All these and many other things which you have said to me, dear grandfather, have helped me to understand this great thunderous drama in which I have had a part. They have helped me to endure its perils and bitter defeats. It was you who saw clearly from the first that this was the final clash between the bond and the free--an effort of the great house of God to purge itself, and you urged me to go to Canada and enlist in the struggle. For this, too, I thank you. My wounds are dear to me, knowing, as you have made me know, that I have come well by them fighting not in the interest of Great Britain or France or Russia, but in the cause of humanity. It is strange that among these men who are fighting with me I have found only one or two who seem to have a vision of the whole truth of this business. Now I come to the point of my letter. I have an enlistment to urge upon you in the cause of humanity and there are no wounds to go with it. When I come home, as I shall be doing as soon as I am sufficiently mended, we must go to work on the story of your life so that all who wish to do so may know it as I know it. Let us go to it with all the diaries that you and your father kept, aided by your memory, and give to the world its first full view of the heart and soul of Lincoln. I have read all the biographies and anecdotes of him and yet without the story as you tell it he would have been a stranger to me. After this war, if I mistake not, Democracy will command the interest of all men. It will be the theme of themes. You tell me that we shall soon get into the struggle and turn the scale. Well, if we do, we shall have to demonstrate a swiftness of preparation and a power in the field which will astonish the world, and when it is all over the world will want to know how this potent Democracy of ours came about. The one name--Lincoln--with the background of your story, especially the background, for the trouble with all the biographies is a lack of background--will be the best answer we could give I think. Of course there are other answers, but, as there are few who dare to doubt, these days, that Lincoln is the greatest democrat since Jesus Christ, if we can only present your knowledge to the world we should do well. Again the great crowd, whom you and I desire to enlighten if we can, do not read biography or history save under the compulsion of the schools, so let us try only to tell the moving story as you have told it to me, with Lincoln striding across the scene or taking the center of the stage just as he was wont to do in your recollection of him. So we will make them to know the giant of Democracy without trying. Duty calls. What is your answer? Please let me know by cable. Meanwhile I shall be thinking more about it. With love to all the family, from your affectionate grandson, R.L. CONTENTS CHAPTER BOOK ONE