"Some time later," says Mr. Ross, "I again visited Washington. On my arrival there (about midnight) I went direct to the Executive Mansion, and sent my card to the President, who had retired. In a few minutes the porter returned and requested me to accompany him to the President's office, where Mr. Lincoln would shortly join me. The room into which I was ushered was the same in which I had spent several hours with the President on the occasion of my first interview with him. Scattered about the floor and lying open on the table were several military maps and documents, indicating recent use. In a few minutes the President came in and welcomed me in a most friendly manner; I expressed my regret at disturbing him at such an hour. He replied in a good-humored manner, saying, 'No, no! You did right; you may waken me up whenever you please. I have slept with one eye open ever since I came to Washington; I never close both, except when an office-seeker is looking for me.' I then laid before the President the 'rebel mail.' He carefully examined the address of each letter, making occasional remarks. At length he found one addressed to Franklin Pierce, ex-President of the United States, then residing in New Hampshire; and another to ex-Attorney-General Cushing, a resident of Massachusetts. He appeared much surprised, and remarked with a sigh, but without the slightest tone of asperity, 'I will have these letters enclosed in official envelopes, and sent to these parties.' When he had finished examining the addresses, he tied up all those addressed to private individuals, saying, 'I won't bother with them; but these look like official letters; I guess I'll go through them now.' He then opened them, and read their contents, slowly and carefully. While he was thus occupied, I had an excellent opportunity of studying this extraordinary man. A marked change had taken place in his countenance since my first interview with him. He looked much older, and bore traces of having passed through months of painful anxiety and trouble. There was a sad and serious look in his eyes that spoke louder than words of the disappointments, trials, and discouragements he had encountered since the war began. The wrinkles about the eyes and forehead were deeper; the lips were firmer, but indicative of kindness and forbearance. The great struggle had brought out the hidden riches of his noble nature, and developed virtues and capacities which surprised his oldest and most intimate friends. He was simple, but astute; he possessed the rare faculty of seeing things just as they are. He was a just, charitable, and honest man.
"When Mr. Lincoln finished reading the letters, I rose to go, saying that I would go to Willard's, and have a rest. 'No, no,' said the President, 'it is now three o'clock; you shall stay with me while you are in town; I'll find you a bed'; and leading the way, he took me into a bedroom, saying, 'Take a good sleep; you shall not be disturbed.' Bidding me 'good night,' he left the room to go back and pore over the rebel letters until daylight, as he afterwards told me. I did not awaken from my sleep until eleven o'clock in the forenoon, soon after which Mr. Lincoln came into my room, and laughingly said, 'When you are ready, I'll pilot you down to breakfast,' which he did. Seating himself at the table near me, he expressed his fears that trouble was brewing on the New Brunswick border; he said he had gathered further information on that point from the correspondence, which convinced him that such was the case. He was here interrupted by a servant, who handed him a card, upon reading which he arose, saying, 'The Secretary of War has received important tidings; I must leave you for the present; come to my room after breakfast and we'll talk over this New Brunswick affair."
"On entering his room again, I found him busily engaged in writing, at the same time repeating in a low voice the words of a poem which I remembered reading many years before. When he stopped writing I asked him who was the author of that poem. He replied, 'I do not know. I have written the verses down from memory, at the request of a lady who is much pleased with them.' He passed the sheet, on which he had written the verses, to me, saying, 'Have you ever read them?' I replied that I had, many years previously, and that I should be pleased to have a copy of them in his handwriting, when he had time and an inclination for such work. He said, 'Well, you may keep that copy, if you wish.'"
Hon. William D. Kelly, a Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, relates that during the time of McClellan's Peninsular campaign he called at the White House one morning, and while waiting to see the President, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts entered the chamber, having with him four distinguished-looking Englishmen. The President, says Mr. Kelly, "had evidently had an early appointment, and had not completed his toilet. He was in slippers, and his pantaloons, when he crossed one knee over the other, disclosed the fact that he wore heavy blue woollen stockings. It was an agreeable surprise to learn that the chief of the visiting party was Professor Goldwin Smith of Canada, one of the firmest of our British friends. As the President rose to greet them, he was the very impersonation of easy dignity, notwithstanding the negligence of his costume. With a tact that never deserted him, he opened the conversation with an inquiry as to the health of his friend John Bright, whom he said he regarded as a friend of our country and of freedom everywhere. The visitors having been seated, the magnitude of recent battles was referred to by Professor Smith as preliminary to the question whether the enormous losses which were so frequently occurring would not so reduce the industrial resources of the North as to affect seriously the prosperity of individual citizens and consequently the revenue of the country. He justified the question by proceeding to recite the number of killed, wounded, and missing, reported after some of the great battles recently fought. There were two of Mr. Lincoln's official friends who lived in dread of his little stories. Neither of them was gifted with humor, and both could understand his propositions, which were always distinct and clean cut, without such familiar illustrations as those in which he so often indulged; and they were chagrined whenever they were compelled to hear him resort to his stories in the presence of distinguished strangers. They were Senator Wilson of Massachusetts and Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War; and, as Professor Smith closed his arithmetical statement, the time came for the Massachusetts Senator to bite his lips, for the President, crossing his legs in such a manner as to show that his blue stockings were long as well as thick, said that, in settling such matters as that, we must resort to 'darkey arithmetic.' 'To darkey arithmetic!' exclaimed the dignified representative of the learning and higher thought of Great Britain and her American Dominion. 'I did not know, Mr. President, that you have two systems of arithmetic' 'Oh, yes,' said the President; 'I will illustrate that point by a little story. Two young contrabands, as we have learned to call them, were seated together, when one said to the other, "Jim, do you know 'rithmetic?" Jim answered, "No; what is 'rithmetic?" "Well," said the other, "it's when you add up things. When you have one and one, and you put dem togedder, dey makes two. And when you subtracts things, when if you have two things and you takes one away, only one remains." "Is dat 'rithmetic?" "Yah." "Well, 'tain't true, den. It's no good!" Here a dispute arose, when Jim said, "Now, you 'spose three pigeons sit on that fence, and somebody shoot one of dem; do t'other two stay dar? I guess not! dey flies away quickern odder feller falls." And, Professor, trifling as the story seems, it illustrates the arithmetic you must use in estimating the actual losses resulting from our great battles. The statements you have referred to give the killed, wounded, and missing at the first roll-call after the battle, which always exhibits a greatly exaggerated total, especially in the column of missing.'"
Mr. Goldwin Smith, the gentleman referred to in the foregoing anecdote, has summarized his impressions of Lincoln in the following paragraph: "Such a person as Abraham Lincoln is quite unknown to our official circles or to those of Continental nations. Indeed, I think his place in history will be unique. He has not been trained to diplomacy or administrative affairs, and is in all respects one of the people. But how wonderfully he is endowed and equipped for the performance of the duties of the chief executive officer of the United States at this time! The precision and minuteness of his information on all questions to which we referred was a succession of surprises to me."
Still terser, but hardly less expressive, is Emerson's characterization of Lincoln as one who had been "permitted to do more for