Lincoln's Last Days: March 24, 1865
On the second and final day of his journey to City Point, Friday, March 24, 1865 (150 years ago today), Abraham Lincoln experienced some problems with an upset stomach. This was attributable to bad drinking water. At about noon that day, the River Queen (the steamship on which the Lincolns were traveling) stopped off at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, where a fresh supply of drinking water was taken on. While this was taking place, Lincoln was presented with a letter from Major William L. James, acting quartermaster at Fort Monroe. It read:
I am exceedingly mortified at the delay which you have experienced in obtaining the water you desire. I have sent several messengers already to the officer to make all possible haste, and that he should have delayed so is exceedingly annoying to me. I shall certainly call him to account for his bad management.
Lincoln did not wish for anyone to be put out over the incident. He returned the letter, writing on the back of it: "I am not at all impatient, and hope Major James will not reproach himself or deal harshly with the officer having the matter in charge. Doubtless he, too, has met some unexpected difficulty."
The River Queen continued on its journey to City Point and arrived there at 9:00 p.m. that evening. Captain Penrose, an officer on the staff of General Ulysses Grant, sent a telegraph to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, which read: "The President desires me to say he has just arrived at this point safely, and both he and family are well, having entirely recovered from their indisposition of this morning."
Doris Kearns Goodwin writes in Team of Rivals about Lincoln's arrival at City Point as follows:
[Lincoln's bodyguard William] Crook recalled that "it was after dark on the 24th" when the River Queen reached City Point. He would long remember the beauty of the scene that stretched before him, "the many colored lights of the boats in the harbor and the lights of the town straggling up the high bluffs of the shore, crowned by the lights from Grant's headquarters at the top."
Newly minted Captain Robert Lincoln escorted General and Mrs. Grant to call on the President shortly after he arrived. "Our gracious President met us at the gangplank," Julia Grant recalled, "greeted the General most heartily, and giving me his arm, conducted us to where Mrs. Lincoln was awaiting." Leaving the two women together, the two men went into the president's room for a short consultation, "at the end of which," reported Crook, "Mr. Lincoln appeared particularly happy," reassured by Grant's estimation that the conflict was nearing an end. After the Grant's left, Lincoln and Mary, "appearing in very good spirits," talked late into the night.
I am exceedingly mortified at the delay which you have experienced in obtaining the water you desire. I have sent several messengers already to the officer to make all possible haste, and that he should have delayed so is exceedingly annoying to me. I shall certainly call him to account for his bad management.
Lincoln did not wish for anyone to be put out over the incident. He returned the letter, writing on the back of it: "I am not at all impatient, and hope Major James will not reproach himself or deal harshly with the officer having the matter in charge. Doubtless he, too, has met some unexpected difficulty."
The River Queen continued on its journey to City Point and arrived there at 9:00 p.m. that evening. Captain Penrose, an officer on the staff of General Ulysses Grant, sent a telegraph to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, which read: "The President desires me to say he has just arrived at this point safely, and both he and family are well, having entirely recovered from their indisposition of this morning."
Doris Kearns Goodwin writes in Team of Rivals about Lincoln's arrival at City Point as follows:
[Lincoln's bodyguard William] Crook recalled that "it was after dark on the 24th" when the River Queen reached City Point. He would long remember the beauty of the scene that stretched before him, "the many colored lights of the boats in the harbor and the lights of the town straggling up the high bluffs of the shore, crowned by the lights from Grant's headquarters at the top."
Newly minted Captain Robert Lincoln escorted General and Mrs. Grant to call on the President shortly after he arrived. "Our gracious President met us at the gangplank," Julia Grant recalled, "greeted the General most heartily, and giving me his arm, conducted us to where Mrs. Lincoln was awaiting." Leaving the two women together, the two men went into the president's room for a short consultation, "at the end of which," reported Crook, "Mr. Lincoln appeared particularly happy," reassured by Grant's estimation that the conflict was nearing an end. After the Grant's left, Lincoln and Mary, "appearing in very good spirits," talked late into the night.