Nobody who met Secretary Stanton--the Carnot of the war--would give him credit for joking, but Mr. Lincoln's example that way was infectious. The eldest son, Robert, was at college, but a captaincy was awaiting him when he could enter the army. So the war secretary for a pleasantry issued a mock commission to Tad, ranking him as a regular lieutenant. As long as he confined his supposed duties to arming the under servants and drilling the more or less fantastically, as well as he remembered, evolutions on the parade-grounds, where he accompanied his father, all was amusing. But he terminated his first steps in the school of "Hardee's Tactics," the standard text-book of the period, by bringing his awkward squad from the servants' hall, and, relieving the sentries, replaced the genuine with these tyros. For the sake of the vacation they, the regulars, bowed to the commission with its potent Stanton and Lincoln, and United States Army seal. His brother, startled, intervened, but the cadet vowed he would put him in "the black hole," presumably the coal-shed. The President laughed, and when he went to check the usurpation he found the little lieutenant, overpowered by his brief authority, asleep. So he removed him from the service, put aside his commission, and, when he woke to the situation, made it plain that, being a real soldier and officer, he had forfeited his title by falling asleep on post! He went then and formally discharged the sham sentinels placed by the boy's orders and replaced them by the "simon pures." * * * * * MY QUESTION! A recent volume has undertaken the superfluous vindication of President Lincoln from being the mere ornamental figurehead of the republic during the Civil War. In fact, there are many instances of his incurring the reproach of interfering with the chiefs of departments, but it is testified to by a leading minister that he paid much less attention to details than was popularly supposed and invidiously asserted in the capital. He "brought up with a round turn," to use river language, both General Fremont and other military commanders who tried to steal the finishing weapon he kept in store: to wit, the emancipation of the Southern slaves. Senator Cameron, as war secretary, advised in a report that the slaves should be armed to enable them successfully to rise against their masters. The President scratched out this recommendation, which would have spiked his gun, and perverted a great statesmanlike act into a fostered insurrection, saying: "This will never do! _Secretary_ Cameron must take no such responsibility. This question belongs exclusively to me!" * * * * * "IF GOOD, HE'S GOT IT! IF T'AINT GOOD, HE AIN'T GOT IT!"