Mr. Lincoln was one of the bravest men that ever lived, and one of the gentlest. The instances in his earlier career in which he put his life in peril to prevent injury to another are very numerous. I have often thought that his interposition in behalf of the friendless Indian who wandered into camp during the Black Hawk war and was about to be murdered by the troops, was an act of chivalry unsurpassed in the whole story of knighthood. So in the rough days of Gentryville and New Salem, he was always on the side of the weak and the undefended; always daring against the bully; always brave and tender; always invoking peace and good-will, except where they could be had only by dishonor. He could not endure to witness the needless suffering even of a brute. When riding once with a company of young ladies and gentlemen, dressed up in his best, he sprang from his horse and released a pig which was fast in a fence and squealing in pain, because, as he said in his homely way, the misery of the poor pig was more than he could bear.

Hon. I. N. Arnold tells of an incident in the early days of Mr. Lincoln's practice at the Springfield bar. He was coming home from a neighboring county seat, with a party of lawyers, riding two by two along a country lane. Lincoln and a comrade brought up the rear, and when the others stopped to water their horses his comrade came up alone. "Where is Lincoln?" was the inquiry. "Oh," replied the friend, "when I saw him last he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown out of their nest, and was hunting up the nest to put them back into it."

How instinctively Mr. Lincoln turned from the deliberate, though lawful and necessary, shedding of blood during the war is well known. His Secretaries of War, his Judge-Advocate General, and generals in the field, were often put to their wits' end to maintain the discipline of the army against this constant softness of the President's good heart.

Upward of twenty deserters were sentenced at one time to be shot. The warrants for their execution were sent to Mr. Lincoln for his approval; but he refused to sign them. The commanding general to whose corps the condemned men belonged was indignant. He hurried to Washington. Mr. Lincoln had listened to moving petitions for mercy from humane persons who, like himself, were shocked at the idea of the cold-blooded execution of more than a score of misguided men. His resolution was fixed, but his rule was to see every man who had business with him. The irate commander, therefore, was admitted into Mr. Lincoln's private office. With soldierly bluntness he told the President that mercy to the few was cruelty to the many; that Executive clemency in such a case would be a blow at military discipline; and that unless the condemned men were made examples of, the army itself would be in danger. "General," said Mr. Lincoln, "there are too many weeping widows in the United States now. For God's sake don't ask me to add to the number; for, I tell you plainly, I won't do it!" He believed that kind words were better for the poor fellows than cold lead; and the sequel showed that he was right.

Death warrants: execution of unfortunate soldiers,—how he dreaded and detested them, and longed to restore every unfortunate man under sentence to life and honor in his country's service! I had personally an almost unlimited experience with him in this class of cases, and could fill volumes with anecdotes exhibiting this trait in the most touching light, though the names of the persons concerned—disgraced soldiers, prisoners of war, civilian spies—would hardly be recognized by the readers of this generation.

But it was the havoc of the war, the sacrifice of patriotic lives, the flow of human blood, the mangling of precious limbs in the great Union host that shocked him most,—indeed, on some occasions shocked him almost beyond his capacity to control either his judgment or his feelings. This was especially the case when the noble victims were of his own acquaintance, or of the narrower circle of his familiar friends; and then he seemed for the moment possessed of a sense of personal responsibility for their individual fate, which was at once most unreasonable and most pitiful. Of this latter class were many of the most gallant men of Illinois and Indiana, who fell dead or cruelly wounded in the early battles of the Southwest.

The "Black boys" were notable among the multitude of eager youths who rushed to the field at the first call to arms. Their mother, the widow of a learned Presbyterian minister, had married Dr. Fithian, of Danville, Ill.; and the relations between Dr. Fithian and his stepsons were of the tenderest paternal nature. His pride in them and his devotion to them was the theme of the country side. Mr. Lincoln knew them well. In his frequent visits to Danville on the circuit he seldom failed to be the guest of their mother and the excellent Dr. Fithian. They were studious and industrious boys, earning with their own hands at least a part of the money required for their education. When Sumter was fired upon they were at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind., and immediately enlisted as privates in the Crawfordsville Guards. Their career in the field needs no recital here. Mr. Lincoln watched it with intense interest. At the battle of Pea Ridge, having reached high rank,—each promotion for some special act of gallantry,—they both fell desperately wounded within five minutes of each other, and only thirty yards apart. Dr. Fithian hastened to them with a father's solicitude, and nursed them back to life, through fearful vicissitudes. They had scarcely returned to the army when the elder, John Charles Black, again fell, terribly mangled, at Prairie Grove. He was hopelessly shattered; yet he remained in the service and at the front until the last gun was fired, and is now among the badly wounded survivors of the war. I shall never forget the scene, when I took to Mr. Lincoln a letter written by Dr. Fithian to me, describing the condition of the "Black boys," and expressing his fears that they could not live. Mr. Lincoln read it, and broke into tears: "Here, now," he cried, "are these dear, brave boys killed in this cursed war! My God, my God! It is too bad! They worked hard to earn money enough to educate themselves, and this is the end! I loved them as if they were my own." I took his directions about my reply to Dr. Fithian, and left him in one of the saddest moods in which I ever saw him, burdened with an unreasonable sense of personal responsibility for the lives of these gallant men.

