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Manuscript/Mixed Material [Inauguration of President Lincoln at U. S. Capitol, March 4, 1861].

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Title

  • [Inauguration of President Lincoln at U. S. Capitol, March 4, 1861].

Names

  • Meigs, Montgomery Cunningham, 1816-1892 (Author)

Created / Published

  • March 5, 1861

Headings

  • -  Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
  • -  Photograph

Genre

  • Photograph.

Notes

  • -  Forms part of Montgomery C. Meigs Papers; for additional information, see: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms006021
  • -  This sepia photograph, about 3 x 3 inches, is contained in a small brown leather photograph album, about 8 x 5 inches, marked Photographs Miscellanies in the Papers of Montgomery Meigs. It is a view of the crowd on the lawn in front of the east portico of the Capitol during Lincoln's first inauguration. The dome of of the Capitol is still under construction. There is a statue of a woman with an urn, seen from the back, in the foreground. In Meigs's journal entry for March 4, 1861, written in shorthand, there is a stereograph version of this same photograph. In March 1861, Meigs had just been reinstated as supervisory engineer of the Capitol but, with the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1861, Meigs was soon appointed quartermaster general by President Lincoln to provide supplies for the Union troops. In his journal entries on the eve and day of Lincoln's inauguration, March 3rd and 4th 1861, Meigs records the following: "3rd. To Capitol, Senate in evening. Congress in session. Exciting times, these. The country trembles in the throes of death. 4th. I stood in the crowd at the inauguration. So near that I heard much of the inaugural. It seems to be patriotic _________. Mr. Lincoln declares his intention to also occupy and possess the forts in the possession of the United States. To attack nobody but to resist all attacks upon the United States. To be patient, lenient, and to endeavor by pacific policy to bring all misguided people to a proper sense of their duty. The general impression seems to be that we have at last found that we have a government. The troops were under arms in parts of the city, and the whole thing passed more quietly than usual." Typescript of transcribed Journals at U.S. Senate Historical Office and Office of the Curator, Architect of the Capitol, Washington, D.C.
  • -  [Inauguration of President Lincoln at U. S. Capitol, March 4, 1861].
  • -  Original document scanned in 1999-2000 for the former American Memory presentation “I Do Solemnly Swear”: Presidential Inaugurations (retired 2016).

Repository

  • Manuscript Division

Online Format

  • image

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Meigs, Montgomery Cunningham. Inauguration of President Lincoln at U. S. Capitol, March 4. March 5, 1861. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/pin2104/.

APA citation style:

Meigs, M. C. (1861) Inauguration of President Lincoln at U. S. Capitol, March 4. March 5. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/pin2104/.

MLA citation style:

Meigs, Montgomery Cunningham. Inauguration of President Lincoln at U. S. Capitol, March 4. March 5, 1861. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/pin2104/>.