“Born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. “Education defective. “Profession a lawyer. “Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War. “Postmaster at a very small office; four times a member of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of the lower House of Congress.” Had Lincoln finished his autobiography in 1865 he would have written with the same modest reticence. For four years, while Register of the Treasury, L. E. Chittenden was in close personal and official relations with President Lincoln. In his _Recollections_ he has emphasized certain qualities which find so beautiful an expression in this story. “Lincoln’s heart was as tender as ever beat in a human breast,” Mr. Chittenden has written. “Those who saw him standing by the coffins of young Ellsworth and the eloquent Baker knew how he loved his friends--how he sorrowed over their loss. In his companionship with his boys, and particularly with the younger, there was a most touching picture of parental affection; in his emotion when he lost them, a grief too sacred to be further exposed. ‘He could not deny a pardon or a respite to a soldier condemned to die for a crime which did not involve depravity if he were to try,’ said an old army officer. He shrank from the confirmation of a sentence of death in such a case as if it were a murder by his hand. ‘They say that I destroy all discipline and am cruel to the army when I will not let them shoot a soldier now and then,’ he said. ‘But I cannot see it. If God wanted me to see it he would let me know it, and until he does I shall go on pardoning and being cruel to the end.’ An old friend called by appointment, and found him with a pile of records of courts-martial before him for approval. ‘Go away, Swett!’ he exclaimed, with intense impatience. ‘To-morrow is butchering day, and I will not be interrupted until I have found excuses for saving the lives of these poor fellows!’ Many pages might be filled with authentic illustrations of his tenderness and mercy, for they were prominent in his official life. Three times I assisted in procuring their exercise, each to the saving of a soldier, and each time he shared our own delight over our success, though he knew not how his face shone when he felt that he had spared a human life.” The main fact of the story published in this book has been told with varying details in many versions. It is related here as it has been set down by one who bore an active part. Mr. Chittenden’s _Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration_ has taken rank as one of the most valuable of the volumes of personal reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln in the war period. Mr. Chittenden’s narrative of “The Sleeping Sentinel” represents the truth of history. _Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel_ I