"Utterly indignant, I turned to the clerk and asked to withdraw the paper.
"'Don't you let him have it, sir,' said Stanton; 'don't let him have it.'
"The clerk, whose hands were trembling like an Eastern slave before his pasha, withdrew the document which he was in the act of giving to me. I felt my indignation getting too strong for me, and, putting on my hat and turning my back to the Secretary, I slowly went to the door, with set teeth, saying to myself, 'As you will not hear me in your own forum, you shall hear from me in mine.'
"A few days later, after recovering my coolness, I reported the affair to the President. A look of vexation came over his face. Then he gave me a positive order for the promotion of the colonel to be a brigadier, and told me to take it over to the War Department. I replied that I could not speak again with Mr. Stanton till he apologized for his insulting manner to me on the previous occasion.
"'Oh,' said the President, 'Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe and Dana is acting. He will attend to it for you.'"
EDWIN M. STANTON, SECRETARY OF WAR
From a photograph by Brady
Judge Usher, Lincoln's Secretary of the Interior, says, "Chief among his great characteristics were his gentleness and humanity, and yet he did not hesitate promptly to approve the sentences of Kennedy and Beall. During the entire war there are but few other evidences to be found of a willingness on his part that any one should suffer the penalty of death. His great effort seemed to be to find some excuse, some palliation for offences charged. He strove at all times to relieve the citizens on both sides of the inconveniences and hardships resulting from the war. It has often been reported that Secretary of War Stanton arbitrarily refused to carry out his orders. In all such cases reported it will be found that the President had given directions to him to issue permits to persons who had applied to go through the lines into the insurgent districts. The President said at one time, referring to Stanton's refusal to issue the permits and the severe remarks made by the persons who were disobliged,—
"'I cannot always know whether a permit ought to be granted, and I want to oblige everybody when I can, and Stanton and I have an understanding that if I send an order to him that cannot be consistently granted, he is to refuse it, which he sometimes does; and that led to a remark which I made the other day to a man who complained of Stanton, that I hadn't much influence with this administration, but expected to have more with the next.'"