Your interesting and graphic description of Mr. Lincoln's pardon of the soldier convicted and condemned for sleeping at his post interested me very much. I have a curiosity to know whether this soldier's name was not William Scott? If Scott was his name, I have a reason to believe he was the person whom Francis De Haes Janvier immortalized in verse. I have the honor to be, very sincerely, Your humble servant, WARD H. LAMON. * * * * * MALONE, N. Y., June 2, 1885. _Ward H. Lamon, Denver, Col._ MY DEAR SIR,--I thank you most sincerely for your letter of the 23d ultimo, and for the friendly feeling you evince for me. I am simply mortified at my gross blunder, and can only plead in mitigation the lapse of more than twenty years since the affairs alluded to transpired, in which time, aside from having performed a large amount of hard public and private work, I have experienced an amount of trouble exceptional to ordinary men, having buried every one near to me,--father, mother, brothers, and sisters. I have no one left of nearer kin to me than cousins, and no one to care for my house except servants. For the last three years I have been an invalid, confined to my house and for a considerable portion of the time to my bed: what wonder that "the warder of the brain" should be sometimes at fault! The mistake must be one of _time_, for the actors in the transaction are too vividly impressed upon my memory ever to be forgotten until that faculty is wholly dethroned. I may be mistaken in the fact that Sabin accompanied me when I went on for the regular session in December, 1861; but so sure was I of it that before your letter I would have sworn to it. You have furnished me with a needed caution. It is unpleasant to find out that years are telling upon us, but it is healthful nevertheless. And so I may be mistaken as to the time intervening between the successive stages of the appointment. Sabin is somewhere in the West, and I will endeavor to find his whereabouts and get his statement of the facts. Brevet Brig.-Genl. Chauncey McKeever, now Assistant Adjutant-General of the Army, was at the time in Stanton's office in a confidential capacity, and I think will remember the transaction. I do not remember the name of the pardoned soldier. One of Kellogg's sons lives in the southern part of the State; I will endeavor to get the name, and if successful will write you.