owed how completely they were disappointed. The
preservation of this speech is due to my accidental presence. The
visitation of the Germans was not on the programme, and none of the
representatives of the press charged with the duty of reporting the
events of the day were present. Observing this, I took short-hand notes
on the envelope of an old letter loaned me for the occasion, and
afterwards wrote them out. The words of Mr. Lincoln, exactly as spoken,
are given above."

At Cleveland the party remained over for a day, and Lincoln was greeted
with the usual friendly enthusiasm. An immense crowd met him at the
depot, and he was escorted to the Weddell House, where a reception was
given him in the evening. Hon. A.G. Riddle, then a resident of
Cleveland, and a newly elected member of the Congress which was to share
with Lincoln the burdens and responsibilities of the Civil War, was
present on that occasion, and furnishes the following interesting
personal recollections of it: "I saw Abraham Lincoln for the first time,
at the Weddell House that evening. He stood on the landing-place at the
top of a broad stairway, and the crowd approached him from below. This
gave him an exaggerated advantage of his six feet four inches of length.
The shapelessness of the lathy form, the shock of coarse black hair
surmounting the large head, the retreating forehead--these were not
apparent where we stood. My heart sprang up to him--the coming man. Of
the thousand times I afterward saw him, the first view remains the most
distinct impression; and never again to me was he more imposing. As we
approached, someone whispered of me to him; he took my hand in both his
for an instant, and we wheeled into the already crowded rooms. His
manner was strongly Western; his speech and pronunciation Southwestern.
Wholly without self-consciousness with men, he was constrained and ill
at ease when surrounded, as he several times was, by fashionably dressed
ladies. One incident of the evening I particularly recall. Ab McElrath
was in the crowd--a handsome giant, an Apollo in youth, of about Mr.
Lincoln's height. What brought it about, I do not know; but I saw them
standing back to back, in a contest of altitude--Mr. Lincoln and Ab
McElrath--the President-elect, the chosen, the nation's leader in the
thick-coming darkness, and the tavern-keeper and fox-hunter. The crowd
applauded.

"Mr. Lincoln presented me to the gentlemen of his party--Mr. Browning,
Mr. J