Thursday, March 13, 1862.Washington, DC.
| President Lincoln receives a "party of Massachusetts gentlemen," which includes Nathaniel Hawthorne,
who come to the White House to present Lincoln with an "elegant whip." Lincoln
remarks, "[I]t is evidently expected that a good deal of whipping is to be
done. But, as we meet here socially, let us not only think of whipping rebels,
or of those who seem to think only of whipping negroes, but of those pleasant
days which it is to be hoped are in store for us, when, seated behind a good
pair of horses, we can crack our whips and drive through a peaceful, happy and
prosperous land." Speech to a Massachusetts
Delegation, 13 March 1862, CW,
5:158; New York Times, 22 March 1862, 4:6.
Interviews Pascal Plant, inventor who shows small wooden model of submarine
gunboat. Bruce, Tools of
War, 177. Approves additional article of war,
prohibiting all officers or persons in military service from employing any
forces under their respective commands for purposes of returning fugitives from
service or labor. Stat. L., XII, 354. Thanks
Henry A. Brown, Boston representative of London company, for engraving of Gen.
McClellan. Abraham Lincoln to Henry A. Brown,
13 March 1862, CW, 5:157. Composes letter for Sec.
Stanton to send to McClellan: "1st. Leave such force at Manassas
Junction as shall make it entirely certain that the enemy shall not repossess
himself of that position and line of communication. 2d. Leave Washington
secure. 3d. Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new
base at Fortress Monroe, or anywhere between here and there; or, at all events,
move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the enemy by some route."
Abraham Lincoln to George B.
McClellan, 13 March 1862, CW,
5:157-58. Mrs.
Lincoln on sick list. Fox, Diary, Gist-Blair Family
Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. |