Sixty-three was a dark year, and the President might well say on this typical incident, during a time there was little marrying, it is for once a pleasure to preside.

* * * * *

ON THE LORD'S SIDE.

On a pastor assuring the President that "the Lord is on our side!" he replied:

"I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

* * * * *

"TO CANAAN!"

This hymn plays quite a part in the music of the Civil War. There is a negro variation—"Canaan's fair and happy land," given to the old hymn, "Canaan's happy shore," which, better known by its chorus: "Say, brothers, will you meet us?" and turned by the soldiers into the grand "John Brown's body's moldering in the grave, but his soul is marching on," was paraphrased by Julia Ward Howe into a "battle hymn." And Holmes wrote "To Canaan," relative to the first levy. And to top these, the Southerners had a parody on the "Old John Brown," also called "Lincoln Going to Canaan."

* * * * *

"GOING TO CANAAN!"

Although the South is a poetic country, no bard wrote any "Marseillaise Hymn" on that side. One of the few effusions bidding tolerably for publicity was "Lincoln Going to Canaan," a parody on the numerous negro camp-meeting lays in which Lincoln was hailed as the coming Moses. This burlesque was laid before Mr. Lincoln, he taking the grim relish in hits at him, caricatures and sallies, which great men never spurn.

"Going to Canaan," he (is reported to have) said. "Going to cane 'em, I expect!"

* * * * *

THE FOX APPOINTED PAYMASTER.

The President came into the telegraph-office of the White House, laughing. He had picked up a child's book in his son "Tad's" room and looked at it. It was a story of a motherly hen, struggling to raise her brood to lead honest and useful lives; but in her efforts she was greatly annoyed by a mischievous fox. She had given him many lectures on his wicked ways, and—said the President: "I thought I would turn over to the finis, and see how they came out. This is what it said:

"'And the fox became a good fox, and was appointed paymaster in the army.' I think it very funny that I should have appointed him a paymaster. I wonder who he is?"

Such inability to distinguish one officer as "good" does not speak highly for the eradication of the soldiers' prejudice for the gentry.—(Superintendent Tinker.)

* * * * *

RISKING THE DICTATORSHIP.

Every one of the generals leading the Army of the Potomac was accused of the "longing for the Presidency," which placed the occupant in a peculiar predicament. Of General "Joe" Hooker, it was said in the press and in the Washington hotels that he was the "Man on Horseback," and would, at the final success of clearing out the rebel beleaguers, set up as dictator. Hence the letter which Lincoln wrote to him:

"I have heard in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command of the Army of the Potomac. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship!"

It was April, 1863, Hooker issued the stereotyped address full of confidence on taking command, advanced, and withdrew his army after the repulse by Lee. All he scored was the death of "Stonewall" Jackson, Lee's right hand, and that was an accident. As Lee invaded Maryland, all hopes of Hooker's dictatorship were dispersed in the battle smoke penetrating too far North to be pleasant incense to fallen heroes.

* * * * *

A STAGE IN THE CEASELESS MARCH ONWARD TO VICTORY.

Veterans will remember the peculiar effect, on a forced march, of the younger or less-enduring comrade falling asleep as to all but his eyes and the muscles employed, but stepping out and apparently sustained only by the touching of elbows in the lurching from the ruts in the obliterated road. On the night of the stunning news of the last conflict at Chancellorsville, Lincoln could derive no comfort from later intelligence. Late at night General Halleck, commanding the capital, and Secretary Stanton left him unconsoled. Then his secretary, as long as he stayed, heard the man on whom rested the national hopes—her very future—pace his room without pause save to turn. It was like the fisher on the banks who must keep awake for a chance at a grab at the chains of the ship that may burst through the fog and crush his smack like a coconut-shell. At midnight the chief may have stopped to write, for there was a pause—but a breathing-spell. Then the pacing again till the attache left at 3 A.M. When he came in the morning, not unanxious himself, he found his chief eating breakfast alone in the unquitted room. On the table lay a sheet of written paper: instructions for General Hooker to renew fighting although it only brought the slap on the other cheek—at Winchester—and still Lee pressed on into Pennsylvania till Harrisburg was menaced! But Meade supplanted "Fighting Joe," and Gettysburg wiped out the shame of the later repulses.

(The private secretary was W. O. Stoddard.)

* * * * *

WORKING FOR A LIVING MAKES ONE PRACTICAL.

The year 1863 was black-lettered in the North by disaster. General Hooker had been badly beaten by General Lee. The Confederate advance into Pennsylvania shook the strongest faith in the triumph of the Federal arms, and the victory of Gettysburg was attained at a bloody cost. The draft riots in New York excited a fear that the discontent with the colossal strife was deep-rooted. General Thomas, at Chickamauga, saved the Union Army from destruction, but the call for 300,000 three-years' men denoted that the end was not even glimpsed. Nevertheless, this latter feat of arms gladdened tremulous Washington, and among the exploits was cited to the President the desperate victualing of General Thomas' exhausted troops by General Garfield. He performed a dangerous ride from Rosencrantz to the beleagured victor and brought him craved-for provisions.

"How is it," inquired President Lincoln of an officer, courier of the details, "that Garfield did in two weeks what would have taken one of your West Pointers two months to accomplish?"

The recollection was perfectly well understood by the regular, who thought the amateur commander "meddled too much" with the operations of the field.

"Because he was not educated at West Point," was the reply, but half in jest.

"No, that was not the reason," corrected the questioner; "it was because, when a boy, he had to work for a living."

He rewarded "the purveyor-general" with the rank of major-general.

* * * * *

"HOLD ON AND CHAW!"

While in July, 1863, General Grant was held at Vicksburg by the siege which he successfully prosecuted, the New York draft riots broke out. Without knowing from experience that a riot, however portentous, must cease when the mob are drunk or spent, the inevitable contingencies, in his alarm General Halleck, at Washington, begged General Grant to send reenforcements, that he might not weaken the capital defenses to any extent. The commander of the West declined and referred to the President. General Horace Porter was on Grant's staff and saw his smiles as he read the despatch from headquarters.

"The President has more nerve than any of his advisers," observed he to his officers, for Lincoln did not agree with his Cabinet, as to the revolution in the rear; and the message was sent by the staff:

"I have seen your despatch, expressing your unwillingness to break your hold. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chaw and choke as much as possible!"

* * * * *

THE GREAT NATIONAL JOB.

"The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.... The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's webfeet be forgotten. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bay, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been, and made their tracks! Thanks to all—for the great republic!"—(Letter by President Lincoln, regretting inability to attend a meeting of unconditional Union men at Springfield, Illinois; dated August 26, 1863, to J. C. Conkling.)

