“Because,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I had a dream last night; and ever since the war began, I have invariably had the same dream before any important military event occurred.” He then instanced Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc., and said that before each of these events, he had had the same dream; and turning to Secretary Welles, said: “It is in your line, too, Mr. Welles. The dream is, that I saw a ship sailing very rapidly; and I am sure that it portends some important national event.”
Later in the day, dismissing all business, the carriage was ordered for a drive. When asked by Mrs. Lincoln if he would like any one to accompany them, he replied, “No; I prefer to ride by ourselves to-day.” Mrs. Lincoln subsequently said that she never saw him seem so supremely happy as on this occasion. In reply to a remark to this effect, the President said: “And well I may feel so, Mary, for I consider this day the war has come to a close.” And then added: “We must both be more cheerful in the future; between the war and the loss of our darling Willie, we have been very miserable.”
* * * * *
Little “Tad’s” frantic grief upon being told that his father had been shot was alluded to in the Washington correspondence of the time. For twenty-four hours the little fellow was perfectly inconsolable. Sunday morning, however, the sun rose in unclouded splendor, and in his simplicity he looked upon this as a token that his father was happy. “Do you think my father has gone to heaven?” he asked of a gentleman who had called upon Mrs. Lincoln. “I have not a doubt of it,” was the reply. “Then,” he exclaimed, in his broken way, “I am glad he has gone there, for he never was happy after he came here. This was not a good place for him!”
LXXIII.
“President Lincoln,” says the Hon. W. D. Kelly,[21] “was a large and many-sided man, and yet so simple that no one, not even a child, could approach him without feeling that he had found in him a sympathizing friend. I remember that I apprised him of the fact that a lad, the son of one of my townsmen, had served a year on board the gunboat Ottawa, and had been in two important engagements; in the first as a powder-monkey, when he had conducted himself with such coolness that he had been chosen as captain’s messenger in the second; and I suggested to the President that it was in his power to send to the Naval School, annually, three boys who had served at least a year in the navy.
“He at once wrote on the back of a letter from the commander of the Ottawa, which I had handed him, to the Secretary of the Navy: ‘If the appointments for this year have not been made, let this boy be appointed.’ The appointment had not been made, and I brought it home with me. It directed the lad to report for examination at the school in July. Just as he was ready to start, his father, looking over the law, discovered that he could not report until he was fourteen years of age, which he would not be until September following. The poor child sat down and wept. He feared that he was not to go to the Naval School. He was, however, soon consoled by being told that ‘the President could make it right.’ It was my fortune to meet him the next morning at the door of the Executive Chamber with his father.
“Taking by the hand the little fellow,—short for his age, dressed in the sailor’s blue pants and shirt,—I advanced with him to the President, who sat in his usual seat, and said: ‘Mr. President, my young friend, Willie Bladen, finds a difficulty about his appointment. You have directed him to appear at the school in July; but he is not yet fourteen years of age.’ But before I got half of this out, Mr. Lincoln, laying down his spectacles, rose and said: ‘Bless me! is that the boy who did so gallantly in those two great battles? Why, I feel that I should bow to him, and not he to me.’
“The little fellow had made his graceful bow. The President took the papers at once, and as soon as he learned that a postponement till September would suffice, made the order that the lad should report in that month. Then putting his hand on Willie’s head, he said: ‘Now, my boy, go home and have good fun during the two months, for they are about the last holiday you will get.’ The little fellow bowed himself out, feeling that the President of the United States, though a very great man, was one that he would nevertheless like to have a game of romps with.”
There was not unfrequently a curious mingling of humor and pathos exhibited in Mr. Lincoln’s exercise of the pardoning power. Lieutenant-Governor Ford, of Ohio, had an appointment with him one evening at six o’clock. As he entered the vestibule of the White House his attention was attracted by a poorly clad young woman who was violently sobbing. He asked her the cause of her distress. She said that she had been ordered away by the servants, after vainly waiting many hours to see the President about her only brother, who had been condemned to death. Her story was this: She and her brother were foreigners, and orphans. They had been in this country several years. Her brother enlisted in the army, but, through bad influences, was induced to desert. He was captured, tried, and sentenced to be shot—the old story. The poor girl had obtained the signatures of some persons who had formerly known him to a petition for a pardon, and, alone, had come to Washington to lay the case before the President. Thronged as the waiting-rooms always were, she had passed the long hours of two days trying in vain to get an audience, and had at length been ordered away.