President and Sec. Stanton in conference at War Dept. are interrupted by Gen. Butler with instructions from Gen. McClellan to go ahead with expedition to New Orleans. Apparently President is not in favor of it. Benjamin F. Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences . . . Butler's Book (Boston: A. M. Thayer, 1892), 335.

The Lincoln family mourns the death of Abraham and Mary's eleven-year-old son Willie, who died on February 20. A newspaper reports, "The . . . body of little Willie Lincoln was visited to-day by a number of the friends of the family. The body was laid out in a plain suit of brown clothes, with a blossom of mignonette [flowers] on his left breast. . . . The funeral will take place at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon. The youngest son [Tad] of President Lincoln is considerably better to-day." New York Herald, 24 February 1862, 5:2.