On Feb­ru­ary 11, 1861, the day of depar­ture had final­ly arrived for Abra­ham Lin­coln. He woke ear­ly and left his hotel at sev­en-thir­ty on a gloomy morn­ing, char­ac­ter­ized by a wet chill that enveloped Spring­field. After board­ing a car­riage, he was tak­en to the Great West­ern Rail­road depot — a mod­est one-sto­ry struc­ture. A crowd had gath­ered, esti­mates vary­ing wild­ly from a few hun­dred to over a thou­sand onlook­ers. Notable fig­ures, includ­ing sculp­tor Thomas D. Jones, described Lincoln’s calm demeanor as he greet­ed friends and neigh­bors, with tear­ful farewells shared in a qui­et atmos­phere.

Lin­coln soon board­ed a spe­cial­ly appoint­ed train for this first leg of his jour­ney. Named “L. M. Wiley,” the loco­mo­tive was built by Hink­ley Loco­mo­tive Works in Boston. As Lin­coln pre­pared for depar­ture, he was joined by his eldest son, Robert, and sev­er­al oth­ers, while Mrs. Lin­coln and their younger sons planned to join him lat­er in Indi­anapo­lis. In the grow­ing rain, Mrs. Lin­coln was brought clos­er to the plat­form by sculp­tor Jones to hear her husband’s final remarks.

The train was ready to depart, steam pour­ing from the engine as Lin­coln pre­pared to speak. Although there are var­i­ous accounts of his words, Lin­coln spoke from a place of deep emo­tion, express­ing grat­i­tude for his years in Spring­field and sad­ness over the depar­ture. He reflect­ed on the sacred ties of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty, men­tion­ing the death of his sec­ond son, Edward. Stat­ing that he owed all that he was to his friends in Spring­field, he acknowl­edged the mon­u­men­tal task ahead, liken­ing it to the chal­lenges faced by George Wash­ing­ton and urg­ing that they seek divine guid­ance togeth­er.

Wit­ness­es not­ed the rain fell heav­i­ly as Lin­coln, vis­i­bly emo­tion­al, spoke his good­bye, urg­ing the crowd to pray for him as he depart­ed. With heart­felt final­i­ty, he bid them farewell, leav­ing every­one in a somber mood as the train began its jour­ney. It was a piv­otal moment, mark­ing not only Lin­col­n’s depar­ture from Spring­field but also the begin­ning of a sig­nif­i­cant chap­ter in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, as he head­ed toward Wash­ing­ton and his upcom­ing pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tion .