Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[103] bed at the time in Harrisburg. lie at once determined to leave by a special train direct to Washington. Not satisfied with thus avoiding Baltimore, his alarm took the most unusual precautions. The telegraph wires were put beyond the reach of any one who might desire to use them. His departure was kept a profound secret. His person was disguised in a very long military cloak; a Scotch plaid cap was put on his head; and t1:,us curiously attired, the President of the United States made his advent to Washington. “Had he,” said the Baltimore Sun, “entered Willard's Hotel with a ‘ head-spring ’ and a ‘ summersault ’ and the clown's merry greeting to Gen. Scott, ‘ Here we are,’ the country could not have been more surprised at the exhibition.” ¹

Mr. Lincoln's nervous alarm for his personal safety did not subside with his arrival in Washington. General Scott, who was in military command there, had already collected in the capital more than six hundred regular troops, and had called out the District militia, to resist an attempt which would be made by an armed force to prevent the inauguration of President Lincoln and to seize the public property. He insisted upon this imagination; he pretended violent alarm; he had evidently made up his mind for a military drama, and the display of himself on the occasion of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. His vanity was foolish. A committee of the House of Representatives investigated the causes of alarm, heard the General himself, and decided that his apprehensions were unfounded. But he would not be quieted. He communicated his fears to Mr. Lincoln to such effect, that for some time before and after his inauguration soldiers were placed at his gate, and the grand reception-room of the White House was converted into quarters for troops from Kansas, who, under the command of the notorious Jim Lane, had volunteered to guard the chamber of the President.

Inauguration-day passed peacefully and quietly, but was attended by an extraordinary military display. Troops were stationed in different parts of the city; sentinels were posted on the tops of the highest houses and other eminences; the President moved to the Capitol in a hollow square of cavalry; and from the East portico delivered his inaugural address with a row of bayonets standing between him and his audience.

The address was such an attempt at ambidexterity as might be expected from an embarrassed and ill-educated man. It was a singular mixture. The new President said he was strongly in favour of the maintenance