February 18 Wednesday – Sam probably returned to Hartford on this day [MTL 6: 36n1]. He wrote from Hartford to Osborn H. Oldroyd, a Lincoln-items collector who established a museum in the Lincoln home in Springfield in 1883. Oldroyd was a steward at a lunatic asylum and had requested Sam’s autograph. Sam answered, and, though it was clear Oldroyd was not an inmate, but a steward, Sam wrote:

“I believe you are wickedly & unjustly confined there (that is, if they are rigorous with you,) for portions of your letter to me are quite rational; & I am satisfied that if you were put under mild & judicious treatment, you would get over it” [MTL 6: 37].