Lincoln writes Washburne again: "So far as I am concerned, there must be something wrong about U.S. Senator, at Chicago. My most intimate friends there do not answer my letters; and I can not get a word from them. Wentworth has a knack of knowing things better than most men. I wish you would pump him, and write me what you get from him. Please do this as soon as you can, as the time is growing short." Abraham Lincoln to Elihu B. Washburne, 14 December 1854, CW, 2:293.