Troubles abound with a former Congressman from Ohio

On May 12, the president learned that in the Union loss in battle at Chancellorsville, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson had died.

He also had to deal with the arrest of former Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham by General Burnside. Vallandigham had said Lincoln's war was a war of "freedom of blacks and enslavement of the whites" and that the war would only come to conclusion when the Union troops deserted en masse and proceeded to "hurl King Lincoln from his thrown."

When Vallandigham applied for a writ to be released, Lincoln suspended the writ. Judge H.H. Levitt denied the motion in the case. Lincoln said Judge Levitt's denial equaled at least three victories in the field. On May 19, the president commuted Vallandigham's jail term by banishing him to the Confederacy. At least temporarily, the former Congressman would be out of the limelight.

During the same week, Mr. Lincoln went with Secretary Seward and Secretary Stanton to the Navy Yard and then onto a ship which would carry them down the Potomac River to inspect the Union troop transports.