Then looking over his file of papers to what his business was, while the young fellow in the most genteel and effective way stated his wishes to the Secretary. I shall never, never forget the words that Mr. Stanton spoke on that occasion; they "sank deeply into my heart," perhaps, as also into that of the young officer.

"I cannot extend your leave, but I will accept your resignation!" As he said this, he handed to the officer the papers he had filed. Looking him over in a contemptuous way, the Secretary turned to look after the next victim on his list. The officer mildly protested, saying: "Why, Mr.

Secretary I do not want to leave the service; I merely want to spend the last days--"

Here he was roughly interrupted by Mr. Stanton who repeated in an angry tone, so that all could hear: "I'll accept your resignation, sir."

The poor fellow would not consent to be driven from the service in this way, even to attend his father's last wishes. When he returned to pick up his hat, which had been left on the chair beside me, his face was white, and his hands trembled so that he could scarcely take hold of his hat. I assisted him, and together we left the Secretary's office in deep disgust. I had enough for one day. After reporting the incident to Mr.

Covode and others, they mildly laughed at my indignation, while they expressed the cold-blooded opinion that it was only one of Stanton's ordinary jokes.

After this, I was more than ever anxious to get out of Washington, and began to feel that I should be willing to take anything at all, that savored of active service in the field, being perfectly content to leave my personal business with Mr. Stanton in the hands of my friends. It was decided among them all that I should be taken to the White House to see Mr. Lincoln, personally. All the arrangements for this visit were made, as nearly as I can recollect, without consulting me about it in any way at all. It was generally understood, I reckon, that I needed somebody to properly present my business affairs, and that it was hardly worth while to bother with me about such things. I only know that I was told by Mr.

Covode to get ready to accompany him to the White House.

"We are all going up in General Moorehead's carriage and want you to be on hand sure, as it's hard to get them all together." I didn't know who "they" were, until I came down to his room rigged out in a grey jacket.

While we were waiting for the carriage to come around for us, Mr. Covode explained further: "We're going to make a demand on the President for your pay out of the secret-service fund."

I had only heard in a general way that anything of this sort was contemplated. I can say here again, sincerely, that my only desire and aim was for a commission in the Regular Army, and a detail on the Staff, where I should have a chance for active service in the field. While we waited Mr. Covode explained more fully:

"You are entitled to this; the fund is being squandered shamefully by certain influences, who are making the President believe that they are giving him valuable information. We all know your service and experience has been of some practical use, and you are going to be paid for it, too, in cash as well as in promotion."

He had a way of saying things in a very emphatic style when he became interested, when I expressed my thanks for his interest and proffered a remuneration, he began to talk bad grammar at me in such a way that I had to beg off.

The carriage called; in it were Senator Cowan, General J. K. Moorehead, M. C., from Pittsburgh; Hon. S. S. Blair, of Hollidaysburg, and Hon.

John Covode. I jumped up with the coachman, and we made a charge on the White House. Before we started off there was a short but pointed business consultation among them. Senator Cowan had suggested: "Now we had better have an understanding before we go up there."

General Moorehead agreed that this was necessary; and when I undertook to make a suggestion about getting Mr. Lincoln to give me a commission, Covode told me in polite terms but decided language, but in a fatherly way: "Now you've got to keep quiet."

The rest all thought this quite a funny remark. When Covode crawled into the carriage, Mr. Moorehead said, "Well, what's the programme?" Covode explained that it was to be a demand for pay from the President's secret-service fund. No one had even suggested the amount, and I reckon Mr. Covode's idea was to leave this discretionary with the President, but Mr. Blair and Moorehead, who were business men as well as statesmen, insisted that it would be better to settle a sum in advance.

"Make it enough," said Mr. Blair.

"Yes, we may just as well make it $10,000," observed the Senator.

Mr. Moorehead shrewdly suggested: "We have to appropriate this secret-service money anyhow, and our votes will go for this amount."

Covode admitted that, "We have given him hundreds of thousands of dollars for this use already."

This, in a general way was the plan and purpose of the visit to Mr.

Lincoln on that date.

It failed--not that the claim was rejected by the President--it was never presented to him or anybody else. When we reached the White House we were informed on the threshold that "the President had that day gone to Fortress Monroe." That ended it for that day, and for all time. Soon after, I left Washington for another trip. The same crowd were never again brought together in this interest. As I have said, I was not a good manager, and perhaps neglected my own interests in this respect.

