Part 8 (2/2)

It is a significant and a not generally known fact that John Brown actually believed his insurrection would succeed; but whether it would or not, he was determined sooner or later to make the attempt. He said, ”If I die that way, I will do more good than by living on; and, anyhow, I will do it whether it succeeds or not.”

The last time I saw John Brown was when he drove out to our house before leaving Springfield to go to Harper's Ferry. My father drove him down to the station--to Huntingdon railroad station; they called it Chester Village then, but the name has since been changed. The last letter that he wrote from the prison at Charleston was to my father. It was written the day before his execution.

John Brown's character was perfectly suited to the part he elected to play, and that this had a potent influence upon people's minds and through them upon events leading up to the war cannot be denied. A less austere man or a man less firm in his own convictions would never have carried through such a mad exploit. But it is not a desecration of John Brown's memory to state the simple fact that he lacked the quality of human understanding which Lincoln possessed so richly and which showed itself in the smile of sympathy and the word of good cheer.

Before I left Was.h.i.+ngton to go back to my regiment I learned that the friend for whose life I had gone to plead had been pardoned by the President. The hearty greeting which hailed the return of that young soldier to his comrades was full of spontaneous joy, but in the background of the picture was the great form of Old Abe, the greatest saint in the calendar of all the soldiers.

He was indeed, as has been often said before, the best friend of the whole country--the South as well as the North. Through all of that bitter struggle he never forgot that he had been elected President of _all_ the United States.

When I had a second long talk with Lincoln, just shortly before he was murdered, not one word did he say against the South or against the generals of the South. He spoke of General Lee always in respectful terms.

He respected the Southern army and the Southern people, and he estimated them for just about what they were worth. He did not underestimate their power nor their patriotism; not a word in that two hours' interview did he say against the Southern army or the Southern people vindictively; it was that of a calm statesman who estimated them for what they were worth; and whenever he mentioned the name of General Lee he emphasized the fact that Lee was fighting that war on a high principle, not one of vindictiveness or any small ambition.

He realized that the Southern people were fighting for what they believed was right, and he knew General Lee would not be in it unless he was convinced it was right. He did not say that in words, but that is the impression I received. To hear the stories of Southern barbarities which would naturally be circulated about the enemy and then to find the President of the United States treating the matter with such dignity and calmness was a surprise and an enlightenment to me.

On that black day when the body of Abraham Lincoln lay in state in the East Room of the White House it was my great privilege to be detailed for duty there. I happened to be in Was.h.i.+ngton, recovering from a wound sustained in the battle of Kenesaw Mountain a short time before, and I was called upon, together with all unattached officers in the Capitol, to help out. About twenty officers were continually on duty in the room in which the casket stood. Two of us actually stood guard at a time--one at the head and one at the foot. The casket was heaped high with flowers and the people pa.s.sed through the room in an unending stream.

No such grief was ever known on this continent. All wept, strong, hardened warriors with the rest. People were heartily ashamed when their supply of tears ran out. Some trembled as they pa.s.sed through the door, and, once outside the room, gave vent to their sorrow in groans and shrieks, while others, in the excess of their grief, cursed G.o.d, as though Lincoln's death was an unjust punishment of him instead of a glorious crown of martyrdom.

Looking back through fifty-four years--after the calm judgment of sages has rea.s.serted their wisdom and after all Lincoln's enemies have turned to devoted friends--we cannot forbear the renewed a.s.sertion that Abraham Lincoln was in some special way unlike other men. That unusual power of inspiration was exhibited in his words and acts almost every day of his closing years.

Through the half century there comes down to us a wonderful sentence in Lincoln's second inaugural address which is incarnate with vigorous life.

Out of the smoke, devastation, hate, and death of a gigantic fratricidal war, above the contentions of parties, jealous commanders, and grief-benumbed mourners, clear and certain as a trumpet call this unlooked-for declaration rang out. It was the voice of G.o.d:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as G.o.d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

What a Christian spirit, what a deference to G.o.d, what a determined purpose for good! What a basis for peace among the nations was there stated in one single sentence! Where in the writings of the gifted geniuses, ancient or modern, is another one so potent. Yet the mere dead words are not specially symmetrical, and the expression is in the language of the common people. The influence is that of the spirit; it can never die.

His enemies mourned when he died and all the world said a great soul had departed. But the children of his dear heart and brain will live on the earth forever. They will pray and teach and sacrifice and fight on until all nations shall be the one human family which the prophet Lincoln so clearly foresaw. Men are called to special work. Men are more divine than material; and among the most trustworthy proofs of this intuitive truth is the continuing force of the personality of Abraham Lincoln.

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