Evening star., 1896-02-15

vigilance are employed. Directions were
given Major Gen. Augur on this subject
last night and also instructions to look to
the condition Of the forts and defenses.
Adequate provision may have been made,
but at the present deplorable juncture L
feel 1t my duty to ask you to consider
yourself specially charged with all mat
ters pertaining to the security and de-
fenses of this national capital
If Stanton Had known.
In the Secretary's conference with Gen.
Halleck that morning Mr.. Stanton told
him that had he known that Gen. and Mrs.
Grant were not going with the President
he would have prevented the latter from
going or would have sent officer with
him.
When the President went to Hampton
Roads to Gettysburg and to City Point, the
Secretary sent with him an officer who was
highly fitted for that special duty, and
would have risked his life to have protected
the President At City Point the Secretary
protested that the President should not go
to the front; and at the Soldiers Home
Mr. STANTON cared for his safety.
No servant was ever more faithful to his
master. 1t seems that fate had decreed
that the man who was model of charity
to all and malice to none" was destined
that night to be murdered.
At the death bed, all that night, stood
the members of the cabinet and others.
Not word was spoken, except by Mr..
through messengers to officers, to guard the
exits from the city to prevent, If possible,
the escape of the assassins This impress
i've silence was only once broken when
Mrs. Lincoln came in from an adjoining
room, and kneeling by the bed and clasping
the hand of her unconscious husband wept
in tones that pierced every heart and
brought tears to every eye, for there was
not soul present that did not love the
President.
From the Death Bed.
On that night a number of messengers
were placed at different points along F
street and up 18th street and the avenue
past the White House, to take the dis0atch-
es written by the Secretary by the death
bed Of the President in a house on 10th
street, opposite the theater, quickly to the
War Department. The messenger running
from the house would give the dispatch to
the next one at his post a few squares dis
tant, and he would run and hand it to the
next one, and SO on to the War Depart
ment.
night in silence and in tears, spelled OUT
rhese dispatches in the characters of the
Morse telegraph, over the wires to Gen.
Dix at New York. Each messenger, after
handing a dispatch to the next, would run
back to his post to wait for the next dis
| patch. In this way orders and dispatches,
| written in the room in which the President
| was dying, were sent out all night, the last
| one after the sun had risen, when Mr..
| Stanton went home to get something to
| eat.
Before o'clock he was at the office, and
after writing the note to Gen. Grant about
| the safety of the city, wrote a cable dis
| patch of So words to our minister at Lon
| don, minutely describing every detail of the
acts of the assassins, and telling that the
! President at the cabinet meeting at the
| day before had manifested in a marked
| degree his tender and forgiving spirit that
SO eminently distinguished him
| A. E. H. JOHNSON.