WHE

XIX.

DANIEL W. VOORHEES.

HEN I was a member of the House of Representatives, during the war, there lived in the county of Owen, in my Congressional District, a gentleman by the name of Bullitt, related to the wellknown family of that name in Kentucky. His wife was a refined, cultivated, and very attractive woman. They were in moderate circumstances, but, in my travels and labors in their vicinity, I often partook of their warm and genial hospitality. Their friendship for me was constant and devoted, and I was strongly attached to them.

One gloomy, dark afternoon in the winter of 1863-4, while seated at my desk in the House, I received Mr. Bullitt's card, saying he was at the east door and wished to see me immediately. It was almost a year since I had met him, and I at once felt, I know not why, an ominous dread that some calamity had overtaken him. The moment I approached him, this presentiment became a certainty. His wife was standing by his side, with a look of

terror and anguish, which, once seen, could never be forgotten. Her face was white, her lips apart, and her eyes filled with an expression of intense fright, and at the same time, intense supplication against some impending and appalling disaster. They had come direct from the depot to the Capitol, and were travel-stained and without rest. We sought the shelter of a committee room, and there I heard from Mr. Bullitt, aided now and then in eager but suppressed tones by his wife, the cause of their hurried trip to Washington and of their deadly alarm.

Mrs. Bullitt's father was the Rev. Henry M. Luckett, a Methodist minister, then over seventy years of age. He had preached during his long life in Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and elsewhere. At the time the rebellion broke out he was living at St. Charles, Missouri, and had saved up quite a competence for his old age. It happened that his means were so invested and situated that everything he had in the world was suddenly lost to him. The blow prostrated him. He was not physically strong, at best, and being of an excitable temperament, his nervous system became greatly impaired, and finally broke down. His mind and spirits partook of his general depression, and he took a very morbid view of his condition and of his future. He was exceedingly sensitive about being dependent on any one for support, and soon drifted into the gloomy belief

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that he would become a pauper and die a public charge. These ideas were combated by his family and friends, but they deepened their hold on him until he was really a monomaniac on that subject, although sound on all others. In this condition he visited a niece at Memphis, then in possession of the Federal forces under command of General Hurlbut. His excited and unguarded talk on the subject of his losses and his great anxiety to repair them, if possible, "soon attracted the attention of certain vigilant. detectives in the employ of the government. old man, shattered in health and unbalanced in mind, was not a difficult subject for their tact and skill. They found he was a Southern man by birth, and that he sympathized with the trials and sufferings of the Southern people. They assured him that the Southern people were at that time in the most urgent need of quinine and of percussion caps, and would pay fabulous prices for them; that there was no difficulty in trading through the lines; that they would put up the necessary amount of money, go into the enterprise with him, and make a large sum in the way of profits. This alluring scheme was successful in capturing its intended victim. The contraband articles were procured, a wagon with a false bottom was furnished to carry them to the enemy, and when all the details of the plot were ready, Mr. Luckett was arrested by his accomplices,

loaded with irons, and speedily tried and condemned by a military court.

At this stage of the narrative, which I have given in substance, we paused, and for a few moments looked at each other in silence.

"He is to be shot to-morrow," said Mr. Bullitt, while his wife shivered as with a chill. "We have come," he continued, his eyes filling with tears, "knowing you will help us if you can. We don't know what else to do, nor whether, in fact, you can do anything. Before leaving home we got some papers signed by those who know Father Luckett and know his condition."

With this he handed me several written statements, hurriedly gotten up, but which corroborated his own just made to me. It was then four o'clock, and in less than forty-eight hours this man was to die, and I felt that the volley of death poured into his breast would hardly be more fatal to him than to his devoted daughter. I thought rapidly, and yet for some minutes I could strike no plan in my own mind which promised success. There was no time for formal application to the War Department for mitigation of the sentence, and if there had been, I knew not where to make it: Stanton was Secretary of War.

I saw from the first that Mr. Lincoln himself was our only hope. I knew him well. During the first