, being a humble instrument in the
hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out
His great purpose. . . . I have sought His aid; but if after endeavoring
to do my best in the light He affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must
believe that for some purpose unknown to me He wills it otherwise. If I
had my way, this war would never have commenced. If I had been allowed
my way, this war would have been ended before this; but it still
continues and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose
of His own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited
understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we can not but
believe that He who made the world still governs it."(9)

XXIV. GAMBLING IN GENERALS

On July 22, 1862, there was a meeting of the Cabinet. The sessions of
Lincoln's Council were the last word for informality. The President
and the Ministers interspersed their great affairs with mere talk,
story-telling, gossip. With one exception they were all lovers of
their own voices, especially in the telling of tales. Stanton was the
exception. Gloomy, often in ill-health, innocent of humor, he glowered
when the others laughed. When the President, instead of proceeding at
once to business, would pull out of his pocket the latest volume of
Artemus Ward, the irate War Minister felt that the overthrow of
the nation was impending. But in this respect, the President was
incorrigible. He had been known to stop the line of his guests at a
public levee, while he talked for some five minutes in a whisper to an
important personage; and though all the room thought that jupiter was
imparting state secrets, in point of fact, he was making sure of a good
story the great man had told him a few days previous.(1) His Cabinet
meetings were equally careless of social form. The Reverend Robert
Collyer was witness to this fact in a curious way. Strolling through
the White House grounds, "his attention was suddenly arrested by the
apparition of three pairs of feet resting on the ledge of an open window
in one of the apartments of the second story and plainly visible from
below." He asked a gardener for an explanation. The brusk reply was:
"Why, you old fool, that's the Cabinet that is a-settin', and them thar
big feet are ole Abe's."(2)

When the Ministers assembled on July twenty-second they had no
intimation that this was to be a record session. Imagine the
astonishment when, in his