"I am entirely resolved.

I have been set here to decide for the people according to the best of my talents, and the Almighty has shown me no other road." Seward held out his hand.
"Then, by God, you must be right.

You are the bravest man in this land, sir, and I will follow you to the other side of perdition." III The time is two years later--a warm evening in early May.

There had been no rain for a week in Washington, and the President, who had ridden in from his summer quarters in the Soldiers' Home, had his trousers grey with dust from the knees down.

He had come round to the War Department, from which in these days he was never long absent, and found the Secretary for War busy as usual at his high desk.