I have to show my children, however, that which is dearer to me than gold--a commission as a Second Lieutenant signed by Abraham Lincoln and E. M. Stanton. That will remain for all time on the war records of my country. If I had secured this money, I might have failed in obtaining this commission, and no doubt the $10,000 would have soon disappeared from sight forever and no record of it left.

A few days after this visit--the date of which may be fixed by a reference to the books, which will indicate the time of Mr. Lincoln's visit to Fortress Monroe--I saw Mr. Stanton personally, but only for a moment; he was not such a dreadful person after all, as I expected to find him.

Since I had been a disgusted witness to the abrupt interview between Mr.

Secretary Stanton and the young officer who desired his leave extended that he might visit his dying father, I was not particularly anxious to encounter the Secretary at close range. I had said as much so emphatically to Mr. Covode and the other friends, all of whom laughed at my earnestness, and consoled me with the remark that they had all suffered in the same way at the War Office, and that I must not expect to be welcomed with open arms by Mr. Stanton. It was no good to explain to them that I didn't want to be welcomed, or kicked out either. I was told that I _must_ see Mr. Stanton; that they could do nothing for me without first securing his approval. I recall in this connection an old chestnut, which explains in reality pretty nearly the true status of affairs between the President and his Secretary of War. In conversation with a group of friends about my "case," Mr. Covode had expressed the conviction that for him to interfere with Stanton would only operate against my chances, as he was thought to be a meddlesome investigator; and another Congressman related the story about Mr. Lincoln telling an importunate office-seeker that he, the President, "didn't have very much influence with this administration."

I called at the War Office several times, and always found the same old crowd in the corridors, and, though I was somewhat "fresh" and impulsive, I could not raise the courage to face the grim old Secretary, because he was _always_ engaged with somebody, and I feared to intrude or interrupt him with my personal affairs.

As I have said previously, I had a brother, who was employed in the War Department Telegraph Office, but as his hours for duty were at night, I could not avail myself of this opportunity to loaf with him. One day, however, after so much annoying delay, I put on my Rebel jacket, screwed up my courage, and determined to settle the matter by a bold dash on the War Office. My brother accompanied me, and, while waiting in the ante-room of the telegraph office, I had a long and quite an agreeable chat with General Anson Stager, who had charge of all the military telegraph. The General, in those days, was quite a jolly, good-natured gentleman; and, in this respect, almost the opposite to his subordinate, Major Eckert, who was very dignified in his bearing toward his subordinates. I was young and not unobserving, and I noticed that Major Eckert always lost his dignity and high-and-mighty bearing, when he had any dealings with _his_ superiors. General Stager was alike to all.

General Stager became much interested in my secret service more especially in that part wherein I had attached myself to the Rebel telegraph office at General Beauregard's headquarters, from whence I could overhear all the messages between headquarters and Richmond.

General Stager laughed heartily at my recital of these events. He looked at my rebel jacket with interest, took hold of my arm to critically examine the texture of the cloth, and wound up by saying:

"Well, you certainly are an acquisition to us, and I want you in our service."

When I explained my desire to obtain a commission, that I might get into active service, the General endeavored in a kindly way to persuade me saying:

"It wasn't worth while to do that; they could pay me more salary than a commission as Second Lieutenant would bring beside I should be allowed all the liberty I chose at the front, being at headquarters as a civilian, furnished with a horse or ambulance, and all the rations I could consume, and independent of the military."

He made it very attractive indeed; but I resisted the temptation, determined to stick to my plans. I had expressed a willingness to do or undertake any special service, but I wanted to be an officer. After consultation with some one in another room, who was either the Secretary himself or some of the high officials in the Adjutant-General's Department, General Stager came back to me and clinched that which came very near being a nail in my coffin. He proposed something like this:

"The army is on the peninsula, and Washington is cut off in a manner from telegraph communication with them, except by means of a dispatch boat to the nearest point on the Maryland side of the Chesapeake, from which the telegraph is open to Washington. If you could open communication for us, _overland_--say from Fredericksburg, or the outposts of our forces there, to connect with McClellan on the Peninsula by courier service--it would be a good thing for us, as we could hear from our army so much quicker."

