Mr. Ben.  Perley Poore states that “the White House, while Mr. Lincoln occupied it, was a fertile field for news, which he was always ready to give those correspondents in whom he had confidence; but the surveillance of the press—­first by Secretary Seward, and then by Secretary Stanton—­was as annoying as it was inefficient....  Often when Mr. Lincoln was engaged, correspondents would send in their cards, bearing requests for some desired item of news or for the verification of some rumor.  He would either come out and give the coveted information, or he would write it on the back of the card and send it to the owner.  He wrote a legible hand, slowly and laboriously perfecting his sentences before he placed them on paper.  The long epistles that he wrote to his generals he copied himself, not wishing anyone else to see them, and these copies were kept in pigeon-holes for reference....  Mr. Lincoln used to wear at the White House in the morning, and after dinner, a long-skirted faded dressing-gown, belted around his waist, and slippers.  His favorite attitude when listening—­and he was a good listener—­was to lean forward, and clasp his left knee with both hands, as if fondling it, and his face would then wear a sad and wearied look.  But when the time came for him to give an opinion on what he had heard, or to tell a story which something ‘reminded him of,’ his face would lighten up with its homely, rugged smile, and he would run his fingers through his bristly black hair, which would stand out in every direction like that of an electric experiment doll.”

John G. Nicolay, afterward Lincoln’s private secretary, says:  “The people beheld in the new President a man six feet four inches in height, a stature which of itself would be hailed in any assemblage as one of the outward signs of leadership; joined to this was a spare but muscular frame, and large strongly-marked features corresponding to his unusual stature.  Quiet in demeanor but erect in bearing, his face even in repose was not unattractive; and when lit up by his open, genial smile, or illuminated in the utterance of a strong or stirring thought, his countenance was positively handsome.  His voice, pitched in rather a high key, but of great clearness and penetration, made his public remarks audible to a wide circle of listeners.”

Henry Champion Deming says of Lincoln’s appearance at this time:  “Conceive a tall and giant figure, more than six feet in height, not only unencumbered with superfluous flesh, but reduced to the minimum working standard of cord and sinew and muscle, strong and indurated by exposure and toil, with legs and arms long and attenuated, but not disproportionately to the long and attenuated trunk; in posture and carriage not ungraceful, but with the grace of unstudied and careless ease rather than of cultivated airs and high-bred pretensions.  His dress is uniformly of black throughout, and would attract but little attention in a well-dressed circle, if it hung less loosely upon