and freely commented on"; and was contradicted by the ex-President in the assertion that "in acting upon her case no recommendation for a commutation of her punishment was mentioned or submitted to me." The enemies of Holt accordingly held him indirectly responsible for Mrs. Surratt's execution, and against such a charge he naturally rebelled until the day of his death. The most cruel feature of the whole affair, however, and the one which probably did more than anything else to sadden and becloud the remaining days of Judge Holt's life, was the personal disloyalty of an eminent citizen of his own State, who had been his intimate friend from youth. I refer to James Speed, Andrew Johnson's Attorney General. In 1883, after most of the prominent actors in the scene were dead and the animosities caused by the controversy were largely allayed--at a time, too, when Holt realized that he was growing old and recognized more keenly than ever the importance of leaving behind a final refutation of the calumnies that had been heaped upon him--he appealed to Speed, who, he believed he had reason to assume was in possession of the exact facts of the case; but all that could be wrung from him were evasive words to the effect that he saw the petition for clemency in the President's office, without intimating whether it was before or after Mrs. Surratt's execution, and that he did not "feel at liberty to speak of what was said at cabinet meetings." An exchange of letters followed between the two in which Speed excused himself for six months on the pleas of bereavement and press of business, and that he had lost his glasses, when he finally replied:--"After very mature and deliberate consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot say more than I have said." It is no wonder, then, that Holt, driven to desperation by such treatment, wrote to Speed:--"Your forbearance towards Andrew Johnson, of whose dishonorable conduct you have been so well advised, is a great mystery to me. With the stench of his baseness in your nostrils you have been all tenderness for him, while for me ... you have been as implacable as fate." While spending the summer of 1888 in Princeton, Massachusetts, I read in the _North American Review_ for July of the same year the correspondence relating to the Surratt question between Holt and Speed in 1883. Knowing Judge Holt as I did, having firm faith in his version of the controversy, believing him to be a victim of gross injustice and realizing withal how keenly through all these years he had felt the sting of misrepresentation, I wrote him a lengthy letter. It was not long before I received his reply, and I copy it here, as I believe it casts an additional sidelight upon a subject which caused this brilliant and high-minded gentleman bitter suffering from which he never wholly recovered. I add several more letters written to me by him which are beautiful in expression but pathetic in character. WASHINGTON, August 26th, 1888.