The Republican Convention at Chicago verified Mrs. Lincoln’s prophecy of being the wife of a President. It assembled the 16th of June, 1860, and after a close contest between the two favorites of the Republican party—Governor Seward and Mr. Lincoln—the latter was declared unanimously nominated as a candidate for the Presidency. In Springfield, Mrs. Lincoln waited in her own home for the result of her prediction, and when at noon the cannon on the public square announced the decision of the Convention, breathless with expectancy, she scarcely dared to ask the result. Her husband, in the excitement of the moment, did not forget her, but putting the telegram in his pocket, remarked to his friends that “there was a little woman on Eighth street who had some interest in the matter,” walked home to gladden her heart with the good news. That Friday night must have been the very happiest of her life, for few women have ever craved the position as she did, and it was hers! Crowds of citizens and strangers thronged her home all the afternoon, and the roar of cannon and the wild, tumultuous shouts of excited men filled the town with a deafening noise. At night the Republicans marched in a body to Mr. Lincoln’s house, and, after a brief speech, were invited, as many as could get into the house, to enter, “the crowd responding that after the fourth of March they would give him a larger house. The people did not retire until a late hour, and then moved off reluctantly, leaving the excited household to their rest.”
And now commenced the life which Mrs. Lincoln had so long anticipated, and if her husband was not elated, she was, and the hearts of these two, so nearly concerned in this great honor, beat from widely different emotions. “He could put on none of the airs of eminence; he could place no bars between himself and those who had honored him. Men who entered his house impressed with a sense of his new dignities, found him the same honest, affectionate, true-hearted and simple-minded Abraham Lincoln that he had always been. He answered his own bell, accompanied his visitors to the door when they retired, and felt all that interfered with his old homely and hearty habits of hospitality as a burden—almost an impertinence.” She, annoyed by the crowds who thronged the house, and the constant interruptions, found it so intolerable that Mr. Lincoln took a room in the State House, and met his friends there until his departure for Washington.
Mrs. Lincoln was not greatly inclined to observe the requirements of her social position, and she thereby lost opportunities of advancing her husband’s interests of which she perhaps was unaware. She did not rightly estimate the importance of conciliatory address with friend and foe alike, and seemed not conscious of the immense assistance which, as the wife of a public man, she had it in her power to give her husband. And this was all the more singular for the reason that she was very ambitious.
Just after the election, a circumstance occurred which Mrs. Lincoln interpreted in a manner which forced one to recall the predictions of her childhood. Mr. Lincoln thus repeated it. “It was after my election, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day, and there had been a great ‘hurrah, boys!’ so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself upon a lounge in my chamber. Opposite to where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it; and looking in that glass, I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler, say five shades, than the other. I got up and the thing melted away and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it—nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang, as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home, I told my wife about it, and a few days after I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough, the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was a ‘sign’ that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the second term.”
Mr. Lincoln regarded the vision as an optical illusion, caused from nervousness, “yet, with that tinge of superstition which clings to every sensitive and deeply thoughtful man, in a world full of mysteries, he was so far affected by it as to feel that ‘something uncomfortable had happened.’” Viewed in the light of subsequent events, Mrs. Lincoln’s prophetic interpretation of the vision had almost a startling import.
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and their three boys, accompanied by a number of Mr. Lincoln’s old friends, left Springfield in a special car, and all along the route they were welcomed by the people with every demonstration of hearty good-will. It was a time of anxiety, and the throngs that gathered about the newly elected Chief Magistrate seemed impelled by a stronger feeling than mere curiosity or excitement. Between Chicago and Indianapolis, the stations were decorated, the towns and villages were gay with flags and flower-bedecked mottoes, and wherever a stop was made, men, women and children grasped the hand of Mr. Lincoln, and wished him a safe journey and all success in the trying place he was going to fill.
An immense crowd cheered him as the train reached the depot at Indianapolis, and a national salute was fired in his honor. The Cincinnati committee of reception, filling his car, met the party there, and accompanied it next day. The train passed by the burial-place of General Harrison, who had for a short month occupied the Presidential chair, and here the family of the deceased patriot were assembled. Mr. Lincoln bowed his respects to the group and to the memory of his predecessor.
The morning of the fourth of March, 1861, broke beautifully clear, and it found General Scott and the Washington police in readiness for the day. The friends of Mr. Lincoln had gathered in from far and near, determined that he should be inaugurated. In the hearts of the surging crowds there was anxiety; but outside all looked as usual on such occasions, with the single exception of an extraordinary display of soldiers. The public buildings, the schools and most of the places of business were closed during the day, and the stars and stripes were floating from every flag-staff. There was a great desire to hear Mr. Lincoln’s inaugural; and at an early hour, Pennsylvania Avenue was full of people, wending their way to the east front of the Capitol, from which it was to be delivered.
At five minutes before twelve o’clock, Vice-President Breckinridge and Senator Foote escorted Mr. Hamlin, the Vice-President-elect, into the Senate Chamber, and gave him a seat at the left of the chair. At twelve, Mr. Breckinridge announced the Senate adjourned, and then conducted Mr. Hamlin to the seat he had vacated. At this moment, the foreign diplomats, of whom there was a very large and brilliant representation, entered the chamber, and took the seats assigned to them. At a quarter before one o’clock, the Judges of the Supreme Court entered, with the venerable Chief-Justice Taney at their head, each exchanging salutes with the new Vice-President, as they took their seats. At a quarter past one o’clock, an unusual stir and excitement announced the coming of the most important personage of the occasion. It was a relief to many to know that he was safely within the building; and those who were assembled in the hall regarded with the profoundest interest the entrance of President Buchanan and the President-elect—the outgoing and the incoming man. A procession was then formed which passed to the platform erected for the ceremonies of the occasion, in the following order: Marshal of the District of Columbia, Judges of the Supreme Courts and Sergeant-at-Arms, Senate Committee of Arrangements, President of the Senate, Senators, Diplomatic Corps, heads of departments, Governors of States and such others as were in the chamber.