When Brigham Young sent Deseret News assistant editor T.B.H. Stenhouse to Washington, D.C., to ascertain Lincoln’s plans for the Mormons, the president told him, “Stenhouse, when I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farms which we had to clear away. Occasionally we would come to a log which had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn and too heavy to move, so we plowed around it. That’s what I intend to do with the Mormons. You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone, I will let him alone.” 5 Throughout the remainder of the war, President Lincoln’s tolerant attitude won him the respect of the Saints.
5. In Preston Nibley, Brigham Young: The Man and His Work (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1936), p. 369.
The Fairest Gem 