“This letter will be given to you by Lieut. J. B. Forsythe, who has in custody and will turn over to you one Rhett Bannister of Pennsylvania. Bannister was drafted, failed to respond, and was apprehended by the provost-guard. On his way to join the regiment to which he had been assigned he accidentally ran across me. It appears that he has a son, not yet eighteen years of age, who recently enlisted, without his father’s knowledge, and is now in your army, Col. Gordon’s regiment of Penn. Volunteers, Co. M. Bannister wants to take his son’s place, and have the boy discharged and sent home to his mother, who is back there alone. I can see no objection, if it would not be subversive of discipline in your army, to discharging the boy and taking the father in his place. If this meets with your views I would like it done. “A. LINCOLN.” He folded the letter, handed it to Bannister, and said:-- “There, you can give that to Forsythe when he comes, and he’ll take you to Meade; and whatever Meade says must be done must be done. Maybe he’ll take you and discharge the boy. Maybe he’ll keep you both. Maybe he’ll keep the boy and have you court-martialed and shot. Whatever he does you’ll have to be satisfied with it. Well, I guess that’s all.” He rose to his feet, took his well-worn, high, black hat from the table, and reached out his hand to Bannister, who gripped it, unable for a moment to speak. When his voice did come to him he could only say:-- “Mr. President, I am deeply grateful to you. I came here distrusting and disliking you. I shall leave here--well--I--from to-day I am a Lincoln conscript.” In the telegraph office the President stopped for a few moments to look over late dispatches, and then went out, back through the park and across the lawn, to the treadmill of the White House, there to wear his own life out that the nation which he loved might live. While Bannister was waiting for his guard, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, stern, spectacled, heavy-bearded, came bustling in. “Well,” he said as he espied Bannister in his room, “what is it? What do you want?” “I am waiting for Lieutenant Forsythe,” replied Bannister, who at once recognized the great War Secretary. “Mr. Lincoln has given me this order.” As he spoke, he handed the letter to the Secretary, who took it and read it carefully through. “Another one of the President’s interferences!” he exclaimed impatiently. “He has enough to do at the White House. I wish he would let this department alone. His orders for suspension of sentence, and honorable discharge, and all that, in defiance of the regulations, are absolutely subversive of discipline. They are demoralizing the entire army.” A young officer had entered while the testy Secretary was voicing his annoyance, and now stood at attention in the doorway.