Nine o'clock had been appointed as the time for receiving the deputation,
and we were punctual to the moment; but not so the President, who sent us
word that he was eating his breakfast, and would come as soon as he
could. His appetite, we were glad to think, must have been a pretty fair
one; for we waited about half an hour in one of the antechambers, and
then were ushered into a reception-room, in one corner of which sat the
Secretaries of War and of the Treasury, expecting, like ourselves, the
termination of the Presidential breakfast. During this interval there
were several new additions to our group, one or two of whom were in a
working-garb, so that we formed a very miscellaneous collection of
people, mostly unknown to each other, and without any common sponsor, but
all with an equal right to look our head-servant in the face.
By and by there was a little stir on the staircase and in the
passage-way, and in lounged a tall, loose-jointed figure, of an
exaggerated Yankee port and demeanor, whom (as being about the homeliest
man I ever saw, yet by no means repulsive or disagreeable) it was
impossible not to recognize as Uncle Abe.
Unquestionably, Western man though he be, and Kentuckian by birth,
President Lincoln is the essential representative of all Yankees, and the
veritable specimen, physically, of what the world seems determined to
regard as our characteristic qualities.
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