The Foot Comes Down

New York City to Philadelphia, Feb. 21, 1861

The New York TimesClick on the map to follow Lincoln’s journey.

Lincoln left his hotel at 8 a.m. The Lincoln Tunnel was not yet available, so he and his party went to the foot of Cortlandt Street, where they boarded a ferry boat to cross the Hudson River. They passed near Bedloe’s Island, which did not yet boast the statue officially known as Liberty Enlightening the World. When they made it to the other side, a raucous reception was well underway in New Jersey. As usual, New York newspapers were condescending toward the Garden State: “Never before such a collection of Christians, at least twenty thousand.” The crowd’s pressure was so great that Lincoln could not reach his train, and had to resort to a trick that had worked for him a few times already on the trip. He stood up and disarmingly told the crowd that he was happy to see them, and to be seen by them, but that he felt he was getting the better part of the bargain. He even gave a bow at the perfect moment of the punchline.

Courtesy of The Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VALincoln crossed the Hudson River on the John P. Jackson ferry, above.

The presidential party boarded the train and proceeded through New Jersey. At Newark 75,000 came out, full of “wild, crazy excitement.” At Princeton, he the train slowed down just long enough for him to endure a choral performance of “Gaudeamus Igitur.” Then it was on to Trenton, where another huge crowd had gathered. With more than a little sarcasm, John Hay described the chaos and crowding inside the New Jersey state house, where “there was rather more tumult than would generally be considered consistent with the owl-like gravity of a legislative assembly.” A large number of members of the Legislature were indeed owl-like – they were screeching at each other. Hay gives the exact words: “Down in front!” and “hats off!” Lincoln gave two speeches in quick succession, one to the Senate; the next, across the hall, to the General Assembly. Both chambers were overflowing.

Despite the chaos, Lincoln had a solemn purpose. Once again, he was introducing himself to the representatives of a state and her people, and once again he had a great deal to ask. New Jersey’s population was 672,035 in 1860; 76,814 would serve in the Union cause and 5,754 would not return.

Library of CongressGeorge Washington at the Battle of Trenton

But Lincoln did something unusual on this memorable day. In his first speech, to the Senate, he spoke about his youth, and his intellectual relationship with the founder of founders, George Washington. That Lincoln admired Washington is such a commonplace that we barely pause to think about it. But it was an overriding theme in Lincoln’s public statements; he had mentioned him in his farewell to Springfield, and in many other short speeches on this journey. He had seen his distinctive image looming down at him in train compartments and hotel rooms, embodying presidential leadership and nationhood at the very same time that the Union was disintegrating.

At Trenton, Lincoln went into his feelings about our first president, and allowed more light to shine into the dark spaces of his childhood than was the norm:

May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen, “Weems’ Life of Washington.” I remember all the accounts there given of the battle fields and struggles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the one here at the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river; the contest with the Hessians; the great hardships endured at that time, all fixed themselves on my memory, more than any single revolutionary event, and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that these men struggled for.

That venture into childhood quieted the rambunctious legislators. Then, in his speech to the House, Lincoln stunned them with an unexpected display of force, and his own rather astonishing physicality. John Hay’s description cannot be improved upon:

His voice was soft and sympathetic as a girl’s. Although not lifted above the tone of average conversation, it was distinctly audible throughout the entire hall. When, after avowing his devotion to peace and conciliation, he said, “But yet I fear we shall have to put the foot down firmly,” he spoke with great deliberation and with a subdued intensity of tone, lifted his foot lightly, and pressed with a quick, but not violent, gesture upon the floor. He evidently meant it. The hall rang long and loud with acclamations. It was some minutes before Mr. Lincoln was able to proceed. When silence fell again, he asked them to stand by him so long as he did right. There was a peculiar naivete in his manner and voice, which produced a strange effect upon the audience. It was hushed for a moment to silence which was like that of the dead. I have never seen an assemblage more thoroughly captivated and entranced by a speaker than were his listeners yesterday by the grim and stalwart Illinoisan.

As Hay’s account reveals, there was something powerful in the manner of speaking that day. But the words themselves held iron as well. This was the clear statement everyone had been waiting for. Perhaps it was the spirit of Washington and that cold winter crossing of the Delaware that had moved him. Prior to Trenton, there had been some temporizing in Lincoln’s remarks on the journey, suggesting that the crisis might go away. At Trenton, he did not say that. The entire world noticed, and knew what lay ahead.

In the interest of history, it should be added that the foot in question was quite large. As Lincoln became more and more of a celebrity, he found his privacy increasingly invaded by the people who forced themselves into his presence, and the reporters who followed him like remora fish wherever he went. He was friendly with them, but at the same time, they were beginning to exhibit some of the behavioral traits we would associate with paparazzi today. One night on this journey, Lincoln left his shoes outside his hotel room, to be shined. A crusading journalist actually took the time to measure them, and found them to be exactly the length of a sheet of foolscap paper – 13 inches.

Concluding the speech, Lincoln and his party left Trenton – a nice detail, captured by Hay, describes Lincoln walking out, as presidents often do, through the kitchen, “where a number of men in paper caps, and smelling of burnt pie, saluted him gravely and made gestures with ladles.”

Then it was on to Philadelphia, the birthplace of Union, where Lincoln passed through a crowd of 100,000 and the usual festivities. He was expected to raise a large flag over Independence Hall the next morning, Washington’s birthday, and the city had declared the day a public holiday. It was almost as if the whole trip had been designed to create this platform to speak about the meaning of America. But that evening, a little after 10 p.m., he learned that a serious conspiracy was determined to prevent him from reaching his destination.

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Sources: John Hay, private scrapbook, from the collection of Robert and Joan Hoffman; William T. Coggeshall, “The Journeys of Abraham Lincoln;” Victor Searcher, “Lincoln’s Journey to Greatness”; Harold Holzer, “Lincoln, President-Elect”; Michael Burlingame, “Abraham Lincoln: A Life”; John Nicolay, “Some Incidents in Lincoln’s Journey from Springfield to Washington”; Scott D. Trostel, “The Lincoln Inaugural Train” (forthcoming); The Lincoln Log..

Ted Widmer is director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He was a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and the editor of the Library of America’s two-volume “American Speeches.”