Judge David Davis, many years on the U. S. Supreme Bench, and administrator of Mr. Lincoln's estate, wrote the following under date of May 23, 1865, to Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State.
There is one matter of a personal nature which I wish to suggest to you. Mr. Lincoln was greatly attached to our friend Col. Ward H. Lamon. I doubt whether he had a warmer attachment to anybody, and I know that it was reciprocated. Col. Lamon has for a long time wanted to resign his office and had only held it at the earnest request of Mr. Lincoln.
Mr. Lincoln would have given him the position of Governor of Idaho. Col. Lamon is well qualified for that place. He would be popular there. He understands Western people and few men have more friends. I should esteem it as a great favor personally if you could secure the place for him. If you can't succeed nobody else can. Col. Lamon will make no effort and will use no solicitation.
He is one of the dearest friends I have in the world. He may have faults, and few of us are without them, but he is as true as steel, honorable, high minded, and never did a mean thing in his life. Excuse the freedom with which I have written.
May I beg to be remembered to your son and to your family.
Yours most truly,
David Davis.
The faithfulness till death of this noble man's friendship is shown in the following letter written for him when he was dying, twenty-one years later.
Bloomington, Ill.,
June 22, 1886.Col. W. H. Lamon:
Dear Sir, — On my return from Washington about a month since Judge Davis said to me that he had a long letter from you which he intended to answer as soon as he was able to do so. Since that time the Judge has been declining in health until he is now beyond all capability of writing. I have not seen him for three weeks until yesterday morning when I found him in lowest condition of life. Rational when aroused but almost unconscious of his surroundings except when aroused.
He spoke in the kindest terms of you and was much annoyed because an answer to your letter was postponed. He requested me this morning through Mrs. Davis to write you, while Mrs. Davis handed me the letter. I have not read it as it is a personal letter to the Judge. I don't know that I can say any more. It was one of the saddest sights of my life to see the best and truest friend I ever had emaciated with disease, lingering between life and death. Before this reaches you the world may know of his death. I understood Mrs. Davis has written you.
Very truly,
Lawrence Weldon.
In striking contrast to this beautiful friendship is another which one would pronounce equally strong were he to judge the man who professed it from his letters to Lamon, covering a period of twenty-five years, letters filled throughout with expressions of the deepest trust, love, admiration, and even gratitude; but in a book published last November [1910] there appear letters from this same man to one of Lamon's bitterest enemies. In one he says, "Lamon was no solid firm friend of Lincoln." Let us hope he was sincere when he expressed just the opposite sentiment to Lamon, for may it not have been his poverty and not his will which consented to be thus "interviewed." He alludes twice in this same correspondence to his poverty, once when he gives as his reason for selling something he regretted to have sold that "I was a poor devil and had to sell to live," and again, "—— are you getting rich? I am as poor as Job's turkey."
One of Lamon's friends describes him:—
"Of herculean proportions and almost fabulous strength and agility, Lamon never knew what fear was and in the darkest days of the war he never permitted discouragement to affect his courage or weaken his faith in the final success of the Nation. Big-hearted, genial, generous, and chivalrous, his memory will live long in the land which he served so well."
Leonard Swett wrote in the "North American Review":—
"Lamon was all over a Virginian, strong, stout and athletic—a Hercules in stature, tapering from his broad shoulders to his heels, and the handsomest man physically I ever saw. He was six feet high and although prudent and cautious, was thoroughly courageous and bold. He wore that night [when he accompanied Lincoln from Harrisburg to Washington] two ordinary pistols, two derringers and two large knives. You could put no more elements of attack or defence in a human skin than were in Lamon and his armory on that occasion.... Mr. Lincoln knew the shedding the last drop of blood in his defence would be the most delightful act of Lamon's life, and that in him he had a regiment armed and drilled for the most efficient service."
The four or five thousand letters left by Colonel Lamon show that his influence was asked on almost every question, and show that Mr. Lincoln was more easily reached through Colonel Lamon than by any other one man; even Mrs. Lincoln herself asked Lamon's influence with her husband. Extracts from some of these letters may be found at the end of this volume. They breathe the real atmosphere of other days.