The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

At the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, about one in 20 of Washington’s inhabitants was an enslaved person. Both the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument were still under construction, underlining the idea that the Union was falling apart.

Lincoln and Buchanan traveled to the inauguration together by carriage. Buchanan was ready to go home, having done nothing to stop the secession movement. Lincoln delivered his inaugural address, and Seward was pleased that Lincoln had accepted many of his edits. Lincoln’s tone sought to soothe both sides of the conflict. His “mystic chords and better angels” (299) closing brought many in the audience to tears and made his address one of the “greatest speeches ever delivered” (299). Despite what he intended, many Confederates took Lincoln’s address as a sign of hostility.

Edmund Ruffin read the text of Lincoln’s inaugural address in Charleston. He concluded—as did many Confederates who were already disposed to see hostility in everything Lincoln did—that the new President’s speech signaled war between North and South.

In Montgomery, Mary Chesnut participated in an active social life among the Southern elite, befriending Jefferson Davis’s wife Varina.