dismissal of one or two subordinate officers who indulged in mutinous talk furnished an ample corrective. In fact, it now began to dawn upon the minds even of politicians that an army is a great machine, and that Mr. Lincoln had done nothing at all to loosen his strong grasp of the controlling mechanism of the Army of the Potomac.

That of General McClellan had been loosened materially, and a few weeks later it was severed altogether and forever. Not even the soldiers themselves were then aware, at first, how much more close and personal thenceforward would be their relations to the one man whom nobody could remove or transfer, and under whom they served continuously, no matter what subordinate officer of his selection might for the time intervene.

LINCOLN'S WORK-ROOM, IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE HARDEST BLOW.

Home-Life in the White House-Death of Little Willie-Proclamation of Thanksgiving and Prayer-Circular Letter to the Army on Sabbath Keeping-Spiritual Growth.

THE year 1862 was a period of rapid growth for Abraham Lincoln. It was a cup filled to overflowing with trials of every kind and nature.

He was calling upon all the families in the land to send their sons to die upon the many battle-fields of the war, and the responsibility of that sacred but awful duty weighed heavily upon him. He was in the kind of furnace whose fires either harden a man or burn away the dross from the better metal of his composition. It is well to study the process, somewhat, in order to obtain a clearer perception of the result.

There could be but little of home life at the White House. It was the business centre of a vast and growing web of civil and military offices and operations. Nevertheless, it was all the home the President could have. His wife presided over the few apartments reserved for family uses and hospitalities. There were social features attached to the duties of the Executive, but these, for the greater part, assumed a public and official character.

Nearly to the end of the first year of Mr. Lincoln's term, there had been one brightness in and about the rooms and offices which at times gave them almost a home-like look, for his two younger boys came and went, through all of them, at their own childish will. The elder of these children, Willie, was a peculiarly promising boy, and Thomas, or "Tad,"

the younger, was full of merry mischief, the ludicrous effect of which was in no wise lessened by the impediment in his speech whenever he was called to an account. That was not very often, indeed, nor a very serious matter for him or his brother. Tad could explore the garret, discovering the place where all the bell-wires in the house were attached to a central pinion, and could set all bells, and all human answerers of bells, in futile motion. Willie could slit into ribbons the cloth covering of the private secretary's table. Both or either could come and stand by their father's knee, at times, when grave statesmen and pompous generals were presenting to him matters of national or world-wide importance. Such rebukes as might occasionally be administered to them savored very little of "army discipline." They were of more value to their father and to his work than anybody knew, even then. But they were to render a greater and a higher service.

In February, 1862, while Mr. Lincoln was straining every nerve to obtain from General McClellan the forward movement of the army which a discontented people so loudly demanded, the boys were taken sick and little Willie died.

The White House was a gloomy place during the illness of the children, but it was none the less a busy one. All work went on as usual. If the President left his office to visit the sick-room, it was only to return again and meet as before the hourly tribulations of his unrelaxing service of his country. Even the presence of death in the house could not privilege him to remit for one moment his supervision of all the multitudinous life and death intrusted to his care by the people he was ruling.

It is impossible for any man or woman who has never passed through some such trial to grasp and comprehend the inner experiences which surely came to Mr. Lincoln at that time. A multitude of those who have endured corresponding ordeals will need no other key to the understanding of some of his subsequent utterances.