“Sit down, son,” ordered Lincoln, closing the door. “How did you get in here and what did you want to see me about?”
The boy dropped on the edge of a chair, twisted his legs about each other nervously.
“Nobody let me in, sir,” he stammered. “I just told the man downstairs that I had to see the President and he searched me, and I didn’t have no gun or nothing so he told me to come on up here and wait. And what I wanted to see you about, Mr. President—I want to be a captain.”
Lincoln’s long lips drew back and quirked up a little at one corner. “I see. And what military organization did you want to be captain of?”
“No organization, Mr. President, but I been a private in the Sixty-third Ohio a long time, sir—”
“How long a time?”
“Four months, Mr. President.”
“And you have a company organized, maybe, that you want me to make you captain of?”
“No, sir—I haven’t got any company organized. But I just want to be a captain. My mother says I should be a captain. She told me to see you about it.”
Lincoln clasped his bony hands around a knee. “What’s your name, soldier?”