Cabinet meets. Atty. Gen. Bates complains that administration is not assuming strong enough stand in eliminating confusion. Bates, Diary.

President transmits to Congress Austrian documents relating to "Trent" affair. National Intelligencer, 15 January 1862; Abraham Lincoln to the Senate and House of Representatives, 10 January 1862, CW, 5:95-96.

Recognizes C. F. Adac as consul of Dukedom of Saxe-Meiningen for Western U.S. National Intelligencer, 15 January 1862.

Interviews Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, brother of better-known Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman, reformer, and abolitionist. Robbins to Lincoln, 10 January 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Consults with Thurlow Weed regarding reputation of Sec. Cameron and his removal from cabinet. Thurlow W. Barnes, ed., Life of Thurlow Weed including his Autobiography and a Memoir, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), 2:330-31.

"President comes to me [Gen. Meigs] much depressed re inactivity of army and McClellan's sickness. 'The people are impatient; Chase has no money, and he tells me he can raise no money; the Gen. of the Army has typhoid fever. The bottom is out of the tub. What shall I do?' " Diary, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Montgomery C. Meigs, "Documents: General M. C. Meigs on the Conduct of the Civil War," American Historical Review 26 (January 1921):292.

President summons Gens. McDowell and Franklin, Secs. Seward and Chase, and Asst. Sec. Scott to "Council of War" at 8 P.M. Washington Chronicle, 3 November 1864.

Writes Cameron: "The within is a copy of a letter just received from General Halleck. It is exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else, nothing can be done." Abraham Lincoln to Simon Cameron, 10 January 1862, CW, 5:95.