One day, when the President was with the troops who were fighting at the front, the wounded, both Union and Confederate, began to pour in.
As one stretcher was passing Lincoln, he heard the voice of a lad calling to his mother in agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He forgot the crisis of the hour. Stopping the carriers, he knelt, and bending over him, asked: “What can I do for you, my poor child?”
“Oh, you will do nothing for me,” he replied. “You are a Yankee. I cannot hope that my message to my mother will ever reach her.”
Lincoln, in tears, his voice full of tenderest love, convinced the boy of his sincerity, and he gave his good-bye words without reserve.
The President directed them copied, and ordered that they be sent that night, with a flag of truce, into the enemy’s lines.
WALKED AS HE TALKED.
When Mr. Lincoln made his famous humorous speech in Congress ridiculing General Cass, he began to speak from notes, but, as he warmed up, he left his desk and his notes, to stride down the alley toward the Speaker’s chair.
Occasionally, as he would complete a sentence amid shouts of laughter, he would return up the alley to his desk, consult his notes, take a sip of water and start off again.
Mr. Lincoln received many congratulations at the close, Democrats joining the Whigs in their complimentary comments.