Saturday, August 8, 1863.Washington, DC. | President sends Gov. Peirpoint
(Va.) to Portsmouth, Va., to aid destitute families. Abraham
Lincoln to John G. Foster, 8 August 1863, CW, 6:371. President Lincoln
writes to his wife Mary and relays news to her and their son Tad. He writes,
"Tell dear Tad, poor 'Nanny Goat,' is lost; and [the housekeeper] Mrs. Cuthbert
& I are in distress...The day you left Nanny was found resting...and
chewing her little cud, on the middle of Tad's bed. But now she's gone! The
gardener kept complaining that she destroyed the flowers...it was concluded to
bring her down to the White House. This was done, and the second day she had
disappeared, and has not been heard of since." Abraham
Lincoln to Mary Todd Lincoln, 8 August 1863,
CW, 6:371-72; Justin G. Turner and Linda
Levitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 99. |