A quartermaster from Massachusetts had been caught by Stanton's agents gambling with public funds and was sentenced to the penitentiary for five years. Soon afterward Dawes received a long petition indorsed by the prison physicians and other medical authority, stating that the culprit's health was broken and that he must be pardoned soon or die imprisoned. Lincoln on receiving the petition asked Dawes if he believed the statements therein contained. He did, and so stated on the back of the paper, and Lincoln ordered the man to be pardoned. Stanton refused to execute the order and informed Lincoln that the petition was a sham and the prisoner one of the worst rascals in the country. In due time, however, Dawes succeeded in inducing Lincoln to send the pardon over Stanton's head in order to prevent a man from dying in prison. A few days later Dawes returned to Massachusetts and, he says, almost the first man he met, hale and robust and cheery was the thieving quartermaster who had been pardoned over Stanton's protest because he was "dying"!

The son of a man who had befriended Lincoln in the days of his poverty, desired a certain army appointment. Congressmen Julian of Indiana and Lovejoy of Illinois went to Lincoln, who indorsed the application and sent them with it to Stanton.

"No," said the Secretary.

"Let us give his qualifications," suggested the Congressmen. "I do not wish to hear them," was the reply. "The position. is of high importance. I have in mind a man of suitable experiencc and capacity to fill it."

"But the President wishes this man to be appointed," persisted the callers.

"I do not care what the President wants; the country wants the very best it can get. I am serving the country," was the retort, "regardless of individuals."

The disconcerted Congressmen returned to Lincoln and recited their experience. The President, without the slightest perturbation, said:

Gentlemen, it is my duty to submit. I cannot add to Mr. Stanton's troubles. His position is one of the most difficult in the world. Thousands in the army blame him because they are not promoted and other thousands out of the army blame him because they are not appointed. The pressure upon him is immeasurable and unending. He is the rock on the beach of our national ocean against which the breakers dash and roar, dash and

roar without ceasing. He fights back the angry waters and prevents them from undermining and overwhelming the land. Gentlemen, I do not see how he survives, why he is not crushed and torn to pieces. Without him I should be destroyed. He performs his task superhumanly. Now do not mind this matter, for Mr. Stanton is right and I cannot wrongly interfere with him.

Colonel William P. Wood, superintendent of the Old Capitol and Carroll prisons in Washington during the Rebellion, was sent. by Stanton to learn accurately about English officers who were alleged to be in active command in the Confederate armies. Dressed as a North Carolina insurgent, through the aid of Mrs. Greenhow of Richmond, he became acquainted with two such officers and played cards with them several nights, learning their commands, viewing their papers, and unearthing their purposes. Much elated, he returned with these facts to Stanton, who exclaimed vehemently:

"Where are the men? Why didn't you bring the men? Why didn't you bring them?"

"That was Stanton," says Colonel Wood. "I nearly lost my neck in carrying out his perilous instructions, and succeeded in securing the information wanted, but that was nothing; he was determined to have those British officers who were fighting the United States taken inflagrante delictu and brought bodily to his office with British papers in the pockets of their Confederate uniforms and was in high dudgeon because I had not done it. That was impossible, but Mr. Stanton hardly regarded anything as impossible. He acted on that theory not less with himself than with his trusted agents, who filled the bill as best they could at any hazard. No man serv ing with him dared to fail."

John C. Hesse, chief clerk of the Bureau of Records and Pensions, says that one reason why many important orders and documents of the Rebellion period are missing from the files of the War Department is that Stanton often penned them in haste on stray scraps of paper and handed them personally to the officers who were to obey or execute them. Another reason is that during the war, owing to the great pressure of business and a shortage of clerks, large numbers of original papers were sent to the public printer as "copy" and that individual, having cut them into "takes," burned or sold them as waste after they had been put in type.

CHAPTER LXIV.

RELIGION AS A WAR FORCE.

Stanton habitually invoked divine favor in behalf of his generals and their armies and thanked God for their many victories. His bulletin of April 9, 1862, which closed with decisive thanks and praise to Generals Halleck, Grant, Pope, Curtis, and Sigel for their gallant conduct at the bloody battles of Pea Ridge, Pittsburg Landing, and Island No. 10, Ordered:

That at meridian of the Sunday next after the receipt of this order, at the head of every regiment of the armies of the United States, there shall be offered by its chaplain a prayer giving thanks to the Lord of Hosts for the recent manifestations of His power in the overthrow of rebels and traitors, and invoking a continuance of His aid in delivering this nation by its army of patriotic soldiers from the horrors of rebellion, treason, and civil war.

