I just got an inquiry from someone researching Lincoln. It appears that he gave a speach in Peekskill, NY on February 19, 1861 while on his way to his inauguration. According to local newspaper accounts he gave his speach atop a "baggage tender car". Anyone hazard to guess what this is?

It could be a baggage car (I favor this one)

It could be a baggage wagon (the typical four wheel kind used for loading and unloading baggage (the person posing the question thinks this is right)

It could be a horse drawn wagon used to haul baggage from the passenger depot to the local hotel (a suggestion from another party)

Of course if you have a photograph of him atop whatever platform he used, that would make it apparent, I figure whatever choice is made, it should be the best documented.

Thanks

Pat, in another life I was working on a PhD dissertation involving the Republican Party during the secession crisis.

In all my research, I never came across a single photograph of Lincoln at any of the stops on his long progress from Springfield to Washington for his first inauguration during February 1861. Off hand, I can't even remember seeing an etching or lithograph of any of the speeches other than his stop at Philadelphia. The secession crisis was in full swing, and Lincoln was keeping his remarks deliberately brief and cryptic. I doubt there was time to make a wet-plate negative.

There are text accounts aplenty in the contemporary newspapers, but I never encountered an image.

As an aside, I consider Lincoln's fareweel remarks at Springfield IL at the start of this trip to be among the most moving in American history:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/farewell.htm

I was kind of joking in my reference to a photograph of Lincoln. Though it seems whenever I make a statement, that I think is well-researched and documented, something comes up the day after I submit it to refute it. Hopefully my attempt to get a couple accounts of the speach will aid me in figuring out what a "Baggage tender car" is, but it may have just been what the author of the article called it as opposed to a "watchamacallit" or "thingamajig".

Ahh, the joy of 19th Century prose!

From what I remember from my former life as a History graduate student, I remember reading that more and more Lincoln papers come seemingly every day. The Lincoln Papers project occasionally sends out a call for Lincoln-related and Lincoln every couple of years. Each time, they get more and more stuff.

The Lincoln Papers project may be a good source for the researcher to find something to back up the newspaper accounts. I am not sure if the papers have gotten up the Secession crisis. Last thing I remember was that they were getting ready to publish the Lincoln legal papers, interesting in their own right.

I visited Springfield last March, and the railroad station where Lincoln left is still there, about 3 or four blocks from his home.

Lincoln's lifetime papers were published as Collected Works of Lincoln in 1953 (the beloved CWL). I see it's now aviaalble online--wow, times have changed since I was in grad school:

http://www.hti.umich.edu/l/lincoln/

The current project turning up so much stuff is the Lincoln Legal Papers Project, which deals with his legal career through 1860; little new material has been turned up from 1860-1865 since CWL was published.

For those with more curiosity about Mr. Lincoln, please note that the Midwest Railroad Historical Center of the Indiana Historical Society will present “Mr. Lincoln and the Railroadsâ€

Somewhat related: Once upon a time, as a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln missed a train connection on a rainy night, and sought shelter in a boxcar with another traveller, a young German-American journalist named Henry Villard - the same Villard who later made and lost several fortunes in railroads and street railways.