Everybody will appreciate the anxiety of the officials to hear from the Army promptly and frequently. In other words, I was to operate secretly between our lines below Fredericksburg and McClellan's advance, only a gap of a few miles, but not occupied by either army but infested with "guerrillas."

I accepted the proposition without a moment's thought about the probable difficulties that were to be met with in carrying out the undertaking, and I had been over that country in Virginia and was familiar with it. I was anxious to do _anything_ that would give me an opportunity for active service.

My brother interposed some objections, which General Stager thoughtfully considered, and, after admonishing me of the danger in my case, he again proffered service in the telegraph department. It was arranged between us that I should call again on the following day; meantime he would consult with some of the officers and ascertain their wishes in regard to the matter.

General Eckert, who was in the room, had overheard part of my story--he had not been consulted at all by General Stager--to my mind, showed in his manner some little resentment toward me, probably because of the interest that General Stager had seemingly taken in my affairs.

He felt impelled to make some remark, intended to be jocular, about a Rebel uniform being in the War Department. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, and probably would not have observed the circumstance had not several others, who were present, made it a subject of conversation among themselves at our dinner-table that day.

In leaving the War Department Building that day, I walked out by the basement or east door, nearest the White House, intending to take the short cut, through the White House grounds, to our boarding-house on F street.

Just as I passed out of the door my quick eye detected President Lincoln coming up the few stone steps into the doorway; as he slowly walked or shuffled along, he was apparently reading the contents of a paper, which he held before his eyes with both hands. I had seen Mr. Lincoln inaugurated, and frequently since. I recognized him at a glance, and to get a closer look, I respectfully stood to one side of the steps to let him pass. A gentleman was walking alongside of the President, and as the two passed the President became crowded quite close to me, and actually touched or rubbed against my Rebel uniform. Mr. Lincoln apparently did not see me; he was too deeply immersed in reading, or trying to read, the letter he held in his hand as he walked, while the gentlemen with him was gabbling in his ear in a very earnest manner.

So it happened, as I had predicted, when my home friends had shown their opposition to my wearing the gray, that I saw Mr. Lincoln while dressed in my Rebel uniform. I had shaken hands with "the other President"--Jeff Davis--in Richmond, only a short time previously, while attired in the same court dress.

This "interview" wasn't exactly as satisfactory to me as it might have been, if I had been presented by the delegation that had called with me a few days sooner. But I had "seen the President," and, as there had been such a great opportunity presented for some further secret service in my line, I didn't care very much just then whether I should again get the crowd together for another call or not.

That evening I saw Mr. Covode, to whom I related my interview with General Stager, telling him of the plan upon which I had agreed to make the trip to Richmond again. The old man put on his specks, looked over the top of them at me in a curious sort of way, and said, rather savagely: "You beat hell, you do." Then in a more moderate tone he protested earnestly against it, saying: "You mustn't let everybody make use of you that way."

When I explained that I was only desirous of getting out of Washington, and anxious to be on hand in the field when Richmond was taken, and intimated further that Mr. Stanton and the President would give me the commission on sight if I should come in first with some good news, he remonstrated earnestly: "Oh, yes; you go down there again in that shape, and you wont need any commission; they will hang you, sure, to the first tree."

I had to leave the old man without getting any encouragement from him, but had given him a promise, before saying "Good-night," that I would not do anything further in the matter until I saw him again; in the meantime he urged me to see Mr. Stanton.

I went to bed that night very much disturbed in mind. While I was not so very anxious to continue the secret-service work, I felt so worn-out and disappointed at the dilatoriness in getting anything settled in Washington toward a commission, that I was about ready to both give it up and to try again. We were continually hearing so much that was exciting from the front, that I was really half wild and in a fever of impatience to be on hand among the boys.

The next day I called at the War Office early, determined to see Mr.

Stanton, or at least make a sure thing of his seeing me before I should again leave.

I had preserved Senator Cowan's letter and with it in my hand I made an onslaught on the regular orderly at the door. He had gotten to know me, and pleasantly suggested:

"If you hang to it with your teeth, you will get all you want."

With his assistance I got my card in to the Secretary, and was again shown a seat inside the Secretary's room, to wait until my name was called.