“When General Weitzel escorted President Lincoln and his companions through the Capitol at Richmond the day after the occupation, in April, 1865, they reached what the rebels called the Cabinet room of the great President of the Southern Confederacy. General Weitzel said: ‘This, Mr. President, is the chair which has been so long occupied by President Davis.’ He pulled it from the table and motioned the President to sit down. Mr. Lincoln’s face took an extra look of care and melancholy. The narrator says ‘he looked at it a moment and slowly approached and wearily sat down. It was an hour of exultation with the soldiers; we felt that the war was ended, and we knew that all over the North bells were pealing, cannon booming, and the people were delirious with joy over the prospect of peace. I expected to see the President manifest some spirit of triumph as he sat in the seat so long occupied by the rebel Government; but his great head fell into his broad hand and a sigh that seemed to come from the soul of a nation, escaped his lips and saddened every man present. His mind seemed to be travelling back through the dark years of the war, and he was counting the cost in treasure, life, and blood that made it possible for him to sit there. As he rose without a word and left the room slowly and sadly, tears involuntarily came to the eyes of every man present, and we soldiers realized that we had not done all the suffering nor made all the sacrifices.’” Where Abraham Lincoln obtained some of his anti-slavery ideas may be learned from a recent article in the _Century_, by Leonard W. Bacon, who describes the effects of his father’s writings upon this subject on the mind of the future President: