The mother drew near his desk, softly crying. Through her tears she said:
“My heart is heavy, Mr. Lincoln, when I think of all the hard and bitter things we have heard of you.”
“Well, give my love to the people of South Carolina when you go home, and tell them that I am their President, and that I have never forgotten this fact in the darkest hours of this awful war; and I am going to do everything in my power to help them.” “You will never regret this generous act,” the mother cried with gratitude.
“I reckon not,” he answered. “I’ll tell you something, Madam, if you won’t tell anybody. It’s a secret of my administration. I’m only too glad of an excuse to save a life when I can. Every drop of blood shed in this war North and South has been as if it were wrung out of my heart. A strange fate decreed that the bloodiest war in human history should be fought under my direction. And I—to whom the sight of blood is a sickening horror—I have been compelled to look on in silent anguish because I could not stop it! Now that the Union is saved, not another drop of blood shall be spilled if I can prevent it.”
“May God bless you!” the mother cried, as she received from him the order.
She held his hand an instant as she took her leave, laughing and sobbing in her great joy.
“I must tell you, Mr. President,” she said, “how surprised and how pleased I am to find you are a Southern man.”
“Why, didn’t you know that my parents were Virginians, and that I was born in Kentucky?”
“Very few people in the South know it. I am ashamed to say I did not.”
“Then, how did you know I am a Southerner?”
“By your looks, your manner of speech, your easy, kindly ways, your tenderness and humour, your firmness in the right as you see it, and, above all, the way you rose and bowed to a woman in an old, faded black dress, whom you knew to be an enemy.” “No, Madam, not an enemy now,” he said softly. “That word is out of date.”
“If we had only known you in time——”
The President accompanied her to the door with a deference of manner that showed he had been deeply touched.
“Take this letter to Mr. Stanton at once,” he said. “Some folks complain of my pardons, but it rests me after a hard day’s work if I can save some poor boy’s life. I go to bed happy, thinking of the joy I have given to those who love him.”
As the last words were spoken, a peculiar dreaminess of expression stole over his careworn face, as if a throng of gracious memories had lifted for a moment the burden of his life.
CHAPTER III
The Man of War
Elsie led Mrs. Cameron direct from the White House to the War Department.
“Well, Mrs. Cameron, what did you think of the President?” she asked.
“I hardly know,” was the thoughtful answer. “He is the greatest man I ever met. One feels this instinctively.”
When Mrs. Cameron was ushered into the Secretary’s Office, Mr. Stanton was seated at his desk writing.
She handed the order of the President to a clerk, who gave it to the Secretary.
He was a man in the full prime of life, intellectual and physical, low and heavy set, about five feet eight inches in height and inclined to fat. His movements, however, were quick, and as he swung in his chair the keenest vigour marked every movement of body and every change of his countenance.
His face was swarthy and covered with a long, dark beard touched with gray. He turned a pair of little black piercing eyes on her and without rising said:
“So you are the woman who has a wounded son under sentence of death as a guerilla?”
“I am so unfortunate,” she answered.
“Well, I have nothing to say to you,” he went on in a louder and sterner tone, “and no time to waste on you. If you have raised up men to rebel against the best government under the sun, you can take the consequences——”
“But, my dear sir,” broke in the mother, “he is a mere boy of nineteen, who ran away three years ago and entered the service——”
“I don’t want to hear another word from you!” he yelled in rage. “I have no time to waste—go at once. I’ll do nothing for you.”
“But I bring you an order from the President,” protested the mother.
“Yes, I know it,” he answered with a sneer, “and I’ll do with it what I’ve done with many others—see that it is not executed—now go.”
“But the President told me you would give me a pass to the hospital, and that a full pardon would be issued to my boy!”
“Yes, I see. But let me give you some information. The President is a fool—a d—— fool! Now, will you go?”
With a sinking sense of horror, Mrs. Cameron withdrew and reported to Elsie the unexpected encounter.
“The brute!” cried the girl. “We’ll go back immediately and report this insult to the President.”
“Why are such men intrusted with power?” the mother sighed.
“It’s a mystery to me, I’m sure. They say he is the greatest Secretary of War in our history. I don’t believe it. Phil hates the sight of him, and so does every army officer I know, from General Grant down. I hope Mr. Lincoln will expel him from the Cabinet for this insult.”
When, they were again ushered into the President’s office, Elsie hastened to inform him of the outrageous reply the Secretary of War had made to his order.
“Did Stanton say that I was a fool?” he asked, with a quizzical look out of his kindly eyes.
“Yes, he did,” snapped Elsie. “And he repeated it with a blankety prefix.”
The President looked good-humouredly out of the window toward the War Office and musingly said:
“Well, if Stanton says that I am a blankety fool, it must be so, for I have found out that he is nearly always right, and generally means what he says. I’ll just step over and see Stanton.”
As he spoke the last sentence, the humour slowly faded from his face, and the anxious mother saw back of those patient gray eyes the sudden gleam of the courage and conscious power of a lion.
He dismissed them with instructions to return the next day for his final orders and walked over to the War Department alone.
The Secretary of War was in one of his ugliest moods, and made no effort to conceal it when asked his reasons for the refusal to execute the order.
“The grounds for my action are very simple,” he said with bitter emphasis. “The execution of this traitor is part of a carefully considered policy of justice on which the future security of the Nation depends. If I am to administer this office, I will not be hamstrung by constant Executive interference. Besides, in this particular case, I was urged that justice be promptly executed by the most powerful man in Congress. I advise you to avoid a quarrel with old Stoneman at this crisis in our history.”
The President sat on a sofa with his legs crossed, relapsed into an attitude of resignation, and listened in silence until the last sentence, when suddenly he sat bolt