It seemed that the White House was in a nest of rattlesnakes. Right here in Washington Southern sympathizers wore secession badges in the streets, and Seward claimed that the executive departments were crawling with disloyal men. “We were not only surrounded by the enemy,” Nicolay recorded, “but in the midst of traitors,” and the possibility was growing every hour that Washington might fall. If so, what would happen to Lincoln? To Mary and his boys?
Does history repeat?
