En route to Chicago, former President Millard Fillmore stops in Springfield, where Lincoln "introduce[s]" him to "a large concourse of citizens." A newspaper reports that in honor of the visit, "A national salute was . . . fired." "[Fillmore] expressed the highest admiration of this state . . . [and] confessed that he had no adequate idea of its immense resources until he had traversed its magnificent prairie." Illinois State Register (Springfield), 15 June 1854, 2:1.