* * * * *

FOR FLAYING A MAN ALIVE.

A representative of Ohio, Alexander Long, proposed in the House a recognition of the Southern Confederacy. It must be borne in mind that, before the firing on the supply-steamer at Charleston, which was despatched surreptitiously not "to offend the sympathizers' susceptibilities," many good citizens, dwelling on the silence of the Constitution as to secession, said openly that they did not see why the States chafing under the partnership all the original thirteen made, should not withdraw peacefully. Long was not solitary in his unseemly proposition, which, however, could never have been otherwise than untimely after the first shot.

General Garfield met the issue with indignation. He called the act "treason!" and denounced the author as a second Benedict Arnold. He entreated loyal representatives:

"Do not believe that another such growth on the soil of Ohio deformed the face of nature and darkened the light of God's day!"

When this speech met the President's eye, he hastened to thank General Garfield for having "flayed Long alive."

* * * * *

"ONE ON 'EM NOT DEAD YET!"

As communications were cut off with the North, intense anxiety was occasioned there by the situation in November, 1863, of General Burnside, packed in Knoxville, Tennessee, by Longstreet's dreaded veterans. At last a telegram reached the War Department, vaguely telling of "Firing heard in the direction of Knoxville." The President reading, expressed gladness, in spite of the remaining uncertainty.

"Why," said he to the group of officers and officials, "it reminds me of a neighbor of ours, in Indiana, in the brush, who had a numerous family of young ones. They were all the time wandering off into the scrub, but she was relieved as to their being lost by a squall every now and then. She would say: 'Thank the laws, there is one still alive!' That is, I hope one of our generals is in the thicket, but still alive and kicking!"

Indeed, Burnside resisted a night storming-party, and Longstreet was not "a lane that knew no turning," but turned and retreated!

* * * * *

THE SOUTH LIKE AN ASH-CAKE.

At the end of 1864, the Confederacy was scotched if not quite killed. Sherman had halved it by striking into Savannah. East Tennessee and southwest Virginia were cut by Stoneman. Alabama and Mississippi were traversed by Grierson and Wilson. In sum, the new map resembled that of a territory charted off into sections.

President Lincoln said that its face put him in mind of a weary traveler in the West, who came at night to a small log cabin. The homesteader and his wife said they would put him up, but had not a bite of victuals to offer him. He accepted the truss of litter and was soon asleep. But he was awakened by whispers letting out that in the fire ashes a hoe-cake was baking. The woman and her mate were merry over how they had defrauded the stranger of the food. Feeling mad at having been sent to bed supperless—uncommon mean in that part—he pretended to wake up and came forth to sit at the dying fire. He pretended, too, that he was ill from worry.

"The fact is, my father, when he died, left me a large farm. But I had no sooner taken possession of it than mortgages began to appear. My farm was situated like this——" He took up the loggerhead poker to illustrate, drawing lines in the ashes so as to enclose the ash-cake. "First one man got so much of it one side," he cut off a side of the hidden dough. "Then another brought in a mortgage and took off another piece there. Then another here, and another there! and here and there"—drawing the poker through the ashes to make the figure plain—"until," he said, "there was nothing of the farm left for anybody—which, I presume is the case with your cake!"

"And, I reckon," concluded Mr. Lincoln, "that the prospect is now very good of the South being as cut up as the ash-cake!"—(Telegraph Manager A. Chandler.)

* * * * *

"I COUNT FOR SOMETHING!"

The true lovers of the South were sorely wrung in 1864 by the Emperor Napoleon taking advantage of the "lockup" of the United States, to set a puppet in the Austrian Archduke Maximilian on the imperial throne— so called—of Mexico. It was said that the Cabinet of Lincoln were divided on the subject; whereon the Marquis of Chambrun, having the ear of the Executive, called on him, and inquired on the real state—would the United States intervene, if only by winking at a filibustering expedition from the South, with Northern volunteers accessory, to assist the natives against the usurper?

"There has been war enough," was his rejoinder, with that sadness which Secretary Boutwell declares inseparable from him, but not due to the depression of public affairs. "I know what the American people want; but, thank God! I count for something, and during my second term there will be no more fighting!"

It was left for his successor, with the two armies disbanded, but still whetted for slaughter, to expel the French by the mere threat of their union to restore the republic.

* * * * *

PASSES NO GOOD FOR RICHMOND.

A person solicited the President for a pass to Richmond. But the other replied caustically:

"I should be happy to oblige you if my passes thither were respected; but I have issued two hundred and fifty thousand to go to Richmond, and not one man has got there yet!"

* * * * *

THE MAYOR IS THE BETTER HORSE.

The Lowell Citizen editor participated in a presidential reception in 1864, just before the fall of Richmond. The usher giving intimation that the President would see his audience at once, all were ushered into the inner room. "Abraham Lincoln's countenance bore that open, benignant outline expected; but what struck us especially was its cheerful, wide-awake expressiveness, never met with in the pictures of our beloved chief. The secret may have been that Secretary Stanton—middle-aged, well-built, stern-visaged man—had brought in his budget good news from Grant." After saluting his little circle of callers, they were seated and attended to in turn.

First in order was a citizen of Washington, praying for pardon in the case of a deserter.

"Well," said the President, after carefully reading the petition, "it is only natural for one to want pardon; but I must in that case have a responsible name that I know. I don't know you. Do you live in the city?"

"Yes."

"Do you know—h'm! the mayor?"

"Yes."

"Well, the mayor is the better horse. Bring me his name and I will let the boy off."

The soldier was pardoned.

* * * * *

THE REAL THING SUPERIOR TO THE SHAM BATTLE.

On the 25th of March, 1864, in honor of the President's renewal of office, a grand review had been fixed at City Point, outside the capital.

Whatever the opinion of the old military, the volunteers gave the civilian commander "the soldiers' vote." In imitation of the French soldiers dubbing Bonaparte "the Little Corporal," after his Italian victories, the Americans promoted Lincoln to be their "captain," as Walt Whitman worded it, after his repeated reinstatement. He was rapturously greeted by "his boys in blue." But the arrangements made at Washington in the undisturbed council were upset by General Lee. On that very morning he had attacked and taken Fort Stedman. To drive him out required a veritable action not terminating for several hours. Lincoln visited the scene of restoration after the carnage, and, on hearing regrets that the review—the chief recreation of the Washingtonians—he checked the light-souled attendants with:

"This victory is better than any review."

* * * * *

THE TOOL TURNED ON THE HANDLE.

The scales having fallen from our sight and the figure of the greatest American standing out colossal and clean-cut for posterity to worship as without a blemish, it is hard to measure the conceit of the clique of politicians, pettifoggers, and office-seekers certainly assisting in the advancement of Abraham Lincoln from confined obscurity in the West to the choice of the Northern nation. That was not enough, but still gaging him with their tape they withheld justice from him, after he displayed his worth in meeting the impending crisis.

