Lincoln spends day with Springfield friends. N.Y. Tribune, 12 February 1861.

In late afternoon discusses unfinished lawsuits with W. H. Herndon at their offices and requests that office sign, "Lincoln and Herndon," remain and that Herndon conduct firm's business until Lincoln returns. They walk together until near Lincoln's home. Henry B. Rankin, Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Putnam, 1916), 145, 220.

The day before he departs for Washington, D. C., Lincoln meets with his law partner William H. Herndon in their office. The two men go "over the books" and make plans "for the completion of all unsettled and unfinished matters." Herndon recalls that Lincoln looks at the law partnership's "sign-board" and comments, "Let it hang there undisturbed." William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, 2 vols., (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1902), 2:192-94.

Tells Herndon he had not thought there would be need for farewell speech. Henry B. Rankin, Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Putnam, 1916), 226.

Visits Carl Schurz in his room for another conversation. Carl Schurz, Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869, trans and ed. by Joseph Schafer (Madison, WI: n.p., 1928), 247.