David Herbert Donald: Stanton first met Lincoln, I believe, in a trial case in Cincinnati. Lincoln had been brought in to have a true Western lawyer on the team. He had worked very hard on the case, drew up an elaborate brief, was all ready to make the argument — and when he got to the courthouse, he found that Stanton and the people he’d already chosen had made the arguments, and he had no role at all. When word came to Stanton that Lincoln expected to speak, Stanton said, “That gorilla from Illinois?” And he just wouldn’t let him get in front of the courtroom. Lincoln was terribly hurt. He had not only wasted a lot of time, but also, he was not used to being looked down on. And so for a time then, there was friction, and one might well have said there would be mortal friction. When Lincoln became president and when his first secretary of war, Simon Cameron, did not work out well, Lincoln knew that it’s time to have somebody very able, very skillful, and as blunt as Stanton had been to him in Cincinnati. So he called Stanton in. Stanton was dubious. After all, he didn’t know anything much about Lincoln. Lincoln had little experience at that time. Maybe Lincoln would try to dominate him. Lincoln brought him into the family. He listened to him very carefully. He took great interest in the Stanton children. The Stantons often summered out at the Soldiers’ Home, where Lincoln and Mary Lincoln summered. He got to know them that way, and gradually, the Lincolns and the Stantons became really quite good friends, and Lincoln trusted him. Stanton, I’m not sure ever trusted anybody, but as far as Lincoln was concerned, that was as near a person as he could really confide in. So by the end of the war, they were thinking about the same things in the same way, and Stanton had become a true ally.