she put very clearly.  Our conversation was mainly of her husband.  I remarked that all the likenesses I had ever seen of him did him injustice.  This evidently pleased her.  I suggested that a full beard from the under lip down (his face was shaven) would relieve and help him very much.  This interested her, and we discussed it and the character of his face quite fully.  The impression I then formed of this most unfortunate lady was only deepened by the pleasant acquaintance she permitted, down to the time of the national calamity, which unsettled her mind as I always thought.”

Of the New York City visit, an excellent account is given by the distinguished preacher and writer, Dr. S. Irenaeus Prime.  “The country was at that moment,” says Dr. Prime, “in the first throes of the great rebellion.  Millions of hearts were beating anxiously in view of the advent to power of this untried man.  Had he been called of God to the throne of power at such a time as this, to be the leader and deliverer of the people?  As the carriage in which he sat passed slowly by me on the Fifth avenue, he was looking weary, sad, feeble, and faint.  My disappointment was excessive; so great, indeed, as to be almost overwhelming.  He did not look to me to be the man for the hour.  The next day I was with him and others in the Governor’s room in the City Hall, when the Mayor of the city made an official address.  Mr. Lincoln’s reply was so modest, firm, patriotic, and pertinent, that my fears of the day before began to subside, and I saw in this new man a promise of great things to come.  It was not boldness or dash, or high-sounding pledges; nor did he while in office, with the mighty armies of a roused nation at his command, ever assume to be more than he promised in that little upper chamber in New York, on his journey to the seat of Government, to take the helm of the ship of state then tossing in the storm.”

Before the end of the journey, strong fears prevailed in the minds of Lincoln’s friends that an attempt would be made to assassinate him before he should reach Washington.  Every precaution was taken to thwart such endeavor; although Lincoln himself was disturbed by no thought of danger.  He had done, he contemplated doing, no wrong, no injustice to any citizen of the United States; why then should there be a desire to strike him down?  Thus he reasoned; and he was free from any dread of personal peril.  But the officials of the railroads over which he was to pass, and his friends in Washington, felt that there was cause for apprehension.  It was believed by them that a plot existed for making away with Lincoln while passing through Baltimore, a city in the heart of a slave State, and rife with the spirit of rebellion.  Detectives had been employed to discover the facts in the matter, and their reports served to confirm the most alarming conjectures.  A messenger was despatched from Washington to intercept the Presidential party and warn Lincoln of the impending danger.