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from the Chicago Herald, April 12, 1870:
The Presidential Mansion today hosted a base ball game for the first time. During the War of Secession, then-President Abraham Lincoln allowed soldiers camping on the grounds of the Executive Mansion in Washington City to play base ball.
Though Washington City is now part of the Confederate states and the Executive Mansion is in Columbia (the former Columbus, Ohio), the current President, Horatio Seymour, offered his grounds for a match between a local base ball club and a team comprised of members of Congress. Seymour acted as umpire.
At the conclusion of the match, won by the Columbia squad by a score of 38-11, the President remarked, "This was an excellent opportunity for the government to show the people that despite the troubles our nation faces, there is still time for recreation."
Further proof of the growing power of base ball as a spectacle for the common citizen was the sizable crowd on hand to watch the match. Indeed, the local club which played against the Congressional contingent, known as the Union Club of Columbia, will compete in several scheduled matches with clubs around the nation, with admission charged. How well this experiment will succeed in nation with economic issues, remains to be seen.
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