President resumes schedule for living at Soldiers' Home. Hay, Letters and Diary.

Prepares memorandum relative to cabinet: "I must myself be the judge, how long to retain in, and when to remove any of you from, his position. It would greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to procure anothers removal, or, in any way to prejudice him before the public. Such endeavor would be a wrong to me; and much worse, a wrong to the country. My wish is that on this subject, no remark be made, nor question asked, by any of you, here or elsewhere, now or hereafter." [Whether or not Lincoln read memorandum to cabinet on this day, or any day, is in doubt.] Memorandum Read to Cabinet, [14? July] 186[4], CW, 7:439.

President Lincoln writes to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton regarding a letter Stanton forwarded from U.S. Army Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck. Halleck suggested that Lincoln remove Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, whom Halleck claimed made disparaging remarks about members of the military. Lincoln offers that Blair, whose home the Confederate troops burned, spoke "in a moment of vexation." Lincoln writes, "Whether the remarks were really made I do not know . . . If they were made I do not approve them . . . I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed." Henry W. Halleck to Edwin M. Stanton, 13 July 1864; Edwin M. Stanton to Abraham Lincoln, 14 July 1864, both in Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 14 July 1864, CW, 7:439-40.

Presents Gen. John B. S. Todd with inscribed copy of Herman Haupt, Military Bridges, 1864. CW, 8:547.