y they inquired about absent friends; how earnestly they
discussed the prospect of ultimate victory; how deep and abiding was
their faith in the justice of the cause and in the ability of the
government to maintain the union; and how determined that nothing must
be held back that was needed to accomplish that result. For some days
there was a regular levee beneath my father's roof and the good people
of the town gave the union soldier much cause to remember them with
gratitude as long as he lives.

Only in a single instance was anything said that seemed obnoxious to a
nice sense of propriety, or that marred the harmony of an almost
universally expressed sentiment of patriotic approval of what was doing
to preserve the life of the nation--a sentiment in which partisanism or
party politics cut no figure whatever. One caller had the bad taste to
indulge in severe and unfriendly criticism of "Old Abe," as he called
the president. That was going too far and I defended Mr. Lincoln against
his animadversions with all the warmth, if not the eloquence, of the
experienced advocate--certainly with the earnestness born of a sincere
admiration for Abraham Lincoln and love of his noble traits of
character, his single-hearted devotion to his country. I had seen him in
Washington weighed down with a tremendous load of responsibility such as
few men could have endured. I had noted as I grasped his hand the
terrible strain under which he seemed to be suffering; the appearance of
weariness which he brought with him to the interview; the pale, anxious
cast of his countenance; the piteous, far-away look of his eyes; and by
all these tokens he said, as plainly as if he had put it into words;
"Love and solicitude for my country are slowly, but surely, wearing away
my life." I saw shining through his homely features the spirit of one of
the grandest, noblest, most lovable of the characters who have been
brought by the exigencies of fate to the head of human affairs. The
soldiers loved him and they idealized him. He was to them the
personification of the union cause. The day for the discussion of
abstract principles had long gone by. Their ideal had ceased to be an
impersonal one. All the hope, the faith, the patriotism of the soldiers
centered around the personality of the president. In their eyes and
thoughts, he stood for the idea of nationality, as Luther stood for
religious liberty, Cromwell for parliamentary privilege, or Washington
for c