THE TRUE STORY OF A GREAT LIFE. SHOWING THE INNER GROWTH, SPECIAL TRAINING, AND PECULIAR BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD, ONE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S SECRETARIES DURING THE WAR OF THE With Ellustrations. "The public life of Hampden resembles a regular drama which can be criticised as a whole, and every scene of which is to be viewed in connection PUBLISHED BY FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 27 PARK PLACE, New York. 79 MILK ST., BOSTON. 1884. 1020 ARCH ST., Philadelphia. COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY CHAS. M. GREEN PRINTING COMPANY, PREFACE. A STRICTLY personal life of ABRAHAM LINCOLN has long been regarded by many as a literary necessity. It is a record of There can be no question but that the popular idea of Mr. LINCOLN's character is vague, fragmentary, and incomplete. His origin, growth, and development, his education and his services, rightly presented and understood, offer one of the noblest lessons to be found in the world's history. To present such a biography is the single aim of this book. political and military events only as these in some manner became a part of, or set forth, or illustrated the character and services of the great President. The writer knew Mr. LINCOLN well, and had many opportunities of preparation for such a work as this. These were obtained during a residence of several years, before the war, in Mr. LINCOLN's own district in Illinois, and as one of his assistant private secretaries at Washington, from the beginning of his administration, in 1861, to about the end of September, 1864. Every effort possible has been made to put away partisan feeling and the blindnesses of personal affection, and to produce and present a faithful portrait of the man as he was. The mass of material offering required the exclusion of much that was interesting but not necessary, and the most rigid condensation, in order to keep the book within reasonable limits as to size. Much will be found that is not contained in any other biography of Mr. LINCOLN, but nothing which is not believed to be entirely trustworthy. In the records of his earlier life, the work of Messrs. WARD H. LAMON and WILLIAM H. HERNDON has been trusted wherever the testimonies of other writers have seemed to clash with it. No apology is made for not inserting at any point brief biographies of other distinguished men and collateral accounts of important matters of history, even though they may have a distinct relation to Mr. LINCOLN's labors and the great events of his day. It is proper, however, to express the author's gratification at knowing that a work is now preparing, by his former office-associates, Messrs. JOHN G. NICOLAY and JOHN HAY, which is to be an exhaustive historical record of "the life and times" of Mr. LINCOLN. He does not even enter the field they have preëmpted, but is glad that so good a work is in such capable and devoted hands as theirs. The time is fully ripe for the study of Mr. LINCOLN's individuality. This book is simply intended to set that forth in such a form that it can be studied, and in the hope that a new generation of Americans may learn to love and honor and imitate a man who seems to have been in himself an embodiment and personification of all that is best in American national life. W. O. S. |