When on the heels of the call for 300,000 men in 1863, came in spring, 1864, another for 500,000, to fortify General Grant in his finishing maneuvers, a murmur was heard. Chicago, gallantly having done her part, thought it was pumping at a void. A deputation from Cook County, headed by Lincolnites, departed for the capital to object to the summons. It was thought by his friends and long supporters that "their own elect" could not resist their plea, or turn it off with a joke. This deputation fined down to three persons, as it was not a patriotic quest. One of them also wished to balk, being Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune. As a matter of course, Secretary of War Stanton refused the indulgence, obdurate as he was. The President was likewise averse, but he did consent to go over the matter with Stanton. The result was the same. All was left solely to Lincoln, since the personal argument was implied by the mediums selected.

"I"—said Medill to Miss Tarbell—"I shall never forget how Mr. Lincoln suddenly lifted his head and turned on us a black and frowning face.

"'Gentlemen,' said he, in a voice full of bitterness, 'after Boston, Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing this war on the country. The Northwest has opposed the South as New England opposed the South. It was you who were largely responsible for causing the blood to flow as it has. You called for war until we had it. You called for emancipation, and I have given it to you. Whatever you have asked, you have had.

"'Now you come here, begging to be let off from the call for men which I have made to carry out the war you demanded. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I have a right to expect better things of you!

"'Go home and raise your six thousand extra men—the Cook County rate. And you, Medill, you are acting like a coward! You and your Tribune have had more influence than any paper in the Northwest in making this war. Go home and send us those men!'" They went home, and they raised and sent those men!

* * * * *

"SOONER THE FOWL BY HATCHING THE EGG THAN SMASHING IT."

"Still the question is not whether the Louisiana Government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, Will it be wiser to take it as it is, and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse?... Concede that the new government is to what it should be as the egg to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it. (Laughter.)"—(Speech by A. Lincoln, his last! in answer to a serenade at the White House, 11th April, 1865, amid illuminations for the victories.)

* * * * *

TOO BUSY TO GO INTO ANOTHER BUSINESS.

There came into the presidential hearing a man of French accent from New Orleans. He was evidently a diffident person, not knowing how precisely to state his case. But the burden of it was that he was a real-estate holder in New Orleans, and, since the advent of military rulers there, he could not collect his rents, his living.

"Your case, my friend," said the President, "may be a hard one, but it might be worse. If, with your musket, you had taken your chances with the boys before Richmond, you might have found your bed and board before now! But the point is, what would you have me do for you? I have much to do, and the courts have been opened to relieve me in this regard."

The applicant, still embarrassed, said: "I am not in the habit of appearing before big men."

"And for that matter," it was quickly responded, "you have no need to change your habit, for you are not before very big men now;" playfully adding: "I am too busy to go into the rent-collection business."

* * * * *

THE SCALE OF REBELS.

When, at the finale, Lincoln reproved his own wife for using the hackneyed expression of rebels, suggesting Confederates, as officially accepted on both sides, a wit commented:

"The Southerners will be like the Jews. As a poor one is simply a Jew, a rich one a Hebrew, and a Rothschild an Israelite, so it will be rebels, Confederates, and our Southern brothers anew!"

* * * * *

ONE WAR AT A TIME.

When the Austrian archduke, Maximilian, was foisted upon Mexico as its emperor by Napoleon III., the Southerners, who did not have their "bellyful of fighting" by 1864, more than hinted that they would range shoulder to shoulder with the Federals to try to expel him and the mercenary Marshal Bazaine. But the President returned sagaciously:

"One war at a time!"

It was under his successor, Johnson, that the expulsion was effected and the upstart executed by the exasperated Mexicans themselves.

(NOTE.—This was undoubtedly said, but Mr. Henry Watterson, in his lecture on Lincoln, dates it as at the commencement of the war, when Secretary Seward, to forestall possible European alliances in favor of the Confederate States, proposed waging war against France and Spain, already allied, and challenging Russia and England to follow.)

* * * * *

"AGIN' THE GOVERNMENT."

In the summer of 1864, the governor-general of Canada paid the President a visit, with a numerous escort. During the late unpleasantness, as much comfort as possible under the Neutrality Act was believed to have been given the raiders into the border towns, as witness the St. Alban's Bank steal and the outfitting of blockade-runners. But they were treated at Washington with perfect courtesy. The head of the British party, at the conclusion, said with some sarcasm in his genial tone:

"I understand, Mr. President, that everybody is entitled to a vote in this country. If we remain until November, can we vote?"

"You would have to make a longer residence, which I could desire," politely replied the host; "only, I fear we should not gain much by that—for there was a countryman of your excellency, from the sister kingdom of Ireland, though, who came here, and on landing wanted to exercise the privilege you seek—to vote early and often! But the officials at Castle Garden landing-stage laughed at him, saying that he knew nothing about parties, to which he replied:

"'Bother the parties! It is the same here with me as in the old country—I am agin' the government!' You see, he wanted to vote on the side of the Rebellion! Your excellency would then be no more at a loss to decide on which side!"

* * * * *

PLOWING AROUND A LOG.

A State governor came to Washington, furious at the number of troops headquarters commanded of him and the mode of collecting them. Irate as he was, General Fry saw him bidding good-by to the Capitol with a placid, even pleased, mien. The general inquired of Lincoln himself how he had been so miraculously mollified.

"I suppose you had to make large concessions to him, as he returns from you entirely satisfied?" suggested the general.

"Oh, no," replied the President, "I did not concede anything.

"You know how that Illinois farmer managed the big log that lay in the middle of his field? To the inquiries of his neighbors, he announced he had gotten rid of it.

"'How did you do it?' they asked. 'It was too big to haul away, too knotty to split, too wet and soggy to burn. Whatever did you do?'

"'Well, now, boys, if you won't tell the secret, I'll tell you how. I just plowed 'round it!'

"Now, Fry, don't tell anybody, but I just plowed around the governor!"—(On the authority of General James B. Fry.)

* * * * *

NOT THE RIGHT "CLAY" TO CEMENT A UNION.

In 1864, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and a great authority among the farming class and the extremists, consented to attend an abortive peace consultation with Southern representatives, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, and Clement C. Clay, at Niagara Falls. Clay was so set upon Jefferson Davis being still left as a ruler in some high degree which would condone his action as President of the seceded States, the project, like others, was a "fizzle," as Lincoln would have said. To our President, Henry Clay was the "beau-ideal of a statesman"; but it was clear that his namesake was not of the Clay to cement a new Union!

