Betty Winter bought out a peddler's cake and lemonade stand on the main line of this ghastly procession and through every bitter hour from sunrise until dark stood there cheering and serving the men without money and without price, while the tears slowly rolled down her flushed cheeks.
[CHAPTER IX]
[VICTORY IN DEFEAT]
The President had risen at daylight on the fateful Sunday morning. He was sorry this first action must be fought on Sunday. It seemed a bad omen. The preachers from his home town of Springfield, Illinois, had issued a manifesto against his election without regard to their party affiliations on account of his supposed hostility to religion. It had hurt and stung his pride more than any single incident in the campaign. His nature was profoundly religious. He was not a church member because his religion had the unique quality of a personal faith which refused from sheer honesty to square itself with the dogmas of any sect. The preachers had not treated him fairly, but he cherished no ill will. He knew their sterling worth to the Republic and he meant to use them in the tremendous task before him. He had hoped the battle would not be joined until Monday. But he knew at dawn that a clash was inevitable.
At half past ten o'clock, though keenly anxious for the first news from the front, he was ready to accompany Mrs. Lincoln to church. The breeze was from the South—a hot, lazy, midsummer heavy air.
The Commander-in-Chief bent his giant figure over a war map, spread on his desk, fixed the position of each army by colored pins, studied them a moment and quietly walked with his wife to the Presbyterian Church to hear Dr. Gurley preach. He sat in reverent silence through the service, his soul hovering over the distant hills.
Before midnight the panic stricken Congressmen began to drop into the White House, each with his story of unparalleled disaster. At one o'clock the President stood in the midst of a group of excited, perspiring statesmen who had crowded into the executive office, the one cool, shrewd, patient, self-possessed courageous man among them. He reviewed their stories quietly and with no sign of excitement, to say nothing of panic.
They marvelled at his dull intellect.
He was listening in silence, shaping the big new policy of his administration.