February 21, 1862
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The President of the United States was last evening plunged into affliction by the death of a beloved child. The heads of the Departments, in consideration of this distressing event, have thought it would be agreeable to Congress and to the American people that the official and private buildings occupied by them should not be illuminated in the evening of the 22d instant.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD. CALEB B. SMITH.
S. P. CHASE M B. SMITH.
EDWIN M. STANTON. EDWARD BATES.
GIDEON WELLES.
Abraham Lincoln, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203149