in the Government who, from first to last, was big enough to use both his head and his heart. From the outset, he was the personal friend of every soldier he sent to the front, and somehow every man seemed to know it. No doubt, it was on Lincoln's visits to the camps around Washington, in the early days of the war, that the body of the soldiers got this idea. They never forgot his friendly hand-clasp, his hearty "God bless you," his remonstrance against the youth of some fifteen-year-old boy masquerading as twenty, his jocular remarks about the height of some soldier towering above his own six feet four. When, later, he visited the Army of the Potomac on the Rappahannock and at Antietam, these impressions of his interest in the personal welfare of the soldiers were renewed. He walked down the long lines of tents or huts, noting the attempts at decoration, the housekeeping conveniences, replying by smiles and nods and sometimes with words to the greetings, rough and hearty, which he received. He inquired into every phase of camp life, and the men knew it, and said to one another, "He cares for us; he makes us fight, but he cares." Reports of scores of cases where he interfered personally to secure some favor or right for a soldier found their way to the army and gave solid foundation to this impression that he was the soldier's friend. From the time of the arrival of the first troops in Washington, in April, 1861, the town was full of men, all of them wanting to see the President. At first they were gay and curious merely, their requests trivial; but later, when the army had settled down to steady fighting, and Bull Run and the Peninsula and Antietam and Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville had cut and scarred and aged it, the soldiers who haunted Washington were changed. They stumped about on crutches. They sat pale and thin in the parks, empty sleeves pinned to their breasts; they came to the White House begging for furloughs to see dying parents, for release to support a suffering family. No man will ever know how many of these soldiers Abraham Lincoln helped. Little cards are constantly turning up in different parts of the country, treasured by private soldiers, on which he had written some brief note to a proper authority, intended to help a man out of a difficulty. Here is one: Seu of War, please pat I place by young, and whatund you as with hind SEC. OF WAR, please see this Pittsburgh boy. He Aug. 21, 1863. The "Pittsburgh boy" had enlisted at seventeen. He had been ill with a long fever. He wanted a furlough, and with a curious trust that anything could be done if he could only get to the President, he had slipped into the White House, and by chance met Lincoln, who listened to his story and gave him this note. Many applications reached Lincoln as he passed to and from the White House and the War Department. One day as he crossed the park he was stopped by a negro who told him a pitiful story. The President wrote him out a check for five dollars. "Pay to colored man with one leg," it read. This check is now in the collection of H. H. Officee of Denver, Colorado. A pleasing scene between Lincoln and a soldier once fell under the eye of Mr. A. W. Swan of Albuquerque, New |