is look
and gait, his perfect composure and coolness," to cut it short, the
usually noted marks of his eccentricity, "as he stood looking with
curiosity on that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces returned
the look with similar curiosity, not a single one" among the crowd "his
personal friend." He was not much otherwise situated when he came to
Washington. It is true also that in the early days he was learning his
business. "Why, Mr. President," said some one towards the end of his
life, "you have changed your mind." "Yes, I have," said he, "and I
don't think much of a man who isn't wiser to-day than he was
yesterday." But it seems to be above all true that the exercise of
power and the endurance of responsibility gave him new strength. This,
of course, cannot be demonstrated, but Americans then living, who
recall Abraham Lincoln, remark most frequently how the man grew to his
task. And this perhaps is the main impression which the slight record
here presented will convey, the impression of a man quite unlike the
many statesmen whom power and the vexations attendant upon it have in
some piteous way spoiled and marred, a man who started by being tough
and shrewd and canny and became very strong and very wise, started with
an inclination to honesty, courage, and kindness, and became, under a
tremendous strain, honest, brave, and kind to an almost tremendous
degree.

The North then started upon the struggle with an eagerness and
unanimity from which the revulsion was to try all hearts, and the
President's most of all; and not a man in the North guessed what the
strain of that struggle was to be. At first indeed there was alarm in
Washington for the immediate safety of the city. Confederate flags
could be seen floating from the hotels in Alexandria across the river;
Washington itself was full of rumours of plots and intended
assassinations, and full of actual Southern spies; everything was
disorganised; and Lincoln himself, walking round one night, found the
arsenal with open doors, absolutely unguarded.

By April 20, first the Navy Yard at Gosport, in Virginia, had to be
abandoned, then the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and on the day of this
latter event Lee went over to the South. One regiment from
Massachusetts, where the State authorities had prepared for war before
the fall of Sumter, was already in Washington; but it had had to fight
its way through a furious mob in Baltimore, with some loss of life o