Project Gutenberg’s Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories, by Alexander K. McClure

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Title: Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories

Author: Alexander K. McClure

Release Date: February, 2001
Posting Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2517]
Last Updated: November 13, 2016

Language: English

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LINCOLN’S YARNS AND STORIES

A Complete Collection of the Funny and Witty Anecdotes that made Abraham
Lincoln Famous as America’s Greatest Story Teller

With Introduction and Anecdotes

By Alexander K. McClure

Profusely Illustrated

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

CHICAGO & PHILADELPHIA


ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the Great Story Telling President, whose Emancipation
Proclamation freed more than four million slaves, was a keen politician,
profound statesman, shrewd diplomatist, a thorough judge of men and
possessed of an intuitive knowledge of affairs. He was the first Chief
Executive to die at the hands of an assassin. Without school education
he rose to power by sheer merit and will-power. Born in a Kentucky
log cabin in 1809, his surroundings being squalid, his chances for
advancement were apparently hopeless. President Lincoln died April 15th,
1865, having been shot by J. Wilkes Booth the night before.




PREFACE.

Dean Swift said that the man who makes two blades of grass grow where
one grew before serves well of his kind. Considering how much grass
there is in the world and comparatively how little fun, we think that a
still more deserving person is the man who makes many laughs grow where
none grew before.

Sometimes it happens that the biggest crop of laugh is produced by a man
who ranks among the greatest and wisest. Such a man was Abraham Lincoln
whose wholesome fun mixed with true philosophy made thousands laugh and
think at the same time. He was a firm believer in the saying, “Laugh and
the world laughs with you.”

Whenever Abraham Lincoln wanted to make a strong point he usually began
by saying, “Now, that reminds me of a story.” And when he had told a
story every one saw the point and was put into a good humor.

The ancients had Aesop and his fables. The moderns had Abraham Lincoln
and his stories.

Aesop’s Fables have been printed in book form in almost every language
and millions have read them with pleasure and profit. Lincoln’s stories
were scattered in the recollections of thousands of people in various
parts of the country. The historians who wrote histories of Lincoln’s
life remembered only a few of them, but the most of Lincoln’s stories
and the best of them remained unwritten. More than five years ago the
author of this book conceived the idea of collecting all the yarns and
stories, the droll sayings, and witty and humorous anecdotes of Abraham
Lincoln into one large book, and this volume is the result of that idea.

Before Lincoln was ever heard of as a lawyer or politician, he was
famous as a story teller. As a politician, he always had a story to fit
the other side; as a lawyer, he won many cases by telling the jury a
story which showed them the justice of his side better than any argument
could have done.

While nearly all of Lincoln’s stories have a humorous side, they also
contain a moral, which every good story should have.

They contain lessons that could be taught so well in no other way. Every
one of them is a sermon. Lincoln, like the Man of Galilee, spoke to the
people in parables.

Nothing that can be written about Lincoln can show his character in such
a true light as the yarns and stories he was so fond of telling, and at
which he would laugh as heartily as anyone.

For a man whose life was so full of great responsibilities, Lincoln had
many hours of laughter when the humorous, fun-loving side of his great
nature asserted itself.

Every person to keep healthy ought to have one good hearty laugh every
day. Lincoln did, and the author hopes that the stories at which he
laughed will continue to furnish laughter to all who appreciate good
humor, with a moral point and spiced with that true philosophy bred in
those who live close to nature and to the people around them.

In producing this new Lincoln book, the publishers have followed an
entirely new and novel method of illustrating it. The old shop-worn
pictures that are to be seen in every “History of Lincoln,” and in
every other book written about him, such as “A Flatboat on the Sangamon
River,” “State Capitol at Springfield,” “Old Log Cabin,” etc., have all
been left out and in place of them the best special artists that could
be employed have supplied original drawings illustrating the “point” of
Lincoln’s stories.

These illustrations are not copies of other pictures, but are original
drawings made from the author’s original text expressly for this book.

In these high-class outline pictures the artists have caught the true
spirit of Lincoln’s humor, and while showing the laughable side of
many incidents in his career, they are true to life in the scenes and
characters they portray.

In addition to these new and original pictures, the book contains many
rare and valuable photograph portraits, together with biographies, of
the famous men of Lincoln’s day, whose lives formed a part of his own
life history.

