Three volume diary kept by Taft during Abraham Lincoln's administration in which Taft details events in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War years, including his connection with Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln family. Of special interest is Taft's description of Lincoln's assassination, based on accounts of Taft's friends and his son, who was one of the attending physicians at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot. The diary contains a genealogy of the Taft family dated 1860. Includes an undated photograph of Taft by Mathew Brady.