mac, was to be shot next Monday for desertion, and putting a letter in my hand, upon which I relied for particulars, she left without mentioning a name or other particular by which to identify the case. On opening the letter I found it equally vague, having nothing to identify it, except her own signature, which seems to be Mrs. A S. K. I could not again find her. If you have a case which you think is probably the one intended, please apply my despatch of this morning to it. A. LINCOLN.

In another case, where the whereabouts of a man who had been condemned were unknown, Lincoln telegraphed himself to four different military commanders, ordering suspension of the man's sentence.

The execution of very young soldiers was always hateful to him. "I am unwilling for any boy under eighteen to be shot," he telegraphed Meade in reference to one prisoner. And in suspending another sentence he gave as an excuse, "His mother says he is but seventeen." This boy he afterward pardoned " on account of his tender age.'

If a reason for pardoning was not evident, he was willing to see if one could not be found:

S————— W—————, private in

writes that he is to

be shot for desertion on the 6th instant. His own story is rather a bad one, and yet he tells it so frankly, that I am somewhat interested in him. Has he been a good soldier except the desertion? About how old is he?

A. LINCOLN.

Some of the deserters came very close to his own life. The son of more than one old friend was condemned for a military offense in the war, and in the telegrams is recorded Lincoln's treatment of these trying cases. In one of them the boy had enlisted in the Southern Army and had been taken a prisoner. "Please send him to me by an officer," the President telegraphed the military commander having him in charge. Four days later he telegraphed to the boy's father:

Your son has just left me with my order to the Secretary of War to administer to him the oath of allegiance, discharge him and send him to you.

In another case, where the son of a friend was under trial for desertion, Lincoln kept himself informed of the trial, telegraphing to the general in charge, "He is the son of so close a friend that I must not let him be executed."

And yet, in spite of the evident reluctance which every telegram shows to allowing the execution of a death sentence, there are many which prove that, unless he had what he considered a good reason for suspending a sentence, he would not do it. The following telegrams are illustrative:

E. P. EVANS,

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

WASHINGTON, D. C., November 23, 1863.

WEST UNION, ADAMS COUNTY, OHIO.

Yours to Governor Chase in behalf of J— A. W▬▬▬▬▬ is before me. Can there be a worse case than to desert, and with letters persuading others to desert? I cannot interpose without a better showing than you make. When did he desert? When did he write the letters? A. LINCOLN.

In this case sentence was later suspended "until further orders."

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., April 21, 1864.

MAJOR-GENERAL DIX,

NEW YORK.

Yesterday I was induced to telegraph the officer in military command at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, suspending the execution of CC, to be executed to-morrow for desertion. Just now, on reading your order in the case, I telegraphed the same order withdrawing

the suspension, and leaving the case entirely with you. man's friends are pressing me, but I refer them to you, intending to take no further action myself.

A. LINCOLN.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

WASHINGTON, CITY, April 25, 1864.

MAJOR-GENERal Meade,

ARMY OF POTOMAC.

A Mr. Corby brought you a note from me at the foot of a petition, I believe, in the case of D, to be executed to-day. The record has been examined here, and it shows too strong a case for a pardon or commutation, unless there is something in the poor man's favor outside of the record, which you on the ground may know, but I do not. My note to you only means that if you know of any such thing rendering a suspension of the execution proper, on your own judgment, you are at liberty to suspend it. Otherwise I do not interfere. A. LINCOLN.

It is curious to note how the President found time to attend to these cases even on the most anxious days of his administration. On the very day on which he telegraphed to James G. Blaine in response to the latter's announcement that Maine had gone for the Union, "On behalf of the Union, thanks to Maine. Thanks to you personally for sending the news," he sent two telegrams suspending sentences. Such telegrams were sent on days of great battles, in the midst of victory, in the despair of defeat. Whatever he was doing, the fate of the sentenced soldier was on his heart. On Friday, which was usually chosen as execution day, he often was heard to say, "They are shooting a boy at to-day. I hope I have not done wrong to allow it." In spite of his frequent interference, there were 267 men executed by the United States military authorities during the Civil War. Of these, 141 were executed for desertion, and

eight for desertion coupled with some other crime, such as murder. After those for desertion, the largest number of executions were for murder, sixty-seven in all. As to the manner of the executions, one hundred and eighty-seven were shot, seventy-nine hung, and in one case the offender was sent out of the world by some unknown way.

Incidents and documents like those already given, showing the care and the sympathy President Lincoln felt for the common soldier, might be multiplied indefinitely. Nothing that concerned the life of the men in the line was foreign to him. The man might have shown cowardice. The President only said, "I never felt sure but I might drop my gun and run away if I found myself in line of battle." The man might be poor and friendless. "If he has no friends, I'll be his friend," Lincoln said. The man might have deserted. "Suspend execution, send me his record," was the President's order. He was not only the Commander-in-chief of all the armies of the United States, he was the father of the army, and never did a man better deserve a title than did he the one the soldiers gave him— "Father Abraham."

CHAPTER XXVIII

LINCOLN'S RE-ELECTION IN 1864

IT WAS not until the fall of 1863 that Abraham Lincoln was able to point to any substantial results from the long months of hard thought and cautious experiment he had given to the Civil War. By that time he did have something to show. The borders of the Confederacy had been pressed back and shut in by an impregnable wall of ships and men. Not only were the borders of the Confederacy narrowed; the territory had been cut in two by the opening of the Mississippi, which, in Lincoln's expressive phrase, now ran “unvexed to the sea." He had a war machine at last which kept the ranks of the army full. He had found a commander-inchief in Grant; and, not less important, he had found, simultaneously with Grant, also Sherman, McPherson, and Thomas, as well as the proper places for the men with whom he had tried such costly experiments-for Burnside and Hooker. He had his first effective results, too, from emancipation, that policy which he had inaugurated with such foreboding. Fully 100,000 former slaves were now in the United States service, and they had proved beyond question their value as soldiers. More than this, it was evident that some form of emancipation would soon be adopted by the former slave States of Tennessee, Arkansas, Maryland, and Missouri.

At every point, in short, the policy which Lincoln had set in motion with painful foresight and labor was working as he had believed it would work, but it was working slowly. He saw that many months of struggle and blood and pa