At 8:30 a.m., poet Walt Whitman spots President Lincoln, who is traveling between the nearby Soldiers' Home, where Lincoln frequently stays during the summer months, and the White House. Whitman records, "Mr. Lincoln . . . generally rides a good-sized, easy-going gray horse, is dress'd in plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty; [and] wears a black stiff hat . . . I see very plainly [his] dark brown face, with the deep cut lines, the eyes, &c., always to me with a latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we always exchange bows, and very cordial ones." Allen Thorndike Rice, ed., Reminiscenes of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (New York: Haskell House Publishers, Ltd., 1971), 469-70.

Cabinet meets. Secs. Stanton and Fessenden absent. Welles, Diary.

Thurlow Weed confers with Lincoln and warns him that his reelection is impossible. Henry L. Stoddard, Horace Greeley: Printer, Editor, Crusader (New York: Putnam, 1946), 227; Weed to Seward, 22 August 1864, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

President issues pass to Col. Eaton to visit Gen. Grant and instructs him to ascertain Grant's reaction to becoming presidential candidate. Pass for John Eaton, 12 August 1864, CW, 7:492.

John Hay leaves on trip home and expects to be gone five or six weeks. Nicolay to Bates, 14 August 1864, John G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

President orders Maj. John Hay to proceed to Keokuk, Iowa, and having executed his verbal instructions to return. DNA—WR RG 94, Adjt. Gen. Off., Letters Received, XL, Supp. III.