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continued to draw distinguished visitors. She was particularly gratified by the regular appearance of Charles Sumner. The handsome senator, though in his early fifties, was considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Washington. “I was pleased,” Mary later recalled, “knowing he visited no other lady—His time was so immersed in his business—and that cold & haughty looking man to the world—would insist upon my telling him all the news, & we would have such frequent and delightful conversations & often late in the evening—My darling husband would join us & they would laugh together, like two school boys.”

However, the prestige and pleasure of her second term as first lady could not assuage Mary’s lingering grief over the loss of Willie. Over two years after her son’s death, it was still difficult for her to enter the library, which had been one of his favorite rooms. Her “darling Boy!”—“the idolized child, of the household”—was never far from her mind. “I have sometimes feared,” she admitted to a friend, “that the deep waters, through which we have passed would overwhelm me.” In the absence of her gentle son, “The World, has lost so much, of its charm. My position, requires my presence, where my heart is so far from being.”

After Willie’s death, Mary had been determined not to allow her oldest son, Robert, to risk his life in the army. But after his graduation from Harvard, she could no longer detain him. In January 1865, Lincoln wrote to General Grant: “Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long, are better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your Military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested, that you shall not be encumbered.”

Grant replied two days later. “I will be most happy to have him in my Military family,” he wrote. He suggested that the rank of captain would be most appropriate. So Robert’s wish to join the army was granted. Stationed at Grant’s headquarters, Robert “soon became exceedingly popular,” Horace Porter recalled. “He was always ready to perform his share of hard work, and never expected to be treated differently from any other officer on account of his being the son of the Chief Executive of the nation.”

IN THE FIRST DAYS OF 1865, Gideon Welles was preoccupied with thoughts of “passing time and accumulating years.” His wistful contemplation was shared by Salmon Chase. On the first of January, the Chief Justice’s last surviving sister, Helen, was buried in Ohio. Of ten siblings, only Chase and his brother Edward, both in their mid-fifties, remained alive. Chase wrote to Lincoln explaining that the death of his sister precluded his attendance at the traditional New Year’s reception. “Without your note of to-day,” Lincoln promptly replied, “I should have felt assured that some sufficient reason had detained you. Allow me to condole with you in the sad bereavement.”

One of the guests at the White House reception noted “a great contrast between this ‘New Years’ and any previous one for the past three years, four years ago there was a solemn stillness, a burthensome weight hanging upon the minds of all, a fearful foreboding of Evil, a dread of the future. It was but little better three years or two years ago…. Even one year ago we could scarcely see any light. Today all are in good spirits.”

The stunning success of Sherman’s March to the Sea, which had ended with the capture of Savannah on Christmas Day, was largely responsible for the ebullience that prevailed in Washington. “Our joy was irrepressible,” recalled Assistant Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch, “because it was an assurance that the days of the