Governor Yates, of Illinois, in a speech at Springfield, quoted one of Mr. Lincoln’s early friends--W. T. Greene--as having said that the first time he ever saw Mr. Lincoln, he was in the Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot a flatboat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let it run out; affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future President in the quick invention of moral expedients. “Some two years ago,” said Colonel Forney, in a speech at Weldon, Pennsylvania, before the “Soldiers’ Aid Society,” in 1865, “a deputation of colored people came from Louisiana, for the purpose of laying before the President a petition asking certain rights, not including the right of universal suffrage. The interview took place in the presence of a number of distinguished gentlemen. After reading their memorial, he turned to them and said: ‘I regret, gentlemen, that you are not able to secure all your rights, and that circumstances will not permit the government to confer them upon you. I wish you would amend your petition, so as to include several suggestions which I think will give more effect to your prayer, and after having done so please hand it to me.’ The leading colored man said: ‘If you will permit me, I will do so here.’ ‘Are you, then, the author of this eloquent production?’ asked Mr. Lincoln. ‘Whether eloquent or not,’ was the reply, ‘it is my work;’ and the Louisiana negro sat down at the President’s side and rapidly and intelligently carried out the suggestions that had been made to him. The Southern gentlemen who were present at this scene did not hesitate to admit that their prejudices had just received another shock. “To show the magnanimity of Mr. Lincoln, I may mention that on one occasion, when an editorial article appeared in my newspaper, the Washington ‘Chronicle,’ speaking well of the bravery and the mistaken sincerity of Stonewall Jackson, the news of whose death had been just received, the President wrote me a letter thanking me warmly for speaking kindly of a fallen foe. These were his words:-- “‘I honor you for your generosity to one who, though contending against us in a guilty cause, was nevertheless a gallant man. Let us forget his sins over his fresh-made grave.’ “Again, I happened to be in the Executive Chamber when a number of Kentuckians insisted that troops should not be sent through that State for the purpose of putting down the rebel spirit in Tennessee. The President was hesitating what to do, and they were pressing immediate action.