.
Dear Sir,--I have just read, in the first volume of the Transactions of your society,
Dr. Dabney's paper concerning an interview between
Mr. Lincoln and
Colonel John Baldwin, of
Virginia, in April, 1861.
In May, 1865, I was on duty, as a Federal
military officer, in
Norfolk, and while the United States District Court for the eastern district of
Virginia was in session there.
I was introduced to
Colonel Baldwin at that time, in the clerk's office, by
Honorable L. H. Chandler, United States District Attorney,
Colonel Baldwin being then in attendance on some business connected with that court, and having also for the first time, after the war, visited
Norfolk.
I met him again, during the afternoon, at the
Atlantic hotel, and he was kind enough to refer to some of the incidents of the contest, and to the causes which occasioned it. In that interview he made substantially the same statement that
Dr. Dabney has given in his valuable and interesting paper, but, for reasons that will occur to almost any one, I did not repeat what he said, and did not feel at liberty then to make any publication of his statement, and would not do so now had not others already done so.
Yours respectfully,
