Specimen Days (The
Inauguration) Walt
Whitman (1819-1892)
March 4th.--The President
very quietly rode down to the Capitol in his own carriage, by himself, on a
sharp trot, about noon, either because he wish'd to be on hand to sign bills, or
to get rid of marching in line with the absurd procession, the muslin temple of
liberty and pasteboard monitor. I saw him on his return, at three o'clock, after
the performance was over. He was in his plain two-horse barouche, and look'd
very much worn and tired; the lines, indeed, of vast responsibilities, intricate
questions, and demands of life and death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark
brown face; yet all the old goodness, tenderness, sadness, and canny shrewdness,
underneath the furrows. (I never see that man without feeling that he is one to
become personally attach'd to, for his combination of purest, heartiest
tenderness, and native Western form of manliness.) By his side sat his little
boy, of ten years. There were no soldiers, only a lot of civilians on horseback,
with huge yellow scarfs over their shoulders, riding around the carriage. (At
the inauguration four years ago, he rode down and back again surrounded by a
dense mass of arm'd cavalrymen eight deep, with drawn sabres; and there were
sharpshooters station'd at every corner on the route.) I ought to make mention
of the closing levee of Saturday night last. Never before was such a compact jam
in front of the White House--all the grounds fill'd, and away out to the
spacious sidewalks. I was there, as I took a notion to go--was in the rush
inside with the crowd--surged along the passage-ways, the blue and other rooms,
and through the great east room. Crowds of country people, some very funny. Fine
music from the Marine Band, off in a side place. I saw Mr. Lincoln, drest all in
black, with white kid gloves and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty
bound, shaking hands, looking very disconsolate, and as if he would give
anything to be somewhere else.

Walt Whitman 1887
Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life. While in Washington, he lived on a clerk's salary and modest royalties, and spent any excess money, including gifts from friends, to buy supplies for the wounded soldiers he nursed during the Civil War.