Political life in Washington flowed through the thronged corridors of the Willard Hotel, down the block from the White House. Lincoln’s secretary John Hay criticized the place as “miraculous in meanness; contemptible in cuisine,” but that was beside the point.22 Political deals were sealed in this watering hole, office seekers and war contractors buttonholed legislators, and senators socialized over free-flowing whiskey. “Everybody may be seen there,” Nathaniel Hawthorne observed. “You exchange nods with governors of sovereign states; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of
...more
