The President stopped and cast a look of sad inquiry on the man who had accosted him. Doubtless, he thought, here was another father come to plead for the life of a son who had been sentenced to a disgraceful death. For what offense this time? Cowardice, desertion, sleeping at his post, or some other crime for which stern war demands stern penalties? They were so common in those days, appeals from fathers, mothers, wives, sweethearts; and the tender heart of Lincoln was daily pierced with them.
“Well?” He braced himself mentally, to listen to some new and agonizing tale of trouble.
“I will be frank with you, Mr. President,” Bannister hurried on, “and brief. I am a Pennsylvanian. I am what is called a copperhead. A few weeks ago I was drafted. I refused to report for service. I have an only son, just passed seventeen, who is as ardent a supporter of the Union cause as I am a detractor of it. Without my knowledge he visited the provost-marshal of the district and asked to go as a substitute in my place. His request being denied, he enlisted. That was four days ago. He is now in Meade’s army in Virginia. Yesterday I left my home, hoping to reach him where he is and induce the officer of his regiment to discharge him and take me in his place. Before I was twenty miles on my journey I was arrested as a deserter. The provost-marshal sent me for condemnation and sentence to the regiment to which, as a drafted man, I had been assigned. Less than an hour ago I reached Washington. My guards were drunk and asleep. I walked away from them and came here. It is by the merest chance that I now meet you. My boy is too young to withstand the rigors and hardships of the service. He should be back home with his mother. I want to take his place in the ranks. Mr. President, I cannot hope to do this unless you will help me.”
For a moment the President stood, looking into the eyes of the speaker. Here was a new and novel case. It aroused his interest. It appealed to his humanity.
“Come,” he said, “let’s go over to the telegraph office. It’s too cold to stand here. I was going there anyway. It’s all right,” he added to two guards who had hurried up. “I want to talk to this man. He’s going over to the telegraph office with me.”
So the lank, angular, shawl-clad figure moved on down the path, followed by the escaped conscript, while he in turn was followed by the two guards, who watched his every movement. A suspicion entered Bannister’s mind as he walked, that the President was leading him into ambush to procure the more easily his re-arrest. The re-arrest did not much matter. But that any one, after looking into this man’s face, should think of charging him with duplicity, that did matter. And the next moment the suspicion was effectually cast out.
They went up the steps leading to the War Department, and into the telegraph office which was installed there. Lincoln asked for dispatches left for him by Major Eckert, and read them over carefully. Some of them he read twice. The inactivity of the Army of the Potomac, the apparent inability of Meade to strike a telling, if not a final blow, weighed heavily on his mind. He had come over, as was his custom, in the early morning, to get and read, at first-hand, dispatches from the front. When he finally laid down the yellow slips he beckoned to Bannister to follow him.
“We’ll go into Stanton’s room,” he said; “he won’t be here for an hour yet.”
So they sat down together in the room ordinarily occupied by the Secretary of War. In the outer office the telegraph instruments kept up a monotonous clicking. Through the open door between the rooms messengers could be seen passing hurriedly in and out. Lincoln stretched his long legs out in front of him and ran his fingers through his carelessly combed hair.
“So you got away from your guards, did you?” he inquired. “Did you say they were drunk?”