Chapter I: Preface

The reason for thinking that the public may be interested in my father's recollections of MR. LINCOLN, will be found in the following letter from HON. J. P. USHER, Secretary of the Interior during the war:--

LAWRENCE, KANSAS, May 20, 1885.

_Ward H. Lamon, Esq., Denver, Col._

DEAR SIR,--There are now but few left who were intimately
acquainted with Mr. Lincoln. I do not call to mind any one who was
so much with him as yourself. You were his partner for years in the
practice of law, his confidential friend during the time he was
President. I venture to say there is now none living other than
yourself in whom he so much confided, and to whom he gave free
expression of his feeling towards others, his trials and troubles
in conducting his great office. You were with him, I know, more
than any other one. I think, in view of all the circumstances and
of the growing interest which the rising generation takes in all
that he did and said, you ought to take the time, if you can, to
commit to writing your recollections of him, his sayings and
doings, which were not necessarily committed to writing and made
public. Won't you do it? Can you not, through a series of articles
to be published in some of the magazines, lay before the public a
history of his inner life, so that the multitude may read and know
much more of that wonderful man? Although I knew him quite well for
many years, yet I am deeply interested in all that he said and did,
and I am persuaded that the multitude of the people feel a like
interest.

Truly and sincerely yours,
(Signed) J. P. USHER.

In compiling this little volume, I have taken as a foundation some anecdotal reminiscences already published in newspapers by my father, and have added to them from letters and manuscript left by him.

If the production seems fragmentary and lacking in purpose, the fault is due to the variety of sources from which I have selected the material. Some of it has been taken from serious manuscript which my father intended for a work of history, some from articles written in a lighter vein; much has been gleaned from copies of letters which he wrote to friends, but most has been gathered from notes jotted down on a multitude of scraps scattered through a mass of miscellaneous material.

D. L.
WASHINGTON, D. C.,
March, 1895.