Our Abe - Page 7

Abraham Lincoln returned to Indiana one final time on the day before his 52nd birthday. On February 11, 1861, at about 12:30 p.m., a special train carrying the president-elect and his party toward Washington, D.C., arrived at State Line City, a small Hoosier town immediately northeast of Danville, Illinois. “I am happy to meet you on this occasion, and enter again the state of my early life,” said Lincoln, before grabbing a quick meal at the State Line Hotel. Coursing northeast along the Wabash River, the train stopped for about 10 minutes in Lafayette and then turned south. At Thorntown, Lincoln began a joke that, due to the train’s sudden departure, he had to complete in Lebanon, 10 miles away. In Zionsville, the train passed by the station and stopped at a water tank some hundred yards farther on; the awaiting crowd raced through the mud and thronged the train’s rear platform, shouting, “How are you, old boy? How are you, Abe?”

At 5 p.m., Lincoln arrived in India-napolis. He had visited the city at least twice before: in June 1849, traveling to Washington by stage, and in September 1859, when he made his first public speech here. In 1861, the inaugural train stopped at Washington and Missouri streets(rather than traveling all the way to Union Station), where it was met by several brass bands, various troops of colorfully dressed soldiers, and the largest crowd—by some estimates, as many as 50,000 people—ever assembled in Indianapolis. Speaking from an open carriage, Indiana governor Oliver Morton welcomed Lincoln, who, in his brief reply, stressed that the “salvation of this Union” relied not on him but on the “hearts” of the people. Privately, he complimented Elijah Hedges, the carriage driver, on his handsome team of four white horses.

At the Bates House, the city’s leading hotel (Claypool Court occupies the site today), Lincoln made a more provocative speech from an outdoor balcony. Its mention of “coercion” and “invasion” as they applied to the seceded states touched a nerve and was seized upon by a suspicious Democratic press. Inside the overcrowded hotel, all was chaos. Lincoln endured several minutes of panic when it seemed his son Robert had lost the bag containing printed copies of his inaugural address. In the jam-packed dining room, servers overlooked the president-elect, who had to wait half an hour for his meal. Brought back to the Bates balcony by the throng’s clamor, Lincoln only said he had nothing more to say.

On the morning of his birthday, February 12, Lincoln had breakfast with Governor Morton, and he may have visited the state legislature. Once more the Bates balcony beckoned. Joined by his wife, Mary, and his sons Willie and Tad, who had come in overnight from Springfield, Lincoln left Indianapolis at 11 a.m. on a train bedecked with flags, bunting, ribbons, fresh evergreens, a gilded eagle, and images of George Washington and the other presidents. Southeast sped the train, stopping momentarily at Shelbyville, Greensburg, and Morris. At one stop, where the crowd cried “Come back!” after Lincoln’s short speech, a political hack named Will Cumback took the platform and was booed into oblivion.

At Lawrenceburg, with the Ohio River and his native Kentucky nearby, Lincoln made his last remarks on Indiana soil. “My fellow countrymen,” he said. “You call upon me for a speech; I have none to give to you.” And then he slipped into Ohio and was gone.