No Lincoln book heretofore published has ever been so profusely, so
artistically and expensively illustrated.

The parables, yarns, stories, anecdotes and sayings of the “Immortal
Abe” deserve a place beside Aesop’s Fables, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
and all other books that have added to the happiness and wisdom of
mankind.

Lincoln’s stories are like Lincoln himself. The more we know of them the
better we like them.

BY COLONEL ALEXANDER K. McCLURE.



While Lincoln would have been great among the greatest of the land as a
statesman and politician if like Washington, Jefferson and Jackson,
he had never told a humorous story, his sense of humor was the most
fascinating feature of his personal qualities.

He was the most exquisite humorist I have ever known in my life. His
humor was always spontaneous, and that gave it a zest and elegance that
the professional humorist never attains.

As a rule, the men who have become conspicuous in the country as
humorists have excelled in nothing else. S. S. Cox, Proctor Knott, John
P. Hale and others were humorists in Congress. When they arose to speak
if they failed to be humorous they utterly failed, and they rarely
strove to be anything but humorous. Such men often fail, for the
professional humorist, however gifted, cannot always be at his best, and
when not at his best he is grievously disappointing.

I remember Corwin, of Ohio, who was a great statesman as well as a great
humorist, but whose humor predominated in his public speeches in Senate
and House, warning a number of the younger Senators and Representatives
on a social occasion when he had returned to Congress in his old age,
against seeking to acquire the reputation of humorists. He said it
was the mistake of his life. He loved it as did his hearers, but the
temptation to be humorous was always uppermost, and while his speech on
the Mexican War was the greatest ever delivered in the Senate, excepting
Webster’s reply to Hayne, he regretted that he was more known as a
humorist than as a statesman.

His first great achievement in the House was delivered in 1840 in reply
to General Crary, of Michigan, who had attacked General Harrison’s
military career. Corwin’s reply in defense of Harrison is universally
accepted as the most brilliant combination of humor and invective ever
delivered in that body. The venerable John Quincy Adams a day or two
after Corwin’s speech, referred to Crary as “the late General Crary,”
 and the justice of the remark from the “Old Man Eloquent” was accepted
by all. Mr. Lincoln differed from the celebrated humorists of the
country in the important fact that his humor was unstudied. He was
not in any sense a professional humorist, but I have never in all
my intercourse with public men, known one who was so apt in humorous
illustration us Mr. Lincoln, and I have known him many times to silence
controversy by a humorous story with pointed application to the issue.

His face was the saddest in repose that I have ever seen among
accomplished and intellectual men, and his sympathies for the people,
for the untold thousands who were suffering bereavement from the war,
often made him speak with his heart upon his sleeve, about the sorrows
which shadowed the homes of the land and for which his heart was freely
bleeding.

I have many times seen him discussing in the most serious and heartfelt
manner the sorrows and bereavements of the country, and when it would
seem as though the tension was so strained that the brittle cord of life
must break, his face would suddenly brighten like the sun escaping from
behind the cloud to throw its effulgence upon the earth, and he would
tell an appropriate story, and much as his stories were enjoyed by his
hearers none enjoyed them more than Mr. Lincoln himself.

I have often known him within the space of a few minutes to be
transformed from the saddest face I have ever looked upon to one of the
brightest and most mirthful. It was well known that he had his great
fountain of humor as a safety valve; as an escape and entire relief from
the fearful exactions his endless duties put upon him. In the gravest
consultations of the cabinet where he was usually a listener rather
than a speaker, he would often end dispute by telling a story and none
misunderstood it; and often when he was pressed to give expression on
particular subjects, and his always abundant caution was baffled, he
many times ended the interview by a story that needed no elaboration.

I recall an interview with Mr. Lincoln at the White House in the
spring of 1865, just before Lee retreated from Petersburg. It was well
understood that the military power of the Confederacy was broken, and
that the question of reconstruction would soon be upon us.

Colonel Forney and I had called upon the President simply to pay our
respects, and while pleasantly chatting with him General Benjamin F.
Butler entered. Forney was a great enthusiast, and had intense hatred of
the Southern leaders who had hindered his advancement when Buchanan
was elected President, and he was bubbling over with resentment against
them. He introduced the subject to the President of the treatment to
be awarded to the leaders of the rebellion when its powers should be
confessedly broken, and he was earnest in demanding that Davis and other
conspicuous leaders of the Confederacy should be tried, condemned and
executed as traitors.

