| Thursday, January 21,
  1864.Washington, DC. |  President transmits
  to Senate documentation "respecting the recent destruction by fire of the
  church of the CompaƱia at Santiago, Chile." Abraham
  Lincoln to the Senate, 21 January 1864, CW, 7:143. In the evening,
  President Lincoln and his wife Mary Lincoln host
  a dinner for members of the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, "and a few others, with
  their wives." Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles noted that the gathering "was
  pleasant. A little stiff and awkward on the part of some of the guests,
  but [it] passed off very well." Howard K. Beale, ed.,
  Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols., (New
  York: W. W. Norton, 1960), 1:512; Evening Star (Washington, DC), 21 January 1864, 2d ed., 2:4. |