. We awaited through what seemed almost
an endless night, until the east was purpled with the coming of another
day, when Colonel Scott, who had managed the whole scheme, reunited
the wires and soon received from Colonel Lamon this dispatch: "Plums
delivered nuts safely," which gave us the intensely gratifying
information that Lincoln had arrived in Washington.

Of all the Presidents of the United States, and indeed of all the great
statesmen who have made their indelible impress upon the policy of the
Republic, Abraham Lincoln stands out single and alone in his individual
qualities. He had little experience in statesmanship when he was called
to the Presidency. He had only a few years of service in the State
Legislature of Illinois, and a single term in Congress ending twelve
years before he became President, but he had to grapple with the gravest
problems ever presented to the statesmanship of the nation for solution,
and he met each and all of them in turn with the most consistent
mastery, and settled them so successfully that all have stood
unquestioned until the present time, and are certain to endure while the
Republic lives.

In this he surprised not only his own cabinet and the leaders of his
party who had little confidence in him when he first became President,
but equally surprised the country and the world.

He was patient, tireless and usually silent when great conflicts raged
about him to solve the appalling problems which were presented at
various stages of the war for determination, and when he reached his
conclusion he was inexorable. The wrangles of faction and the jostling
of ambition were compelled to bow when Lincoln had determined upon his
line of duty.

He was much more than a statesman; he was one of the most sagacious
politicians I have ever known, although he was entirely unschooled in
the machinery by which political results are achieved. His judgment of
men was next to unerring, and when results were to be attained he
knew the men who should be assigned to the task, and he rarely made a
mistake.

I remember one occasion when he summoned Colonel Forney and myself to
confer on some political problem, he opened the conversation by saying:
"You know that I never was much of a conniver; I don't know the methods
of political management, and I can only trust to the wisdom of leaders
to accomplish what is needed."

Lincoln's public acts are familiar to every schoolboy of the nation, but
his pe