n the White House. Their garments were a
sight! Some of the men were in full military dress and some in
civilian clothes, but the costumes of a majority were a mixture of
both kinds, just as accident had arranged it, and pretty much all
showed evidences of hard usage. One of the most forward of the
delegates had neither cuffs nor collar, and his shirt had manifestly
not been near a laundry for a long time. He apologized to the
President for his appearance, saying that he had been sleeping in the
woods where toilet accommodations were very indifferent. Two or three
of the men bore marks of battle with the guerrillas, in patched-up
faces, and one of them carried an arm that had been disabled by a gun
shot in a red handkerchief sling. In speaking of these visitors, the
President afterwards jocularly referred to them as "those crackerjacks
from Missouri."

A formal address was presented, the principal point being that, as the
Missouri Unionists had furnished many thousand recruits to the Federal
Army, they had a right to look to the Government for soldiers to
assist in protecting their families and their property. And here it
will do no harm to state that, notwithstanding the heavy drain made by
the Confederacy, Missouri, during the war, furnished 109,000 men to
the national army.

After their formal address had been presented to the President, the
members of the delegation tackled him, one after the other, as the
spirit moved them, and it can truthfully be said that in some of the
bouts that ensued he did not come out "first best." He admitted as
much when, afterwards referring to this meeting, he spoke of the
Missouri Radicals as "the unhandiest fellows in the world to deal with
in a discussion."

The conclusion of the interview was attended with an unexpected
incident. The recognized leading spokesman of the Missourians was the
Hon. Charles D. Drake, of St. Louis, who was made Chief Justice of the
Court of Claims at Washington by Grant, when he became President. He
was a very forcible speaker. As Mr. Lincoln indicated by rising from
his seat that the conference was at an end, Mr. Drake stepped forward
and in well-chosen words thanked him for the lengthy and courteous
hearing he had given his visitors, and in their names bade him
good-by. Then he started for the door, but something seemed to arrest
him. Turning sharply to Mr. Lincoln, he said: "Mr. President, we are
about to return to our homes. Many of these men befo