risoners, captured in their State
and charged with great atrocities, he positively refused, although
realizing that it might cost him the support of those members of the
House, which he greatly needed at that time.

"The President is always disposed to mitigate punishments and grant
favors," says a member of his Cabinet. "As a matter of duty and
friendship, I one day mentioned to him the case of Laura Jones, a young
lady residing in Richmond and there engaged to be married, who came up
three years ago to attend her sick mother and had been unable to pass
through the lines and return. A touching appeal was made by the poor
girl, who truly says her youth is passing. The President at once said he
would give her a pass. I told him her sympathies were with the
secessionists. But he said he would let her go; the war had depopulated
the country and prevented marriages enough, and if he could do a
kindness of this sort he would do it."

Another applicant for a pass through the lines was less fortunate than
the one just noted. One day, in the spring of 1862, a gentleman from
some Northern city entered Lincoln's private office, and earnestly
requested a pass to Richmond. "A pass to Richmond!" exclaimed the
President. "Why, my dear sir, if I should give you one it would do you
no good. You may think it very strange, but there's a lot of fellows
between here and Richmond who either can't read or are prejudiced
against every man who totes a pass from me. I have given McClellan and
more than two hundred thousand others passes to Richmond, _and not a
single one of 'em has got there yet!_"

Lincoln sometimes had a very effective way of dealing with men who asked
troublesome or improper questions. A visitor once asked him how many men
the rebels had in the field. The President replied, very seriously,
"_Twelve hundred thousand_, according to the best authority." The
interrogator blanched in the face, and ejaculated, "Good heavens!" "Yes,
sir, twelve hundred thousand--no doubt of it. You see, all of our
generals, when they get whipped, say the enemy outnumbered them from
three or five to one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred
thousand men in the field, and three times four makes twelve. Don't you
see it?"

Among the many illustrations of the sturdy sense and firmness of
Lincoln's character, the following should be recorded: During the early
part of 1863 the Union men in Missouri were divided into two factions,
which wage