He drew from the lining of his silk hat a photograph, around which was wrapped an executive pardon. Through the lower end of it was a bullet-hole stained with blood.
"I got this in Richmond. They found him dead on the field. He fell in the front ranks with my photograph in his pocket next to his heart, this pardon wrapped around it, and on the back of it in his boy"s scrawl, "_G.o.d bless Abraham Lincoln_." I love to invest in bonds like that."
The secretary returned to his room, the girl who was waiting stepped forward, and the President rose to receive her.
The mother"s quick eye noted, with surprise, the simple dignity and chivalry of manner with which he received this humble woman of the people.
With straightforward eloquence the girl poured out her story, begging for the pardon of her young brother who had been sentenced to death as a deserter. He listened in silence.
How pathetic the deep melancholy of his sad face! Yes, she was sure, the saddest face that G.o.d ever made in all the world! Her own stricken heart for a moment went out to him in sympathy.
The President took off his spectacles, wiped his forehead with the large red silk handkerchief he carried, and his eyes twinkled kindly down into the good German face.
"You seem an honest, truthful, sweet girl," he said, "and"--he smiled--"you don"t wear hoop skirts! I may be whipped for this, but I"ll trust you and your brother, too. He shall be pardoned." Elsie rose to introduce Mrs. Cameron, when a Congressman from Ma.s.sachusetts suddenly stepped before her and pressed for the pardon of a slave trader whose ship had been confiscated. He had spent five years in prison, but could not pay the heavy fine in money imposed.
The President had taken his seat again, and read the eloquent appeal for mercy. He looked up over his spectacles, fixed his eyes piercingly on the Congressman and said:
"This is a moving appeal, sir, expressed with great eloquence. I might pardon a murderer under the spell of such words, but a man who can make a business of going to Africa and robbing her of her helpless children and selling them into bondage--no, sir--he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine!"
Again the mother"s heart sank.
Her hour had come. She must put the issue of life or death to the test, and as Elsie rose and stepped quickly forward, she followed; nerving herself for the ordeal.
The President took Elsie"s hand familiarly and smiled without rising.
Evidently she was well known to him.
"Will you hear the prayer of a broken-hearted mother of the South, who has lost four sons in General Lee"s army?" she asked.
Looking quietly past the girl, he caught sight, for the first time, of the faded dress and the sorrow-shadowed face.
He was on his feet in a moment, extended his hand and led her to a chair.
"Take this seat, Madam, and then tell me in your own way what I can do for you." In simple words, mighty with the eloquence of a mother"s heart, she told her story and asked for the pardon of her boy, promising his word of honour and her own that he would never again take up arms against the Union.
"The war is over now, Mr. Lincoln," she said, "and we have lost all. Can you conceive the desolation of _my_ heart? My four boys were n.o.ble men.
They may have been wrong, but they fought for what they believed to be right. You, too, have lost a boy."
The President"s eyes grew dim.
"Yes, a beautiful boy----" he said simply.
"Well, mine are all gone but this baby. One of them sleeps in an unmarked grave at Gettysburg. One died in a Northern prison. One fell at Chancellorsville, one in the Wilderness, and this, my baby, before Petersburg. Perhaps I"ve loved him too much, this last one--he"s only a child yet----"
"You shall have your boy, my dear Madam," the President said simply, seating himself and writing a brief order to the Secretary of War.
The mother drew near his desk, softly crying. Through her tears she said:
"My heart is heavy, Mr. Lincoln, when I think of all the hard and bitter things we have heard of you."
"Well, give my love to the people of South Carolina when you go home, and tell them that I am their President, and that I have never forgotten this fact in the darkest hours of this awful war; and I am going to do everything in my power to help them." "You will never regret this generous act," the mother cried with grat.i.tude.
"I reckon not," he answered. "I"ll tell you something, Madam, if you won"t tell anybody. It"s a secret of my administration. I"m only too glad of an excuse to save a life when I can. Every drop of blood shed in this war North and South has been as if it were wrung out of my heart. A strange fate decreed that the bloodiest war in human history should be fought under my direction. And I--to whom the sight of blood is a sickening horror--I have been compelled to look on in silent anguish because I could not stop it! Now that the Union is saved, not another drop of blood shall be spilled if I can prevent it."
"May G.o.d bless you!" the mother cried, as she received from him the order.
She held his hand an instant as she took her leave, laughing and sobbing in her great joy.
"I must tell you, Mr. President," she said, "how surprised and how pleased I am to find you are a Southern man."
"Why, didn"t you know that my parents were Virginians, and that I was born in Kentucky?"
"Very few people in the South know it. I am ashamed to say I did not."
"Then, how did you know I am a Southerner?"
"By your looks, your manner of speech, your easy, kindly ways, your tenderness and humour, your firmness in the right as you see it, and, above all, the way you rose and bowed to a woman in an old, faded black dress, whom you knew to be an enemy." "No, Madam, not an enemy now," he said softly. "That word is out of date."
"If we had only known you in time----"
The President accompanied her to the door with a deference of manner that showed he had been deeply touched.
"Take this letter to Mr. Stanton at once," he said. "Some folks complain of my pardons, but it rests me after a hard day"s work if I can save some poor boy"s life. I go to bed happy, thinking of the joy I have given to those who love him."
As the last words were spoken, a peculiar dreaminess of expression stole over his careworn face, as if a throng of gracious memories had lifted for a moment the burden of his life.
CHAPTER III
THE MAN OF WAR
Elsie led Mrs. Cameron direct from the White House to the War Department.
"Well, Mrs. Cameron, what did you think of the President?" she asked.
"I hardly know," was the thoughtful answer. "He is the greatest man I ever met. One feels this instinctively."
When Mrs. Cameron was ushered into the Secretary"s Office, Mr. Stanton was seated at his desk writing.
She handed the order of the President to a clerk, who gave it to the Secretary.
He was a man in the full prime of life, intellectual and physical, low and heavy set, about five feet eight inches in height and inclined to fat. His movements, however, were quick, and as he swung in his chair the keenest vigour marked every movement of body and every change of his countenance.
His face was swarthy and covered with a long, dark beard touched with gray. He turned a pair of little black piercing eyes on her and without rising said:
"So you are the woman who has a wounded son under sentence of death as a guerilla?"