President receives news that Confederates have evacuated Yorktown, Va. Nicolay to Bates, 4 May 1862, John G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

President Lincoln writes to Dorothea L. Dix, who supervises the corps of U.S. Army nurses. Lincoln consults Dix regarding Nurse Rebecca R. Pomeroy, who assisted the Lincolns following the recent death of their son, Willie. Lincoln explains, "Mrs. [Elizabeth] Edwards (Mrs. L's sister) was suddenly called home to-day by sickness in her own family. Mrs. Pomeroy is now at the White-House, and Miss Dix' permission for her to remain two weeks, or any shorter time, if so long is not possible, would greatly oblige Mrs. L. and the President." Abraham Lincoln to Dorothea L. Dix, 4 May 1862, CW, 10:132; Anna L. Boyden, Echoes From Hospital and White House: A Record of Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy's Experience in War-Times (Boston, MA: D. Lothrop and Company, 1884), 77-79.