so that General Thomas had not the degree of confidence in
the good purposes of those who had been in the rebellion that was
entertained by Northern officers including Grant, Sherman and Sheridan.

As the loyal men of the South were greater sufferers from the war,
their hostility was more intense against those who were responsible
for the war.

If we cannot say that Thomas was a great soldier in the large use of
the phrase, it can be said that he was a good soldier and that without
qualifying words. He should live in history as a true patriot and a
man of the highest integrity.

SECRETARY STANTON

Of the men who occupied places in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, no one was
more free from just criticism affecting unfavorably the value of his
public services than Secretary Stanton.

Of those who were nearest to him, no one ever received the impression
from his acts or his conversation that he thought of the Presidency
as a possibility under any circumstances. Seward, Chase and Bates had
been candidates at Chicago in 1860, and whatever may have been the
fact in regard to Seward and Bates, it is quite certain that ambition
for the Presidency never lost its hold upon Mr. Chase, even when he
became Chief Justice of the United States.

Coupled with the absence of ambition, or perhaps in a degree incident
to the absence of ambition, Mr. Stanton was the possessor of courage
for all the emergencies of the place that he occupied--a courage that
was always available, whether in its exercise the wishes of individuals
or the fortunes of the country were involved.

It was understood by those who frequented the War Office in the gloomy
days of 1862 and '63 that a card signed "A. L." would not always
command full respect from Secretary Stanton. He was a believer in the
rigid principles of the army, and although he was a humane man he
smothered or subdued his sympathy for heart-broken mothers whose sons
had deserted the cause of the country, in his determination to save
the country through the strictest enforcement of the rules and
regulations of the army. Mr. Lincoln, in his abounding good nature,
could not resist the appeals of disconsolate wives and heart-stricken
mothers, and it was often Mr. Stanton's fortune to resist such appeals
even when supported by the President's card in the form of a request
which in ordinary times and upon ordinary men would be treated as an
order.

Hence there may have been a foundation for the report