To
Conwell it was a tremendous experience.
The second time he saw Lincoln was when
he went to Washington to plead for the life of one
of his men who had been condemned to death
for sleeping on post. He was still but a captain
(his promotion to a colonelcy was still to come),
a youth, and was awed by going into the presence
of the man he worshiped. And his voice trembles
a little, even now, as he tells of how pleasantly
Lincoln looked up from his desk, and how cheerfully
he asked his business with him, and of how
absorbedly Lincoln then listened to his tale,
although, so it appeared, he already knew of the
main outline.
``It will be all right,'' said Lincoln, when
Conwell finished. But Conwell was still frightened.
He feared that in the multiplicity of public matters
this mere matter of the life of a mountain
boy, a private soldier, might be forgotten till too
late. ``It is almost the time set--'' he faltered.
And Conwell's voice almost breaks, man of emotion
that he is, as he tells of how Lincoln said,
with stern gravity: ``Go and telegraph that soldier's
mother that Abraham Lincoln never signed
a warrant to shoot a boy under twenty, and never
will.
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