land and France and other countries, nor know about many things requiring information and skill and ability such as a President ought to have. So, he offered to guide Mr. Lincoln and act for him in such affairs. He wrote something of this sort to him. Mr. Lincoln was very kind and noble; he never told about the letter, or referred to it again after he had answered Mr. Seward. But he said to him that such things were the President's business to attend to, and that he should do it. So Seward found out that Lincoln had a mind of his own and knew how to use it; and the two men became good and true friends so long as Mr. Lincoln lived-so good friends that when Mr. Lincoln was assassinated, the murderers tried to kill Mr. Seward also.

There was an editor in Washington who was always finding fault with the President and writing things against him. One day a friend said to Mr. Lincoln that if only he would invite that editor to call to see him and pay him a little attention, the man would probably be pleased about it, and turn around and say good things of him. But Abraham Lincoln answered with that honest pride which had won the hearts of the people and made them trust him. "I never have done an official act for my own personal political power," he said; "and I shall not do it now. I have not invited Horace Greeley and

other editors of much more importance and patriotism than this editor to call upon me, and I shall not ask this one." And he did not.

But there was one letter which Horace Greeley, then the editor of the New York Tribune, a leading Republican paper, wrote him a week after the battle of Bull Run which must have grieved the President much. "You are not considered a great man," wrote Mr. Greeley. And then he went on to say that if Mr. Lincoln was sure that we could never recover from the defeat at Bull Run, he ought not to carry on the war any longer, to have more men killed, but should call a peace conference at once, and arrange with the South; and he begged him not to think of himself; but to do what he thought right and that Greeley would help him.

But though some men thought with Greeley that all was lost because of one defeat, all were not so; the faith of the people swept back in a great tide of loyalty. Congress was true; men came into the army to more than fill the places of those lost; the Governors of the States offered troops and hurried them forward to Washington. In it all the President was calm in speech and manner, however his heart ached; and he began to show his great ability in administrating affairs, which, it was said of him "enabled him to smooth mountains of obstacles

and bridge rivers of difficulty in his control of nien." On the night after the battle of Bull Run he began to plan out what next the army should do, and when people came to him with their advice and their plans, he was all ready to tell them a story and send them away, not letting them know at all what was in his own mind, for that would have spoiled all.

There was once a temperance committee which waited on the President and told him that the reason the army of the Potomac did not win victories was because the soldiers drank so much whisky that the Lord would not allow them to be successful. Now, nobody hated intoxicating drink of all kinds more than Mr. Lincoln. But he could not help saying to this committee which came to advise him, that it seemed strange if their belief was true, because the confederate army drank a great deal more whisky than the Northern did.

If he could call people's attention to any fact he wanted them to notice, he never sought around for fine words; this is the reason his speeches and letters are so forceful and so admired. One day a man who knew him very well came to him and begged him not to use the word "sugar-coated" in some message he was sending. "If you think there's any doubt about their knowing what 'sugar-coated'

means, "returned Mr. Lincoln, "I will change it." But as there could not be, he let it stand.

He was worn and tired with the great numbers of persons always coming to see him. Yet he was impatient of any measures taken to keep the people away from him; he wanted them to have the opportunity to come freely as he believed the people ought to be able to come to their President. So, he answered them as best he could, granted their requests when he believed it possible, and sent them away with stories when he could do no more for them.

XXXI.

GENERAL LEE COMES INTO MARYLAND.

One day when President Lincoln and some of his generals had arranged to meet General McClellan and he kept them waiting for him a long time and then never came at all, when the generals were angry for this insult to the President whom McClellan often treated rudely, Mr. Lincoln said to them: "Why, I would hold his horses for him if he would only give us victory!"

General McClellan had been put in command of the great army of the Potomac after General Scott resigned his position as commanding general in the October of 1861; but he was practically in command from almost directly after the battle of Bull Run on the July before, until the seventh of November, 1862, when he was finally relieved of his command. In that time there had been a brief interval when without being definitely superseded, the command of an