The words made such an impression that I consulted with Major John Hay, the unmarried secretary, who slept at the mansion, and whose chamber adjoined my room. He remarked, "What can we do to prevent assassination? The President is so accessible that any villain can feign business, and, while talking to him, draw a razor and cut his throat, and some minutes might elapse after the murderer's escape before we could discover what had been done."

This letter I did not destroy, but some weeks after Harold, Payne, and others had been executed, I gave it to Judge-Advocate-General Holt, who subsequently told me that he had no doubt that the writer had some knowledge of Booth's desire to do evil. Who the writer was will probably never be known.

As no cars were allowed to run, upon the tender of a locomotive I rode to Washington, and reached the house about an hour after the President's body had arrived. A vast crowd was in the streets, a guard of soldiers at each gate, the halls of the mansion, ordinarily filled with visitors, were still, and everything seemed to weep. My position was lonely. Mr. John G. Nicolay, the principal secretary, was absent on a short sea-voyage; Major Hay, by the long watching through the night, was worn out, and lay upon the sofa in his chamber, so that the duty devolved upon me to read and dispose of all the papers that had accumulated in the office since Mr. Lincoln had been President, and make such disposition of them as my judgment suggested. Few men's papers can be found in this world so free from anything objectionable, or sentiments which it would be desirable that the public should not know, as were these.

In the mail received after the President was lying cold with death, there were two which made some impression. One was from General Burnside, resigning his position, thanking the President for the consideration he had always shown, and expressing his willingness, should the nation's life be again endangered, once more to buckle on his sword. The other was written by Chief Justice Chase, at Barnum's Hotel, Baltimore, on Friday night, not long before the fatal shot was fired. Mr. Chase had written on Wednesday relative to the emancipation proclamation, but this second letter was on the position the government should assume towards the late slave population, and in it was asked, "Cannot you take the position of universal suffrage?"

Mr. Lincoln preferred intelligent, impartial suffrage, without respect to color, but was willing to give the right to vote to all colored men who had been soldiers of the United States, even if they could not read.

On Saturday, Slade, the messenger, came to me and said he was very unhappy, and asked me if I had noticed as I crossed the hall to the President's room on Friday afternoon that he was listening to the VicePresident, and nodding assent as he conversed. I told him I had observed him. He then said,

"It is what I said to Mr. Johnson that makes me feel miserable." The Vice-President had expressed his respect for Mr. Lincoln, but said he thought if he were President he would not make it too easy for the rebels, and that having African blood in his veins he had nodded assent, and expressed the wish that at some future day he might be President.

Assuring him that there was no occasion for his

unhappiness, he seemed to be in a measure relieved. Slade was a faithful man, prudent and dignified. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church for colored people on Fifteenth Street, near the President's mansion.

After the funeral he came to me in a different frame of mind, and told me the ambition of his life was satisfied, that President Johnson had sent for him and made him the steward of the house, which gave him a good salary and some perquisites. He died before Mr. Johnson's term expired, and camellia japonicas were sent by the President to be placed on his coffin, and the President's daughters attended the burial services.

About ten o'clock on Saturday night Major Hay, who had recovered, came to me and said that he thought some one ought to suggest to acting President Johnson that it would be well for him to inform the widow that there was no need of undue haste in leaving the mansion. Going to the National Hotel, I found Senator Ramsey, of Minnesota, in his private parlor, and asked him if he would see Mr. Johnson, to which request he consented. On Sunday morning, about eleven o'clock, the cards of Senators Ramsey and Norton were brought to me, and a messenger was sent to Robert, the elder son of the dead President, who came and stood by the table where his father had so lately transacted business. After introducing the Senators, Senator Ramsey delivered the request of President Johnson, that his mother should not feel constrained to leave the house until she had made all proper arrangements.

This son had but a few months before graduated at Harvard University, and his manly bearing on that trying occasion made me feel that he was a worthy son

of a worthy father. It is worthy of note that, in afteryears, he succeeded Senator Ramsey as Secretary of War.

Just before the funeral, President Lincoln's first Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, so long identified with the politics of Pennsylvania, and still living, told me that during his long public career he had never met one who was more sagacious and far-seeing.

Not long after the surrender of Richmond, a native of the South, now a professor in South Carolina, visited me and passed a night. In the chamber where he slept there were on the table some of the advance sheets of Raymond's "Life of Lincoln," which he had taken up and read. After taking his seat at the breakfast-table, he said that he now believed the caricatures and exaggerations of the peculiarities of the President would soon be forgotten, and that his name would be honored like that of Washington.

The surgeon on duty with the ship "Congress," in the terrible fight with the rebel ram "Merrimac," in Hampton Roads, upon his return from a cruise in the Mediterranean, after the war, told me that he was not only surprised, but gratified, to find in several restaurants in Italy the likeness of Abraham Lincoln.

The words of Paterculus, the historian of the time of one of the Cæsars, relative to a distinguished man of his century, can be aptly applied to him of whom we have spoken: "His distinctive characteristic was this, that he was preceded by none whom he imitated, nor did any come after who could imitate him."

A poet, before Mr. Lincoln's death, well portrayed his future reputation in the following lines:

"No adulation shall the poet bring,

No o'erwrought picture of thy excellence; But taught by truthfulness shall simply sing The passing worth of cheerful common sense; Shall call thy honesty a priceless gem,

Thy patience beautiful, thy faith sublime. Thy gentle nature let the harsh condemn, Just Heaven's reward is in the hand of Time. Work on amidst the nation's wild turmoil,

The day of triumph brightens up the sky, The tree of peace springs up from roots of toil, Its leaves shall sweetly crown thee by and by. Smile on amid thy cares, O Freedom's friend, The people's heart is with thee to the end."