* * * * *

"THE MAN DOWN SOUTH."

In August, 1864, a painful absorption was noticed in the President's manner, growing more and more strained and depressed. The ancient smile was fainter when it flitted over the long-drawn features, and the eyes seemed to bury themselves out of sight in the cavernous sockets, too dry for tears. These withdrawing fits were not uncommon, but they had become frequent this summer, and at the reception he had mechanically passed the welcome and given the hand-shake. But then the abstraction became so dense that he let an old friend stand before him without a glance, much less the usual hearty greeting expected. The newcomer, alarmed, ventured to arouse him. He shook off his absence of mind, seized the hand proffered him, and, while grasping it, exclaimed as though no others were by, also staring and pained:

"Excuse me! I was thinking—thinking of a man—down South!"

He was thinking of Sherman—that military genius who "burned his ships and penetrated a hostile country," like Cortez, and from whom no reliable news had been received while he was investing Savannah. Lincoln had in his mind been accompanying his captain on that forlorn march—"smashing things"—to the sea.

* * * * *

THE DISMEMBERED "YALLER" DOG.

Toward the end of December, 1864, the news trickled in of the utter discomfiture of Confederate General Hood's army at Nashville, by General Thomas. An enthusiastic friend of the President said to him:

"There is not enough left of Hood to make a dish-rag, is there?"

"Well, no, Medill; I think Hood's army is in about the identical fix of Bill Sykes' dog (the application from Dickens is noticeable as showing Lincoln's eclectic reading) down in Sangamon County. Did you never hear it?"

As a Chicago man Mr. Medill might be allowed to be ignorant of Sangamon Valley incidents.

"Well, this Bill Sykes had a long, hungry yaller dog, forever getting into the neighbors' meat smokehouses, and chicken-coops, and the like. They had tried to kill it a hundred-odd times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a coon's innards, and filled it up with gunpowder, and tied a piece of punk in the nozle. When he see this dog a-coming 'round, he fired this punk, split open a corn-cake and squoze the intestine inside, all nice and slab, and threw out the lot. The dog was always ravenous, and swallered the heap—kerchunk!

"Pretty soon along come an explosion—so the man said. The head of the animal lit on the stoop; the fore legs caught a-straddle of the fence; the hind legs kicked in the ditch, and the rest of the critter lay around loose. Pretty soon who should come along but Bill, and he was looking for his dog when he heard the supposed gun go off. The neighbor said, innocentlike: 'William, I guess that there is not much of that dog left to catch anybody's fowls?'

"'Well, no,' admitted Sykes; 'I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog as a dog, ain't of much account.'

"Just so, Medill, there may be fragments of Hood's army around, but I guess that army, as an army, ain't of much more account!"

(Joseph Medill was editor of the Chicago Tribune; he was one of the coterie who claimed to have "discovered" Abraham Lincoln, and surely added propulsion to the wave carrying him to Washington. Another version of this anecdote is applied to the breaking up of General Early's rashly advanced army in July; but it would seem, by Mr. Medill's name, that this is the genuine; the other is not told in the Western vernacular of Mr. William Sykes.)

* * * * *

THE METEOROLOGICAL OMEN.

The second inauguration day was amid the usual March weather in the District of Columbia, like the fickle April in unkinder latitudes: smile and scowl. But as the President kissed the book there was a sudden parting of the clouds, and a sunburst broke in all its splendor. This is testified to by the newspaper correspondents, Frank Moore, Noah Brooks, and others. The President said next day:

"Did you notice the sun burst? It made me jump!"

* * * * *

DID SHE TAKE THE WINK TO HERSELF?

Miss Anna Dickinson, lecturing by invitation in the House of Representatives' Hall, alluded to the sunburst which came upon the President on inauguration day, just as he took the oath of office. The illustrious auditor sat directly in front of the lady, so that he also faced the reporters' gallery behind her. Lincoln amiably glanced over her head, caught sight of an acquaintance among the newspaper men, and winked to him as she made the reference to the so-esteemed omen. Next day he said to this gentleman—Noah Brooks:

"I wonder if Miss Dickinson saw me wink at you?"

* * * * *

GOING DOWN WITH COLORS FLYING.

All the wire-pulling of the many contestants for the presidential chair failed to get a prize upon it. It was held that there must be in excelsis no "swapping of horses in crossing the stream," still turbid and dangerous. So the National Convention, held at Baltimore, purged by this time of its former treasonable activity, at the Soldiers' Fair, held there, the President had alluded to the time when he had to be whisked through as past a bed of vipers, and said:

"Blessings on the men who have wrought these changes!"

All the States voted for the incumbent save Missouri, which stood for General Grant, but the votes transferred to Lincoln, the opinion was unanimous. Within two months he was driven by circumstances to call out five hundred thousand men. His partizans regretted the necessity, and on the old story that the people were tired of the war declared it would prove injurious to his re-election. But it is undisputed that about half the levies never reached their mustering-point. The arts and wiles of the marplots were equaled only by the prodigality and persistency of the parents to save their sons from "the evils of camp life." It is but fair to the Puritans to accept their plea that the loss of them fighting the country's battles did not so distress them. Lincoln replied to the political argument nobly:

"Gentlemen, it is not necessary that I should be re-elected, but it is necessary that our brave boys in the front should be supported, and the country saved." (The hackneyed phrase had led to his party being nicknamed "the Union-savers.") "I shall call out the five hundred thousand more men, and if I go down under the measure I will go down like the Cumberland, with my colors flying!"

(On the 8th of March, 1862, the Confederate iron-clad ram, Merrimac, ran into and sank the Union sloop of war, Cumberland, nearly all of the latter's company perishing. Acting-captain Morris refused to strike his flag.)

* * * * *

THERE MUST BE THE BELL-MULE.

President Lincoln formally disavowed the desire erroneously attributed to him by military critics that he wished to die "with soldiers' harness on his back." To quote General Grant, to whom he said in their first interview when the victor of the West was summoned to Washington to be made lieutenant-general, and given full command over all the national forces:

"Mr. Lincoln stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man, or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere with them; but that procrastination on the part of his commanders, and the pressure of people at the North, and of Congress, had forced him into issuing the 'executive orders.' He did not know but that they were all wrong, and did not know that some of them were."

* * * * *

"ROOT, HOG, OR DIE!"

In February, 1865, permission was requested from the National Government for three appointees on a peace commission to confer with the Executive. It was granted, but the parties were not allowed to enter Washington, as they wanted to do, to give more luster to the course. The interview of the President, Mr. Seward the "bottle- holder"—as it was facetiously said about this sparring-match for breath—was with Alexander Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, of Alabama, on board of the River Queen, off Fort Monroe. The discussion lasted four hours, but, though on friendly terms, as "between gentlemen," resulted in nothing. For the President held that the first step which must be taken was the recognition of the Union. As was his habit, he rounded off the parley with one of his stories apropos.

