Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families arrived the night before by train from Philadelphia, a symbolic journey recalling that of Abraham Lincoln in equally troubled times in 1861 before the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War.
The president-elect planned Sunday to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.
In the afternoon Obama, his wife and two daughters were to attend a concert on the National Mall, the start to a dizzying four-day round of spectacle and tradition that ends with a prayer service Wednesday morning.
Sunday's concert will feature, among other stars, U2, Beyonce and Bruce Spingsteen. A crowd expected to reach a half-million also will hear dramatic readings from top stars of film, television and the sports world.
Somewhere between 1 million and 2 million people are expected to make their way to Washington for the swearing in ceremony and inaugural parade on Tuesday. Some 240,000 tickets have been issued for the festivities at the Capitol.
Although he may not get to bed before 3 a.m., Barack Obama plans to make Wednesday, his first full day as president, a jam-packed affair of prayer, diplomacy, war discussions and welcoming hundreds of visitors to the White House.
The new president will start Wednesday at Washington's National Cathedral for the National Prayer Service, which dates to George Washington's time. His office said Friday that he and his wife, Michelle, will welcome "hundreds of special guests" on "day one, when we open the doors of the White House to you."
Perhaps most importantly, however, will be Obama's plan to fulfill his pledge to assemble the nation's military leaders to take a hard look at starting the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq — six years after outgoing President George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" following the initial U.S. invasion of the Mideast nation.
Obama said in July: "I intend to end this war. My first day in office, I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war responsibly and deliberately but decisively."
A top adviser said the next commander in chief would do just that at the White House session that also will include military commanders and aides outside the Joint Chiefs. The adviser would speak only on condition of anonymity because the meeting had not been formally announced.
His day one could will be crowded as well with the Middle East and the bloody Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip. Both sides appeared moving toward a cease-fire after three weeks of intense fighting since Israel moved into the tiny Palestinian territory to stop the militant Hamas group from firing missiles into the south of the Jewish state.
Obama recently told USA TODAY that he will assemble a team "on Day One" to deal with that festering wound and other Middle East problems.
Obama earlier signaled plans to issue an executive order during his first week in office to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba. It's unlikely, however, that the facility will actually close anytime soon as the new president weighs what to do with the estimated 250 al-Qaeda, Taliban or other foreign fighter suspects still there.
Obama also is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow U.S. military guidelines for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow exceptions in extraordinary cases.
At the start of Saturday's train journey, Obama promised the crowd assembled in Philadelphia to bring the country "a new Declaration of Independence" — free from small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.
The trip included a stop in Delaware to pick up Biden and his wife, Jill, and a stop in Baltimore for a speech in which the president-elect pleaded "let us seek together a better life in our time."
Obama rode a vintage railcar and harked back to some of America's heroes. In appealing "not to our easy instincts but to our better angels," he echoed Lincoln's first inaugural address. He took note of the enormous challenges that lie ahead and promised to act with "fierce urgency," a phrase often used by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The national holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader falls on Monday, on the eve of the inauguration of the first black U.S. president.
Obama also made it clear he was aware of the challenges his presidency will face during his trip to Washington.
He cited the faltering economy, warfare not only in Iraq and but also in Afghanistan — "one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely" — the threat of global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
He told the crowd in Philadelphia that the same idealism displayed by the nation's founders was needed to tackle the difficulties of today.
"We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly," Obama said. "There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency."
Congress already was at work on an unprecedented stimulus measure, costing $825 billion or more, to treat an economy that is in its steepest slide since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Obama is using it as a vehicle for an array of his campaign priorities, including renewable energy, education and health care reform.
Obama's blue rail car was tacked onto the back of a 10-car Amtrak train filled with hundreds of guests, reporters and staff for the ride to Washington.
Along the way, Obama and his wife, Michelle, appeared on the back balcony periodically to wave to shivering crowds bundled up in blankets and parkas who had gathered by the dozens, the hundreds and more along the route.
The Secret Service met the train in Washington with new presidential limousines, produced by Cadillac. There were two massive, specially reinforced and fitted shiny black vehicles, one for Obama and his family and one as a decoy for security reasons.
The numbers on their navy blue license plates read "44," a nod to the soon-to-be 44th president.
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