ndidate for
the Presidency, would have no difficulty whatever in defeating Lincoln;
that negotiations with the Confederate officials for the cessation of
hostilities would be entered into as soon as McClellan was seated in the
Chief Executive's chair; that the Confederacy would, in all probability,
be recognized as an independent government by the Washington
Administration; that the "sacred institution" of slavery would continue
to do business at the old stand; that the Confederacy would be one of
the great nations of the world, and have all the "State Rights" and
other things it wanted, with absolutely no interference whatever upon
the part of the North.

Therefore, Lincoln's re-election was a rough, rude shock to Davis, who
had not prepared himself for such an event. Six months from the date of
that nightmare-dream he was a prisoner in the hands of the Union forces,
and the Confederacy was a thing of the past.

LINCOLN'S LAST OFFICIAL ACT.

Probably the last official act of President Lincoln's life was the
signing of the commission reappointing Alvin Saunders Governor of
Nebraska.

"I saw Mr. Lincoln regarding the matter," said Governor Saunders, "and
he told me to go home; that he would attend to it all right. I left
Washington on the morning of the 14th, and while en route the news
of the assassination on the evening of the same day reached me. I
immediately wired back to find out what had become of my commission,
and was told that the room had not been opened. When it was opened, the
document was found lying on the desk.

"Mr. Lincoln signed it just before leaving for the theater that fatal
evening, and left it lying there, unfolded.

"A note was found below the document as follows: 'Rather a lengthy
commission, bestowing upon Mr. Alvin Saunders the official authority of
Governor of the Territory of Nebraska.' Then came Lincoln's signature,
which, with one exception, that of a penciled message on the back of a
card sent up by a friend as Mr. Lincoln was dressing for the theater,
was the very last signature of the martyred President."

THE LAD NEEDED THE SLEEP.

A personal friend of President Lincoln is authority for this:

"I called on him one day in the early part of the War. He had just
written a pardon for a young man who had been sentenced to be shot for
sleeping at his post. He remarked as he read it to me:

"'I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor
young man on m