Mr. Hunter, a Virginian, had assumed that, if the South consented to peace on the basis of the Emancipation Proclamation, the slaves would precipitate ruin on not only themselves, but the entire Southern society.

Mr. Lincoln said to Henry J. Raymond, of the Times, New York, that:

"I waited for Seward to answer that argument, but, as he was silent, I at length said: 'Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal better about that than I, for you have always lived under the slave system. I can only say in reply to your statement of the case that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who undertook to raise a very large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit upon a plan of planting a great field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, turned the whole herd into the field and let them have full swing, thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but also that of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along.

"'Well, well,' said he; 'this is all very fine, Mr. Case. Your hogs are doing very well just now, but, you know, out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the ground freezes for a foot deep. Then, what are you going to do?'

"This was a view of the matter Mr. Case had not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was 'way on in December or January! He scratched his head, and at length stammered:

"'Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don't see but it will be "Root, hog, or, die!"'"

The speaker had no need to draw this moral as to the fate of the South after the war, for black or white, from a Case in Illinois; the negro minstrel song was current then which supplied the apt allusion, and was called "Root, Hog, or Die." It may well be that the sailors conveying the baffled commissioners to Richmond, or the soldiers about the "other government," were chanting the instructive and prophetic chorus: "It doan' make a bit of difference to either you or I, but Big Pig or Little Pig, it is Root, Hog, or Die."

Mr. Raymond, in chronicling this anecdote, tells of the New York Herald giving the story in a mangled and pointless copy. But it was current in conversation. Mr. Lincoln was in hopes that "it would not leak out lest some oversensitive people should imagine there was a degree of levity in the intercourse between us."

Quite otherwise, for the majority thought the illustration as good as any argument, and would have deemed the speaker prophet if they could have foreseen that the South would have to buckle down to hard work to redeem the losses.

* * * * *

THE GRANT BRAND OF WHISKY.

Although a Kentuckian—orthodox jest—Lincoln was so known for his rare temperance convictions that no one carped at the buffet at his official house being clear of the decanters characterizing it in previous administrations. The total abstinence societies therefore hailed him as an apostle of their creed. Consequently, they had been pleased, on certain occasions, at his espousing and cheering their counsel. When General Grant was elevating himself by his string of solid victories in the West, it was object of caviling, by the adherents of the generals eclipsed and foreseeing his becoming lieutenant-general, and the slander circulated that "Philip sober" got the credit of "Philip drunk," perpetrating his plans with the dram-bottle at his elbow.

Lincoln heard out this spiteful diatribe with his habitual patience, when, calmly looking at the chairman, he responded:

"Gentlemen, since you are so familiar with the general's habits, would you oblige me with the name of General Grant's favorite brand of whisky. I want so to send some barrels of it to my other generals!"

The deputation withdrew in poor order.

Major Eckert says that Mr. Lincoln told him he had heard this story. It was good, and would be very good if he had told it—but he did not. He supposed it was "charged to him to give it currency." He went on to say:

"The original is back in King George's time. Bitter complaints were made against General Wolfe that he was mad. The king, who could be more justly accused of that, replied: 'I wish he would bite some of my other generals.'"

* * * * *

"A GENERAL, AT LAST!"

Without disparaging the Lincoln generals, it may be said that they will never occupy a niche in Walhalla beside Napoleon's marshals and Washington's commanders. But Washington society liked them one with another for affording opportunities of outings to the grand reviews and parades. One—that to Bull Run—turned out a failure, and the Southerners chasing the fugitives had the pickings of the iced wines, game pies, and cold chicken which "Brick" Pomeroy saw strewing the road back. Grant's negligent and war-worn uniform did not remind any one of the gay and brilliant period of "Old Fuss and Feathers," the veteran Scott. But Grant and the other Westerner, Lincoln, mutually pleased at their first meeting, the latter emerged from the interview exclaiming with joy:

"At last, we have a general!"

* * * * *

A FIZZLE ANYHOW!

American dash was, in military matters as in others, opposed to the engineering schemes dear to the scientific officers fresh from West Point Academy. Among their projects was the Dutch Gap Canal at City Point. When Grant, as his lieutenant-general, was conducted by the President to see the forces and their positions, the guide made known his opinion of the undertaking in his frank manner, consonant with the new commander's bluntness.

"Grant, do you know what this reminds me of? In the outskirts of our Springfield, there was a blacksmith of an ingenious turn, who could make something of pretty nigh anything in his line. But he got hold of a bit of iron one day that he attempted to make into a corn-knife, but the stuff would not hold an edge, so he reasoned it would be a claw-hammer; but that would be a loss of overplus, and he tried to make an ax-head. That did not come out to a five-pounder; and, getting disgusted, he blew up the fire to a white heat around the metal mass, when, yanking it out with his tongs, he flung it into the water-tub hard by, and cried out:

"'Well, if I can't make anything of you, I'll make a fizzle anyhow!'

"Well, general, I am afeared that that's what we'll make of the Dutch Gap Canal."

* * * * *

"FORGET OVER A GRAVE!"

When the Chronicle, of Washington, had the noble courage to speak well of "Stonewall" Jackson, accidentally shot, as a brave soldier, however mistaken as an American, Lincoln wrote to the editor:

"I honor you for your generosity to one who, though contending against us in a guilty cause, was nevertheless a gallant man. Let us forget his sins over a fresh-made grave."

* * * * *

IF HE FELT THAT WAY—START!

Although Colonel Dana, of the private branch of the War Office Intelligence Department, might have claimed exemption from active service, he never spared himself, though such a messenger ran not only the common military dangers, but of the Johnnies treating him as a spy. During the battles of the Wilderness, acute was the trepidation in Washington, where no news had come since a couple of days—Grant having "cut loose" and buried himself in the midst of the foes. Nevertheless, Dana had a train at Maryland Avenue to take him to the front, and a horse and escort to see him farther; he came to take the President's last orders. But the other had been reflecting on the perils into which he would be sending his favorite despatch-bearer.

"You can't tell where Lee is, or what he is doing; Jeb Stuart is on the rampage pretty lively between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. It is considerable risk, and I do not like to expose you to it."

"But I am all ready; and we are equipped, if it comes to the worst, to run!"

"Well, now, if you feel that way—start!"—(E. P. Mitchell, from Dana.)

* * * * *

FIGURES WILL PROVE ANYTHING.

Toward the finish of the Rebellion, Lincoln was asked to what number the enemy might amount. He replied with singular readiness:

"The Confederates have one million two hundred thousand men in the field."

