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The first hour of the three-hour reception was reserved for Washington officials—diplomats, justices, and high officers in the armed forces. All the cabinet members and their families were there, with the exception of Caleb Smith, who had recently resigned his Department of Interior post to become a district judge in Indiana. Young Fanny Seward anxiously anticipated the occasion, for she had just passed her eighteenth birthday and this was her “coming out” day. Outfitted in blue silk with a white hat and an ivory fan, Fanny was thrilled when the president and first lady remembered her. Between the “full court dress” of the diplomatic corps and the dazzling costumes of the ladies, “the scene,” Fanny recalled, was “very brilliant.” She recorded in her diary that Mary “wore a rich dress of black velvet, with lozenge formed trimming on the waist,” but she was especially captivated by Kate Chase, “looking like a fairy queen” in her lace dress: “Oh how pretty she is.”

At noon, the cabinet members left to prepare for their own receptions and the gates to the White House were opened to the general public. The immense and disorderly crowd surged into the mansion at the cost of torn coattails and lost bonnets. The journalist Noah Brooks was relieved when he finally reached the Blue Room, where a single line formed to shake the president’s hand. He had recently noted how Lincoln’s appearance had “grievously altered from the happy-faced Springfield lawyer” he had first met in 1856. “His hair is grizzled, his gait more stooping, his countenance sallow, and there is a sunken, deathly look about the large, cavernous eyes.” Nonetheless, the president greeted every visitor with a smile and a kind remark, “his blessed old pump handle working steadily” to ensure that his “People’s Levee” would be a success. Benjamin French, standing beside Mary during the first part of the public reception, noted her doleful appearance. “Oh Mr. French,” she said, “how much we have passed through since last we stood here.” This was the first reception since Willie’s death, and Mary was “too much overcome by her feelings to remain until it ended.”

After mingling with the crowd, Noah Brooks took his California friends “a-calling” at the homes of various cabinet members. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the streets were jammed with carriages. At Chase’s mansion, they were greeted by a “young gentleman of color who had a double row of silver plated buttons from his throat to his toes.” Handing their “pasteboards” to the doorkeeper, they were brought into the crowded parlor, where they shook hands with the secretary and his “very beautiful” daughter. Chase was “gentlemanly in his manners,” Brooks noted, “though he has a painful way of holding his head straight, which leads one to fancy that his shirt collar cuts his ears.” Their next stop was Seward’s Lafayette Square house, where Brooks’s eye, initially drawn to the elegant furnishings in the upstairs parlor, came to rest on “the prodigious nose” of the secretary, who greeted each visitor “with all of his matchless suaviter in modo.”

Of all the receptions that day, the Stantons’ was the most elaborate. Brooks was overwhelmed by the abundant supply of “oysters, salads, game pastries, fruits, cake, wines…arranged with a most gorgeous display of china, glass, and silver.” Remarking on Stanton’s “little, aristocratic wife,” Ellen, Brooks wondered if her lavish style was depleting the fortune Stanton had accumulated during his years as a lawyer. His observation was perceptive: while Stanton’s salary had been reduced markedly by his decision to leave private practice, Ellen continued to spend money as though large retainers were still coming in. Yet Stanton refused to puncture Ellen’s dreams, even as his rapidly diminishing wealth stirred old worries about bankruptcy.

At 2 p.m., Lincoln, wearily finished with his own reception, returned to his office. Seward and Fred soon joined him, carrying the corrected proclamation in a large portfolio. Not wishing to