The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

THE LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND

tain Robert Lincoln, who was on the staffl of General
Grant, and from whom he heard full details of the surrender of General Lee, of which Captain Lincoln had
been an eye-witness. Hie received various public men
after breakfast, among whom were Speaker Colfax and
ex-Senator J. P. Hale, and conversed freely, in a tone
of high and hopeful courage, of the immediate political
future. Nothing can indicate more clearly the elation of
mind with which the President regarded the future of the
country, now that its safety had been assured, than the
language he addressed, in conversation at this interview,
to Mr. Colfax, who was at this time preparing for a journey overland to the Pacific coast. Said he:"Mr. Colfax, I want you to take a message from me to the miners
whom you visit. I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our
nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the
Western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its developruent has scarcely commenced. During the war, when we were adding a couple of millions of dollars every day to our national debt, I did
not care about encouraging the increase in the volume of our precious
metals. We had the country to save first. But now that the rebellion
is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the amount of our national
debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make the payment of that
debt so much the easier. Now," said he, speaking with more emphasis,
"I am going to encourage that in every possible way. We shall have
hundreds of thousands of disbanded soldiers, any many have feared that
their return home in such great numbers might paralyze industry, by
furnishing, suddenly, a greater supply of labor than there will be demand
for. I am going to try to attract them to the hidden wealth of our mountain ranges, whewe there is room enough for all. Immigration, which
even the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundreds of
thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point
them to the gold and silver that wait for them in the West. Tell the
miners for me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my
ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation; and,"
said he, his eye kindling with enthusiasm, " we shall prove, in a very few
years, that we are indeed the treasury of the world."
At eleven o' clock he attended the meeting of the Cabinet,
already referred to, which was rendered more than usually interesting by the presence and report of General
Grant, who had come direct to Washington from the field,