1 Lamon, c. i. p. 1.

2 Addressed to J. W. Fell, March, 1872.

3 Lamon, p. 7.

4 In 1865, I saw many companies and a few regiments “mustered out” in Nashville, Tennessee. In the most intelligent companies, only one man in eight or nine could sign his name. Fewer still could read.—C. G. L.

5 J. G. Holland, p. 22.

6 J. G. Holland, “Life of Lincoln,” p. 28. The children probably slept on the earth. The writer has seen a man, owning hundreds of acres of rich bottom land, living in a log-hut, nearly such as is here described. There was only a single stool, an iron pot, a knife, and a gun in the cabin, but no bedstead, the occupant and his wife sleeping in two cavities in the dirt-floor. Such had been their home for years.

7 Lamon, vol. i., pp. 31 and 40. Abraham’s father is said by Dennis Hanks (from whom Mr. Herndon, Lamon’s authority, derived much information) to have loved his son, but it is certain that, at the same time, he treated him very cruelly. Hanks admits that he had several times seen little Abraham knocked headlong from the fence by his father, while civilly answering questions put by travellers as to their way.

8 W. H. Herndon, who was for many years the law-partner of Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to me, written not long after the murder of his old friend, earnestly asserted his opinion that the late President was a greater man than General Washington, founding his opinion on the greater difficulties which he subdued.—C. G. L.

9 “Abraham’s poverty of books was the wealth of his life.”—J. G. Holland.

10 Lamon, p. 54.

11 Holland and Lamon.

12 Vide Ripley and Dana’s “CyclopÆdia;” also, article from the Boston “Commercial Advertiser,” cited by Lamon.

13 Raymond, “Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln,” p. 25.

14 Mr. Lincoln “spoke forgetfully” on this occasion. Owing to the drunkenness and insubordination of his men, which he could not help, he was once obliged to carry a wooden sword for two days.—Lamon, p. 104. On a previous occasion, he had been under arrest, and was deprived of his sword for one day, for firing a pistol within ten steps of camp.—Ibid., p. 103.

15 Holland, p. 53.

16 Holland passes over the wisdom or unwisdom of these measures without comment. According to Ford (“History of Illinois”) and Lamon, the whole state was by them “simply bought up and bribed to support the most senseless and disastrous policy which ever crippled the energies of a growing country.” It is certain that, in any country where the internal resources are enormous and the inhabitants intelligent, enterprising, and poor, such legislation will always find favour.

17 His biographies abound in proof of this. “He believed that a man, in order to effect anything, should work through organisations of men.”—Holland, p. 92. It is very difficult for any one not brought up in the United States to realise the degree to which this idea can influence men, and determine their whole moral nature.

18 It is a matter of regret that, when Lincoln, long after, went to see his idol and ideal, he was greatly disappointed in him.—Holland, p. 95. Lamon denies this visit, but does not disprove it.

19 Lamon, p. 275, says there can be no doubt that Mr. Lincoln would have cheerfully made such a dishonourable and tricky agreement, but inclines to think he did not. It is very doubtful whether the compact, if it existed at all, was not made simply for the purpose of excluding the Democrats.

20 Holland, p. 82. A picayune is six cents, or 3d.

21 There were no free schools in South Carolina until 1852, and it was a serious crime to teach a negro to read.

22 Arnold, “History of Lincoln,” p. 33.

23 A law by which slaves who had escaped to free states were returned to their owners. The writer, as a boy, has seen many cruel instances of the manner in which the old slave law was carried out. But while great pains were taken to hunt down and return slaves who had escaped to free states, there was literally nothing done to return free coloured people who had been inveigled or carried by force to the South, and there sold as slaves. It was believed that, at one time, hardly a day passed during which a free black was not thus entrapped from Pennsylvania. The writer once knew, in Philadelphia, a boy of purely white blood, but of dark complexion, who narrowly escaped being kidnapped by downright violence, that he might be “sent South.” White children were commonly terrified by parents or nurses with “the kidnappers,” who would black their faces, and sell them. Even in the Northern cities, there were few grown-up negro men who had not, at one time or another, been hunted by the lower classes of whites through the streets in the most incredibly barbarous manner.

24 Arnold, p. 95.

25 George Bancroft, “Oration on Lincoln,” pp. 13, 14.

26 David R. Locke, who, under the name of Petroleum V. Nasby, wrote political satires much admired by Mr. Lincoln.

27 See Appendix.

28 This honour had only been twice conferred before—once on Washington, and once by brevet on General W. Scott.—Badeau’s “Life of Grant.”

29 Those who sympathised with the South were called Copperheads, after the deadly and treacherous snake of that name common in the Western and Southern United States.

30 Sherman’s Report, 1865; also, Report of Secretary of War, 1865.

31 Stephens’ Statement, Augusta, Georgia, “Chronicle,” June 17th, 1875. Quoted by Dr. Brockett, p. 579.

32 It should be said that Meade, under Grant’s orders, was, however, now one of Lee’s most vigorous pursuers.

33 Vide Frank Moore’s “Rebellion Record,” 1864-5—Rumours and Incidents, p. 9.

34 See “Trial and Sentence of Beal and Kennedy,” M’Pherson’s “Political History,” pp. 552, 553.

35 The late Henry J. Raymond, then editor of the New York Times.

36 “White people”—civilised, decent, kind-hearted people.