The appointment of Mr. Stanton in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was a great surprise to the country. Those wrote you saying he had sent the appointment of Mr. Sabin to the Secretary of War, who would notify him to appear for muster into the Service. October passed, and no notice came. Then, you say, a letter written to " 'Secretary Stanton" failed to bring a response; that the latter part of November you went to Washington to attend the regular session of Congress, taking Mr. Sabin with you. You then say: "The day after my arrival I waited upon Secretary Stanton," etc.; you then detail the conversation had with Mr. Lincoln, and the fact of his making a somewhat imperative order to the Secretary to make the appointment "at once." You say, "I called on Mr. Stanton the next morning, who on its [the letter's or order's] presentation was simply furious." And after this you speak of what was said and done by "Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War." Allow me, my dear sir, to assure you that I now entertain, and always have entertained, for you the most profound respect, and to express my sincere regret that you were not President instead of Vice-President of the United States. I therefore venture to hope that you will pardon me for saying that I am unable to reconcile the statements purporting to be made by you, alluded to above, with the historical fact that Mr. Stanton was not appointed Secretary of War until in January the year following, — namely, 1862. It occurs to me that there must be a mistake made in your paper, either of dates or of the name of the Secretary of War. I am certain this irreconcilable statement was not made by you as was the blunder made by Sir Walter Scott in his "Ivanhoe " (chap. i.). "The date of this story," as he says, " refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I.” Richard died in 1199; nevertheless, Sir Walter makes the disguised Wamba style himself " a poor brother of the Order of St. Francis," although the Order of St. Francis was not founded until 1210, and of course the saintship of the founder had still a later date. If my recollection serves me correctly, Mr. Stanton, whose memory is now cherished by the great mass of the Republican party, at the dates you speak of and refer to was regarded as a Bourbon of the strictest sect. Up to the time of the capture of the "Trent," with Mason and Slidell aboard, on the 8th of November, 1861, if Mr. Stanton had conceived any "change of who were acquainted with the relations existing between these two men when they were both practising lawyers heart" and cessation of hostility to the Administration, it never was publicly manifested. It was something over a month after this capture that he was consulted by Mr. Lincoln, at the suggestion of Secretary Chase, as an international lawyer concerning the legality of the capture and arrest of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, which was the first interview that was had between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton since the commencement of the Administration. This interview led to Mr. Stanton's appointment as Secretary of War. Mr. Lincoln had occasion for regret about the "Trent" capture, but never for the capture of Mr. Stanton. The immortal Shakespeare, like yourself and others, sometimes got his dates confused; for instance, in his “Coriolanus,” he says of C. Marcius, "Thou wast a soldier even to Cato's will," when in fact Marcius Coriolanus was banished from Rome and died over two hundred years before Cato was born. Again, his reference in the same play, of Marcius sitting in state like Alexander: the latter was not born for a hundred and fifty years after Coriolanus's death. He also says in "Julius Cæsar," "The clock strikes three," when in truth and in fact there were no striking clocks until more than eight hundred years after the death of Cæsar. Another inaccuracy is to be found in “King Lear" in regard to spectacles. Spectacles were not worn until the thirteenth century. And still another in this immortal writer's statements in his play of "Macbeth," where he speaks of cannon: cannon were not invented until 1346, and Macbeth was killed in 1054. You will pardon me these citations, for they are made in a spirit of playful illustration, to show how great minds often become confused about dates. "What you have said I have considered; what you have to say I read your "Recollections of Lincoln " with great interest, as I do everything I see written about that most wonderful, interesting, and unique of all of our public men. I sincerely hope you will receive this in the same kindly spirit that it is written, prompted as it is by a curiosity to know how this variance about Mr. Stanton's official status during the first year of Mr. Lincoln's were not only astonished at this appointment, but were apprehensive that there could not possibly be harmony Administration can be reconciled. I will regard it as an esteemed favor if you will drop me a line explaining it. Your interesting and graphic description of Mr. Lincoln's pardon of the soldier convicted and condemned for sleeping at his post interested me very much. I have a curiosity to know whether