to say that he did not believe that an attack by water on Charleston could ever possibly succeed.  He talked a long time about his ‘notions,’ as he called them; and at General Halleck’s headquarters next day, the first inquiries were for ‘rebel papers,’ which were usually brought in from the picket lines.  These he examined with great anxiety, hoping that he might find an item of news from Charleston.  One day, having looked all over a Richmond paper several times without finding a paragraph which he had been told was in it, he was mightily pleased to have it pointed out to him, and said, ’It is plain that newspapers are made for newspaper men; being only a layman, it was impossible for me to find that.’”

The out-door life, the constant riding, and the respite from the monstrous burdens at the capital, appeared to afford mental and physical benefit to the worn President.  But in answer to a remark expressing this conviction, he replied sadly, “I don’t know about ‘the rest’ as you call it.  I suppose it is good for the body.  But the tired part of me is inside and out of reach.”  “He rode a great deal,” says Mr. Brooks, “while with the army, always preferring the saddle to the elegant ambulance which had been provided for him.  He sat his horse well, but he rode hard, and during his stay I think he regularly used up at least one horse each day.  Little Tad invariably followed in his father’s train; and, mounted on a smaller horse, accompanied by an orderly, the youngster was a conspicuous figure, as his gray cloak flew in the wind while we hung on the flanks of Hooker and his generals.”

General Hooker was now planning his great movement against Richmond, and talked freely of the matter with the President, In the course of a conversation, Lincoln casually remarked, “If you get to Richmond, General.”  But Hooker interrupted him with—­“Excuse me, Mr. President, but there is no ‘if’ in the case. I am going straight to Richmond, if I live!” Later in the day, Lincoln, privately referring to this self-confidence of the General, said to Mr. Brooks, rather mournfully, “It is about the worst thing I have seen since I have been down here.”  In further illustration of Hooker’s confidence in himself, Mr. Brooks says:  “One night, Hooker and I being alone in his hut, the General standing with his back to the fireplace, alert, handsome, full of courage and confidence, said laughingly, ’The President says you know about that letter he wrote me on taking command.’  I acknowledged that the President had read it to me.  The General seemed to think that the advice was well-meant, but unnecessary.  Then he added, with that charming assurance which became him so well, ’After I have been to Richmond, I am going to have that letter printed.’” But all that came of Hooker’s confidence, after three months of elaborate preparation, was a grand forward movement into Virginia and another bloody and humiliating defeat for the heroic but unfortunate army under his command.