Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation has been standardized.

Characters in small caps have been replaced by all caps.

Non-printable characteristics have been given the following transliteration: Italic text: --> _text_

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged.

_Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel_

Illustration: LINCOLN.--From a painting by Howard Pyle

LINCOLN

AND

THE SLEEPING SENTINEL

THE TRUE STORY

TOLD BY

L. E. CHITTENDEN

REGISTER OF THE TREASURY, 1861-65 AND AUTHOR OF “RECOLLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS ADMINISTRATION”

WITH PORTRAITS

Illustration: Publisher’s Seal

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

MCMIX

Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._

Published January, 1909.

_Illustrations_

LINCOLN.--From a painting by Howard Pyle _Frontispiece_

LINCOLN IN 1857.--From a photograph in the collection of Charles Carleton Coffin _Facing p._ 20

LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, KNOWN AS “TAD.” --From a photograph by Brady ″ 28

LINCOLN.--From the statue by Augustus St. Gaudens, at Lincoln Park, Chicago ″ 36

LINCOLN IN 1865.--From a photograph by Rice ″ 46

_Introduction_

Without any attempt at biographical details or an appreciation, a few chief facts in Abraham Lincoln’s great career may be helpfully recalled to the minds of readers. His ancestors were Quakers in Berks County, Pennsylvania. His parents, born in Virginia, were influenced by the current of migration across the Alleghanies, and were carried first to Kentucky and afterward to Indiana.

It was in Hardin County, Kentucky, that Abraham Lincoln was born, February 12, 1809, the child of these humble settlers. Compared with the opportunities of the present-day boy, his chances seemed desperate indeed. His attendance at a regular school covered hardly more than a year. Nearly all the education which, among other gifts, enriched him with such a mastery of the English tongue he acquired painfully by himself. It was a question of necessities, of aiding to wrest a livelihood from a new country that confronted the boy, and so we find him at work, and at nineteen entering a larger world of practical affairs by helping to guide a flat-boat down the Mississippi to New Orleans. What he had to do was done so faithfully that his employer promoted him to be a clerk, and gave him charge of a store and mill at New Salem, Illinois.

The first public recognition of Lincoln’s character came in his election as captain of a company in the war against Black Hawk and his band of rebellious Indians in 1832. This was followed by his appointment as postmaster at New Salem, Illinois, which gave him better opportunities for study--opportunities so well improved that he was admitted to practise as a lawyer in 1836. He began his professional career at Springfield, Illinois. Law and politics were almost inseparable, and as Lincoln rose in his profession, and became noted for the shrewd common-sense and the dry humor of his speeches at public meetings, he gained more and more prominence as a leading member of the old Whig party in Illinois.

The next steps were natural ones--repeated elections to the Legislature of Illinois, and then a nomination for Congress, which led to his election in 1847. At Washington he made his mark particularly as an opponent of slavery. Then followed, in 1858, his selection as a candidate for the United States Senate against Stephen A. Douglas, which involved a series of historic debates over the slavery question. The popular voice was for Lincoln, but the Legislature elected Douglas. From this contest Lincoln emerged with a standing which finally brought to him the Republican nomination for the presidency over William H. Seward in the stormy days of 1860.

Lincoln’s great career as the sixteenth President of the United States, from 1861 to 1865, is not to be entered upon in this outline of facts. His superhuman part in preserving the Union, his Proclamation of Emancipation in 1863, his second election in 1864, and his assassination at the close of the Civil War are among our great historical landmarks. It was on April 15, 1865, that death placed him beside Washington in the Pantheon of American history.

These bare facts of President Lincoln’s life are set down here as an outline record to accompany the true story of “Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel,” which is now published in a separate book for the first time. Brief as this summary is, it is diffuse in comparison with the autobiography written by Lincoln in 1857, which reads:

“Born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.

“Education defective.

“Profession a lawyer.

“Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.

“Postmaster at a very small office; four times a member of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of the lower House of Congress.”

Had Lincoln finished his autobiography in 1865 he would have written with the same modest reticence.

For four years, while Register of the Treasury, L. E. Chittenden was in close personal and official relations with President Lincoln. In his _Recollections_ he has emphasized certain qualities which find so beautiful an expression in this story.