General Butler joined Colonel Forney in demanding that treason must
be made odious by the execution of those who had wantonly plunged the
country into civil war. Lincoln heard them patiently, as he usually
heard all, and none could tell, however carefully they scanned his
countenance what impression the appeal made upon him.

I said to General Butler that, as a lawyer pre-eminent in his
profession, he must know that the leaders of a government that had
beleaguered our capital for four years, and was openly recognized as
a belligerent power not only by our government but by all the leading
governments of the world, could not be held to answer to the law for the
crime of treason.

Butler was vehement in declaring that the rebellious leaders must be
tried and executed. Lincoln listened to the discussion for half an hour
or more and finally ended it by telling the story of a common drunkard
out in Illinois who had been induced by his friends time and again to
join the temperance society, but had always broken away. He was finally
gathered up again and given notice that if he violated his pledge once
more they would abandon him as an utterly hopeless vagrant. He made
an earnest struggle to maintain his promise, and finally he called for
lemonade and said to the man who was preparing it: “Couldn’t you put
just a drop of the cratur in unbeknownst to me?”

After telling the story Lincoln simply added: “If these men could
get away from the country unbeknownst to us, it might save a world of
trouble.” All understood precisely what Lincoln meant, although he
had given expression in the most cautious manner possible and the
controversy was ended.

Lincoln differed from professional humorists in the fact that he
never knew when he was going to be humorous. It bubbled up on the most
unexpected occasions, and often unsettled the most carefully studied
arguments. I have many times been with him when he gave no sign of
humor, and those who saw him under such conditions would naturally
suppose that he was incapable of a humorous expression. At other times
he would effervesce with humor and always of the most exquisite and
impressive nature. His humor was never strained; his stories never
stale, and even if old, the application he made of them gave them the
freshness of originality.

I recall sitting beside him in the White House one day when a message
was brought to him telling of the capture of several brigadier-generals
and a number of horses somewhere out in Virginia. He read the dispatch
and then in an apparently soliloquizing mood, said: “Sorry for the
horses; I can make brigadier-generals.”

There are many who believe that Mr. Lincoln loved to tell obscene or
profane stories, but they do great injustice to one of the purest and
best men I have ever known. His humor must be judged by the environment
that aided in its creation.

As a prominent lawyer who traveled the circuit in Illinois, he was much
in the company of his fellow lawyers, who spent their evenings in the
rude taverns of what was then almost frontier life. The Western people
thus thrown together with but limited sources of culture and enjoyment,
logically cultivated the story teller, and Lincoln proved to be the most
accomplished in that line of all the members of the Illinois bar. They
had no private rooms for study, and the evenings were always spent in
the common barroom of the tavern, where Western wit, often vulgar or
profane, was freely indulged in, and the best of them at times told
stories which were somewhat “broad;” but even while thus indulging
in humor that would grate harshly upon severely refined hearers, they
despised the vulgarian; none despised vulgarity more than Lincoln.

I have heard him tell at one time or another almost or quite all of the
stories he told during his Presidential term, and there were very few of
them which might not have been repeated in a parlor and none descended
to obscene, vulgar or profane expressions. I have never known a man of
purer instincts than Abraham Lincoln, and his appreciation of all that
was beautiful and good was of the highest order.

It was fortunate for Mr. Lincoln that he frequently sought relief from
the fearfully oppressive duties which bore so heavily upon him. He had
immediately about him a circle of men with whom he could be “at home” in
the White House any evening as he was with his old time friends on the
Illinois circuit.

David Davis was one upon whom he most relied as an adviser, and Leonard
Swett was probably one of his closest friends, while Ward Lamon, whom
he made Marshal of the District of Columbia to have him by his side,
was one with whom he felt entirely “at home.” Davis was of a more
sober order but loved Lincoln’s humor, although utterly incapable of a
humorous expression himself. Swett was ready with Lincoln to give and
take in storyland, as was Lamon, and either of them, and sometimes all
of them, often dropped in upon Lincoln and gave him an hour’s diversion
from his exacting cares. They knew that he needed it and they sought him
for the purpose of diverting him from what they feared was an excessive
strain.

