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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President,
but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, having
graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before
it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give
him a commission, to which those who have already served long are
better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without
embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your
military family with some nominal rank, I and not the public
furnishing the necessary means? If no, say so without the least
hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply interested that
you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.
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