old man in an old-fashioned swallow-tail coat, hobbled out and into the hotel, to reappear a few minutes later with the Presidentelect, who was dressed in a new black suit and a shining high hat, and who carried in his hand a gold-headed cane. General Scott had closed all the liquor saloons in the city and carefully arranged his small military force to thwart any attempt at assassination and to prevent disorder among the thousands of hostile persons in the city, who looked with sullen faces on the transfer of the govern

ment.

The presidential carriage moved along Pennsylvania Avenue between double files of cavalry, while soldiers marched in front and behind it. Groups of riflemen were stationed on various roofs which commanded the thoroughfare, watching for