“Lincoln’s heart was as tender as ever beat in a human breast,” Mr. Chittenden has written. “Those who saw him standing by the coffins of young Ellsworth and the eloquent Baker knew how he loved his friends--how he sorrowed over their loss. In his companionship with his boys, and particularly with the younger, there was a most touching picture of parental affection; in his emotion when he lost them, a grief too sacred to be further exposed. ‘He could not deny a pardon or a respite to a soldier condemned to die for a crime which did not involve depravity if he were to try,’ said an old army officer. He shrank from the confirmation of a sentence of death in such a case as if it were a murder by his hand. ‘They say that I destroy all discipline and am cruel to the army when I will not let them shoot a soldier now and then,’ he said. ‘But I cannot see it. If God wanted me to see it he would let me know it, and until he does I shall go on pardoning and being cruel to the end.’ An old friend called by appointment, and found him with a pile of records of courts-martial before him for approval. ‘Go away, Swett!’ he exclaimed, with intense impatience. ‘To-morrow is butchering day, and I will not be interrupted until I have found excuses for saving the lives of these poor fellows!’ Many pages might be filled with authentic illustrations of his tenderness and mercy, for they were prominent in his official life. Three times I assisted in procuring their exercise, each to the saving of a soldier, and each time he shared our own delight over our success, though he knew not how his face shone when he felt that he had spared a human life.”

The main fact of the story published in this book has been told with varying details in many versions. It is related here as it has been set down by one who bore an active part. Mr. Chittenden’s _Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration_ has taken rank as one of the most valuable of the volumes of personal reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln in the war period. Mr. Chittenden’s narrative of “The Sleeping Sentinel” represents the truth of history.

_Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel_

I

The truth is always and everywhere attractive. The child loves, and never outgrows its love, for a real true story. The story of this young soldier, as it was presented to me, so touchingly reveals some of the kindlier qualities of the President’s character that it seldom fails to charm those to whom it is related. I shall give its facts as I understood them, and I think I can guarantee their general accuracy.

On a dark September morning in 1861, when I reached my office I found waiting there a party of soldiers, none of whom I personally knew. They were greatly excited, all speaking at the same time, and consequently unintelligible. One of them wore the bars of a captain. I said to them pleasantly: “Boys, I cannot understand you. Pray, let your captain say what you want and what I can do for you.” They complied, and the captain put me in possession of the following facts:

They belonged to the Third Vermont Regiment, raised, with the exception of one company, on the eastern slope of the Green Mountains, and mustered into service while the battle of Bull Run was progressing. They were immediately sent to Washington, and since their arrival, during the last days of July, had been stationed at the Chain Bridge, some three miles above Georgetown. Company K, to which most of them belonged, was largely made up of farmer boys, many of them still in their minority.

The sterile flanks of the mountains of Vermont have, to some extent, been abandoned for the more fertile regions of the West, and are now open to immigration from the more barren soils of Scandinavia and the Alps. Fifty years ago these Vermont mountains reared men who have since left their impress upon the enterprise of the world. The hard conditions of life in these mountains then required the most unbroken regularity in the continuous struggle for existence. To rise and retire with the sun, working through all the hours of daylight, sleeping through all the hours of night, was the universal rule. Such industry, practised from childhood, united to a thrift and economy no longer known in the republic, enabled the Vermonter to pay his taxes and train up his family in obedience to the laws of God and his country. Nowhere under the sun were charity, benevolence, mutual help, and similar virtues more finely developed or universally practised than among these hard-handed, kind-hearted mountaineers.

The story which I extracted from the “boys” was, in substance, this: William Scott, one of these mountain boys, just of age, had enlisted in Company K. Accustomed to his regular sound and healthy sleep, not yet inured to the life of the camp, he had volunteered to take the place of a sick comrade who had been detailed for picket duty, and had passed the night as a sentinel on guard. The next day he was himself detailed for the same duty, and undertook its performance. But he found it impossible to keep awake for two nights in succession, and had been found by the relief sound asleep on his post. For this offence he had been tried by a court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot within twenty-four hours after his trial, and on the second morning after his offence was committed.

Scott’s comrades had set about saving him in a characteristic way. They had called a meeting, appointed a committee, with power to use all the resources of the regiment in his behalf. Strangers in Washington, the committee had resolved to call on me for advice, because I was a Vermonter, and they had already marched from the camp to my office since daylight that morning.

The captain took all the blame from Scott upon himself. Scott’s mother opposed his enlistment on the ground of his inexperience, and had only consented on the captain’s promise to look after him as if he were his own son. This he had wholly failed to do. He must have been asleep or stupid himself, he said, when he paid no attention to the boy’s statement that he had fallen asleep during the day, and feared he could not keep awake the second night on picket. Instead of sending some one, or going himself in Scott’s place, as he should, he had let him go to his death. He alone was guilty--“if any one ought to be shot, I am the fellow, and everybody at home would have the right to say so. There must be some way to save him, Judge!” (They all called me Judge.) “He is as good a boy as there is in the army, and he ain’t to blame. You will help us, now, won’t you?” he said, almost with tears.

Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1857

From a photograph in the collection of Charles Carleton Coffin

The other members of the committee had a definite if not a practicable plan. They insisted that Scott had not been tried, and gave this account of the proceeding. He was asked what he had to say to the charge, and said he would tell them just how it all happened. He had never been up all night that he remembered. He was “all beat out” by the night before, and knew he should have a hard fight to keep awake; he thought of hiring one of the boys to go in his place, but they might think he was afraid to do his duty, and he decided to “chance it.” Twice he went to sleep and woke himself while he was marching, and then--he could not tell anything about it--all he knew was that he was sound asleep when the guard came. It was very wrong, he knew. He wanted to be a good soldier and do all his duty. What else did he enlist for? They could shoot him, and perhaps they ought to, but he could not have tried harder; and if he was in the same place again he could no more help going to sleep than he could fly.

One must have been made of sterner stuff than I was not to be touched by the earnest manner with which these men offered to devote even their farms to the aid of their comrade. The captain and the others had no need of words to express their emotions. I saw that the situation was surrounded by difficulties of which they knew nothing. They had subscribed a sum of money to pay counsel, and offered to pledge their credit to any amount necessary to secure him a fair trial.

“Put up your money,” I said. “It will be long after this when one of my name takes money for helping a Vermont soldier. I know facts which touch this case of which you know nothing. I fear that nothing effectual can be done for your comrade. The courts and lawyers can do nothing. I fear that we can do no more; but we can try.”

I must digress here to say that the Chain Bridge across the Potomac was one of the positions upon which the safety of Washington depended. The Confederates had fortified the approach to it on the Virginia side, and the Federals on the hills of Maryland opposite. Here, for months, the opposing forces had confronted each other. There had been no fighting; the men, and even the officers, had gradually contracted an intimacy, and, having nothing better to do, had swapped stories and other property until they had come to live upon the footing of good neighbors rather than mortal enemies. This relation was equally inconsistent with the safety of Washington and the stern discipline of war. Its discovery had excited alarm, and immediate measures were taken to break it up. General W. F. Smith, better known as “Baldy” Smith, had been appointed colonel of the Third Vermont Regiment, placed in command of the post, and undertook to correct the irregularity.

General Smith, a Vermonter by birth, a West-Pointer by education, was a soldier from spur to crown. Possibly he had natural sympathies, but they were so subordinated to the demands of his profession that they might as well not have existed. He regarded a soldier as so much valuable material, to be used with economy, like powder and lead, to the best advantage. The soldier was not worth much to him until his individuality was suppressed and converted into the unit of an army. He must be taught obedience; discipline must never be relaxed. In the demoralization which existed at the Chain Bridge, in his opinion, the occasional execution of a soldier would tend to enforce discipline, and in the end promote economy of life. He had issued orders declaring the penalty of death for military offences, among others that of a sentinel sleeping upon his post. His orders were made to be obeyed. Scott was, apparently, their first victim. It went without saying that any appeal in his behalf to General Smith would lead to nothing but loss of time.

II

The more I reflected upon what I was to do, the more hopeless the case appeared. Thought was useless. I must act upon impulse or I should not act at all. “Come,” I said, “there is only one man on earth who can save your comrade. Fortunately, he is the best man on the continent. We will go to President Lincoln.”

I went swiftly out of the Treasury over to the White House, and up the stairway to the little office where the President was writing. The boys followed in a procession. I did not give the thought time to get any hold on me that I, an officer of the government, was committing an impropriety in thus rushing a matter upon the President’s attention. The President was the first to speak.

“What is this?” he asked. “An expedition to kidnap somebody, or to get another brigadier appointed, or for a furlough to go home to vote? I cannot do it, gentlemen. Brigadiers are thicker than drum-majors, and I couldn’t get a furlough for myself if I asked it from the War Department.”

There was hope in the tone in which he spoke. I went straight to my point. “Mr. President,” I said, “these men want nothing for themselves. They are Green Mountain boys of the Third Vermont, who have come to stay as long as you need good soldiers. They don’t want promotion until they earn it. But they do want something that you alone can give them--the life of a comrade.”

“What has he done?” asked the President. “You Vermonters are not a bad lot, generally. Has he committed murder or mutiny, or what other felony?”