At night of the first day's battle of Gettysburg, Mrs. John Harris, secretary to the Philadelphia Woman's Relief Corps, came to ask for a permit to carry supplies for use on the battle-field. "He told her not to go," says Major A. E. H. Johnson, "because within twenty-four or even twelve hours Lee might be marching against the city. So great was his feeling that he wept as he suggested that she return at midnight, when he might have more reassuring news. Before her departure he prayed, for he possessed an almost superstitious sense of human dependence upon an incessant and direct intervention of divine power."

He never ceased to implore the aid of the great religious bodies of the country in behalf of the Union and kept closely in touch with their leaders and divines. He gave Dr. Heman Dyer of New York views of the McClellan imbroglio which were communicated to no one else, and consulted frequently with Henry Ward Beecher, Henry W. Bellows, Archbishop John Hughes, and Theodore Tilton. of New York; Bishop Matthew Simpson of Philadelphia; Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati; Bishop E. R. Ames of Baltimore;

Bishop M. J. Spalding of Louisville and Baltimore; Dr. C. W. Hall, the Reverend T. A. Starkey, and the Reverend Byron Sunderland of Washington, and many others, and also kept them privately informed concerning the war. When he was aware of favorable military news, he found a way to communicate it to certain ministers of the gosepl who gave it to their congregations from the pulpit and thus cheered, strengthened, and sustained the community.

His first civil appointment was that of Bishop E. R. Ames of Baltimore to look after captives held in Southern prisons. He appointed Dr. Heman Dyer's son, who was terribly wounded in battle, to be paymaster; he gave to Bishop Simpson's son a good army position in Pennsylvania; he assiduously looked after the welfare of other divines and repeatedly offered honorable appointments to them. A letter by Bishop Simpson to his family, written at Washington, January 20, 1863, bears interestingly on this point:

I preached Sunday at Foundry church. Crowded house. Secretary Stanton and his wife were in front, on chairs; President Lincoln in the altar. The President made by contribution a life member; collection $770. Secretary Stanton sent for me; was about telegraphing to Evanston. Wished me to be chairman of a commission to visit Fortress Monroe, Port Royal, and New Orleans to examine the condition of the colored people and make suggestions. He wanted three public men apart from politics. He offered transportation, assistance, a clerk, and fair compensation. I have, however, declined every such proposition.

During the fearful draft riots in New York City in July, 1863, Stanton (by special messenger) invited Archbishop John Hughes, the most original, influential, and powerful Catholic in America, to visit him in Washington. On returning to New York his eminence, who had been Stanton's friend and an aggressive supporter of the Union from the first, called a meeting at his residence to devise means of suppressing the emeute, and appealed to the clergy and laity throughout the country (for there were riots almost everywhere) to support the Government and discountenance resistance. He made his last public address at this time, and by his personal activity, aided more, perhaps, than any other individual to permanently neutralize the prevailing distemper.

In November, 1863, Stanton issued an order placing all the Methodist church edifices in the South which were without loyal pastors, under control of Bishop Ames, provided their pulpits should be filled by persons who could be relied upon to support the Gov

ernment. The trust was accepted; money was set aside by the church to carry it out and the Union cause was thereby greatly strengthened by an independent force which required no pay or attention from the War Department.

In January, 1865, Stanton made a trip on the Spalding to Savannah to consult with General W. T. Sherman concerning the negro and cotton problems. At the usual church hour on Sunday, in mid-ocean, he called those on board about him and held Episcopal services, reading from the Bible and pronouncing a sermon explanatory of certain passages bearing upon the war. "His remarks were very clear and able," says General E. D. Townsend, who was present, "and at the conclusion he prayed fervently for the success of the Union arms and the restoration of peace and brotherly feeling between the sections."

That Stanton entertained no crude or insincere conception of the value of the aid contributed by the leaders of the churches is shown by the following letter:

General:

Washington City, November 24, 1866.

It gives me pleasure to introduce to you the Reverend Matthew Simpson, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who visits New Orleans and perhaps will go to Texas to hold a conference. He is accompanied by his son who is in ill health.

Bishop Simpson is no doubt known to you as one of the most eloquent, learned, and patriotic men of our country and age. No one during the war did so much to encourage and strengthen loyal and patriotic sentiments and to sustain the army by appeals to the benevolence of the people.

I commend him and his son to your kindest attention and courtesy, believing that you will take pleasure in contributing to their comfort by any means in your power. If the Bishop should go to Texas, I request you to give him such letters to officers in your command as may be of service and protection to him there.

With sincere regard, I am,

Major-General Sheridan,

Commanding, New Orleans.

Truly yours,

Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.

While imprisoned in the War Department during the contest with President Johnson, Stanton sent for Bishop Simpson. He wanted to know whether the God-fearing portion of the people endorsed his course; and, if not, what they thought he ought to do. On being told that the loyal and Christian masses approved his attitude fully and hoped he would never surrender, he seemed much