this soldier's name was not William Scott? If Scott was his name, I have a reason to believe he was the person whom Francis De Haes Janvier immortalized in verse. I have the honor to be, very sincerely, Your humble servant, WARD H. LAMON. MALONE, N. Y., June 2, 1885. Ward H. Lamon, Denver, Col. MY DEAR SIR, I thank you most sincerely for your letter of the 23d ultimo, and for the friendly feeling you evince for me. I am simply mortified at my gross blunder, and can only plead in mitigation the lapse of more than twenty years since the affairs alluded to transpired, in which time, aside from having performed a large amount of hard public and private work, I have experienced an amount of trouble exceptional to ordinary men, having buried every one near to me, - father, mother, brothers, and sisters. I have no one left of nearer kin to me than cousins, and no one to care for my house except servants. For the last three years I have been an invalid, confined to my house and for a considerable portion of the time to my bed: what wonder that "the warder of the brain" should be sometimes at fault! The mistake must be one of time, for the actors in the transaction are too vividly impressed upon my memory ever to be forgotten until that faculty is wholly dethroned. I may be mistaken in the fact that Sabin accompanied me when I went on for the regular session in December, 1861; but so sure was I of it that before your letter I would have sworn to it. You have furnished me with a needed caution. It is unpleasant to find out that years are telling upon us, but it is healthful nevertheless. And so I may be mistaken as to the time intervening between the successive stages of the appointment. Sabin is somewhere in the of action and co-operation between them. There were perhaps seldom, if ever, two really great men who were as unlike in all respects as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton. They were dissimilar in their habits of life, disposition, taste, in fact in every particular of the general make-up of man. But Mr. Lincoln fully appreciated Mr. Stanton's great ability, both as a lawyer and as a Cabinet counsellor under Mr. Buchanan. The President needed the ablest counsel he could obtain, and allowed no personal consideration to influence him in selecting the right man for the service. West, and I will endeavor to find his whereabouts and get his statement of the facts. Brevet Brig.-Genl. Chauncey McKeever, now Assistant Adjutant-General of the Army, was at the time in Stanton's office in a confidential capacity, and I think will remember the transaction. I do not remember the name of the pardoned soldier. One of Kellogg's sons lives in the southern part of the State; I will endeavor to get the name, and if successful will write you. Now, my dear sir, mortified as I am, I feel almost compensated in having drawn from you such an admirable collection of anachronisms of famous literary men of the world. I am greatly interested in it, and shall take the liberty of showing it to my literary friends. In your readings have you ever encountered the "Deathless City," a beautiful poem written by Elizabeth A. Allen? I never saw but this single production from her pen. Who was or is she, and did she write other things? My memories of Mr. Lincoln are a source of great pleasure to me. Many of them recall illustrations just a little "off color." If you ever come east, I wish you would come across northern New York and drop in upon me. I should greatly delight to live over the days of the war with you. Again thanking you for your letter, and fully reciprocating your good-will, I am Very cordially yours, WM. A. Wheeler. In order to make the history of this appointment complete in its personal element, it will be necessary to go back to the year 1858, when Abraham Lincoln was practising law in Springfield, Illinois, and Edwin M. Stanton was at the head of his profession in Cincinnati. The celebrated McCormick Reaper and Mower case was before the United States Court in Cincinnati. Stanton had been retained as counsel-in-chief in the case for McCormick, together with T. D. Lincoln of Cincinnati, and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, the latter having been McCormick's attorney in Chicago. When Mr. Lincoln arrived in Cincinnati to attend the trial, he called upon Mr. Stanton, who treated him in so impolite and rude a manner that he went to McCormick and informed him that he should have to withdraw as his counsel in the case, stating his reasons therefor. McCormick begged him to remain, and went to Stanton and talked to him about the matter. Mr. Lincoln happened to be in a room adjoining where their conversation occurred, and overheard Stanton say that he would not associate with such a damned, gawky, long-armed ape as that; if he could not have a man who was a gentleman in appearance associated with him in the case, he would himself abandon it. When McCormick returned, Mr. Lincoln refunded to him the five-hundred dollar retainer fee, peremptorily declining to keep it. He then returned to Urbana, Illinois, where court was in session, and, to explain his unexpected return, related the fact and his mortification to his associate members Mr. |