His devotion to Lamon was beautiful. I well remember at Harrisburg
on the night of February 22, 1861, when at a dinner given by Governor
Curtin to Mr. Lincoln, then on his way to Washington, we decided,
against the protest of Lincoln, that he must change his route to
Washington and make the memorable midnight journey to the capital. It
was thought to be best that but one man should accompany him, and he
was asked to choose. There were present of his suite Colonel Sumner,
afterwards one of the heroic generals of the war, Norman B. Judd, who
was chairman of the Republican State Committee of Illinois, Colonel
Lamon and others, and he promptly chose Colonel Lamon, who alone
accompanied him on his journey from Harrisburg to Philadelphia and
thence to Washington.

Before leaving the room Governor Curtin asked Colonel Lamon whether he
was armed, and he answered by exhibiting a brace of fine pistols, a
huge bowie knife, a black jack, and a pair of brass knuckles. Curtin
answered: “You’ll do,” and they were started on their journey after all
the telegraph wires had been cut. We awaited through what seemed almost
an endless night, until the east was purpled with the coming of another
day, when Colonel Scott, who had managed the whole scheme, reunited
the wires and soon received from Colonel Lamon this dispatch: “Plums
delivered nuts safely,” which gave us the intensely gratifying
information that Lincoln had arrived in Washington.

Of all the Presidents of the United States, and indeed of all the great
statesmen who have made their indelible impress upon the policy of the
Republic, Abraham Lincoln stands out single and alone in his individual
qualities. He had little experience in statesmanship when he was called
to the Presidency. He had only a few years of service in the State
Legislature of Illinois, and a single term in Congress ending twelve
years before he became President, but he had to grapple with the gravest
problems ever presented to the statesmanship of the nation for solution,
and he met each and all of them in turn with the most consistent
mastery, and settled them so successfully that all have stood
unquestioned until the present time, and are certain to endure while the
Republic lives.

In this he surprised not only his own cabinet and the leaders of his
party who had little confidence in him when he first became President,
but equally surprised the country and the world.

He was patient, tireless and usually silent when great conflicts raged
about him to solve the appalling problems which were presented at
various stages of the war for determination, and when he reached his
conclusion he was inexorable. The wrangles of faction and the jostling
of ambition were compelled to bow when Lincoln had determined upon his
line of duty.

He was much more than a statesman; he was one of the most sagacious
politicians I have ever known, although he was entirely unschooled in
the machinery by which political results are achieved. His judgment of
men was next to unerring, and when results were to be attained he
knew the men who should be assigned to the task, and he rarely made a
mistake.

I remember one occasion when he summoned Colonel Forney and myself to
confer on some political problem, he opened the conversation by saying:
“You know that I never was much of a conniver; I don’t know the methods
of political management, and I can only trust to the wisdom of leaders
to accomplish what is needed.”

Lincoln’s public acts are familiar to every schoolboy of the nation, but
his personal attributes, which are so strangely distinguished from the
attributes of other great men, are now the most interesting study
of young and old throughout our land, and I can conceive of no more
acceptable presentation to the public than a compilation of anecdotes
and incidents pertaining to the life of the greatest of all our
Presidents.

A.K. McClure




LINCOLN’S NAME AROUSES AN AUDIENCE, BY DR. NEWMAN HALL, of London.

When I have had to address a fagged and listless audience, I have found
that nothing was so certain to arouse them as to introduce the name of
Abraham Lincoln.

REVERE WASHINGTON AND LOVE LINCOLN, REV. DR. THEODORE L. CUYLER.

No other name has such electric power on every true heart, from Maine
to Mexico, as the name of Lincoln. If Washington is the most revered,
Lincoln is the best loved man that ever trod this continent.


GREATEST CHARACTER SINCE CHRIST BY JOHN HAY, Former Private Secretary to
President Lincoln, and Later Secretary of State in President McKinley’s
Cabinet.

As, in spite of some rudeness, republicanism is the sole hope of a sick
world, so Lincoln, with all his foibles, is the greatest character since
Christ.


STORIES INFORM THE COMMON PEOPLE, BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, United States
Senator from New York.

