page_title: Kate Chase
section_title: Life in Washington
hierarchical_section_title: Kate Chase / Life in Washington
caption_attribution_description: Kate Chase. Library of Congress description: "Kate Chase Sprague"
context_page_description: Katherine Jane Chase Sprague was a Washington society hostess during the American Civil War. During the war, she married Rhode Island Governor William Sprague.
  She was the daughter of Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase, who served as Treasury Secretary during President Abraham Lincoln's first administration and later Chief Justice of the United States. She was a strong supporter of her widowed father's presidential ambitions which, had he been successful, would have made her First Lady.
context_section_description: In 1861, Salmon P. Chase became Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's administration. He set up residence at 6th and E Streets Northwest in Washington, with Kate Chase as his hostess. Her soirees were eagerly attended in the nation's capital; she became, effectively, the "Belle of the North."  She visited battle camps in the Washington area and befriended Union generals, offering her own views on the proper prosecution of the war, often contrary to the wishes of the administration.
caption: Kate Chase, circa 1861
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