He would smile gently as he filed each death warrant away:
"It would frighten that poor devil too terribly to shoot him. They shan't do it."
On one he wrote:
"Let him fight again—maybe the enemy will shoot him—I won't."
Betty Winter came with two cases. The first was a mother to plead for her boy sentenced to die for sleeping at his post on guard.
"You see, sir," the mother pleaded, "he'd been on watch once that night and had done his duty faithfully. He volunteered to take a sick comrade's place. He was so tired he fell asleep. He was always a big-hearted, generous boy—you won't let them shoot him?"
"No, I won't," was the quick response.
The mother laughed aloud through her tears and threw her arms around Betty's neck.
The President bent over the paper and wrote across its back:
"Pardoned. This life is too precious to be lost."