"I said, 'Very well, we will go after breakfast.'
"I happened to have a very tall, easy-riding, pacing horse, and, as the President was rather long-legged, I tendered him the use of him while I rode beside him on a pony. He was dressed, as was his custom, in a black suit, a swallow-tail coat, and tall silk hat. As there rode on the other side of him at first Mr. Fox, the Secretary of the Navy, who was not more than five feet six inches in height, he stood out as a central figure of the group. Of course the staff-officers and orderly were behind. When we got to the line of intrenchment, from which the line of rebel pickets was not more than three hundred yards, he towered high above the works, and as we came to the several encampments the boys cheered him lustily. Of course the enemy's attention was wholly directed to this performance, and with the glass it could be plainly seen that the eyes of their officers were fastened upon Lincoln; and a personage riding down the lines cheered by the soldiers was a very unusual thing, so that the enemy must have known that he was there. Both Mr. Fox and myself said to him,—
"'Let us ride on the side next to the enemy, Mr. President. You are in fair rifle-shot of them, and they may open fire; and they must know you, being the only person not in uniform, and the cheering of the troops directs their attention to you.'
"'Oh, no,' he said, laughing; 'the commander-in-chief of the army must not show any cowardice in the presence of his soldiers, whatever he may feel.' And he insisted upon riding the whole six miles, which was about the length of my intrenchments, in that position, amusing himself at intervals, where there was nothing more attractive, in a sort of competitive examination of the commanding general in the science of engineering, much to the amusement of my engineer-in-chief, General Weitzel, who rode on my left, and who was kindly disposed to prompt me while the examination was going on, which attracted the attention of Mr. Lincoln, who said,—
"'Hold on, Weitzel, I can't beat you, but I think I can beat Butler.'
"In the later summer (1863)," continues General Butler, "I was invited by the President to ride with him in the evening out to the Soldiers' Home, some two miles, a portion of the way being quite lonely. He had no guard—not even an orderly on the box. I said to him,—
"'Is it known that you ride thus alone at night out to the Soldiers' Home?'
"'Oh, yes,' he answered, 'when business detains me until night. I do go out earlier, as a rule.'
"I said, 'I think you peril too much. We have passed a half-dozen places where a well-directed bullet might have taken you off.'
"'Oh,' he replied, 'assassination of public officers is not an American crime.'