“He looked haggard and careworn; and further on in the interview I remarked on his appearance, ‘You are wearing yourself out with work.’
“‘I can’t work less,’ he answered; ‘but it isn’t that—work never troubled me. Things look badly, and I can’t avoid anxiety. Personally, I care nothing about a re-election, but if our divisions defeat us, I fear for the country.’
“When I suggested that right must eventually triumph, he replied, ‘I grant that, but I may never live to see it. I feel a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over, my work will be done.’
“He never intimated, however, that he expected to be assassinated.”
LINCOLN WOULD HAVE PREFERRED DEATH.
Horace Greeley said, some time after the death of President Lincoln:
“After the Civil War began, Lincoln’s tenacity of purpose paralleled his former immobility; I believe he would have been nearly the last, if not the very last, man in America to recognize the Southern Confederacy had its armies been triumphant. He would have preferred death.”