ALBANY -- "Confusion, hurry, disorder, mud, riot and discomfort" was how one reporter described the chaotic scene in the capital city when President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived by train at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 18, 1861.

The Albany stop marked the midway point of Lincoln's journey by rail through 83 cities and towns from his home in Springfield, Ill., to his March 4 inauguration in Washington. The carefully chosen itinerary and his entourage's deliberate progress was meant to reassure a republic battered by flaring tempers and fraying allegiances after the secession of seven Southern states and the looming specter of a civil war.

On Friday, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's stopover in Albany -- which included tussles with armed soldiers in the streets, an address to the Legislature and dinner at the governor's mansion -- will include a performance by a Lincoln re-enactor and discussion by historians. It's part of a National Park Service program that will retrace Lincoln's journey as a kickoff to an ambitious, multiyear sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War.

"As the capital of the most populous state in 1861, Lincoln's stop in Albany indicated the importance of New York for the Union and for Lincoln," said program coordinator Timothy Good, superintendent at the Ulysses S. Grant site in St. Louis.

Lincoln's reception in Albany 150 years ago was as divisive and raucous as in any of the other cities he visited. Lincoln won an election bitterly contested over the issue of abolition of slavery. Albany Mayor George H. Thacher met Lincoln's train and police could not control the surging crowds. Lincoln was forced to wait for a late-arriving contingent of soldiers, who cleared the unruly throng by swinging their musket butts.

Journalist Henry Villard described Lincoln as looking "tired, sunburned, adorned with huge whiskers ... so unlike the hale, smooth shaven, red-cheeked individual ... dubbed the rail-splitter." His disheveled appearance confused the crowd, who did not immediately recognize Lincoln until his great height made him stand out in the melee, according to Villard.

Playing Lincoln is a tall order for re-enactor Fritz Klein, who lives in Springfield, Ill., and performs frequently at the Lincoln home there. He is widely considered the foremost Lincoln re-enactor in the country and has earned a comfortable living since 1980 by portraying the 16th president.

"I pitch my voice a bit higher and try to strike a balance vocally between authenticity and playability," said Klein, 62, who stands 6-foot-4, with a lean build and a craggy face. After an hour of applying makeup and a prosthetic cheek mole, Klein bears an uncanny resemblance to Lincoln.

His vocal delivery is based on phonetic descriptions of how Lincoln sounded from contemporaries. There are no recordings of Lincoln speaking since the earliest wax recordings were made about 15 years after he was assassinated.

"Some people said Lincoln's voice was unpleasant, almost trumpet-like and piercing," Klein said. "His voice had a nasal quality and he had some peculiar pronunciations, like 'cheer' for chair and 'feer' instead of four."

With hundreds of Lincoln performances under his stove-pipe hat, there have been occasional moments when he feels like he is channeling "the Great Emancipator," especially when he speaks the president's soaring, lyrical rhetoric.

"Those surreal moments have happened, but not a lot," Klein said. "I'll have a deja vu feeling and I'll wonder if those words felt like that to him. That's an enjoyable sensation and I don't get spooky about it. But most of the time, I've got a lot of technical things on my mind like timing, dynamics, the use of stage and props."

Klein also gets into the spirit of his subject when he fashions prosthetic ears. "Lincoln's ears were quite large and he was rather jug-headed given the angle of the ears from his temples," he said.

Klein has more work in the run-up to the Civil War sesquicentennial than he can manage, despite a recession and rising fees that amount to several hundred dollars an hour. "Lincoln really is recession-proof," he said. "He's more popular than ever and there is always something in our history that you can relate to Lincoln."

In addition to Klein's re-enactment, the Friday event at the State Museum will include a display of a Bible Lincoln used while he was in the White House. It's on loan from Hildene, the Manchester, Vt., home of Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln.

Klein's performance will be followed by a question and answer period, along with talks from National Park Service historians.

"We hope people gain a greater appreciation for American history from this program," Good said. "In Albany, Lincoln faced a tough crowd and difficult questions about the fate of the Union. He called America 'the last best hope' for democracy. That was a pivotal time in our history. The U.S. was the only functioning democracy in 1861. There were very real concerns that it might fail."

Reach Paul Grondahl at 454-5623 or pgrondahl@timesunion.com.