But respite was hard to find in Springfield, Ill., where Lincoln continued to receive unanswerable amounts of mail, and to meet with nearly anyone who cared to pay him a visit in this season of drift. Even on Christmas Day, he was available, as recorded by Henry Villard, the German reporter who dogged his steps:
This being Christmas day . . . a good many country people are in town but few find their way to Mr. Lincoln’s reception room. This afternoon a party of St. Louis gentlemen all but monopolized the attention of the President-elect.
That terse account begs further explanation — who were the St. Louis gentlemen? Why would he rather be with them than at home? What presents did he give and receive? How could they compete with the random objects that were being sent to him in the mails? One inventive citizen sent him a whistle fashioned from a pig’s tail, just to prove that it was possible to do.
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