Rev. Robert Collyer tells of seeing Lincoln in the summer of 1861, on the steps of the White House, “answering very simply and kindly to the marks of respect some soldiers had come to pay him, who stood in deep ranks on the grass, that had been top-dressed with compost enough to cover the whole District of Columbia, as the chairman of the committee that had to pass the account told me.  And once, curiously, I saw only his feet.  It was soon after the battle of Bull Run, when some say that we ran, and some say that they ran.  And all was quiet on the Potomac; but the nation was stamping and champing the bit.  And passing the White House one day, I saw three pairs of feet on the sill of an open window; and pausing for a moment, a good-natured fellow said, ‘That’s the Cabinet a sittin’, and them big feet’s old Abe’s.’ So, lecturing in Boston not long after, I said, like a fool as I was, ’That’s about all they are good for in Washington, to point their feet out o’ window and talk, but go nowhere and do nothing.’  When, indeed, the good President’s heart was even then breaking with anxiety and trouble.”

“One day,” says Mr. A.G.  Riddle, “I called at the White House to present a distinguished stranger, who had important matters to bring to Mr. Lincoln’s notice.  It was evening—­cold, rainy, and cheerless.  The Executive Mansion was gloomy and silent.  At Mr. Lincoln’s door we were told by the attendant to enter.  We found the room quite dark, and seemingly vacant.  I advanced a step or two, to determine if anyone were present, and was arrested by a strange apparition, at first not distinguishable:  the long, seemingly lifeless, limbs of a man, as if thrown upon a chair and left to sprawl in unseemly disorder.  A step further, and the fallen head disclosed the features of the President.  I turned back; a word from my companion reached the drooping figure, and a sepulchral voice bade us advance.  We came upon a man, in some respects the most remarkable of any time, in the hour of his prostration and weakness—­in the depths of that depression to which his inherited melancholy at times reduced him, now perhaps coming to overwhelm him as he thought of the calamities of his country.”

An old and intimate friend from Springfield, who visited Lincoln at this period, found the door of his office in the White House locked; but going through a private room and a side entrance, he found the President lying on a sofa, evidently greatly disturbed and much excited, manifestly displeased with the outlook.  Jumping up from his reclining position, he advanced, saying:  “You know better than any man living that from my boyhood up my ambition was to be President.  I am President of one part of this divided country at least; but look at me!  I wish I had never been born!  I’ve a white elephant on my hands, one hard to manage.  With a fire in my front and rear, having to contend with the jealousies of the military commanders, and not receiving that cordial co-operation and support from Congress that could reasonably be expected, with an active and formidable enemy in the field threatening the very life-blood of the Government, my position is anything but a bed of roses.”