This is really interesting.  Apparently the dining fare of Lincoln's Inaugural ball was a buffet style free-for-all.  :)  The food, though, is pretty extensive.  Take a look......

Presidential Inaugural Ball - Bill of Fare - March 6, 1865

President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural ball was a fête to behold. On the evening of March 6, 1865 (two days after the inauguration), men escorted their dates, one on each arm—the $10 ticket admitted three—up a grand staircase. They ascended to the top-floor hall of the Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C., now the site of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

There, according to estimates, some 4,000 revelers danced quadrilles, waltzes and Virginia reels. Surely, the energy in the room spiked when the president arrived with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, at 10:30 p.m. The president was dressed in a dapper black suit and white gloves. Mrs. Lincoln, with jasmine and violets woven in her hair, wore a white satin off-the-shoulder gown. But, the party reached a fever pitch at the stroke of midnight, when an elaborate buffet was served.

Oysters, roast beef, veal, turkey, venison, smoked ham, lobster salad and a seemingly endless display of cakes and tarts spread across a table 250 feet long. The hungry crowd charged the food, and the lavish event devolved into a food fight of sorts. “In less than an hour the table was a wreck…positively frightful to behold,” wrote the New York Times. Men hoisted full trays above the masses and took them back to their friends, slopping stews and jellies along the way. “The floor of the supper room was soon sticky, pasty and oily with wasted confections, mashed cake, and debris of fowl and meat,” reported the Washington Evening Star.