returning slaves to their masters, when the poor creatures sought shelter in our lines.

President Lincoln's patriotism and wisdom rose above impulse, or his positive temperament and intellect kept him free of mere sentiment. Looking back now at this grand man, and the grave situation at the time, I am ashamed of my act of insubordination, and although it freed Maryland it now lowers me in my own estimation. Had the President carried his threat of punishment into execution, it would have been just.

The popular mind is slow of study, and I fear it will be long ere it learns that, while an eminent man wins our admiration through his great qualities, he can hold our love only from his human weaknesses that make him one of ourselves. We are told that, with the multitude, nothing is so successful as success, yet there is often more heroism in failure than in triumph. The one is frequently the result of accident, while the other holds in itself all that endears the martyr to the human heart. The unfortunate Hector is, after all, the hero of the Iliad, and not the invulnerable Achilles, and by our popular process of eliminating all human weakness from our great men we weaken, and in a measure destroy, their immortality, for we destroy them. As we accept the sad, rugged, homely face, and love it for what it is, we should accept it as it was, the grandest figure loom

ing up in our history as a nation. Washington taught the world to know us, Lincoln taught us to know ourselves. The first won for us our independence, the last wrought out our manhood and self. respect.

DONN PIATT.

ONE

XXIX.

E. W. ANDREWS.

NE morning, early in the spring of 1863, a middle-aged lady appeared at the garrison gate of Fort McHenry, and applied for permission to visit head-quarters.

This was some time after the battle fought at Nashville, Tennessee, where our troops were victorious under the command of General Franklin.

The lady's request was sent up to head-quarters by the officer of the guard. At that time, I was chief of staff to General W. W. Morris, of the regular army, then commanding the defenses of Baltimore. Representing my chief, who was absent, I granted the lady's request.

Her appearance, as she entered head-quarters, inspired every one with the deepest interest, for, with the calm self-possession and distinguished bearing of an accomplished lady, there was an expression of profound sadness in her face which appealed touchingly to every heart.

She told me her story with modest dignity. She was a widow, she said, and resided near Nashville,

Tennessee, but, although a native of that State, she had no sympathy with the rebellion. She had an only son. At the outbreak of the war he was a student in a Southern college. Without her knowl edge or consent he enlisted in a rebel regiment, and was severely wounded at the battle of Nashville, taken prisoner, and carried North.

The day after the battle, to her great astonishment and grief, she first heard of these facts. She at once applied to the commanding general for leave to go through the lines and follow her son. Leave

was granted. She first found her son at Louisville, then followed him to Wheeling, West Virginia, and thence to Fort McHenry, Baltimore. Here he was placed in the garrison hospital.

The mother desired the privilege of seeing her son in order to learn his present condition, and to furnish him any little comforts he might need which were not supplied under army regulations.

Only a short time before, an order had been received from the War Department prohibiting all intercourse between citizens and prisoners of war.

I expressed my regret that, under this order, I must deny her request, but assured her that she should be fully informed as to her son's condition, and have permission to send him anything for his comfort that the post surgeon should approve of.

The post surgeon was sent for, but said that he

had not personally examined the case of this special prisoner, but added that she might go with him to his office in the hospital, and he would make inquiries. She went, and learned that her son's wound had been aggravated by his journey from Wheeling, but that with rest and careful treatment he was certain to recover.

To remove all doubts from her mind as to the comforts furnished patients who were our prisoners of war, the surgeon said to her, as she arose

to go:

"Let me show you, madam, one or two of our prisoners' wards, so that you may see for yourself how our government provides for the sick and wounded of the enemy who are captured."

Gladly the mother accepted the invitation. Hardly had they entered, when the lady, descrying her boy through a half-open door in an adjoining room, rushed from the surgeon's side. Rapidly following her, he saw a scene," which, he said, "was too sacred to interrupt." The mother was on her knees by the cot of her pale and emaciated boy, exclaiming, as she clasped him to her bosom :

Oh! my blessed child! I must see you if I die for it!"

The kind-hearted surgeon turned away and left the mother and son undisturbed.

Soon the lady returned to the waiting officer, her