, "you are not going to be
shot to-morrow. I believe you when you tell me that you could not keep
awake. I am going to trust you, and send you back to your regiment. Now,
I want to know what you intend to pay for all this?" The lad, overcome
with gratitude, could hardly say a word, but crowding down his emotions,
managed to answer that he did not know. He and his people were poor,
they would do what they could. There was his pay, and a little in the
savings bank. They could borrow something by a mortgage on the farm.
Perhaps his comrades would help. If Mr. Lincoln would wait until pay day
possibly they might get together five or six hundred dollars. Would that
be enough? The kindly President shook his head. "My bill is a great deal
more than that," he said. "It is a very large one. Your friends cannot
pay it, nor your family, nor your farm. There is only one man in the
world who can pay it, and his name is William Scott. If from this day he
does his duty so that when he comes to die he can truly say 'I have kept
the promise I gave the President. I have done my duty as a soldier,'
then the debt will be paid." Young Scott went back to his regiment, and
the debt was fully paid a few months later, for he fell in battle.

Mr. Lincoln's own son became a soldier after leaving college. The letter
his father wrote to General Grant in his behalf shows how careful he was
that neither his official position nor his desire to give his boy the
experience he wanted, should work the least injustice to others:

Executive Mansion,

Washington, January 19th, 1865.

Lieutenant-General Grant:

Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but
only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, having graduated
at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not
wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to
which those who have already served long are better entitled, and better
qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment
to the service, go into your military family with some nominal rank, I
and not the public furnishing the necessary means? If no, say so without
the least hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply interested
that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.

Yours truly,

A. Lincoln.

His interest did not cease with the life of a young soldier. Among his
most beautiful letters are those he wrote to sorrowing pare