“This morning I went to Colonel Sherman and he threatened to shoot me.” Lincoln tipped his head, puzzled. Unwilling to get in the middle of a spat between officers, he threw off a joke, with some truth to it. “If I were you,” he said, “and he threatened to shoot, I would trust him.” For one of the few times in his life, Meagher was speechless. Still, the 69th was mustered out of duty a few days later, free to return home, as the Irish captain had requested. Lincoln would remember Thomas Francis Meagher.
