MY DEAR SIR,--A few days since I had the pleasure of reading your "Recollections of Lincoln" from the Malone (N. Y.) "Palladium," in which you say: "At the extra session of Congress in July, 1861, a law was passed authorizing the appointment of additional paymasters for the Army;" that the President assented to your request that your life-long friend, Major Sabin, should be one of the appointees; that, in September following, Mr. Lincoln wrote you saying he had sent the appointment of Mr. Sabin to the Secretary of War, who would notify him to appear for muster into the Service. October passed, and no notice came. Then, you say, a letter written to "Secretary Stanton" failed to bring a response; that the latter part of November you went to Washington to attend the regular session of Congress, taking Mr. Sabin with you. You then say: "The day after my arrival I waited upon Secretary Stanton," etc.; you then detail the conversation had with Mr. Lincoln, and the fact of his making a somewhat imperative order to the Secretary to make the appointment "at once." You say, "I called on Mr. Stanton the next morning, who on its [the letter's or order's] presentation was simply furious." And after this you speak of what was said and done by "Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War." Allow me, my dear sir, to assure you that I now entertain, and always have entertained, for you the most profound respect, and to express my sincere regret that you were not President instead of Vice-President of the United States. I therefore venture to hope that you will pardon me for saying that I am unable to reconcile the statements purporting to be made by you, alluded to above, with the historical fact that Mr. Stanton was not appointed Secretary of War until in January the year following,--namely, 1862. It occurs to me that there must be a mistake made in your paper, either of _dates_ or of the name of the Secretary of War. I am certain this irreconcilable statement was not made by you as was the blunder made by Sir Walter Scott in his "Ivanhoe" (chap. i.). "The date of this story," as he says, "refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I." Richard died in 1199; nevertheless, Sir Walter makes the disguised Wamba style himself "a poor brother of the Order of St. Francis," although the Order of St. Francis was not founded until 1210, and of course the saintship of the founder had still a later date.