Video: Lincoln's distress on Jan. 10, 1862, letter (at 12:13)

(Friday, January 10, 1862, during the American Civil War) — U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in great distress, entered the office of Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs today.

Meigs later wrote: “He took a chair in front of the open fire and said, ‘General, what shall I do? The people are impatient: Chase has no money and he tells me he can raise no more; the General of the Army has typhoid fever. The bottom is out of the tub. What shall I do?’”