Lieut.-Colonel William McCullough, of whom a very eminent gentleman said on a most solemn occasion, "He was the most thoroughly courageous man I have ever known," fell leading a hopeless charge in Mississippi. He had entered the service at the age of fifty, with one arm and one eye. He had been clerk of McLean County Circuit Court, Ill., for twenty years, and Mr. Lincoln knew him thoroughly. His death affected the President profoundly, and he wrote to the Colonel's daughter, now Mrs. Frank D. Orme, the following peculiar letter of condolence:—

Executive Mansion, Washington,
Dec. 23, 1862.

Dear Fanny, — It is with deep regret that I learn of the death of your kind and brave father, and especially that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bitterer agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned ever to expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say, and you need only to believe it to feel better at once. The memory of your dear father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.

Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.

Your sincere friend,

A. Lincoln.

Miss Fanny McCullough,
Bloomington, Ill.

Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, who fell at Shiloh, was a friend whom Lincoln held in the tenderest regard. He knew his character as a man and his inestimable value as a soldier quite as well as they are now known to the country. Those who have read General Grant's "Memoirs" will understand from that great general's estimate of him what was the loss of the federal service in the untimely death of Wallace. Mr. Lincoln felt it bitterly and deeply. But his was a public and a private grief united, and his lamentations were touching to those who heard them, as I did. The following account of General Wallace's death is taken from an eloquent memorial address, by the Hon. Leonard Swett in the United States Circuit Court, upon our common friend the late Col. T. Lyle Dickey, who was the father-in-law of Wallace:—

"Mrs. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, who was Judge Dickey's eldest daughter, as the battle of Shiloh approached, became impressed with the sense of impending danger to her husband, then with Grant's army. This impression haunted her until she could stand it no longer; and in one of the most severe storms of the season, at twelve o'clock at night, she started alone for the army where her husband was. At Cairo she was told that no women could be permitted to go up the Tennessee River. But affection has a persistency which will not be denied. Mrs. Wallace finding a party bearing a flag to the Eleventh Infantry from the ladies of Ottawa, to be used instead of their old one, which had been riddled and was battle-worn, got herself substituted to carry that flag: and thus with one expedient and another she finally reached Shiloh, six hundred miles from home and three hundred through a hostile country, and through the more hostile guards of our own forces.

"She arrived on Sunday, the 6th of April, 1862, when the great storm-centre of that battle was at its height, and in time to receive her husband as he was borne from the field terribly mangled by a shot in the head, which he had received while endeavoring to stay the retreat of our army as it was falling back to the banks of the river on that memorable Sunday, the first day of that bloody battle. She arrived in time to recognize him, and be recognized by him; and a few days afterward, saying, 'We shall meet again in heaven,' he died in the arms of that devoted wife, surrounded by Judge Dickey and his sons and the brothers of General Wallace."

These are but a few cases of death and mutilation in the military service cited to show how completely Mr. Lincoln shared the sufferings of our soldiers. It was with a weight of singular personal responsibility that some of these misfortunes and sorrows seemed to crowd upon his sympathetic heart.

Soon after his election in 1864, when any other man would have been carried away on the tide of triumph and would have had little thought for the sorrows of a stranger, he found time to write the following letter:—

Executive Mansion, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam, — I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln.

To Mrs. Bixby
Boston, Mass.

Once when Mr. Lincoln had released a prisoner at the request of his mother she, in expressing her gratitude, said, "Good-bye, Mr. Lincoln. I shall probably never see you again till we meet in heaven." She had the President's hand in hers, and he was deeply moved. He instantly took her hand in both of his and, following her to the door, said, "I am afraid with all my troubles I shall never get to the resting place you speak of, but if I do I am sure I shall find you. Your wish that you will meet me there has fully paid for all I have done for you."

Perhaps none of Mr. Lincoln's ambitions were more fully realized than the wish expressed to Joshua F. Speed: Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.