 As telegraph keys chattered, he peered over the shoulders of the operators who scribbled down the incoming messages converted from Moore's code. He visited the office nearly every night before turning in and slept there on a cot during pivotal battles. Lincoln, though, had not made a great first impression upon Bates and the other telegraph operators. He seemed to us uncouth and awkward, and he did not conform to our ideas of what a president should be, Bates recalled.