The Best of the Bargain

The Exchange St. Depot

Preparations for an Event:

The early morning sunshine had melted the snow from the previous night. The temperature had risen to just above freezing. It looked like it would be an ideal winter day; at least as best as you can expect in February. There was only one problem with it. The sunshine and the melted snow brought about muddy roads. Some of them were impassable muddy roads. The “streets … were as slushy and unclean as paved thoroughfares well can be.” Nevertheless, today would be an eventful day for the city. Activity began early in the morning. Flags began to rise on the flagpoles and in front of the buildings. As the morning progressed, other decorations appeared. Building fronts were now covered with “tri-colored drapery”. An array of flags, both large and small, were appearing in countless places all over the city, “until Buffalo had put on the most gala look that she had worn for many a month.” By late morning, people had begun to gather “more thickly than usual,” especially at the street corners. By early afternoon, the crowds rapidly increased. The city inhabitants were now stopping their work and the country folks were arriving in great numbers, coming in from the rest of the county. There was a holiday excitement in the air. Amongst the crowd there was a “prevailing anticipation of something memorable and important in occurrence.” Today, Saturday, February 16, 1861, the President-elect, Abraham Lincoln, was coming to town.

“When the looked for hour of the President's coming had arrived, the crowd, the bustle, the excitement which all day had grown, was at a climax which we think it perfectly safe to say never has been equaled in Buffalo. Packed upon the walks, clustered upon the roofs, crowded at the windows … heaped and overflowing everywhere within view of the route of the expected procession, such a swarming of humanity … we never before saw in our Queen City. Within and around the depot on Exchange street the press was of course the greatest. There the crowd was absolutely fearful in its magnitude and in the excitement under which it swayed as under a tempest.”1

The Arrival:

At precisely 4:30 PM, the cannon of Major Wiedrich's Artillery Company on Michigan Street broadcast the arrival of the train. The wildest cheering greeted its appearance, “cheering that began with the multitude away down the track … gathering volume as it rolled up to the Depot.”2 The Depot was the Exchange Street Station. The original structure built in the late 1840's was no more than a shed with one track. The 1861 building was the second one and the first built by the New York Central. Although much larger than the original, it was still a bit too cramped for the crowd of this day.

A Cleveland reporter on the train described the scene as they approached the city. “We began to see crowds of people standing near the railroad when the train was a mile out of Buffalo. As we advanced the crowds thickened and shouts from thousands of throats and the loud booming of cannon were heard. The crowd filled open freight cars on the track, stood in solid masses on car tops, filled windows and every conceivable standing place from which to see. In the neighborhood of the depot the throng was very dense, and within they were packed so closely they could only move in masses of hundreds.”3

Another reporter on the train told of the fears they had for their own protection. “As that place was neared fears began to be entertained as to the provision made for protecting the party from the rush of curious people that would probably take place on alighting. As the train entered the depot a single glance sufficed to show that those fears were well grounded. The preparations were wholly inadequate for the occasion. The mob swarmed over the cars, and were only kept out from them by the most strenuous exertions of the train officers and the President's party themselves. The handful of military were hemmed in by the crowd, and rendered utterly powerless for good or evil.”4

The crowd inside the depot, estimated to be at least 10,000, struggled to get a better view of the rear car of the train, which contained the President-elect.5 When it came to a halt, “D” Company took a few minutes to open a passageway from the train to the depot main exit. Lincoln then appeared on the rear platform with Almon Clapp. Millard Fillmore, the former President, met him at the steps and “greeted him in a few words simply of congratulation upon the safety of his journey and the preservation of his health, in response to which Mr. Lincoln expressed his thanks. Attended then by Mr. Fillmore, Mr. Clapp, and Mr. Bemis, mayor pro tem, the President proceeded to the carriage through the line opened by the military.”6