In “The Silence Breaks, The Demon of Unrest,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds on Feb­ru­ary 11 and 12, mark­ing the start of Lincoln’s jour­ney on the Great West­ern Rail­road through var­i­ous towns in Illi­nois toward his inau­gu­ra­tion. As he tra­vers­es towns like Illiopo­lis, Niantic, and Danville, Lin­coln takes time to stand on the rear plat­form, allow­ing the pub­lic to see him. His pres­ence stirs sig­nif­i­cant curios­i­ty and excite­ment as cit­i­zens gath­er in crowds anx­ious to catch a glimpse of the man whose elec­tion has unset­tled the nation.

Dur­ing brief stops, Lin­coln speaks to the crowd, deliv­er­ing a note­wor­thy mes­sage about the nation­al impor­tance of his trav­els, quot­ing a poet to con­vey hope: “Behind the cloud the sun is still shin­ing.” After reach­ing the Illi­nois-Indi­ana state line, Lin­coln faces the unpleas­ant sur­prise of receiv­ing ter­ri­ble yet over­priced food dur­ing his mid­day break.

Con­tin­u­ing his jour­ney, Lin­col­n’s train stops in Thorn­town, Indi­ana, where he enter­tains the crowd with a humor­ous sto­ry about a man and his slow horse that illus­trates get­ting side­tracked. His wit res­onates well with the audi­ence, and he keeps the mood light, bid­ding them farewell while not­ing that he must reach Wash­ing­ton on time.

Lincoln’s day cul­mi­nates in Indi­anapo­lis at the Bates Hotel, where he deliv­ers a care­ful speech before an immense crowd. He engages direct­ly with the press­ing polit­i­cal ten­sions, ques­tion­ing terms like “coer­cion” and “inva­sion” while assert­ing the government’s rights to reclaim fed­er­al prop­er­ties. Despite ini­tial ret­i­cence, Lin­coln bold­ly address­es the audi­ence, address­ing the roles of states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in main­tain­ing uni­ty.

After the speech, a surge of curi­ous onlook­ers seeks to meet him, press­ing against his space. Mean­while, Lin­coln anx­ious­ly awaits his son Robert, who guards a satchel con­tain­ing copies of his inau­gur­al address. When Robert returns, slight­ly ine­bri­at­ed, he reveals he left the satchel with the hotel clerk. In a humor­ous rush, Lin­coln descends to retrieve it, sift­ing through bag­gage until he finds his own. The chap­ter exem­pli­fies Lincoln’s human side amidst the mon­u­men­tal pres­sures of his impend­ing pres­i­den­cy, blend­ing humor with the grav­i­ty of his­tor­i­cal con­text. Now, as he embarks on his jour­ney, he reflects on his birth­day, sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and fes­tive­ly adorned train cars cel­e­brat­ing his pres­i­den­cy.