Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN• 189"This war is killing me," he said.His friends, alarmed at the change in his appearance, urgedhim to take a vacation."Two or three weeks would do me no good," he replied. "Icannot fly from my thoughts. I hardly know how to rest. Whatis tired lies within me and can't be got at.""The cry of the widow and the orphan," said his secretary,"was always in Lincoln's ear."Mothers and sweethearts and wives, weeping and pleading,rushed to him daily to obtain pardons for men who had beencondemned to be shot. No matter how worn he was, how exhausted,Lincoln always heard their stories, and generallygranted their requests, for he never could bear to see a womancry, especially if she had a baby in her arms."When I am gone," he moaned, "I hope it can be said of methat I plucked a thistle and planted a flower wherever I thoughta flower would grow."The generals scolded and Stanton stormed: Lincoln's leniencywas destroying the discipline of the army, he must keep hishands off. But the truth is he hated the brutal methods ofbrigadier-generals, and the despotism of the regular army. Onthe other hand, he loved the volunteers on whom he had todepend for winning the war—men who, like himself, had comefrom the forest and farm.Was one of them condemned to be shot for cowardice? Lincolnwould pardon him, saying, "I have never been sure butwhat I might drop my gun and run, myself, if I were in battle."Had a volunteer become homesick and run away? "Well, Idon't see that shooting will do him any good."Had a tired and exhausted Vermont farm boy been sentencedto death for falling asleep on sentinel duty? "I might have donethe same thing, myself," Lincoln would say.A mere list of his pardons would fill many pages.He once wired to General Meade, "I am unwilling for anyboy under eighteen to be shot." And there were more than amillion boys under that age in the Union armies. In fact,there were a fifth of a million under sixteen, and a hundredthousand under fifteen.Sometimes the President worked a bit of humor into his mostserious messages; as, for example, when he wired Colonel Mulligan,"If you haven't shot Barney D. yet, don't."