e curtains drawn. He was
supposed to be a sick man. When the conductor came around, Mr. Pinkerton
handed him the "sick man's" ticket and he passed on without question.

When the train reached Baltimore, at half-past three o'clock in the
morning, it was met by one of Mr. Pinkerton's detectives, who reported
that everything was "all right," and in a short time the party was
speeding on to the national capital, where rooms had been engaged for
Mr. Lincoln and his guard at Willard's Hotel.

Mr. Lincoln always regretted this "secret passage" to Washington, for
it was repugnant to a man of his high courage. He had agreed to the plan
simply because all of his friends urged it as the best thing to do.

Now that all the facts are known, it is assured that his friends were
right, and that there never was a moment from the day he crossed the
Maryland line until his assassination that his life was not in danger,
and was only saved as long as it was by the constant vigilance of those
who were guarding him.

HIS ELOQUENT INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

The wonderful eloquence of Abraham Lincoln--clear, sincere,
natural--found grand expression in his first inaugural address, in which
he not only outlined his policy toward the States in rebellion, but made
that beautiful and eloquent plea for conciliation. The closing sentences
of Mr. Lincoln's first inaugural address deservedly take rank with his
Gettysburg speech:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen," he said, "and not
in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not
assail you.

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I
shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and defend' it.

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection.

"The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

FOLLOWS PRECEDENT OF WASHINGTON.

In selecting his Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln, consciously or unconsciously,
followed a precedent established by Washington, of selecting men of
almost opposite opinions. His Cabinet was composed of William H. Sew