[194] Campaign manager William J. Bray said Truman took this advice, and spoke personally and passionately, sometimes even setting aside his notes to talk to Americans "of everything that is in my heart and soul."[195]
The campaign was a 21,928-mile (35,290 km) presidential odyssey.[196] In a personal appeal to the nation, Truman crisscrossed the United States by train; his "whistle stop" speeches from the rear platform of the observation car, Ferdinand Magellan, came to represent his campaign. His combative appearances captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. Six stops in Michigan drew a combined half-million people;[197] a full million turned out for a New York City ticker-tape parade.[198]

1948 electoral vote results
Truman was so widely expected to lose the 1948 election that the Chicago Tribune had printed papers with this erroneous headline when few returns were in.
The large, mostly spontaneous gatherings at Truman's whistle-stop events were an important sign of a change in momentum in the campaign, but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps. It continued reporting Republican Thomas Dewey's apparent impending victory as a certainty. 