Inauguration Grand March

J. H. Bufford Lithography Company, active 1835 - 1890 · 1860

This lithograph accompanied the music for a “grand march” celebrating the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in March 1861. The portrait is based on an earlier image that covered music for “The ‘Wigwam’ Grand March,” published shortly after Lincoln’s nomination as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in May 1860. It showed Lincoln without the beard he grew that autumn on the advice of an eleven-year-old admirer. The whiskers in this lithograph were added rather crudely to the preexisting image. Small vignettes show Lincoln splitting rails and a horseman carrying a banner reading “Our Candidate.”