Extra! Extra! Lincoln’s Inaugural Address!

March 4, 1861 in Washington, D.C. - thanks to the telegraph New Yorkers were (almost) there

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. Here’s an article from the March 5, 1861 issue of The New-York Times describing how modern technology was used to report the words of Lincoln’s Inaugural address (The New York Times Archive):

The manner in which President LINCOLN’S Inaugural was transmitted by telegraph is deserving of especial commendation. The American Telegraph Company, under the able management of E.S. SAN- FORD, Esq., its President, placed at the disposal of the Associated Press three wires between Washington and this City. The delivery of the Inaugural commenced at 1 1/2 o’clock, Washington time, and the telegraphers promptly to the minute, began its transmission to New-York. The first words of the Message were received by the Agent of the Press at 1 3/4 o’clock, and the last about 3 1/2 o’clock, while the entire document was furnished to the different newspers by 4 o’clock. Such rapidity in telegraphic communication has never before been reached in this country, and it should be a source of pride to the American Company, its President and accomplished operators, that so notable an act has been accomplished. To Mr. SANDFORD are the thanks of the Press and the public especially due for the kind manner in which he placed the line under his charge at the disposal of the Press.

We understand that a lengthy synopsis of the Inaugural was yesterday evening transmitted to St. Johns, N.F., thence to be forwarded by steam-tug to intercept the steamship Fulton, bound to Europe, off Cape Race.

The same issue of The Times described how the new was received in New York City (The New York Times Archive):

People of all parties in this City, as elsewhere, were on tip-toe all day to know what was going on at Washington, and especially to hear what President LINCOLN would say in his Inaugural. … So, as the hours wore on the people began to congregate in and about the newspaper offices — the faucets whence the stream of the desired information, brought through wire conduits from the Capital, was to flow forth.

Senator Baker - introduces Lincoln for Inaugural Address

All the afternoon they waited, increasing in numbers, famishing for the news, their appetites whetted from time to time, by the meagre accounts of the progress of the procession at Washington, which were published in the earlier afternoon editions. …

It was nearly 5 o’clock when the eloquence of these worthies was suddenly quenched as by a wet blanket, and the wet sheets of the latest edition, with the President’s Inaugural in black and white, leaped forth from the presses into the hands of all who could get copies. Then there was wild scrambling around the counters in publication offices, a laying down of pennies and a rape of newspapers, and the crowds began to disperse, each man hastening to some place remote from public haunt, where he might peruse the document in peace. The newsboys rushed through the City crying with stentorian lungs “The President’s Message!” LINCOLN’s speech!” “Ex-tray TIMES! got LINCOLN’s Inau-gu-ra-a-a-il!” And an hour later everybody had read the Message and everybody was talking about it. …

The new Administration rode the nightmare of countless retiring officers of the old regime and brightened the rosy slumbers of hundreds of hopeful office-seekers. The career of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, born in poverty and hewing his own way through adverse circumstances to the proudest position on earth that his countrymen recognize, inspired the dreams of honorable ambition that last night visited the pallets of the honest poor.

Edward Dickinson Baker was a friend of Lincoln’s from Illinois who moved to California. Later he was elected U.S. senator from Oregon.. Seven and a half months after the inauguration Baker died during the Battle of Ball’s Bluff.

***03-09/11: I made a mistake. Originally I said Baker was California’s U.S. senator. He was Oregon’s U.S. senator. I adjusted the text.