"The President had listened to her with evident sympathy and a half-amused smile at her earnestness, and as she closed her appeal he said, with parental kindness,-- "'And you say, my child, that Fred was compelled to leave you the day after the wedding? Poor fellow, I don't wonder at his anxiety to get back, and if he stayed a little longer than he ought to have done we'll have to overlook his fault this time. Take this card to the Secretary of War and he will restore your husband.' "She went to the War Department, saw the Secretary, who rebuked her for troubling the President and dismissed her somewhat curtly. As it happened, on her way down the War Department stairs, her hopes chilled by the Secretary's abrupt manner, she met the President ascending. He recognized her, and, with a pleasant smile, said,-- "'Well, my dear, have you seen the Secretary?' "'Yes, Mr. Lincoln,' she replied, 'and he seemed very angry with me for going to you. Won't you speak to him for me?' "'Give yourself no trouble,' said he. 'I will see that the order is issued.' "And in a few days her husband was remanded to his regiment. I am sorry to add that, not long after, he was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, thus sealing with his blood her pledge that he should be faithful to his duty." Attorney-General Bates, a Virginian by birth, who had many relatives in that State, one day heard that the son of one of his old friends was a prisoner of war and not in good health. Knowing the boy's father to be a Union man, Mr. Bates conceived the idea of having the son paroled and sent home, of course under promise not to return to the army. He went to see the President and said,-- "I have a personal favor to ask. I want you to give me a prisoner." And he told him of the case. The President said, "Bates, I have an almost parallel case. The son of an old friend of mine in Illinois ran off and entered the rebel army. The young fool has been captured, is a prisoner of war, and his old broken-hearted father has asked me to send him home, promising, of course, to keep him there. I have not seen my way clear to do it, but if you and I unite our influence with this administration I believe we can manage it together and make two loyal fathers happy. Let us make them our prisoners." Lincoln's reputation for kindness of heart extended even among the officials of the Confederacy. Mr. Usher, Secretary of the Interior, says that when he returned from the Peace Conference on the James, in 1864, where he met Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, he related some of his conversations with them. He said that at the conclusion of one of his discourses, detailing what he considered to be the position in which the insurgents were placed by the law, they replied,-- "Well, according to your view of the case, we are all guilty of treason and liable to be hanged." Lincoln replied, "Yes, that is so." And Mr. Stephens retorted,--