Thursday 3d
Today obtained and sent the Photographs to Thos [Bourne?]. They were finished while I was in the Gallery. I sent them by Adams Express. I was in the “National,” saw a number of my friends there. Went to the Festival with wife & Julia, staid till near 11. They had a Negro Band, four or five. It seemed like a Ball but there was no dancing. The place abounded [in] awkward men & Homely women the latter teasing for ones money.
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The three diary manuscript volumes, Washington during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865, are available online at The Library of Congress.
