So much blame was heaped upon the Government, and so great was the dissatisfaction at the North, that Lincoln looked upon the election of his competitor, General McClellan, and his own retirement, as not improbable. An incident in evidence of his discouragement is related by Secretary Welles. Entering the Executive office one day, Mr. Welles was asked to write his name across the back of a sealed paper which the President handed him. The names of several other members of the Cabinet were already on the paper, with the dates of signature. After the election, Lincoln opened the document in the presence of his Cabinet and read to them its contents, as follows:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
August 23, 1864.
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to co-operate with the President-elect so as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration.
A. LINCOLN.
By this careful prevision had Lincoln pledged himself to give to his successor that unselfish and patriotic assistance of which he himself had stood so sorely in need.
As the desperation of the South and the opposition to Lincoln at the North increased, fears were entertained by his friends that an attempt might be made upon his life. Lincoln himself paid but little heed to these forebodings of evil. He said, philosophically: "I long ago made up my mind that if anybody wants to kill me, he will do it. If I wore a shirt of mail and kept myself surrounded by a bodyguard, it would be all the same. There are a thousand ways of getting at a man if it is desired that he should be killed. Besides, in this case, it seems to me, the man who would succeed me would be just as objectionable to my enemies—if I have any." One dark night, as he was going out with a friend, he took along a heavy cane, remarking good-humoredly that "mother" (Mrs. Lincoln) had "got a notion into her head that I shall be assassinated, and to please her I take a cane when I go over to the War Department at nights—when I don't forget it."
It is probable that the attempts upon the life of President Lincoln were more numerous than is generally known. An incident of a very thrilling character, which might easily have involved a shocking tragedy, is related by Mr. John W. Nichols, who from the summer of 1862 until 1865 was one of the President's body-guard. "One night, about the middle of August, 1864," says Mr. Nichols, "I was doing sentinel duty at the large gate through which entrance was had to the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, near Washington, where Mr. Lincoln spent much time in summer. About eleven o'clock I heard a rifle-shot in the direction of the city, and shortly afterwards I heard approaching hoof-beats. In two or three minutes a horse came dashing up, and I recognized the belated President. The horse he rode was a very spirited one, and was Mr. Lincoln's favorite saddle-horse. As horse and rider approached the gate, I noticed that the President was bareheaded. As soon as I had assisted him in checking his steed, the President said to me: 'He came pretty near getting away with me, didn't he? He got the bit in his teeth before I could draw the rein.' I then asked him where his hat was; and he replied that somebody had fired a gun off down at the foot of the hill, and that his horse had become scared and had jerked his hat off. I led the animal to the Executive Cottage, and the President dismounted and entered. Thinking the affair rather strange, a corporal and myself started off to investigate. When we reached the place whence the sound of the shot had come—a point where the driveway intersects, with the main road—we found the President's hat. It was a plain silk hat, and upon examination we discovered a bullet-hole through the crown. We searched the locality thoroughly, but without avail. Next day I gave Mr. Lincoln his hat, and called his attention to the bullet-hole. He made some humorous remark, to the effect that it was made by some foolish marksman and was not intended for him; but added that he wished nothing said about the matter. We all felt confident it was an attempt to kill the President, and after that he never rode alone."
Amidst his terrible trials, Lincoln often exhibited a forced and sorrowful serenity, which many mistook for apathy. Even his oldest and best friends were sometimes deceived in this way. Hon. Leonard Swett relates a touching instance: "In the summer of 1864, when Grant was pounding his way toward Richmond in those terrible battles of the Wilderness, myself and wife were in Washington trying to do what little two persons could do toward alleviating the sufferings of the maimed and dying in the vast hospitals of that city. We tried to be thorough and systematic. We took the first man we came to, brought him delicacies, wrote letters to his friends, or did for him whatever else he most needed; then the next man, and so on. Day after day cars and ambulances were coming in, laden with untold sorrows for thousands of homes. After weeks of this kind of experience my feelings became so wrought up that I said to myself: The country cannot long endure this sacrifice. In mercy, both to North and South, every man capable of bearing arms must be hurried forward to Grant to end this, fearful slaughter at the earliest possible moment. I went to President Lincoln at the White House, and poured myself out to him. He was sitting by an open window; and as I paused, a bird lit upon a branch just outside and was twittering and singing most joyously. Mr. Lincoln, imitating the bird, said: 'Tweet, tweet, tweet; isn't he singing sweetly?' I felt as if my legs had been cut from under me. I rose, took my hat, and said, 'I see the country is safer than I thought.' As I moved toward the door, Mr. Lincoln called out, in his hearty, familiar way, 'Here, Swett, come back and sit down.' Then he went on: 'It is impossible for a man in my position not to have thought of all those things. Weeks ago every man capable of bearing arms was ordered to the front, and everything you have suggested has been done.'"
The burdens borne by Lincoln seemed never to tell so seriously on his strength and vitality as in this terrible battle-summer of 1864. For him there had been no respite, no holiday. Others left the heat and dust of Washington for rest and recuperation; but he remained at his post. The demands upon him were incessant; one anxiety and excitement followed another, and under the relentless strain even his sturdy strength began to give way. "I sometimes fancy," said he, with pathetic good-humor, "that every one of the numerous grist ground through here daily, from a Senator seeking a war with France down to a poor woman after a place in the Treasury Department, darted at me with thumb and finger, picked out their especial piece of my vitality, and carried it off. When I get through with such a day's work there is only one word which can express my condition, and that is flabbiness." Once Mr. Brooks "found him sitting in his chair so collapsed and weary that he did not look up or speak when I addressed him. He put out his hand, mechanically, as if to shake hands, when I told him I had come at his bidding. Presently he roused a little, and remarked that he had had 'a mighty hard day.'" Mr. Riddle, who saw him at this period, after some months' absence, says he was shocked, on gaining admission to the President, "by his appearance—that of a baited, cornered man, always on the defense against attacks that he could not openly meet and defy or punish." Mr. Carpenter, an inmate of the White House, says: "Absorbed in his papers, he would become unconscious of my presence, while I intently studied every line and shade of expression in that furrowed face. There were days when I could scarcely look into it without crying. During the first week of the battles of the Wilderness he scarcely slept at all. Passing through the main hall of the domestic apartment on one of these days, I met him, clad in a long morning wrapper, pacing back and forth a narrow passage leading to one of the windows, his hands behind him, great black rings under his eyes, his head bent forward upon his breast,—altogether such a picture of the effects of sorrow, care, and anxiety as would have melted the hearts of the worst of his adversaries, who so mistakenly applied to him the epithets of tyrant and usurper."
Mr. Edward Dicey, the English historian, says: "Never in my knowledge have I seen a sadder face than that of the late President during the time his features were familiar to me. It is so easy to be wise after the event; but it seems to me now that one ought somehow to have foreseen that the stamp of a sad end was impressed by nature on that rugged, haggard face. The exceeding sadness of the eyes and their strange sweetness were the one redeeming feature in a face of unusual plainness, and there was about them that odd, weird look, which some eyes possess, of seeming to see more than the outer objects of the world around."