Delancy’s Place has a couple excerpts from how Washington’s and Lincoln’s inaugurations went. At one point for Washington, “a chorus of white-robed girls tossed flowers from their baskets in his path while singing a tribute to ‘The Defender of the Mothers, The Protector of the Daughters'” For Lincoln, he wore a soft felt hat instead of his trademark stovepipe hat to avoid recognition while he slipped out of Harrisburg for the trip to Washington.