President in cabinet meeting. Attorney General Bates complains of "lack of system in running government." Cabinet meets almost daily with Generals Scott and McClellan in regular attendance. Bates, Diary; N.Y. Times, 13 October 1861.

Lincoln is reading Moncure D. Conway's book, The Rejected Stone: or Insurrection vs. Resurrection in America, sent to him by Senator Charles Sumner (Mass.). Moncure D. Conway, Autobiography, Memoirs, and Experiences of Moncure Daniel Conway, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904), 1:341.

Prepares memorandum for plan of campaign, to be conducted simultaneously with movement against Carolina coast, "to seize and hold a point on the Railroad connecting Virginia and Tennesse, [sic] near the Mountain pass called Cumberland Gap." Memorandum for a Plan of Campaign, [c. 1 October 1861], CW, 4:544-45.