Cabinet meets. Seward talks on subject of prizes and prize courts. Welles, Diary.

Cong. Boutwell (Mass.) interviews President on Louisiana affairs. Abraham Lincoln to Nathaniel P. Banks, 5 August 1863, CW, 6:364-66.

Lincoln receives July salary warrant for $2,022.33. Pratt, Personal Finances, 183.

President Lincoln writes to General Nathaniel P. Banks regarding Louisiana's possible readmission into the Union. Lincoln writes, "I would be glad for her to make a new Constitution recognizing the emancipation proclamation . . . And . . . to adopt some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new. Education for young blacks should be included in the plan." Lincoln adds, "If these views can . . . giv[e] . . . impetus, to action there, I shall be glad for you to use them prudently for that object." Abraham Lincoln to Nathaniel P. Banks, 5 August 1863, CW, 6:364-66.

Telegraphs Cincinnati "Gazette": "Please send me your present posting as to Kentucky election." Abraham Lincoln to the Cincinnati Gazette, 5 August 1863, CW, 6:366.

Reviews production of gunpowder by Capt. Diller and Dr. Charles M. Wetherill in letter to I. Newton and discusses Wetherill's salary. Abraham Lincoln to Isaac Newton, 5 August 1863, CW, 6:367-68.

Lincoln declines invitation of Gov. Joseph A. Gilmore (N.H.) to visit Concord, N.H. Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Gilmore, 7 August 1863, CW, 6:368.

Directs that $20,000 be placed under control of Sec. Seward and $80,000 under control of Sec. Stanton for expenses of carrying into effect habeas corpus act. Abraham Lincoln to William H. Seward, 7 August 1863, CW, 6:368-69; Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 7 August 1863, CW, 6:370-71.

President Lincoln responds to New York Governor Horatio Seymour, who seeks to halt "the draft in this State." Seymour cited the recent New York City draft riots and he suggeted that the draft law was unconstitutional. Lincoln disagrees and writes, "time is too important. . . . We are contending with an enemy who . . . drives every able bodied man he can reach, into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter-pen. . . . It produces an army with a rapidity not to be matched on our side . . . My purpose is to be just and constitutional; and yet practical." Horatio Seymour to Abraham Lincoln, 3 August 1863, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to Horatio Seymour, 7 August 1863, CW, 6:369-70.

[Mrs. Lincoln and Robert are in White Mountains. Dennett, Hay Diaries and Letters, 75.]

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.

Lincoln assures Gen. Rosecrans: "I am not casting blame upon you. I rather think, by great exertion, you can get to East Tennessee. . . . I think of you in all kindness and confidence: . . . I am not watching you with an evil-eye." Abraham Lincoln to William S. Rosecrans, 10 August 1863, CW, 6:377-78.

President Lincoln meets with Senator Samuel Pomeroy, of Kansas, and with abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. Lincoln's personal secretary John Hay recorded, "[Douglass] intends to go south and help the recruiting among his people." Also on this day, Lincoln adds the endorsement, "I concur," to a letter that the Secretary of the Interior John Usher and Senator Pomeroy signed. The letter acknowledges, "Douglass, is . . . a loyal, free, man, and is, hence, entitled to travel, unmolested. We trust he will be recognized everywhere, as a free man, and a gentleman." Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), 72; Pass for Frederick Douglass, 10 August 1863, CW, 10:198; Daily National Republican (Washington, DC), 11 August 1863, 2:4.

Gen. Hooker visits Lincoln and accepts offer of command under Gen. Meade. Abraham Lincoln to George G. Meade, 11 August 1863, CW, 6:381.

At cabinet meeting President reads letter from Gov. Seymour (N.Y.) asking that draft be postponed and his own reply refusing to postpone it. Welles, Diary.

Writes Mrs. Elizabeth E. Hutter, Miss Claghorn, and Misses Lager of Philadelphia: "If anything could enhance to me the value of this representation of our national ensign, so elegantly executed and so gracefully bestowed, it would be the consideration that its price has been devoted to the comfort and restoration of those heroic men, who have suffered and bled in our flag's defense." Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Hutter, Misses Lager, and Miss Claghorn, 10 August 1863, CW, 6:375-76.

