But the good President, we were told, ..... did not like being guarded.

SWMODave

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Smithsonian Institution Lincolns Carriage.jpg

Lincoln's Carriage - built in 1864 and not the one mentioned in the account below
Image courtesy of the Studebaker National Museum, South Bend, Indiana
Never was there a more pleasant camp than ours, - there on that green hillside across the ravine from the President's summer residence. We had light guard duty to do, and that of a kind we esteemed a most high honor; for it was no less than that of being special guards for President Lincoln. But the good President, we were told, although he loved his soldiers as his own children, did not like being guarded.

Often did I see him enter his carriage before the hour appointed for his morning departure for the White House, and drive away in haste, as if to escape from the irksome escort of a dozen cavalry-men, whose duty it was to guard his carriage between our camp and the city. Then when the escort rode up to the door, some ten or fifteen minutes later, and found that the carriage had already gone, was not there a clattering of hoofs and a rattling of scabbards as they dashed out past the gate and down the road to overtake the great and good President, in whose heart was charity for all, and malice toward none!"

Recollections of a Drummer Boy
 
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