He realized that the Southern people were fighting for what they believed was right, and he knew General Lee would not be in it unless he was convinced it was right. He did not say that in words, but that is the impression I received. To hear the stories of Southern barbarities which would naturally be circulated about the enemy and then to find the President of the United States treating the matter with such dignity and calmness was a surprise and an enlightenment to me. On that black day when the body of Abraham Lincoln lay in state in the East Room of the White House it was my great privilege to be detailed for duty there. I happened to be in Washington, recovering from a wound sustained in the battle of Kenesaw Mountain a short time before, and I was called upon, together with all unattached officers in the Capitol, to help out. About twenty officers were continually on duty in the room in which the casket stood. Two of us actually stood guard at a time--one at the head and one at the foot. The casket was heaped high with flowers and the people passed through the room in an unending stream. No such grief was ever known on this continent. All wept, strong, hardened warriors with the rest. People were heartily ashamed when their supply of tears ran out. Some trembled as they passed through the door, and, once outside the room, gave vent to their sorrow in groans and shrieks, while others, in the excess of their grief, cursed God, as though Lincoln's death was an unjust punishment of him instead of a glorious crown of martyrdom. Looking back through fifty-four years--after the calm judgment of sages has reasserted their wisdom and after all Lincoln's enemies have turned to devoted friends--we cannot forbear the renewed assertion that Abraham Lincoln was in some special way unlike other men. That unusual power of inspiration was exhibited in his words and acts almost every day of his closing years. Through the half century there comes down to us a wonderful sentence in Lincoln's second inaugural address which is incarnate with vigorous life. Out of the smoke, devastation, hate, and death of a gigantic fratricidal war, above the contentions of parties, jealous commanders, and grief-benumbed mourners, clear and certain as a trumpet call this unlooked-for declaration rang out. It was the voice of God: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.