Amidst his terrible trials, Lincoln often exhibited a forced and sorrowful serenity, which many mistook for apathy.  Even his oldest and best friends were sometimes deceived in this way.  Hon. Leonard Swett relates a touching instance:  “In the summer of 1864, when Grant was pounding his way toward Richmond in those terrible battles of the Wilderness, myself and wife were in Washington trying to do what little two persons could do toward alleviating the sufferings of the maimed and dying in the vast hospitals of that city.  We tried to be thorough and systematic.  We took the first man we came to, brought him delicacies, wrote letters to his friends, or did for him whatever else he most needed; then the next man, and so on.  Day after day cars and ambulances were coming in, laden with untold sorrows for thousands of homes.  After weeks of this kind of experience my feelings became so wrought up that I said to myself:  The country cannot long endure this sacrifice.  In mercy, both to North and South, every man capable of bearing arms must be hurried forward to Grant to end this, fearful slaughter at the earliest possible moment.  I went to President Lincoln at the White House, and poured myself out to him.  He was sitting by an open window; and as I paused, a bird lit upon a branch just outside and was twittering and singing most joyously.  Mr. Lincoln, imitating the bird, said:  ’Tweet, tweet, tweet; isn’t he singing sweetly?’ I felt as if my legs had been cut from under me.  I rose, took my hat, and said, ’I see the country is safer than I thought.’  As I moved toward the door, Mr. Lincoln called out, in his hearty, familiar way, ‘Here, Swett, come back and sit down.’  Then he went on:  ’It is impossible for a man in my position not to have thought of all those things.  Weeks ago every man capable of bearing arms was ordered to the front, and everything you have suggested has been done.’”

The burdens borne by Lincoln seemed never to tell so seriously on his strength and vitality as in this terrible battle-summer of 1864.  For him there had been no respite, no holiday.  Others left the heat and dust of Washington for rest and recuperation; but he remained at his post.  The demands upon him were incessant; one anxiety and excitement followed another, and under the relentless strain even his sturdy strength began to give way.  “I sometimes fancy,” said he, with pathetic good-humor, “that every one of the numerous grist ground through here daily, from a Senator seeking a war with France down to a poor woman after a place in the Treasury Department, darted at me with thumb and finger, picked out their especial piece of my vitality, and carried it off.  When I get through with such a day’s work there is only one word which can express my condition, and that is flabbiness.”  Once Mr. Brooks “found him sitting in his chair so collapsed and weary that he did not look up or speak when I addressed him.  He put out his hand, mechanically,