“Tell him,” I whispered to the captain.

“I cannot! I cannot! I should stammer like a fool! You can do it better!”

“Captain,” I said, pushing him forward, “Scott’s life depends on you. You must tell the President the story. I only know it from hearsay.”

He commenced like the man by the Sea of Galilee, who had an impediment in his speech; but very soon the string of his tongue was loosened, and he spoke plain. He began to word-paint a picture with the hand of a master. As the words burst from his lips they stirred my own blood. He gave a graphic account of the whole story, and ended by saying: “He is as brave a boy as there is in your army, sir. Scott is no coward. Our mountains breed no cowards. They are the homes of thirty thousand men who voted for Abraham Lincoln. They will not be able to see that the best thing to be done with William Scott will be to shoot him like a traitor and bury him like a dog! Oh, Mr. Lincoln, can you?”

Illustration: LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, KNOWN AS “TAD”

From a photograph by Brady

“No, I can’t!” exclaimed the President. It was one of the moments when his countenance became such a remarkable study. It had become very earnest as the captain rose with his subject; then it took on that melancholy expression which, later in his life, became so infinitely touching. I thought I could detect a mist in the deep cavities of his eyes. Then, in a flash, there was a total change. He smiled, and finally broke into a hearty laugh, as he asked me:

“Do your Green Mountain boys fight as well as they talk? If they do, I don’t wonder at the legends about Ethan Allen.” Then his face softened as he said: “But what can I do? What do you expect me to do? As you know, I have not much influence with the departments?”

“I have not thought the matter out,” I said. “I feel a deep interest in saving young Scott’s life. I think I knew the boy’s father. It is useless to apply to General Smith. An application to the Secretary of War would only be referred to General Smith. The only thing to be done was to apply to you. It seems to me that if you would sign an order suspending Scott’s execution until his friends can have his case examined, I might carry it to the War Department, and so insure the delivery of the order to General Smith to-day through the regular channels of the War Office.”

“No! I do not think that course would be safe. You do not know these officers of the regular army. They are a law unto themselves. They sincerely think that it is good policy occasionally to shoot a soldier. I can see it, where a soldier deserts or commits a crime, but I cannot in such a case as Scott’s. They say that I am always interfering with the discipline of the army and being cruel to the soldiers. Well, I can’t help it, so I shall have to go right on doing wrong. I do not think an honest, brave soldier, conscious of no crime but sleeping when he was weary, ought to be shot or hung. The country has better uses for him.”

“Captain,” continued the President, “your boy shall not be shot--that is, not to-morrow, nor until I know more about his case.” To me he said: “I will have to attend to this matter myself. I have for some time intended to go up to the Chain Bridge. I will do so to-day. I shall then know that there is no mistake in suspending the execution.”

I remarked that he was undertaking a burden which we had no right to impose; that it was asking too much of the President in behalf of a private soldier.

“Scott’s life is as valuable to him as that of any person in the land,” he said. “You remember the remark of a Scotchman about the head of a nobleman who was decapitated. ‘It was a small matter of a head, but it was valuable to him, poor fellow, for it was the only one he had.’”

I saw that remonstrance was vain. I suppressed the rising gratitude of the soldiers, and we took our leave. Two members of “the committee” remained to watch events in the city, while the others returned to carry the news of their success to Scott and to the camp. Later in the day the two members reported that the President had started in the direction of the camp; that their work here was ended, and they proposed to return to their quarters.

III

Within a day or two the newspapers reported that a soldier, sentenced to be shot for sleeping on his post, had been pardoned by the President and returned to his regiment. Other duties pressed me, and it was December before I heard anything further from Scott. Then another elderly soldier of the same company, whose health had failed, and who was arranging for his own discharge, called upon me, and I made inquiry about Scott. The soldier gave an enthusiastic account of him. He was in splendid health, was very athletic, popular with everybody, and had the reputation of being the best all-around soldier in the company, if not in the regiment. His mate was the elderly soldier who had visited me with the party in September, who would be able to tell me all about him. To him I sent a message, asking him to see me when he was next in the city. His name was Ellis or Evans.

Not long afterward he called at my office, and, as his leave permitted, I kept him overnight at my house, and gathered from him the following facts about Scott. He said that, as we supposed, the President went to the camp, had a long conversation with Scott, at the end of which he was sent back to his company a free man. The President had given him a paper, which he preserved very carefully, which was supposed to be his discharge from the sentence. A regular order for his pardon had been read in the presence of the regiment, signed by General McClellan, but every one knew that his life had been saved by the President.