“A sergeant of infantry, whom I shall call Dick Gower, commanded his company in a great many battles in the West in the early days of the war. His company officers had all been killed, but right royally did Dick handle his men. At the first lull in the campaign, the officers of his regiment, of his brigade, and of his division, united in recommending him for a lieutenancy in the regular army. The commanding officer joined in the recommendation. Mr. Lincoln ordered the appointment. Forthwith, Sergeant Dick was ordered before an examining board here in Washington, for the regular army officers were tenacious of what they thought their superiority. Dick presented himself in a soiled and faded sergeant’s uniform, his face and hands bronzed and cracked by the winds and suns of a hot campaign. “The curled darling of Washington society, the perfumed graduates of West Point, who had never seen a squadron set in the field, conducted the examination to ascertain if Dick was fit to be an officer in the regular army. They asked him questions as to engineering, mathematics, philosophy, and ordnance, of harbor warfare, of field campaigns, and all such stuff. Not a single question could Dick answer. ‘What is an echelon?’ was asked. ‘I don’t know,’ answered Dick; ‘I never saw one.’ ‘What is an abbattis?’ was the next question? Dick answered: ‘You’ve got me again. We haven’t got ’em in the West.’ ‘Well, what is a hollow square?’ continued his tormentors. ‘Don’t know,’ said Dick sorrowfully; ‘I never heard of one.’ ‘Well,’ finally said a young snip in eye-glasses, ‘what would you do in command of a company if the cavalry should charge on you?’ They had at last got down to Dick’s comprehension, and he answered with a resolute face and a flashing eye, ‘I’d give them Jesse, that’s what I’d do, and I’d make a hollow square in every mother’s son of them.’ A few more technical questions were asked, but poor Dick was not able to answer them, and the examination closed. “The report was duly sent to the Secretary of War, who submitted it to Mr. Lincoln, saying that evidently Dick would not do for an officer. Mr. Lincoln, when through with the report, and found that Dick had not answered a single question, but he came to where Dick said what he would do if attacked by cavalry, and then he did what sensible Abe Lincoln did in all such matters, he threw the report on his table and made a little memorandum in pencil ordering the Secretary of War to appoint Dick Gower a lieutenant in the regular army. Dick achieved distinction afterward, and was everywhere known in the army as a man without fear, who never made a mistake.” A correspondent of the Boston _Traveller_ furnishes a humorous story told by President Lincoln, to show the embarrassment which he felt as to the disposal of Jefferson Davis: