Abraham Lincoln votes in Springfield, Illinois at 3:30PM and waits for election news at a local telegraph office

Abraham Lincoln voted at the Sangamon County Court House in Springfield, Illinois in mid-afternoon, modestly cutting his own name from the ballot. That evening he went to the local telegraph office and waited for reports on election returns from across the country. “Those who saw [Lincoln] at the time,” as the New York Times observed, “say it would have been impossible for a bystander to tell that that tall, lean, wiry, good-natured, easy-going gentleman…was the choice of the people to fill the most important office in the nation.” (By Don Sailer)
Source Citation
"From the Home of Mr. Lincoln - How He Received the News," New York Times, November 8, 1860, p. 1: 5.
Harold Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 11-35.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Campaigns/Elections
    How to Cite This Page: "Abraham Lincoln votes in Springfield, Illinois at 3:30PM and waits for election news at a local telegraph office," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/34619.