Free Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman Page B

who wanted to see him, and he saw them all, sitting in his office day after day as he listened to their pleas and complaints.
    He found it difficult to sleep and was usually up at dawn, so he could work quietly in his office before breakfast. Afterwards he returned to his desk for another hour before opening his door to visitors. He would put them at ease with a joke or story, ask "What can I do for you?" and then lean forward to listen, stroking his chin or clasping his knee with his hands as they talked. His secretaries complained that he was wearing himself out. But Lincoln would not give up the "public opinion baths" that brought him face-to-face with the citizens who came to his office in an endless stream.
    One visitor was the influential black leader, Frederick Douglass. While Douglass differed with Lincoln on many issues, he had come to respect the president and like him personally. The two men were to meet several times. "In all my interviews with Mr.Lincoln," Douglass said later, "I was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race. He was the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color, and I thought that all the more remarkable because he came from a state where there were black laws."

    Lincoln wrote out six copies of the Gettysburg Address, and five are known to survive, all with slight differences. The copy shown here is on display at the Old State Capitol in Springfield.

    Born a slave, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and became the most influential black leader of his time.
    After a quick lunch, Lincoln would read for a while, then turn to the piles of paperwork on his desk. One of his toughest jobs was reviewing court-martial sentences of Union soldiers—sleeping sentries, homesick runaways, cowards, deserters, and the like. He wanted to see that justice was done, yet he looked for excuses to pardon soldiers. He was reluctant to approve the death penalty especially when a soldier had been sentenced to die before a firing squad for running away in the face of battle.
    "Do you see those papers crowded in those pigeonholes [in my desk]?" Lincoln asked a visitor to his office. "They are the cases you call by that long title, 'cowardice in the face of the enemy.' I call them, for short, my 'leg cases.' I put it to you, and I leave it to you to decide for yourself: if Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running away with him?"
    Lincoln became famous for his last-minute pardons and reprieves. "The generals always wanted an execution carried out before it could possibly be brought before the president," a friend observed. "He was as tenderhearted as a girl."
    Lincoln referred to himself as "pigeon-hearted." Even so, he tried to perform his duty as he saw it, and he did not always intervene. Large numbers of court-martialed soldiers actually were executed during the Civil War. But when he could think of a good reason to pardon, he pardoned, saying, "It rests me, after a hard day's work, that I can find some excuse for saving some poor fellow's life."
    In late afternoon, Lincoln would go for a carriage ride with Mary, taking in the fresh air as they drove through the countryside, accompanied by a cavalry escort. Sometimes they stopped to chat with soldiers at an army mess or a military hospital before returning to the White House. If there was no official function that evening, the Lincolns might attend the opera or theatre, which Mary loved. Or Lincoln might relax with a small group of close friends, becoming his old self again, "the cheeriest of talkers, the riskiest of storytellers," as one friend said.
    On most evenings, Lincoln returned to his office after dinner and worked late into the night by lamplight. His last chore before going to bed was to stop at the War Department telegraph room and read the