At cabinet meeting inquiries are made about army, but no information is communicated. Sec. Seward confers with President for an hour before meeting. Welles, Diary.

President suspends action in six courtmartial cases of men sentenced to be shot for desertion. Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Holt, 24 July 1863, CW, 6:347.

President Lincoln writes to Postmaster General Montgomery Blair regarding job openings. Lincoln writes, "Yesterday little indorsements of mine went to you in two cases of Post-Masterships sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in . . . battles . . . These cases occurring on the same day, brought me to reflect more attentively than I had before done, as to what is fairly due from us here, in the dispensing of patronage . . . My conclusion is that, other claims and qualifications being equal, they have the better right; and this is especially applicable to the disabled soldier, and the deceased soldier's family." Abraham Lincoln to Montgomery Blair, 24 July 1863, CW, 6:346; New York Daily Tribune, 29 July 1863, 1;2.