Figure 1.--Unfortunately there are no photograpohs of the Inagural Express. This is the only photograoph we have found so far of Willie and Tad together. The man is Lockwood Todd, their mother's nephew. Notice how he is looking disapproivingly of Tad squirming in the chair. The CDV is marked Brady New York. It could have been taken during the Lincolns stop in New York. It may have been taken in Washington where Brady also had a studio after the boys arrived. If so it was soon after their arrival.

Close associates describe the beginning of the Ingaural Express, "By 7:30 AM, everything necessary for the inaugural journey was packed on the exquisitely designed, private, three-car train waiting at Springfield's Great Western Depot. The engine was a modern marvel of gleam and steam, hissing in readiness with its smoke-retarding funnel stack towering over the huge crowd of well-wishers bundled up against the weather to see President-elect Abraham Lincoln off on the first leg of his journey to Washington." [Hay and Nicolay] As Lincoln boards the train he famouslky remarks, "To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything... I now leave.. with a task before me greater than that which rested upon [George] Washington." The Linclon family traveled in their whistle stop train tour through the northeast giving his supporters a chance to see him (Feburary 1861). The Inaugural Express was, however, anything but an express. It was a series of trains taken by the Lincoln family from therir home in Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C. At the time the North had an impressive railnetwork, but it was made up of many small companies with different rail gages and locomotives. Thus meant to travel any distance, the rail traveler had to change trains. This meant you often had to get off a train in one stalion and then take a carriage to the other compsny's station. For the Ingural Express, each of the compnies competed with each other to provide the most luxurous accomodtiond and most importantly the most impressively locomotive, each if which was gleaming with brightly painted decoration, flags and bunting. The boys were no doubt besides themselves with thise magnificent locomotives belching smoke and steam. The cities involved also competed in providing impressiuve receptions for the new president. There were bands, honor squads, crowds, and fire works -- all of which of course delighted Willie and Tad. The most important southern state (Virginia), however, had not yet seceeded. There were several over night stops in which a variety of events were prepared. Lincoln made numerous speeched in which he avoided any policy statements. He got horse and had to limit his remsrks. For the most part he down played the developing crisis even though southern states had already seceeded from the Union. The most strudent statement was made at Pittsburg. Lincoln was surprised by the size and enthusism of the crowd. He commented, "I could not help thinking, my friends, as I traveled in the rain through your crowded streets, on my way here, that if all that people were in favor of the Union, it can certainly be in no great danger -- it will be preserved." The longest stop was in New York City. Mrs. Lincoln and the boys visited P.T. Barnum's museum. Philadelphia celebrated Lincoln's election with a glorious show of pyrotechnics. Lincoln took the most indirct tour possible without going ghrough the South, although they did touch on the Ohio River across the river was Kentucky, a slave border state. The trip was only slightly marred by the Pickerton dicovery of an assauination attempt in Baltimore. Mzaryland was a slave bordedr state.

Sources

Hay, John and John G. Nicolay. Abraham Lincoln: A Life 10 vols. (New York: The Century Company, 1880).