Cabinet meeting on subject of trade at Norfolk. Welles, Diary.

Lincoln meets with Chief John Ross and Commissioner of Indian Affairs William P. Dole regarding the Cherokee. Lincoln telegraphs Major General Samuel Curtis, at St. Louis, where he commands the Department of the Missouri. Lincoln seeks information about "some Cherokee Indian Regiments . . . now at or near Fort-Scott, [Kansas]." Ross earlier wrote to Lincoln on behalf of the "Cherokee People," who "desire . . . ample military protection, for life and property." Lincoln explains, "[Ross] wishes to know, and so do I, whether the force above mentioned, could not occupy the Cherokee country, consistently with the public service." Evening Star (Washington, DC), 11 October 1862, 3d ed., 2:2; John Ross to Abraham Lincoln, 16 September 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to Samuel R. Curtis, 10 October 1862, CW, 5:456.

Directs Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to admit persons from Southern states found in Mississippi into organization of brigade of Union volunteers in northern Mississippi. Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 10 October 1862, CW, 5:456-57.