carriage and delivered it personally to the proper authorities. Before leaving his office, however, he said to the sister:

“Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country’s sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost.”

He ordered a furlough for the soldier-boy also, that he might return with his sister to Vermont; and when, subsequently, brother and sister came to the White House, the President, in his private room, fastened a badge of office upon his shoulder, saying, “The shoulder that could carry a sick comrade’s baggage, and die for it so uncomplainingly, must wear that strap.”

The father of a soldier applied to Congressman Kellogg, of whom we have spoken, for the pardon of his son, under sentence of death. Mr. Kellogg felt that it was a case where executive clemency ought to be exercised; and he said to the distressed father, “You wait here until I go and see what can be done.” He went directly to President Lincoln, and laid the case before him. When he reached that part of the narrative which related to a fearful charge across a bridge, wherein the soldier displayed remarkable heroism, Mr. Lincoln started up, and asked earnestly,—

“Do you say that the young man was wounded?” as if he were overjoyed to find a decent reason for saving another life.

“Yes, badly wounded,” added Mr. Kellogg.

“Then he has shed his blood for his country?” suggested Mr. Lincoln.

“Yes, and shed it nobly,” responded Mr. Kellogg.

“Kellogg!” continued the President, brightening up, “is there not something in the Bible about the shedding of blood for the remission of sins?”

“I think you are right,” replied Mr. Kellogg.

“Well, it is a good point, and there is no going behind it,” rejoined the President. And, taking up his pen, he wrote a pardon, which Mr. Kellogg bore to the now glad father.

With all his leniency towards erring soldiers and his passion for granting pardons, he had no patience with rebel sympathizers in places of trust. When Alexander Long, of Ohio, proposed, in the House of Representatives, to recognize the Southern Confederacy, General Garfield sprang to his feet, and denounced the “treason” in words of bitter detestation, comparing the author of the proposition to Benedict Arnold, who betrayed his country in the hour of its peril, and entreating loyal representatives not to believe that another such “growth on the soil of Ohio deformed the face of nature, and darkened the light of God’s day.” When news of this speech reached the President, he expressed his approbation in the most unqualified manner, and subsequently thanked General Garfield for “flaying Long alive.”

At one time the President called upon the head surgeon at City Point, and told him that he wanted to visit all the hospitals there, and shake hands with every soldier, as incidentally referred to on a former page.

“Do you know what a job you have undertaken, Mr. President?” responded the surgeon.

“How many have you in the hospitals?” Mr. Lincoln asked.

“From five to six thousand,” answered the surgeon; “and you will be exhausted long before you get through all the wards.”