"No one need
expect that he would take any part in hanging or killing these
men, even the worst of them," he exclaimed. Enough lives had been
sacrificed already. Anger must be put aside. The great need now
was to begin to act in the interest of peace. With these words of
clemency and kindness in their ears they left him, never again to
come together under his wise chairmanship.
Though it was invariably held in check by his vigorous
common-sense, there was in Mr. Lincoln's nature a strong vein of
poetry and mysticism. That morning he told his cabinet a strange
story of a dream that he had had the night before--a dream which
he said came to him before great events. He had dreamed it before
the battles of Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
This time it must foretell a victory by Sherman over Johnston's
army, news of which was hourly expected, for he knew of no other
important event likely to occur. The members of the cabinet were
deeply impressed; but General Grant, who had come to Washington
that morning and was present, remarked with matter-of-fact
exactness that Murfreesboro was no victory and had no important
results. Not the wildest imagination of skeptic or mystic could
have pictured the events under which the day was to close.
It was Good Friday, a day observed by a portion of the people
with fasting and prayer, but even among the most devout the great
news of the week just ended changed this time of traditional
mourning into a season of general thanksgiving.
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