At 9:00 AM, President again meets with commissioners appointed by Convention of State of Virginia on April 8, 1861, and replies in writing: "In case it proves true, that Fort-Sumpter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall perhaps, cause the United [States] mails to be withdrawn from all the States which claim to have seceded— . . . I consider the Military posts and property situated within the states, which claim to have seceded, as yet belonging to the Government. . . . I shall not attempt to collect the duties, and imposts, by any armed invasion of any part of the country—not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force, deemed necessary, to relieve a fort upon a border of the country." Evening Star (Washington, DC), 13 April 1861, 2:2; Abraham Lincoln to a Committee from the Virginia Convention, [13 April 1861], CW, 4:329-31.

Lincoln grants William O. Stoddard of Illinois, White House assistant secretary, permission to join National Rifles, but active service is superseded by civilian duties. William O. Stoddard, Lincoln's Third Secretary: The Memoirs of William O. Stoddard, ed. by William O. Stoddard, Jr. (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), 79-81.

Receives no information on Charleston except through press. Baltimore Sun, 15 April 1861.

Secretary of War Simon Cameron, Robert J. Walker, former secretary of treasury and senator from Mississippi, James R. Gilmore of Cincinnati, editor and author of "Among the Pines," and Lincoln converse for two hours about conditions in South. James R. Gilmore, Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War (Boston: Page, 1898), 13-22.

Attends for few minutes reception in Mrs. Lincoln's drawing room. Baltimore Sun, 15 April 1861.