Astonishment being manifested at the precision, he went on, smiling:

"Every time a Union commander gets licked, he says the enemy outnumbered him three or four times. We have three or four hundred thousand, so—logic is logic! they are three times that; say, one million two hundred thousand."

As a fact, at the grand review before the President (Johnson) the two armies of Grant and Sherman, May, 1865, two hundred thousand veterans filed past. Lincoln should have lived to see that glorious march past.

* * * * *

"I DON'T WANT TO—BUT THAT'S IT IF I MUST DIE!"

In the ferment, as the term of Lincoln's first office-holding was terminating, the old war fever returned by which "Little Mac (McClellan), Idol of the Army" was hailed as "the hope of the country." Only this time the presage was that General Grant had only to secure that phantasm, the capture of Richmond, to be nominated and elected. This reached the President's ears through the "hanged good-natured friend," as Sheridan—the wit, not the general—calls the stinging tongue.

"Well," drawled Mr. Lincoln, "I feel very much like the man who said he did not particularly want to die, but, if he had got to die, that was precisely the disease he wanted to die of!"

* * * * *

BEST LET AN ELEPHANT GO!

A rebel emissary, the notorious Jacob Thompson, was reported by the secret service as slipping through the North and trying to get passage to Europe on the Allan steamship out of Portland, Maine, or Canada. Brevet-general Dana, confidential officer to the War Department and the President, inquired if the fugitive was to be detained at Portland, where the provost-marshal thought he could capture him. Secretary Stanton wanted him apprehended.

"H'm," said Lincoln, who was being shaved, "I don't know as I have any apprehension in that quarter. When you have an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run!"

(NOTE.—The "Unbeknownst" story has been applied to this tolerated "escape.")

* * * * *

HISTORY REPEATS.

There is a double echo in the Lincolnian saying, "No surrender, though at the end of one or a hundred defeats," from General-President Taylor's reply at Buena Vista: "General Taylor never surrenders," to its antecedent, not so well authenticated, of General Cambronne at Waterloo: "The Old Guard dies, but does not surrender."

* * * * *

"NOT THE PRESIDENT, BUT THE OLD FRIEND."

In February, 1865, General Grant's plans were so well shaped that, with the reenforcement of General Sherman returned from his march to Savannah, he could count on crushing up Richmond, as an egg under trip-hammers. Before this the doom was registered, for the Southerners were at the end of their men, as before they had been at that of their means. Bridges burned or blown up, the rebel army was pouring out of their capital with the fear that their one or two ways of flight were already blocked by Sheridan or Sherman. The desperate attempt to arm the slaves against their coming deliverer was the "last kick." Lee clung to Richmond in hope that his lieutenant, Johnston, would check the oncomer, but he was compelled to notify his President and colleagues that flight was their only resource when he could no longer fight.

Lincoln was at Petersburg at Grant's headquarters when, a few miles off, Davis received the fatal intelligence that Lee was being deserted so freely that there would not be a body-guard left him. He fled, to be ignominiously captured in female disguise. His lair was hot when Lincoln entered it, and made it his closet, whence he issued his orders.

Soon after this occupation the victor heard the name of Pickett announced to him. The Southern general, George Pickett, was a protege of his, as he smoothed his entry upon the West Point Military Academy book when he was a congressman. Without either knowing it, the hero was lying dead on a hard-fought field close by. But Lincoln ordered her admittance. She was accompanied by her little son. This alone would have prevailed over the President, but, as she formally addressed him as the authority, he interrupted:

"Not the President, but George's old friend!"

And beckoning the wondering boy to him with the irresistible attraction of men who love the young, and are intuitively loved by them, he said:

"Tell your father, rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of your mother's smile, and your own bright eyes."

This reconciliation on the fall of the sword was a token of the forgivingness of the North toward the chastened foes.

* * * * *

"CLOSE YOUR EYES!"

The Marquis of Chambrun, a French volunteer, who entered the Lincoln circle, relates in a more elegant strain the above incident. He states that Thompson and Sanders were informed upon, and Stanton repeated the information to the President with a view of having them intercepted. But the other in his tender voice responded:

"Let us close our eyes, and leave them pass unnoticed."

* * * * *

DON'T JUDGE BY APPEARANCES.

The President's recklessness seems incredible as to going about the capital, as far as he knew and wished, without escort, but his "browsing," to use his word, about the perilous front while the concluding actions were enveloping Petersburg preliminarily to the rush at Richmond, partake of the nature of a fanatic's daring. This is the support to the otherwise taxing story told by Doctor J. E. Burriss, of New York, then a volunteer soldier at the place. He states that Lincoln, so shabbily dressed as to be taken for a farmer or planter, was so treated by soldiery before a tobacco-warehouse under guard. They wanted tobacco, and begged him to allow some to be turned out. He approached a young lieutenant commanding the post, but the latter was insolent to the "old Southerner." The latter sent a soldier to General Grant, who himself rode up, post-haste, at the summons. The soldiers were given some of the Indian weed, and the donor, turning to the impertinent officer, who had thought him a converted reb, said:

"Young sir, do not judge by appearances; and for the future treat your elders with more respect."

* * * * *

"NOTHING CAN TOUCH HIM FURTHER."

Returning to Washington from Richmond, Lincoln read twice to friends on the journey, from his pocket Shakespeare:

Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further.

* * * * *

"WENT AND RETURNED!"

The last days of March, 1865, contained the three battles, closing with that of Five Forks, signalizing the collapse of the Confederacy at Richmond. The President, at the front, sent the news of victories to the Cabinet at home. After the battles, the advance of the triumphing Unionists. On Monday morning Lincoln was enabled to telegraph the talismanic words so often dreamed of in the last agonizing years of fluctuating hope:

"Richmond has fallen! I am about to enter!"

Secretary Stanton, of the war office, immediately implored: "Do not peril your life!"

But in the morning he received this line from the most independent President known since Jackson:

"Received your despatch; went to Richmond, and returned this morning!"

Expostulated with by Speaker Colfax on the apparent rashness, for he had completed "the foolhardy act" by occupying President Jefferson Davis' vacated house, he replied with the calm of a man of destiny:

"I should have been alarmed myself if any other person had been President and gone there; but I did not feel in any danger whatever."

(NOTE.—Mark the analogy in great men. General Grant says of his first emotions in war—the Mexican—"If some one else had been colonel, and I had been lieutenant-colonel, I do not think I would have felt any trepidation.")

* * * * *

THE CLEAR FORESIGHT.

