are younger than I. You will survive me. You will survive me. When I am gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like this.'"

A few days after this, as he was sailing down the James bound for Washington, Charles Sumner, who was in the party, was much impressed by the tone and manner in which Mr. Lincoln read aloud two or three times a passage from Macbeth:

"Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further!"

There was a marked change in his appearance. All through 1863 and 1864 his thin face had day by day grown more haggard, its lines had deepened, its pallor had become a more ghastly gray. His eye, always sad when he was in thought, had a look of unutterable grief. Through all these months Lincoln was, in fact, consumed by sorrow. "I think I shall never be glad again," he said once to a friend. But as one by one the weights lifted, a change came over him; his form straightened, his face cleared, the lines became less accentuated. "His whole appearance, poise, and bearing had marvellously changed," says the Hon. James Harlan. "He was in fact, transfigured. That indescribable sadness which had previously seemed to be an adamantine element of his very being, had been suddenly changed for an equally indescribable expression of serene joy, as if conscious that the great purpose of his life had been achieved."

Never since he had become convinced that the end of the war was near had Mr. Lincoln seemed to his friends more glad, more serene, than on the 14th of April. The morning was soft and sunny in Washington, and as the spring was early in 1865, the Judas-trees and the dogwood were blossoming on the hillsides, the willows were green along the Potomac, and in the parks and gardens the lilacs bloomed

BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION

Drawn from a photograph made by Alexander Gardner, photographer to the Army of the Potomac, while the President was sharpening a pencil for his son Tad. Copyright, 1894, by Watson Porter.

a day of promise and joy to which the whole town responded. Indeed, ever since the news of the fall of Richmond reached Washington the town had been indulging in an almost unbroken celebration, each new victory arousing a fresh outburst and rekindling enthusiasm. On the night of the 13th, there had been a splendid illumination, and on the 14th, the rejoicing went on. The suspension of the draft and the presence of Grant in town-come this time not to plan new campaigns, but to talk of peace and reconstruction-seemed to furnish special reason for celebrating.

At the White House the family party which met at breakfast was unusually happy. Captain Robert Lincoln, the President's oldest son, then an aide-de-camp on Grant's staff, had arrived that morning, and the closing scenes of Grant's campaign were discussed with the deepest interest by father and son. Soon after breakfast the President received Schuyler Colfax, who was about to leave for the West, and later in the morning the cabinet met, Friday being its regular day. General Grant was invited to remain to its session. There was the greatest interest at the moment in General Sherman's movements, and Grant was plied with questions by the cabinet. The President was least anxious of all. The news would soon come, he said, and it would be favorable. He had no doubt of this, for the night before he had had a dream which had preceded nearly every important event of the war.

"He said it was in my department, it related to the water," Secretary Welles afterward wrote; "that he seemed to be in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always the same, and that he was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore; that he had had this singular dream preceding the firing on Sumter, the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone River, Vicksburg, Wil mington, etc. . . . Victory did not always follow his dream,

but the event and results were important. He had no doubt that a battle had taken place, or was about being fought, ' and Johnston will be beaten, for I had this strange dream again last night. It must relate to Sherman; my thoughts are in that direction, and I know of no other very important event which is likely just now to occur.'”

The greater part of the meeting was taken up with a discussion of the policy of reconstruction. How were they to treat the States and the men who had tried to leave the Union, but who now were forced back into their old relations? How could practical civil government be reëstablished; how could trade be restored between North and South; what should be done with those who had led the States to revolt? The President urged his cabinet to consider carefully all these questions, and he warned them emphatically, Mr. Welles says, that he did not sympathize with and would not participate in any feelings of hate and vindictiveness." He hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, let down the bars, scare them off, said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and union. There was too much desire on the part of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as fellow-citizens; there was too little respect for their rights. He didn't sympathize in these feelings."

The impression he made on all the cabinet that day was expressed twenty-four hours later by Secretary Stanton: "He was more cheerful and happy than I had ever seen him, rejoiced at the near prospect of firm and durable peace at home and abroad, manifested in marked degree the kindness and