“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 waged a bitter controversy with each other.  General Curtis, commander of the military district comprising Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas, was at the head of one faction, while Governor Gamble led the other.  Their differences were a source of great embarrassment to the Government at Washington, and of harm to the Union cause.  The President was in constant receipt of remonstrances and protests from the contesting parties, to one of which he made the following curt reply: 

Your despatch of to-day is just received.  It is very painful to me that you, in Missouri cannot, or will not, settle your factional quarrel among yourselves.  I have been tormented with it beyond endurance, for months, by both sides.  Neither side pays the least respect to my appeals to reason.  I am now compelled to take hold of the case.

     A. LINCOLN.