Sends his ideas regarding treatment of captured neutrals in prize courts to Sec. Seward, and concludes: "My judgment [is] that the within, substantially, should be the answer to Lord Lyons." Abraham Lincoln to William H. Seward, 10 August 1863, CW, 6:378-80.

Inquires of Sec. Stanton : "I have not heard of any charges being filed against Gen. J. A. McClernand. Are there any?" Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 10 August 1863, CW, 6:380.

At cabinet meeting President reads another letter from Gov. Seymour (N.Y.) on draft. Problem of drafting skilled workers arises in cabinet discussions. Welles, Diary.

Atty. Gen. Bates presents to cabinet material reflecting on Gen. Halleck. Bates, Diary.

Lincoln again makes it clear to Seymour that draft cannot be suspended. Abraham Lincoln to Horatio Seymour, 11 August 1863, CW, 6:381-82.

President writes check: "No. 52 Washington, D.C. Aug. 11 1863 RIGGS & CO. Pay to Colored man, with one leg. or bearer Five . . . . . . Dollars $5/00. A. Lincoln." Check, 11 August 1863, CW, 6:380.

Informs Gen. Meade that Gen. Hooker would accept command under him, "if it was still open." Abraham Lincoln to George G. Meade, 11 August 1863, CW, 6:381.

President confers with Sec. Stanton , who promises to return to trustees schoolhouse of First District of Washington. Abraham Lincoln to Benjamin B. French, 19 August 1863, CW, 6:397-98.

Interviews Judge James B. Colt of Missouri, stepfather of Singleton Wilson in Camp Morton prison, Ind. Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 19 August 1863, CW, 6:398; Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 20 August 1863, CW, 6:398-99.

Enjoys target practice with Spencer repeating rifle. Hay, Letters and Diary.

Meets with Schuyler Colfax of Indiana. Daily National Republican (Washington, DC), 20 August 1863, 2d ed., 2:2.

Count Nicholas Giorgi, minister of Austria, presents credentials to President without usual exchange of formal addresses. William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, 19 August 1863, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Daily National Republican (Washington, DC), 20 August 1863, 2d ed., 2:2.

President receives from Gen. Heintzelman notice of death of Gov. Gurley (Arizona Terr.). Journal, Samuel P. Heintzelman Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Visits telegraph office in afternoon. Abraham Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 20 August 1863, CW, 6:399-400.

Goes down river on invitation of Gen. Barnard to see new fort on Rosier's Bluff about three and one-half miles above Fort Washington, Va. Sec. Stanton , Gens. Wadsworth, John H. Martindale, Meigs, and Barnard in party. Lincoln arrives home after dark. Journal, Samuel P. Heintzelman Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Soon after breakfast Lincoln and John Hay return to White House, and Lincoln drafts letter to J. C. Conkling. Hay, Letters and Diary.

President requests Sec. Welles to identify naval officer killed at Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor. [He was Comdr. George W. Rodgers (USN).] Welles, Diary.

John Hay leaves in afternoon for New York and Long Branch, N.J. Washington Chronicle, 25 August 1863.

President hears from Gen. McClernand, who writes: "Feeling that I have done my duty I shrink from no charges that Genl. Grant may prefer. . . . I only ask . . . for an impartial court. Such investigation would bring to light . . . many things, both military and personal, which are unwritten or unheeded." Abraham Lincoln to John A. McClernand, 12 August 1863, CW, 6:383-84.

President requests Sec. Usher to determine procedure in claim of Illinois for 2 per cent on sales of public lands and pursue it. Abraham Lincoln to Isaac N. Morris, 26 August 1863, CW, 6:411-12.

President Lincoln writes to James C. Conkling, of Springfield, Illinois, and declines an invitation to speak on September 3 at a "mass-meeting of unconditional Union-men." Lincoln acknowledges that he has detractors who "blame" him for prolonging the war. Lincoln responds, "To such I would say: you desire peace . . . But how can we attain it? . . . If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not believe any compromise, embracing the maintenance of the Union, is now possible. All I learn, leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion, is its military—its army." Abraham Lincoln to James C. Conkling, 26 August 1863, CW, 6:406-10.