On the 2d of April, 1865, the President was at City Point, Grant's headquarters, until he started forth for the culminating series of ceaseless strokes. That morning, attack along the whole line had been commanded, and the President telegraphed to his wife, at the capital, during the raging battle. He knew that already the hostile lines had been pierced in one or more places, and that Sheridan's cavalry rush was supported by a division of infantry. He concludes foreseeing that at length "pegging away" was over and slugging begun:

"All is now favorable!"

In truth, on that same day, the rebel government at Richmond faded thence like a mirage, and, within one week, General Lee surrendered his enfeebled relic of a grand army.

* * * * *

DO IT "UNBEKNOWNST."

On April 7, 1865, General Grant had enveloped the enemy so that he could be assured that the rebel government, if it remained in Richmond as the "last ditch," would be trapped. He notified the President close by, at Petersburg, and asked what should be done in the event of the game being bagged. The plan was, it seems, to have slain the ex-President and his Cabinet officers in a rout, and the charge would have been described as massacre abroad. The arbiter on this point of anguish replied in his characteristic manner:

"I will tell you a story. There was once an Irishman, who signed the Father Mathew's temperance pledge. But a few days afterward he became terribly thirsty, and finally went into a familiar resort, where the barkeeper was, at first, startled to hear him call for a 'straight' soda. He related that he had taken the pledge, so he hinted, with an Irishman's broadness of hint, 'you might put in some spirits unbeknownst to me!'"

(NOTE.—Another and later version—for the above was limitedly repeated at the time with gusto and appreciation of the sublety—makes the hero a temperance lecturer at Lincoln's father's house. This is stupid, for Lincoln, a fervent temperance advocate, would not have decried the apostles of the doctrine for which he was also a sufferer.)

In course of time doubt has been cast on this anecdote by reason that the President would not have jested at such a juncture. But abundant confirmation was forthcoming at the time. Besides, we have so grave a general as Sherman alluding to the "Unbeknownst" in an official document.

* * * * *

ONE CANNOT DIE TWICE.

In Lincoln's last interview with his rustic friends, Mrs. Armstrong repeated the fears many apprehended of evil being visited on the President-elect on his way to be inaugurated.

"Hannah, if they do kill me, I shall never die another death!" and laughed at her.

* * * * *

NO MORE INVIDIOUS NAME-CALLING.

On returning from a carriage-drive into Washington, Mrs. Lincoln—who was not the Southern sympathizer the scandalous hinted—glanced at the city, and said aloud with bitterness:

"That city is full of our enemies!"

Had she a premonition on the fatal eve?

Right before the Marquis of Chambrun, their companion, the President serenely said:

"Enemies, Mary! Never speak of that!"

No wonder, when the dastardly taking off was bruited through the beaten but ever gallant South, they knew that they had lost "their best friend!" as General Pickett styled Lincoln.—(By the Marquis of Chambrun.)

* * * * *

"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE TREASURY OF THE WORLD."

As Schuyler Colfax was going West, Lincoln, in bidding him the last farewell, said foresightedly:

"I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our nation. Now that the Rebellion is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the amount of our national debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make the payment of that debt the easier. Tell the miners from me that I shall promote their interests to the best of my ability because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation; and we shall prove in a few years that we are the treasury of the world."

* * * * *

"HANG ON—NOT HANG!"

On April 11, 1865, Mr. Lincoln spoke out of his study window to an immense and joyous crowd. There were rockets, and portfire, and a huge bonfire, while the President was serenaded. The finish of the Rebellion delighted all persons. His offhand speech was full of compassion and brotherly love. Louisiana was already being "reconstructed." Mr. Harlan, who followed the chief, touched the major key: "What shall we do with the rebels?" To which the mob responded hoarsely:

"Hang them!"

Lincoln's little son, Tad, was in the room, playing with the quills on the table where his father made his notes. He looked at his father, and said, as one whose intimacy made him familiar with his inmost thoughts:

"No, papa; not hang them—but hang on to them!"

The President triumphantly repeated:

"We must hang on to them! Tad's got it!"—(By Mrs. H. McCulloch, present.)

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S LAST WISH.

"Springfield! how happy four years hence will I be, to return there in peace and tranquillity!"—(To the Marquis of Chambrun, April, 1865.)

* * * * *

ASSASSINATION.

At Springfield, immediately upon the election for President, Lincoln began to receive letters with lethal menaces. His friends took them as serious, and two or more carried weapons, and escorted him closely that no one with a dagger might reach his side. Calling on his stepmother for the farewell, she reiterated the general, and rising, fears. At Philadelphia, detectives and others whispered of a plot matured at Baltimore, and in his speech at raising the flag over Independence Hall he said pointedly:

"If this country cannot be saved without giving up this principle—liberty to the world—I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it.... I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by."—(Speech, Philadelphia, February, 1861.)

* * * * *

A PRESIDENT, NOT AN EMPEROR.

The President said to Colonel Halpine as respected the life-guards, which he soon dispensed with around his person, often going out unawares so as to "dodge" the escort in waiting:

"It will never do for the President of a republic to have guards with drawn swords at his door, as if he fancied he were, or were trying to be, or were assuming to be, an emperor."

* * * * *

THE PLOT TO WAYLAY THE PRESIDENT (1860).

The dispute as to whether there was a foundation to the supposed plot to waylay and sequester President-elect Lincoln between Philadelphia and Washington is notable. From the later light and the letter from Wilkes Booth to his brother-in-law, Sleeper Clarke, the comedian, no doubt is left that to kidnap him was a plot dated very early when the foresighted slave-holders were certain that he was a greater enemy from consistency than the louder-voiced and openly violent Abolitionists. While Colonel Lamon doubted, and wished he had not been beguiled into aiding in the ignominious flight in disguise and secretly by train, Secretary Seward and General Scott gave it credence. The foreboding had touched Lincoln before he left his Illinois home. At Springfield his farewell speech is tinged with shade. At Philadelphia and Harrisburg he spoke of blood-spilling, and used the word "assassination" at the former. He took up the matter like a reasoner. Already the detective brothers, Pinkerton, had an inkling of the doings of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or some such secret society, designing regicide. So, as the Concordance is held as a proof from the variance of the witnesses to scenes, he argued that the story was founded. Otherwise he would not have heard of the criminal attempt from all sides. That was what made him yield his dignity to the safety of a person whom he felt was chosen for the crisis. The next morning he had concluded to pass through Baltimore at another than the arranged hour to foil the plot.

* * * * *

"I DON'T BELIEVE THERE IS ANY DANGER!"

One night the President had been very late with the secretary of war at the latter's department. But, just the same, he insisted on his getting home by the short cut—a foot-path, lined and embowered by trees, then leading from the war office to the White House. But Stanton stopped him.

