White House party, including President, spends afternoon at Navy Yard. Views dress parade of 71st New York Regiment and attends band concert. Boards steamer USS Pensacola and watches target practice by 11-inch Dahlgren gun. At 7 P.M. Presidential party leaves Navy Yard to customary salute of thirty-four guns. National Republican (Washington, DC), 10 May 1861, 3:1; Bruce, Tools of War, 17-18; Nicolay to Bates, 10 May 1861, John G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Baltimore Sun, 10 May 1861.

In the evening, President Lincoln and his wife, Mary, host a reception for "commissioned officers, and their families, of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps and the Volunteer Militia." Major Robert Anderson, whose forces strove to repel the Confederate attack on Ft. Sumter, arrives unnoticed. A newspaper reports, "The President . . . hastened in quest of the Major, and leading him forward placed him by his side." Lincoln's sons Willie and Tad "especially" admire Anderson, "and it was mentioned of one of them that in sitting for his photograph lately he insisted upon having . . . a picture of Major A. in his hand." Marine Band provides music. Evening Star (Washington, DC), 10 May 1861, 3:1; National Republican (Washington, DC), 10 May 1861, 3:1; Sun (Baltimore, MD), 10 May 1861, 1:4; Michael Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 41-42.