Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... bade him extend to Mr. Lincoln my grateful acknowledgment, impulsively remarking, "How good of him to do this thing!" To which the major replied, "It is a common thing for him to do these acts. He is all the time doing something of the kind." The President's visit to the " front" and the ovation tendered him showed the spontaneous uprising of a people to receive a loved ruler. How he was literally borne on the shoulders of soldiers through the camp, and how everywhere the " boys in blue" rallied around him, all grievances being forgotten and restored, and his leaving a united and devoted army behind him when he returned to Washington, --are matters of history too well known to bear repeating. He did not achieve the victory of carrying out to the letter, without a struggle, the directions of our unseen friends. Mrs. Laurie and myself visited the White House in the interval of the preparation and the time of departure; and Mrs. Lincoln informed us that they were being besieged by applications from members of both houses, and Cabinet officers and their wives, for permission to go with them. And she remarked, in her quick impulsive way: "But I tell Mr. Lincoln, if we are going to take the spirits' advice, let us do it fully, and then there can be no responsibility resting with us if it fail." I was controlled at this time, and "They" impressed upon her the importance of carrying this out as strictly as was consistent; as it was all S important that the "man" not the "President" should visit the army. Disunionists had labored to fill the minds of the soldiers with the idea that the government at Washington was rioting in the good things of life and surrounded by pomp and display, while the soldiers were left to die in the swamps, neglected and...