"You ought not to go that way; it is dangerous for you in the daytime"—it did lend itself to an ambuscade, and persons who knew Wilkes Booth assert having seen him prowling around—"it is worse at night!"

"I do not believe there is any danger there, night or day!" responded the President, with Malcolm's confidence that he stood "in the great hand of God."

"Well, Mr. President," continued Stanton, a stubborn man himself, "you shall not be killed returning from my department by that dark way while I am in it!"

And he forced him to enter his carriage to return by the well-lighted avenue.

Lincoln had previously consented to carry a cane. (By Schuyler Colfax.)

* * * * *

WORRY TILL YOU GET RID OF THINGS.

On Colonel Halpine trying to make the chief see that even indoors there was danger, he debated about the two menaces—violence of "cranks" and of a political fanatic. He thought too well of the sense of the "people at Richmond," some of whom had been colleagues of his in his first stay in Washington as congressman.

"Do you think that they would like to have Hannibal Hamlin—his first vice-president—here any better than myself?"

The story is repeated with his second Vice substituted for the first, with the more justification, as "Andy" Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way: "As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances. The most crazy people being, I fear, some of my own too zealous adherents."

(He had the same idea as in an ancient Chinese proverb: "You may steal the captain out of his castle, but you cannot steal the castle.")

"I am but a single individual, and it would not help their cause, or make the least difference in the progress of the war." [Footnote: He might have said, as truly as his predecessor, John Tyler, reproached also for going about unguarded: "My body-guard is the people who elected me."]—(Cited by F. B. Carpenter.)

* * * * *

THE FEARLESSNESS OF THE GOD-FEARING.

Lincoln said that by the death of his son Willie he was touched; by the victory of Gettysburg made a believer. It is plain that, after this, a fortitude replaced the despondency stamping him. It may be due to this conviction of being one of the chosen, like Cromwell and Gordon, soldiers of Christ, that he met all adjurations for him to take care of his precious life with fanatical unconcern. He communicated to the Cabinet, at the close of the conflict, how he had appointed to confer alone and without guards to terrify the emissary, a noted Confederate. They were to discuss peace—and by that word, Lincoln was drawn to any one. He answered the cautions with the simple saying:

"I am but an individual, and my removal will not in any way advance the other folks in their endeavors."

In fact, it was so—the misdeed was a double-edged blade which cut both ways. It will never be known, probably, how near a massacre followed the explosion of indignation at that maniac's murder of the Emancipator. Fortunately for the unsullied robe of Columbia, a hundred advocates of leaving retribution to Heaven echoed Garfield's appeasing address.

Lincoln met the intermediator, but the ultimate negotiation fell through, like the others all. He came home from City Point with sadness, but from his seed has outcome the Universal Peace Tribunal of The Hague. Professor Martens based his original plea of the czar's on the Lincolnian guide for the soldiers in our war.

* * * * *

THE POISONING PLOT.

A servant at the White House testifies that he was approached by emissaries who offered him a sum almost preposterously large to put a powder in the milk for the Lincoln family's table. The agents knew that they were temperance followers, milk being as common as wine at previous tenants' table. This was laughed at before the shadow of Booth's patricide was cast ahead. But the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher publicly declares—and he was in the state secrets as deeply as any layman—that President-General Harrison, "Tippecanoe," was poisoned that Tyler might fulfil the plan to annex Texas as a slave State. "With even stronger convictions is it affirmed that President-General Taylor was poisoned, that a less stern successor might give a suppler instrument to manage. Who doubts now that it was attempted Breckenridge in his room?"

* * * * *

NOTHING LIKE GETTING USED TO THINGS!

The more evident it grew that the President, at whom the stupid jeers persisted through incurable density of his enemies, was the vital motor of the Union cause, than threats of violently removing him were continually sent him. So many such letters accumulated that he grimly packeted them together and labeled the mass: "Assassination Papers." It was a Damoclesian dagger of which he spoke lightly, because fear of death never awed him. When a man walks in the manifest path traced out for him by Heaven, he does not tremble. But friends, more concerned by the strain in watching over his safety, expressing surprise at his indifference, he tried to reassure them:

"Oh, there is nothing like getting used to things!"

* * * * *

MOST AFRAID OF A FRIENDLY SHOT.

General Wadsworth, in his anxiety about the President's safety in Washington, swarming with insurgent agents, set a cavalry guard over the President's carriage. He went and complained to General Halleck, in charge of the capital, saying only partly facetiously:

"Why, Mrs. Lincoln and I cannot hear ourselves talk for the clatter of their sabers and spurs; and some of them appear to be new hands and very awkward, so that I am more afraid of being shot by the accidental discharge of a carbine or revolver than of any attempt upon my life by a roving squad of 'Jeb' Stuart's cavalry."

(Since Stuart came twenty miles within the Union lines, he was the criterion of rebel raiders' possibilities.)

* * * * *

THE ONE WORD HE HAD LEARNED.

A tale-bearer came to the President with a plot against him and the government, which was a cock-and-bull without any adherence, and all superficial. Lincoln heard him out, but then sharply returned:

"There is one thing that I have learned, and that you have not. It is only one word: 'Thorough!'" Then bringing his huge hand down on the table-desk, to emphasize his meaning, he repeated: "Thorough!"

* * * * *

NOT TO DISAPPOINT THE PEOPLE.

The strictly religious went so far as to call the Lincoln assassination a judgment(!), as it happened in a playhouse on a Good Friday! It appears that the President had compunctions, and at the last moment was disinclined to go, though a party had been made up to oblige a young espoused couple; but General Grant, who was to be a feature of the commanded performance, was called away—no doubt escaping the knife the murderer had in reserve to his pistol. The President said that he must go, not to disappoint the people on this gala night, as the rejoicing was wide over the dissolution of the Confederacy.

* * * * *

NOTHING LIKE PRAYER—BUT PRAISE.

In 1862, the President suffered "an affliction harder to bear than the war!" His son Willie (William, next to one that died in infancy) was carried off by typhoid fever, under the presidential roof; and another, "Tad," (Thomas, who actually lived to be twenty and passed away in Illinois) was given up by the physicians. At this crisis Miss Dix, daughter of the general famous for his order: "If any one offers to pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," recommended an army nurse, Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomeroy. She was a born succorer, pious and fortifying. She came reluctantly to the important errand, as she had to leave a wardful of wounded soldiers. She had lost many of her family, and was able to comfort from gaging the affectionate father's grief. She led him to pray in his double racking of bad war news and the domestic distress.

On next seeing him and that he was less grieved, for news of the Fort Donaldson surrender to General Grant arrived in the meantime, she hastened to say:

"There is nothing like prayer, Mr. President!"

"Yes, there is: Praise! Prayer and praise must go together!"

THE END.