Mr. Lincoln said to me once: “They say I tell a great many stories; I
reckon I do, but I have found in the course of a long experience that
common people, take them as they run, are more easily informed through
the medium of a broad illustration than in any other way, and as to what
the hypercritical few may think, I don’t care.”

HUMOR A PASSPORT TO THE HEART BY GEO. S. BOUTWELL, Former Secretary of
the United States Treasury.

Mr. Lincoln’s wit and mirth will give him a passport to the thoughts and
hearts of millions who would take no interest in the sterner and more
practical parts of his character.


DROLL, ORIGINAL AND APPROPRIATE. BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE, Former United
States Minister to France.

Mr. Lincoln’s anecdotes were all so droll, so original, so appropriate
and so illustrative of passing incidents, that one never wearied.


LINCOLN’S HUMOR A SPARKLING SPRING, BY DAVID R. LOCKE (PETROLEUM V.
NASBY), Lincoln’s Favorite Humorist.

Mr. Lincoln’s flow of humor was a sparkling spring, gushing out of a
rock--the flashing water had a somber background which made it all the
brighter.


LIKE AESOP’S FABLES, BY HUGH McCULLOCH, Former Secretary of the United
States Treasury.

Many of Mr. Lincoln’s stories were as apt and instructive as the best of
Aesop’s Fables.


FULL OF FUN, BY GENERAL JAMES B. FRY, Former Adjutant-General United
States Army.

Mr. Lincoln was a humorist so full of fun that he could not keep it all
in.


INEXHAUSTIBLE FUND OF STORIES, BY LAWRENCE WELDON, Judge United States
Court of Claims.

Mr. Lincoln’s resources as a story-teller were inexhaustible, and
no condition could arise in a case beyond his capacity to furnish an
illustration with an appropriate anecdote.


CHAMPION STORY-TELLER, BY BEN. PERLEY POORE, Former Editor of The
Congressional Record.

Mr. Lincoln was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol.



LINCOLN CHRONOLOGY.

     1806--Marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, June 12th,
     Washington County, Kentucky.
     1809--Born February 12th, Hardin (now La Rue County), Kentucky.
     1816--Family Removed to Perry County, Indiana.
     1818--Death of Abraham’s Mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.
     1819--Second Marriage Thomas Lincoln; Married Sally Bush
     Johnston, December 2nd, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
     1830--Lincoln Family Removed to Illinois, Locating in Macon
     County.
     1831--Abraham Located at New Salem.
     1832--Abraham a Captain in the Black Hawk War.
     1833--Appointed Postmaster at New Salem.
     1834--Abraham as a Surveyor. First Election to the Legislature.
     1835--Love Romance with Anne Rutledge.
     1836--Second Election to the Legislature.
     1837--Licensed to Practice Law.
     1838--Third Election to the Legislature.
     1840--Presidential Elector on Harrison Ticket.
     Fourth Election to the Legislature.
     1842--Married November 4th, to Mary Todd. “Duel” with General
     Shields.
     1843--Birth of Robert Todd Lincoln, August 1st.
     1846--Elected to Congress. Birth of Edward Baker Lincoln, March 10th.
     1848--Delegate to the Philadelphia National Convention.
     1850--Birth of William Wallace Lincoln, December 2nd.
     1853--Birth of Thomas Lincoln, April 4th.
     1856--Assists in Formation Republican Party.
     1858--Joint Debater with Stephen A. Douglas. Defeated for the
     United States Senate.
     1860--Nominated and Elected to the Presidency.
     1861--Inaugurated as President, March 4th. 1863-Issued
     Emancipation Proclamation. 1864-Re-elected to the Presidency.
     1865--Assassinated by J. Wilkes Booth, April 14th. Died April
     15th. Remains Interred at Springfield, Illinois, May 4th.




LINCOLN AND McCLURE.

(From Harper’s Weekly, April 13, 1901.)

Colonel Alexander K. McClure, the editorial director of the Philadelphia
Times, which he founded in 1875, began his forceful career as a tanner’s
apprentice in the mountains of Pennsylvania threescore years ago. He
tanned hides all day, and read exchanges nights in the neighboring
weekly newspaper office. The learned tanner’s boy also became the aptest
Inner in the county, and the editor testified his admiration for young
McClure’s attainments by sending him to edit a new weekly paper which
the exigencies of politics called into being in an adjoining county.

