DEAR SIR,--There are now but few left who were intimately acquainted with Mr. Lincoln. I do not call to mind any one who was so much with him as yourself. You were his partner for years in the practice of law, his confidential friend during the time he was President. I venture to say there is now none living other than yourself in whom he so much confided, and to whom he gave free expression of his feeling towards others, his trials and troubles in conducting his great office. You were with him, I know, more than any other one. I think, in view of all the circumstances and of the growing interest which the rising generation takes in all that he did and said, you ought to take the time, if you can, to commit to writing your recollections of him, his sayings and doings, which were not necessarily committed to writing and made public. Won't you do it? Can you not, through a series of articles to be published in some of the magazines, lay before the public a history of his inner life, so that the multitude may read and know much more of that wonderful man? Although I knew him quite well for many years, yet I am deeply interested in all that he said and did, and I am persuaded that the multitude of the people feel a like interest. Truly and sincerely yours, (Signed) J. P. USHER. In compiling this little volume, I have taken as a foundation some anecdotal reminiscences already published in newspapers by my father, and have added to them from letters and manuscript left by him. If the production seems fragmentary and lacking in purpose, the fault is due to the variety of sources from which I have selected the material. Some of it has been taken from serious manuscript which my father intended for a work of history, some from articles written in a lighter vein; much has been gleaned from copies of letters which he wrote to friends, but most has been gathered from notes jotted down on a multitude of scraps scattered through a mass of miscellaneous material. D. L. WASHINGTON, D. C., March, 1895. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In deciding to bring out this book I have had in mind the many letters to my father from men of war times urging him to put in writing his recollections of Lincoln. Among them is one from Mr. Lincoln's friend, confidant, and adviser, A. K. McClure, one of the most eminent of American journalists, founder and late editor of "The Philadelphia Times," of whom Mr. Lincoln said in 1864 that he had more brain power than any man he had ever known. Quoted by Leonard Swett, in the "North American Review," the letter is as follows:-- PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 1, 1891. _Hon. Ward H. Lamon, Carlsbad, Bohemia_: