From the day of his nomination by the Chicago convention, gifts poured
in upon Lincoln. Many of these came in the form of wearing apparel. Mr.
George Lincoln, of Brooklyn, who brought to Springfield, in January,
1861, a handsome silk hat to the President-elect, the gift of a New
York hatter, told some friends that in receiving the hat Lincoln laughed
heartily over the gifts of clothing, and remarked to Mrs. Lincoln:
“Well, wife, if nothing else comes out of this scrape, we are going to
have some new clothes, are we not?”