our respects, and while pleasantly chatting with him General
Benjamin F. Butler entered. Forney was a great enthusiast, and
had intense hatred of the Southern leaders who had hindered his
advancement when Buchanan was elected President, and he was
bubbling over with resentment against them. He introduced the
subject to the President of the treatment to be awarded to the
leaders of the rebellion when its powers should be confessedly
broken, and he was earnest in demanding that Davis and other
conspicuous leaders of the Confederacy should be tried, condemned
and executed as traitors.

General Butler joined Colonel Forney in demanding that treason
must be made odious by the execution of those who had wantonly
plunged the country into civil war. Lincoln heard them patiently,
as he usually heard all, and none could tell, however carefully
they scanned his countenance what impression the appeal made upon
him.

I said to General Butler that, as a lawyer pre-eminent in his
profession, he must know that the leaders of a government that
had beleaguered our capital for four years, and was openly
recognized as a belligerent power not only by our government but
by all the leading governments of the world, could not be held to
answer to the law for the crime of treason.

Butler was vehement in declaring that the rebellious leaders must
be tried and executed. Lincoln listened to the discussion for
half an hour or more and finally ended it by telling the story of
a common drunkard out in Illinois who had been induced by his
friends time and again to join the temperance society, but had