's my private opinion, Bates, that you're just as pigeon-hearted as I
am!"

Judge Advocate General Holt was sent to labor with him and insist that
he enforce the law imposing the death penalty.

"Your reasons are good, Holt," he answered kindly, "but I can't promise
to do it. You see, so many of my boys have to be shot anyhow. I don't
want to add another one to that lot if I can help it----"

He paused and went on whimsically:

"I don't see how it's going to make a man better to shoot him,
anyhow--give them another trial."

In spite of all Holt's protests he steadfastly refused to sanction any
death warrant against a man for cowardice under fire. "Many a man," he
calmly argued, "who honestly tries to do his duty is overcome by fear
greater than his will--I'm not at all sure how I'd act if Minie balls
were whistling and those big shells shrieking in my ears. How can a poor
man help it if his legs just carry him away?"

All these he marked "leg cases," put them in a separate pigeon hole and
always suspended their sentence.

He would smile gently as he filed each death warrant away:

"It would frighten that poor devil too terribly to shoot him. They
shan't do it."

On one he wrote:

"Let him fight again--maybe the enemy will shoot him--I won't."

Betty Winter came with two cases. The first was a mother to plead for
her boy sentenced to die for sleeping at his post on guard.

"You see, sir," the mother pleaded, "he'd been on watch once that night
and had done his duty faithfully. He volunteered to take a sick
comrade's place. He was so tired he fell asleep. He was always a
big-hearted, generous boy--you won't let them shoot him?"

"No, I won't," was the quick response.

The mother laughed aloud through her tears and threw her arms around
Betty's neck.

The President bent over the paper and wrote across its back:

"Pardoned. This life is too precious to be lost."

Betty waited until the crowd had passed out and he was alone with
Colonel Nicolay. She hurried to his desk with her second case which she
had kept outside in the corridor until the time to enter.

A young mother walked timidly in, smiling apologetically. She carried a
three-months-old baby in her arms. She was evidently not in mourning,
though her eyes were red from weeping.

"What's the matter now?" the President laughed, nodding to Betty.

"Tell him," she whispered.

"If you please, sir," the woman began timidly, "we ain't been married