My mother was with me at the Smithsonian, and as she was extremely desirous to see the President I took her over to the White House late on the following afternoon.

In those war times, when Washington was a camp, the White House looked more like an army barracks than the Presidential mansion.
In the entrance hall that day were piles of express boxes, among which was a little lad playing and tumbling them about.

"Will you go and find somebody to take our cards ?" said my mother to the child.

He ran off and brought the Irishman, whose duty it was to receive callers at the door.
That was the same Irishman who, when the poor soldier's wife was going in to plead for her husband's pardon of a capital offense he had committed, said to her: "Be sure to take your baby in with you." When she came out smiling and happy, Patrick said to her: "Ah, ma'am, _'twas the baby that did it_." The shockingly careless appearance of the White House proved that whatever may have been Mrs.Lincoln's other good qualities, she hadn't earned the compliment which the Yankee farmer paid to his wife when he said: "Ef my wife haint got an ear fer music, she's got an eye fer dirt." When we reached the room of the President's Private Secretary, my old friend, the Rev.Mr.Neill, of St.Paul's, told me that it was military court day, when the President had to decide upon cases of army discipline that came before him and when he received no calls.

I told Neill that my mother could never die happy if she had not seen Lincoln.
He took in our names to the President, who told him to bring us in.