The chap­ter titled “The Time Will Come” begins with Orville Brown­ing’s let­ter to Abra­ham Lin­coln regard­ing his inau­gur­al address. Brown­ing, reflect­ing on Lincoln’s speech, voic­es con­cern over a pas­sage he finds exces­sive­ly aggres­sive, specif­i­cal­ly Lin­col­n’s asser­tion to reclaim pub­lic prop­er­ties and duties, which he fears may antag­o­nize seces­sion­ists. Brown­ing empha­sizes that the admin­is­tra­tion should present seces­sion­ists as the aggres­sors in any poten­tial con­flict, urg­ing Lin­coln to revise his lan­guage to avoid incit­ing irri­ta­tion from bor­der states. He also prophet­i­cal­ly sug­gests Lin­coln will even­tu­al­ly need to pro­claim free­dom for slaves in the South, a theme that would res­onate lat­er in Lincoln’s pres­i­den­cy.

Lin­coln took Brown­ing’s advice to heart, edit­ing his address and not­ing on his letter’s back page that “Amer­i­cans, all, we are not ene­mies, but friends,” sig­nal­ing his desire for nation­al uni­ty despite the exist­ing ten­sions.

As Lin­coln jour­neys towards his inau­gu­ra­tion, he encoun­ters enthu­si­as­tic crowds at each stop, wit­ness­ing the influx of office seek­ers hop­ing for posi­tions in his new admin­is­tra­tion. The nar­ra­tive high­lights Lincoln’s trav­els, where he is greet­ed by cit­i­zens and notable fig­ures like jour­nal­ist Horace Gree­ley. An amus­ing moment occurs when a boy implies that a man giv­ing Lin­coln an apple is cam­paign­ing for a patron­age posi­tion.

In Albany, Lin­coln wit­ness­es a per­for­mance by John Wilkes Booth, an actor whose dra­mat­ic fall on stage sparks con­sid­er­able media atten­tion. Upon reach­ing New York City on Feb­ru­ary 19, Lin­coln makes a strik­ing entrance that cap­tures the atten­tion of poet Walt Whit­man, who vivid­ly describes Lin­col­n’s demeanor and appear­ance upon dis­em­bark­ing from car­riages.

Mean­while, Kate Warne, a detec­tive, notes Lin­col­n’s pale and fatigued appear­ance and meets with an aide to share con­cerns about threats against Lin­coln, which are dis­missed as just anoth­er false alarm. Dur­ing his time in New York, Lin­coln meets show­man P. T. Bar­num, who pro­motes Lin­col­n’s depar­ture as a spec­ta­cle at his muse­um, although Lin­coln does not attend.

After a night enjoy­ing Verdi’s opera, he con­tin­ues to Philadel­phia on Feb­ru­ary 21, engag­ing with an expec­tant crowd and address­ing the seces­sion cri­sis direct­ly. He express­es the need for a firm stance against seces­sion­ist actions, prompt­ing a spir­it­ed approval from the audi­ence. Upon his arrival in Philadel­phia, he faces a mas­sive crowd amid win­try con­di­tions, prompt­ing him to deliv­er an impromp­tu, sig­nif­i­cant speech that sets the tone for the esca­lat­ing nation­al cri­sis .