Mr. Neill, the President’s private secretary, states that between three and four o’clock of this day he had occasion to seek the President to procure his signature to a paper.  “I found,” says Mr. Neill, “that he had retired to the private parlor of the house for lunch.  While I was looking over the papers on his table, to see if I could find the desired commission, he came back, eating an apple.  I told him what I was looking for, and as I talked he placed his hand upon the bell-pull.  I said:  ’For whom are you going to ring?’ Placing his hand upon my coat, he spoke but two words:  ‘Andrew Johnson.’  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I will come in again.’  As I was leaving the room, the Vice-President had been ushered in, and the President advanced and took him by the hand.”

Charles A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, says that his last recollections of President Lincoln are indelibly associated with the seditious Jacob Thompson.  “Late in the afternoon,” says Mr. Dana, “a despatch was received at the War Department from the provost marshal of Portland, Maine, saying that he had received information that Jacob Thompson would arrive in Portland during that night, in order to take there the Canadian steamer which was to sail for Liverpool.  On reading this despatch to Mr. Stanton, the latter said, ’Order him to be arrested—­but no; you had better take it over to the President.’  I found Mr. Lincoln in the inner room of his business office at the White House, with his coat off, washing his hands preparatory to a drive.  ‘Hello,’ said he, ‘what is it?’ Listening to the despatch, he asked, ’What does Stanton say?’ ‘He thinks he ought to be arrested,’ I replied.  ‘Well,’ he continued, drawling his words, ’I rather guess not.  When you have an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run.’”

During the afternoon the President signed a pardon for a soldier sentenced to be shot for desertion; remarking, as he did so, “Well, I think the boy can do us more good above ground than under ground.”  He also approved an application for the discharge, on taking the oath of allegiance, of a Southern prisoner, on whose petition he wrote, “Let it be done.”  This act of mercy was his last official order.

It had been decided early in the day that the President and Mrs. Lincoln would attend Ford’s Theatre in the evening, to witness the play of “The American Cousin.”  Lincoln had invited General Grant to accompany his party to the theatre, saying that the people would expect to see him and should not be disappointed.  But the General had declined, as Mrs. Grant was anxious to start that afternoon to visit their children, who were at school in Burlington, New Jersey.