A few days later, Congressman Kell, holding Willie Bladen by the hand, walked in to where Lincoln sat, and introduced the boy.
Willie made a profound bow.
“Why, bless me,” responded Lincoln, “is this the boy who did so gallantly in those two great battles! I feel that I should bow to him.”
And, with that, Lincoln arose and made a bow to the little hero.
The President then made out papers directing that the boy be allowed until September to report, then putting his hand on the boy’s head, he said, “Now, my boy, go home and play for the next two months. They may be the last holidays you will ever get.”
Lincoln’s knowledge of the Bible is shown by many an incident.
In one of the darkest hours of the war a mass convention was called of Union men to protest against the President’s “imbecile policy in the conduct of the war.” It was also intended to start a boom for “Fremont the Pathfinder” to succeed Lincoln to the Presidency. Instead of a great mass convention of many thousands, only four hundred disgruntled politicians were present.
When this news was brought to Lincoln, he reached for the Bible that always lay on his desk, and, turning to the first book of Samuel, the twenty-second chapter, read aloud, “And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a Captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.”
The old saying, originating from the Bible, “To have friends you must show yourself friendly,” was always true in Lincoln’s case. One of these friends once said of Lincoln that “he had nothing, only friends.” His enemies did not know him or they would not have been enemies.