On March 3 Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the sixteenth president of the United States thus beginning what would prove to be the most difficult presidency in history. Even during this time of crisis, Lincoln held out the hope for peace in his inaugural address.

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and heath-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

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