Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House

[263] preoccupation of mind, occurred at one of his levees, when he was shaking hands with a host of visitors passing him in a continuous stream. An intimate acquaintance received the usual conventional hand-shake and salutation, but perceiving that he was not recognized, kept his ground instead of moving on, and spoke again; when the President, roused to a dim consciousness that something unusual had happened, perceived who stood before him, and seizing his friend's hand, shook it again heartily, saying, “How do you do? How do you do? Excuse me for not noticing you. I was thinking of a man down South.” He afterward privately acknowledged that the “man down South” was Sherman, then on his march to the sea.

Mr. Lincoln may not have expected death from the hand of an assassin, but he had an impression, amounting to a “presentiment,” that his life would end with the war. This was expressed not only to Mr. Lovejoy, as stated on a previous page, but to Mrs. Stowe and others.

“He told me, in July, 1864,” says a correspondent of the Boston Journal, ...

that he was certain he should not outlast the rebellion.

It was a time of dissension among the Republican leaders. Many of his best friends had deserted him, and were talking of an opposition convention to nominate another candidate; and universal gloom was among the people.

The North was tired of the war, and supposed