The Senator didn't give me a chance to ask him any questions, but left me abruptly to talk to a group of persons who were waiting for him. I saw Mr. Forney and showed him the letter, which somehow or other was not satisfactory to me.
Mr. Forney folded it up and handed it back to me, saying, in his elegant way: "You just take that paper up to Stanton, and hang to him till he sees you. That's all he wants." Then, in a fatherly way, he gave me the advice to "let him do all the talking; you just answer his questions."
In an hour I was at the old War Department again. I first put on my gray jacket, but had covered it with a light spring duster or overcoat, at Mr. Forney's suggestion.
The War Department of 1862 was a desolate looking old affair, something after the architectural style of the "four story barracks," in a well-kept arsenal reservation. On the second floor a long corridor extended from one end of the building to the other, running east and west, on each side of which were the rooms of the principal chiefs. In the southeast corner, nearest to the White House, was the Secretary's apartments, with whose location I was somewhat familiar, because of some previous long "waits" and mighty short interviews with Mr. Cameron when he was Secretary.
On this visit, as before, I found in this corridor rows of people seated along the wall—ladies and gentlemen, officers, and a few sick-looking soldiers; big fat contractors elbowed the thin-faced, big-nosed, Jewish sutler, Congressmen, and, in fact, all sorts of people; and it is safe to say that every one of them had been there for hours, perhaps days and weeks previously, waiting their turn, or an opportunity to get to talk to the Secretary on their own business, which, of course, was more important to them than anybody else's.
There was a handsome soldier of the Regular Army in citizen's dress on duty at the outside door, as an orderly or messenger. When I saw all that were ahead of me, I was discouraged, but, profiting by past experience, I made a break for the Secretary's office, when I was stopped by the orderly, who demanded my business. I was in a Rebel uniform, but the soldier orderly didn't notice that; he said his orders were not to admit anybody at that time. I showed him my letter, saying, with an assumption of importance, that I was sent to the Secretary by Senator Cowan to present it personally. A Senator, especially a Democratic Senator's request, was really of greater weight than half a dozen common Congressmen, because it was important just then that the Government should conciliate the loyal Democrats in Congress.
The soldier took a card, wrote the Senator's name and my own on it, and invited me to a vacant chair in the Secretary's office. There were rows of people sitting alongside the wall, inside the room, just as there was out in the corridor; but I had gained one point; I was on the inner circle.
I had never seen Mr. Stanton before, and was not nearly so anxious to see him again, after the first time. I need not describe the great War Secretary's personal appearance. His face resembles the photographs, and has always struck me as being the best likeness extant of all those great men. He was not so tall as one would think from looking at a picture of his face; and when I saw him, he stood at a small, high desk, a little to one side of the room, very much to my mind in the position of a school-teacher before an old-fashioned desk. The desk itself was a plain, square, long-legged affair, precisely such as we used to see our teachers stand behind, or that are used more recently by auctioneers on street sales. The sitters on the anxious benches all around the front portion of his room, with their serious watchful faces, helped the illusion, that I was in the presence of a lecturer or judge, awaiting my turn for sentence, like the rest of the culprits.
The attendant found me a chair alongside of a natty-looking young officer in uniform on one side, and a big, fat Congressman on the other; he laid my card, with the Senator's name, on Mr. Stanton's desk.
The Secretary was then standing beside his pulpit, talking in his positive way to some old gentleman; he was so intent on this business that he never deigned to look at my card when it was left on his table. We did not overhear the conversation between the Secretary and his visitor, and being at a loss for something to do, I turned to the young officer beside me and said something as to the prospect for a talk with the Secretary. He replied in a very polite way, that he had been waiting for hours, for a single word; that, with him, it was a question of life and death; but he couldn't get any audience until the Secretary "called his name" from the cards on his desk.