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Dixon, I was forced by the press into a corner and on looking around, found my next neighbor was Secretary Stanton. By-and-by Dixon came along and spying us said: 'Stanton, tell him the scene between old Abe

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The Battle of Gettysburg, from the Painting by Wenderoth.

and you the night of the battle of Gettysburg.' ton then related the following:

Stan

"Mr. Lincoln had been excessively solicitous about the result of that battle. It was known that Lee had crossed into Pennsylvania, threatening Washington, and that a battle had commenced near Gettysburg, upon which, in all probability, the fate of Washington and the issue of the war depended. The telegraphic wires ran into the War Department and dispatches had been received of the

first day's fight, which showed how desperate was the attack, the stubbornness of the defense, and that the result was indecisive. All that day and the next Mr. Lincoln was in an agony of anxiety, running over, as was his wont, to the War Office to ascertain for himself the latest news instead of waiting for the reports to be sent him by his subordinates. Then came a long interval when nothing was heard from Meade, and the President was wrought up to an intense pitch of excitement.

"Night came on, and Stanton, seeing the President worn out with care and anxiety, persuaded him to return to the White House, promising if anything came over. the wires during the night to give him immediate information. At last, toward midnight, came the electric flash of that great victory which saved the Union.

"Stanton seized the dispatch and ran as fast as he could to the Executive Mansion, up the stairs, and knocked at the room where the President was catching a fitful slumber.

"Who is there?' he heard in the voice of Mr. Lincoln.

"Stanton.'

"The door was opened, and Mr. Lincoln appeared with a light in his hand, peering through the crack of the door. Before Stanton, who was out of breath, could say a word the President, who had caught with unerring instinct the expression of his face, gave a shout of exultation, grabbed him with both arms around the waist, and danced him around the chamber until they were both exhausted.

"They then sat down upon a trunk, and the President, who was still in his nightdress, read over and over again the telegram, and then discussed with him the probabilities of the future and the results of the victory, until the day dawned.

"Such a scene at midnight between two of the greatest Americans whom this generation had produced, to whom all wise Providence had committed in largest measure the fate of Republican liberty in this Western world, may not afford a subject for the loftiest conceptions of the poet or the painter, but more than any other incident within my knowledge it shows the human nature of these two great men, and brings them home to the hearts and the hearthstones of the plain people of whom Mr. Lincoln was, on whom he depended, and whom he loved.

"It shows him brooding all through those three awful days, with an anxiety akin to agony which no one could share—worn and weary with the long and doubtful conflict between hope and fear-treading the wine-press for his people alone. And at last when the lightning flash had lifted the dark cloud, dancing like a schoolboy in the ecstasy of delight and exhibiting a touch of that human nature which makes all the world akin.

"As I look back over the intervening years to the great men and great events of those historic days, his figure rises before my memory the grandest and most majestic of them all. There were giants in those days, but he towered above them like Popocatepetl or Chimborazo. He was great in character, in intellect, in wisdom, in tact, in council, in speech, in heart, in person-in every

thing."-Hon. A. H. Brandege, in N. Y. Tribune.

LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.

In discussion Lincoln often combined wit and humor in such a way that it made his opponent ridiculous. Mr. Douglas was often the victim of these little sallies during the great debates before the people of Illinois in the year 1858.

In relation to the abolition of slavery, Douglas constantly argued or assumed that if freedom were given to the slave, it would be followed with intermarriage between the blacks and whites. He also charged that the Republican party was anxious to repeal the laws of Illinois which prohibited such marriages. At last Lincoln retorted about as follows:

"I solemnly protest against that counterfeit logic, which presumes that because I do not want a black woman for a slave, that I do necessarily want her for a wife—I have no fears of marrying a negro—it requires no law to prevent me from doing it, but if Judge Douglas needs a law of that sort I will do my utmost to retain the enactment which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes."

PARDONS.

Many a distressed father or mother found help in appealing to Lincoln. He was the terror of his generals, who feared that by excessive use of the pardoning power he would destroy the discipline of the army,and Secretary Seward was more than indignant on many occasions when he felt that the President trespassed to an unwarrantable extent upon his own domain.

Attorney General Bates, who was a Virginian, once approached Lincoln with a special plea in behalf of a young Virginian, who had run away from a Union father, and enlisted in the rebel ranks. He had been captured, and was then held as a prisoner of war, and was in very poor health.

The President pondered on the matter for a moment, and then replied: "Bates, I have almost a parallel case in which the son of an old friend of mine ran away from his home in Illinois and entered the rebel army.

"The young fool has been captured, and his poor old father has appealed to me

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Jefferson Davis, President of the
Southern Confederacy.
Born 1808. Died 1889.

course, to keep him

to send him home, promising of there. I have not seen my way clear to do it, but if you and I unite our influence with this administration, I believe we can manage to make two loyal fathers happy." And he did.

Schuyler Colfax once told a pathetic story of going to Lincoln for a pardon for the son of a former constituent.

He said Lincoln listened to the story with his usual patience, although he was even then tired out with incessant calls and demands upon his time, and then said: "Some of my generals complain that I impair discipline by my frequent pardons and reprieves, but after

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