-What he Read-From Indiana to Illinois-Rail- splitting-Flat-boating-Nearly Killed by a Negro A Huge Skeleton in Clothes--President Lincoln a Scep- tic-"Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud?" "The Great Divide "Military Action and Slavery- Hesitating to Issue the Proclamation-The Famous Greeley Letter-The Greeley Faction-A. Prudent Waiting upon Providence-Threatening Divisions- A Strict Military Necessity-The Bitter Mr. Chase -Dark and Doubtful Days-We have the New Reckonings-The Legal Aspect of Emancipation— U. S. Grant-E. B. Washburne-George W. Julian- R. E. Fenton-J. P. Usher-George S. Boutwell- Benjamin F. Butler-Charles Carlton Coffin-Fred- erick Douglass-Lawrence Weldon-Ben. Perley Poore-Titian J. Coffey-Henry Ward Beecher- William D. Kelley-Cassius M. Clay-Robert G. Ingersoll-A. H. Markland-Schuyler Colfax- Daniel W. Voorhees-Charles A. Dana-John A. Kasson-James B. Fry-Hugh McCulloch-Chaun- cey M. Depew-David R. Locke-Leonard Swett -Walt Whitman-Donn Piatt-E. W. Andrews- .... 6 Benjamin F. Butler... 7 Abraham Lincoln's Residence at Springfield, Ill............. 8 Frederick Douglass.. 9 Ben. Perley Poore.. 20 Early Home of Lincoln, in Illinois.. 459 21 Walt Whitman... 469 22 Characteristic Likeness of Abraham Lincoln... 471 23 Fac-simile of Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley .. 523 24 Thomas Hicks. 593 25 A. Lincoln, from the Original Painting by Thomas Hicks. 602 26 Fac-simile of Letter from O. H. Browning to Thomas Hicks 606 27 Account of his Birth-place, in Handwriting of Lincoln... 607 INTRODUCTION. T was mainly with the view of accumulating a mass IT of trustworthy evidence concerning the personal traits and private utterances of Abraham Lincoln that I conceived the plan and approached the task of uniting in one or more volumes the opinions of the most distinguished characters, still surviving, of the great war which produced them. The result has been gratifying beyond expectation, furnishing—I think it is not too much to say—a remarkable book about a remarkable man. Most men who visited Washington during the civil war met Abraham Lincoln. Amid the clash of armed strife and the din of party struggle, he never denied to the humblest citizen a willing ear and a cheering word. Although not "all things to all men," in the common acceptation of the phrase, there was rarely an hour too crowded for him to utter a memorable word or to tell an apt story to the passing visitor. By degrees and by accretion, these utterances and stories, or rather these parables, have grown in number with the growth of a great reputa |