General McClellan had little or no conception of the greatness of Abraham Lincoln. As time went on, he began to show plainly his contempt of the President, frequently allowing him to wait in the ante-room of his house while he transacted business with others. This discourtesy was so open that McClellan’s staff noticed it, and newspaper correspondents commented on it. The President was too keen not to see the situation, but he was strong enough to ignore it. It was a battle he wanted from McClellan, not deference. “I will hold McClellan’s horse, if he will only bring us success,” he said one day. EXTRA MEMBER OF THE CABINET. G. H. Giddings was selected as the bearer of a message from the President to Governor Sam Houston, of Texas. A conflict had arisen there between the Southern party and the Governor, Sam Houston, and on March 18 the latter had been deposed. When Mr. Lincoln heard of this, he decided to try to get a message to the Governor, offering United States support if he would put himself at the head of the Union party of the State. Mr. Giddings thus told of his interview with the President: “He said to me that the message was of such importance that, before handing it to me, he would read it to me. Before beginning to read he said, ‘This is a confidential and secret message. No one besides my Cabinet and myself knows anything about it, and we are all sworn to secrecy. I am going to swear you in as one of my Cabinet.’ “And then he said to me in a jocular way, ‘Hold up your right hand,’ which I did. “‘Now,’ said he, consider yourself a member of my Cabinet.”’ HOW LINCOLN WAS ABUSED. With the possible exception of President Washington, whose political opponents did not hesitate to rob the vocabulary of vulgarity and wickedness whenever they desired to vilify the Chief Magistrate, Lincoln was the most and “best” abused man who ever held office in the United States. During the first half of his initial term there was no epithet which was not applied to him. One newspaper in New York habitually characterized him as “that hideous baboon at the other end of the avenue,” and declared that “Barnum should buy and exhibit him as a zoological curiosity.” Although the President did not, to all appearances, exhibit annoyance because of the various diatribes printed and spoken, yet the fact is that his life was so cruelly embittered by these and other expressions quite as virulent, that he often declared to those most intimate with him, “I would rather be dead than, as President, thus abused in the house of my friends.” HOW “FIGHTING JOE” WAS APPOINTED.