The warmest welcome Tom had at the White House was given him by Towser. The next warmest was given him by Uncle Moses and the next by Lincoln. The staff was glad to see him back, but many of them were jealous of the President's evident liking for him and would not have sorrowed overmuch if he had not come back at all. The patient President found time, amid all his myriad cares, to listen to Tom's story and to make Secretary Stanton give a captain's commission to Jim Grayson, who was sent to his own mountains to gather recruits for the Union army. For Towser, time existed only to be spent in welcoming his young master home. He clung close to him, with slobbering jaws and thumping tail, through the first day, and the first night he managed to escape from Uncle Mose's care in the basement and to find Tom's attic room. Thenceforth, as long as Tom stayed at the White House, Towser stretched his yellow bulk across the threshold of his door every night and slept there the sleep of the utterly happy. There were no utterly happy men under the White House roof. Lincoln's presidential term was drawing to a close. He was renominated by the Republicans, but his re-election at times seemed impossible. The Democrats had put forward Gen. George B. McClellan, once chief commander of the Union forces, but a pitiful failure as an aggressive general. A discontented wing of the Republicans had nominated Gen. John C. Fremont. Fremont had not fulfilled the promise of his youth. At the beginning of the war, he had been put in command at St. Louis, had proved to be incompetent, and had been retired. He was still strong in the hearts of many people, but Lincoln feared the success, not of Fremont, but of McClellan. John Hay once said to the President: "Fremont might be dangerous if he had more ability and energy." "Yes," was the reply, "he is like Jim Jett's brother. Jim used to say that his brother was the greatest scoundrel that ever lived, but in the infinite mercy of Providence he was also the greatest fool." Family sayings, when they are not loving, are apt to be bitter. One of the Vanderbilts said of a connection of his by marriage that he was "more kinds of a fool to the square inch than anybody else in the world." McClellan, who seemed practically certain of success in August, 1864, was badly beaten in November, when the battle of parties was fought out at the polls. Fremont had retired from the contest early in the campaign. At the first Cabinet meeting after the election, November 11, 1864, the President took a paper out of his desk and said: "Gentlemen, do you remember last summer I asked you all to sign your names to the back of a paper, of which I did not show you the inside? This is it. Now, Mr. Hay, see if you can get this open without tearing it." Its cover was so thoroughly pasted up that it had to be cut open. This done, Lincoln read it aloud. Here it is: