two here, and even went so far as to send some government archives abroad, and wanted me to go, too, but I refused. Stanton and Welles, I believe, were both 'stampeded' somewhat, and Seward, I reckon, too. But I said: 'No, gentlemen, we are all right and we are going to win at Gettysburg;' and we did, right handsomely. No, General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg!"

"Why not, Mr. President? How was that? Pretty much everybody down here, we heard, was more or less panicky."

"Yes, I expect, and a good many more than will own up now. But actually General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg, and if you really want to know I will tell you why. Of course, I don't want you and Colonel Rusling here to say anything about this-at least not now. People might laugh if it got out, you know. But the fact is, in the very pinch of the campaign there, I went to my room one day and got down on my knees, and prayed Almighty God for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this was His country, and the war was His war, but that we really couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And then and

there I made a solemn vow with my Maker, that if He would stand by you boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him.

"And after thus wrestling with the Almighty in prayer, I don't know how it was, and it is not for me to explain, but, somehow or other, a sweet comfort crept into my soul, that God Almighty had taken the whole business there into His own hands, and we were bound to win at Gettysburg! And He did stand by you boys at Gettysburg, and now I will stand by Him. No, General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg, and that is the why!"

Mr. Lincoln said all this with great solemnity and impressiveness, almost as Moses might have spoken when

he came down from Sinai. When he had concluded there was a pause in the conversation, that nobody seemed disposed to break. Mr. Lincoln especially seemed to be communing with the Infinite One again. The first to speak was General Sickles, who, between the puffs of his cigar, presently resumed, as follows:

"Well, Mr. President, what are you thinking about Vicksburg, nowadays? How are things getting along down there?"

"O," answered Mr. Lincoln, very gravely, "I don't quite know. Grant is still pegging away down there. As we used to say out in Illinois, I think he 'will make a spoon or spoil a horn' before he gets through. Some of our folks think him slow and want me to remove him. But, to tell the truth, I kind of like U. S. Grant. He doesn't worry and bother me. He isn't shrieking for reinforcements all the time. He takes what troops we can safely give him, considering our big job all around— and we have a pretty big job in this war-and does the best he can with what he has got, and doesn't grumble and scold all the while. Yes, I confess, I like General Grant-U. S. Grant-'Uncle Sam Grant!' [dwelling humorously on this last name.] There is a great deal to him, first and last. And, Heaven helping me, unless something happens more than I see now, I mean to stand by Grant a good while yet."

"So, then, you have no fears about Vicksburg either, Mr. President?" added General Sickles.

"Well, no; I can't say that I have," replied Mr. Lincoln, very soberly; "the fact is—but don't say anything about this either just now-I have been praying to Almighty God for Vicksburg also. I have wrestled with Him, and told Him how much we need the Mississippi, and how it ought to flow unvexed to the sea, and how that great valley ought to be forever free, and I reckon

He understands the whole business down there, 'from A to Izzard.' I have done the very best I could to help General Grant along, and all the rest of our generals, though some of them don't think so, and now it is kind of borne in on me that somehow or other we are going to win at Vicksburg too. I can't tell how soon. But I believe we will. For this will save the Mississippi and bisect the Confederacy; and be in line with God's laws besides. And if Grant only does this thing down there -I don't care much how, so he does it right-why, Grant is my man and I am his the rest of this war!"

Of course, Mr. Lincoln did not then know that Vicksburg had already fallen, on July 4, and that a United States gunboat was then speeding its way up the Mississippi to Cairo with the glorious news that was soon to thrill the country and the civilized world through and through. Gettysburg and Vicksburg! Our great twin Union victories! What were they not to us in that fateful summer of 1863? And what would have happened to the American Republic had both gone the other way? Of course, I do not pretend to say that Abraham Lincoln's faith and prayers saved Gettysburg and Vicksburg. But they certainly did not do the Union any harm. And to him his serene confidence in victory there, because of these, was a comfort and a joy most beautiful to behold, on that memorable July 5, 1863.

I never saw Mr. Lincoln again. In November, 1863, while serving at General Meade's headquarters (Army of the Potomac), I was suddenly ordered West to Tennessee (Department of the Cumberland) by Secretary Stanton; and I was still there in 1865, when Mr. Lincoln was assassinated. But this conversation made a deep impression upon me, and seems worthy to be recorded here. Clearly it settles the questio vexata of his religious faith forever. Perhaps it should be added that I made

notes of it shortly afterward, and have often told it since, and now give it here as literally as possible-much of it ipsissima verba.1

The talk afterward took a wide range, but Mr. Lincoln said nothing conflicting with the above, and left the profound impression upon both General Sickles and myself that in these two great national emergencies he walked and talked with Jehovah—or at least believed he did. Did he not take like counsel on other occasions, as before Antietam and Chattanooga and Appomattox? For whatever he may have been in earlier years and under narrower conditions, it seems certain that our great conflict as it proceeded-involving a whole continent and a vast people, with world-wide and timelong results-sobered and steadied him, and anchored him on God as the Supreme Ruler of nations (as a like experience sobered and anchored William of Orange and Cromwell and Washington); and in the end Abraham Lincoln became a ruler worthy to rank with even these.

Of all the great figures of our Civil War, Abraham Lincoln alone looms up loftier and grander as the years roll on; and his place in the pantheon of history is secure forever. As was well sung of a true knight of old:

"His good sword is rust;

His bones are dust;

His soul is with the saints, we trust."

1 See Appendix, p. 355.

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