Our travelling companions at the start were (besides Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and the three sons) W. S. Wood; J. G. Nicolay and John Hay; two old personal friends of Mr. Lincoln, Judge David Davis, of Bloomington, afterwards Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, and N. B. Judd, of Chicago, who had the promise of the Secretaryship of the Interior; Dr. W. S. Wallace, a brother-in-law; Lockwood Todd, a relative of Mrs. Lincoln, who was employed on several important political missions during the next few months; and Ward Hill Lamon, a lawyer of Bloomington, who afterwards became United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, and as such a sort of majordomo at the White House, and finally the author of a biography of Abraham Lincoln. For describing him in this as an infidel, Lamon was much and unjustly attacked. He brought a banjo along, and amused us with negro songs. There was also a military escort, consisting of Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner, the white-haired commander of a cavalry regiment of the regular army, and of Major David Hunter, Captain John Pope, and Captain Hazard of the same service. Colonel Sumner, Major Hunter, and Captain Pope became well-known commanding generals during the war. Another "military" character, a sort of pet of Mr. Lincoln, was Colonel E. E. Ellsworth, who, though a mere youth, of small but broad figure, curly black head, and handsome features, had achieved considerable local notoriety as a captain of a crack “Zouave” militia company in Chicago. He was one of the first victims of the Civil War, being shot by a rebel while raising the United States flag at Alexandria, Virginia.
The party had a special train, composed at first only of an ordinary passenger car — there were no parlor or drawing-room or sleeping cars in those days — a baggage-car and engine. The first day's journey took us from the capital of Illinois to that of Indiana. Until we reached the boundary of the latter State, the demonstrations along the route were insignificant, except at Decatur, where a great crowd,
