The day's main activity, for both the president and Mrs. Lincoln, was the Inauguration Ball, which would be held that evening at the Patent Office. But there was a great deal to be done before the president could leave for the party. He met with the diplomatic corps around noon, posed for a photographer later in the afternoon, received members of the Perseverance Fire Company of Philadelphia in East Room at 4:00 p.m., and tended to several other official functions while his wife was preparing for the evening's events.

But the most important event of the day took place several hundred miles from Washington, DC, and had nothing to do with the president's activities. About 60,000 men commanded by General William Tecumseh Sherman crossed from South Carolina into North Carolina, moving north to join forces with General Ulysses S. Grant's army, just south of Petersburg, Virginia. Even though the roads in Virginia were still far too muddy to allow an army to move out of its winter camp, let alone mobilize for the coming spring campaign—the mud was more than a foot deep in some places—the campaign was already beginning.

President Lincoln both dreaded and anticipated the fighting that would soon occupy so much of his time. He hoped that the coming operations between the Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia would be the final campaign of the war, and that General Grant would be able to bring about the surrender of General Lee and his army. He wanted to end the war quickly and, if at all possible, without another major battle between the two armies. There had already been too much killing.

But the main focus of Monday morning's headlines was not General Sherman and his march through the Carolinas. The newspapers of March 6 were mostly occupied with editorial opinions of the president's Inauguration Address. Papers from all across the country gave their views of the address, both pro and con. The New York Times thought that Lincoln had written a flop and a disappointment of a speech. “All that he does is simply to advert to the cause of the war,” the Times complained, “and to drop an earnest exhortation that all will now stand by the right and strive for a peace that shall be just and lasting.”1 Another New York paper, the World, hated the speech—which was understandable, since the World was anti-Lincoln as well as outspoken in its support of Confederate independence. “The pity of it, that a divided nation should neither be sustained in this crisis of agony by words of wisdom nor cheered with words of hope.”² Philadelphia's Inquirer had nothing but praise for the address, as well as for the president himself: “The address is characteristic of Mr. Lincoln. It exhibits afresh the kindness of heart, and the large charity which has ever marked his actions toward those who are his personal enemies as well as enemies of his country.”³

The newspaper that came closest to grasping exactly what Lincoln had in mind with his speech was not from New York or Philadelphia or anywhere else in the United States. London's Spectator praised the Inauguration Address not only because of its content, but also because it showed how far Abraham Lincoln had matured and evolved as president during his four years in the White House. “Mr. Lincoln has persevered through all,” the editor wrote, “visibly growing in force of character, in self-possession, and in magnanimity during his first term as president.” In his address, “We can detect no longer the rude and illiterate mould of a village lawyer's thought, but find it replaced by a grasp of principle, the dignity of manner, and solemnity of purpose.”⁴

President Lincoln certainly had been changed by the war since 1861. He seemed a lot older and more dignified, as well as a lot sadder and more reflective, than he had been four years earlier. “Poor Mr. Lincoln is looking so brokenhearted, so completely worn out,” Mary Lincoln confided to her dressmaker. “I fear he will not get through the next four years.”5 And he was fully aware that the fighting was far from over. There would be more battles to come, with more slaughter and dying, before the war finally came to an end. For the president, the war could not end soon enough.

The Inauguration Ball had already been in progress for some time before the president and Mrs. Lincoln arrived at around 10:30 p.m. The Patent Office was filled “with many of the most distinguished men and women of the country.” It was “a glorious spectacle, such has not been seen in Washington for years.”⁶

Abraham Lincoln had visited the Patent Office once before. On May 22, 1849, when he was still a congressman, Lincoln registered a patent for a mechanical device that would move boats over sandbars and other river obstructions. It is the only patent ever to be registered to an American president.⁷

The Patent Office was one of Washington's landmarks. The Stranger's Guide-Book to Washington City says, “The Patent Office Building is one of superior finish and elegance.”⁸ It housed models for all the patented inventions, along with curiosities from the country's past, including a printing press that is reported to have belonged to Benjamin Franklin and personal possessions of George Washington. Since the beginning of the war, the building was also used as temporary barracks, and store for articles captured from the Confederacy.

Mrs. Lincoln was the center of attention at the ball, not President Lincoln—at least as far as the women in the room were concerned. Her ball gown attracted more attention than all the ornaments and decorations in the room put together: “Mrs. Lincoln is most richly dressed in a white moire antique, profusely ornamented with exquisite lace.”9 One news reporter wrote, “Mrs. Lincoln…wore a white silk skirt and bodice, an elaborately-worked white lace dress over a silk skirt.”¹⁰

The president was mentioned, as well, but almost as an afterthought: “The president was dressed in black, with white kid gloves.”¹¹ Four years earlier, at his first inauguration ball, the president also seemed ill at ease in his black suit, and especially with his kid gloves. An observer noted that Lincoln cut “an awkward figure” and had “a mind, absent in part, and in part evidently worked by white kid gloves.”¹² He was probably just as uncomfortable at his second inauguration ball but was determined not to let it show.

The president and his wife were escorted from the ballroom to the dining room shortly after midnight. After dinner, the Lincolns left the ball and returned to the White House. Mary Lincoln enjoyed the evening's activities much more than her husband, but the ball was a nice change of pace for the president. At least the “glorious spectacle” took his mind off the problems and the pressures of his office for a few hours, which must have given him some relief. With the coming of the spring offensive, which could only be two or three weeks away at most, Lincoln knew that the pressures would increase even further.