Lincolns Host Mr. & Mrs. Charles Stratton for Reception and Overnight Stay

February 13, 1863

President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton travel together to Fort Dekalb across the Potomac to witness a test of a weapon detonation apparatus.

President Lincoln writes Congress regarding Indian unrest: “I herewith communicate to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolution of the 18th of December last, a report from the Secretary of the Interior, containing all the information in the possession of the department respecting the causes of the recent outbreaks of the Indian tribes in the north-west, which has not heretofore been transmitted to Congress.

At night, Mrs. Lincoln hosts a White House reception for recently-married Charles and Livinia Stratton, better known as General and Mrs. Tom Thumb.  Historian Stanley Kimmel wrote that Stratton “was twenty-four years old, thirty-two inches high, and weight twenty-one pounds. She was four years younger, of the same height, and eight pounds heavier. Only a few [days] before, the ‘distinguished Lilliputians’ had been married in New York City, and P.T. Barnum, super-showman of the day who had the ‘General’ under contract, had lost no time in publicizing the vent and arrange to have the couple presented to chiefs of republics and royal sovereigns.”  Stratton was in Washington to visit his brother, a Union soldier.   Robert Todd Lincoln disdained to attend the reception.

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