President approves bill providing for three commissioners for each state to visit camps and expedite allotment of soldiers' pay. N.Y. Tribune, 28 December 1861.

Sec. Welles shows President letter from George D. Morgan, purchasing agent for navy, under attack by Joint Committee on Conduct of War. Welles to Morgan, 31 December 1861, Gideon Welles Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Lincoln takes trip to Craney Island aboard the King Philip. "I took the President on board the Pensacola for her second trial trip. No one else was with us, so we had a quiet time. The President looks grave and absorbed, and a little the worse for cares. It was late when we reached the anchorage off Alexandria." Extracts from Dahlgren Diary, John G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Bruce, Tools of War, 21; Evening Star (Washington, DC), 27 December 1861, 3:6.

Lincoln tells Senator Charles Sumner (Mass.) that he is preparing an emancipation doctrine. Charles Sumner, Charles Sumner, His Complete Works, 20 vols., with an introduction by George Frisbie Hoar (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1900), 8:14.