Sec. Welles rushes to White House to share with President news that Flag Officer David G. Farragut (USN) has taken New Orleans. Story in Richmond newspapers smuggled into Washington. West, Welles, 177.

President sends letter of condolence to King of Portugal on death of brother. Abraham Lincoln to Luiz I, 25 April 1862, CW, 5:199.

In the evening, U.S. Senator Orville Hickman Browning, of Illinois, visits President Lincoln. Browning recalled, "He was alone and complaining of head ache." Browning and Lincoln discuss poetry and, in particular, the works of English poet Thomas Hood. Lincoln recites several of Hood's poems, including "The Haunted House." Browning recollected, "His reading was admirable and his criticisms evinced a high and just appreciation of the true spirit of poetry. . . . I remained with [him] about an hour & a half, and left . . . in high spirits, and a very genial mood." Theodore Calvin Pease and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, 2 vols., Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925-1933), 1:542.