The lad was over six feet high, had the thews of Ajax and the voice of
Boanerges, and knew enough about shoe-leather not to be afraid of any
man that stood in it. He made his paper a success, went into politics,
and made that a success, studied law with William McLellan, and made
that a success, and actually went into the army--and made that a
success, by an interesting accident which brought him into close
personal relations with Abraham Lincoln, whom he had helped to nominate,
serving as chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania
through the campaign.

In 1862 the government needed troops badly, and in each Pennsylvania
county Republicans and Democrats were appointed to assist in the
enrollment, under the State laws. McClure, working day and night at
Harrisburg, saw conscripts coming in at the rate of a thousand a day,
only to fret in idleness against the army red-tape which held them there
instead of sending a regiment a day to the front, as McClure demanded
should be done. The military officer continued to dispatch two companies
a day--leaving the mass of the conscripts to be fed by the contractors.

McClure went to Washington and said to the President, “You must send a
mustering officer to Harrisburg who will do as I say; I can’t stay there
any longer under existing conditions.”

Lincoln sent into another room for Adjutant-General Thomas. “General,”
 said he, “what is the highest rank of military officer at Harrisburg?”
 “Captain, sir,” said Thomas. “Bring me a commission for an Assistant
Adjutant-General of the United States Army,” said Lincoln.

So Adjutant-General McClure was mustered in, and after that a regiment
a day of boys in blue left Harrisburg for the front. Colonel McClure is
one of the group of great Celt-American editors, which included Medill,
McCullagh and McLean.




“ABE” LINCOLN’S YARNS AND STORIES.




LINCOLN ASKED TO BE SHOT.

Lincoln was, naturally enough, much surprised one day, when a man of
rather forbidding countenance drew a revolver and thrust the weapon
almost into his face. In such circumstances “Abe” at once concluded that
any attempt at debate or argument was a waste of time and words.

“What seems to be the matter?” inquired Lincoln with all the calmness
and self-possession he could muster.

“Well,” replied the stranger, who did not appear at all excited, “some
years ago I swore an oath that if I ever came across an uglier man than
myself I’d shoot him on the spot.”

A feeling of relief evidently took possession of Lincoln at this
rejoinder, as the expression upon his countenance lost all suggestion of
anxiety.

“Shoot me,” he said to the stranger; “for if I am an uglier man than you
I don’t want to live.”




TIME LOST DIDN’T COUNT.

Thurlow Weed, the veteran journalist and politician, once related how,
when he was opposing the claims of Montgomery Blair, who aspired to a
Cabinet appointment, that Mr. Lincoln inquired of Mr. Weed whom he would
recommend, “Henry Winter Davis,” was the response.

“David Davis, I see, has been posting you up on this question,” retorted
Lincoln. “He has Davis on the brain. I think Maryland must be a good
State to move from.”

The President then told a story of a witness in court in a neighboring
county, who, on being asked his age, replied, “Sixty.” Being satisfied
he was much older the question was repeated, and on receiving the same
answer the court admonished the witness, saying, “The court knows you to
be much older than sixty.”

“Oh, I understand now,” was the rejoinder, “you’re thinking of those ten
years I spent on the eastern share of Maryland; that was so much time
lost, and didn’t count.”

Blair was made Postmaster-General.




NO VICES, NO VIRTUES.

Lincoln always took great pleasure in relating this yarn:

Riding at one time in a stage with an old Kentuckian who was returning
from Missouri, Lincoln excited the old gentleman’s surprise by refusing
to accept either of tobacco or French brandy.

When they separated that afternoon--the Kentuckian to take another stage
bound for Louisville--he shook hands warmly with Lincoln, and said,
good-humoredly:

“See here, stranger, you’re a clever but strange companion. I may never
see you again, and I don’t want to offend you, but I want to say this:
My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has d----d few
virtues. Good-day.”




LINCOLN’S DUES.

Miss Todd (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) had a keen sense of the ridiculous,
and wrote several articles in the Springfield (Ill.) “Journal”
 reflecting severely upon General James Shields (who won fame in the
Mexican and Civil Wars, and was United States Senator from three
states), then Auditor of State.

Lincoln assumed the authorship, and was challenged by Shields to meet
him on the “field of honor.” Meanwhile Miss Todd increased Shields’ ire
by writing another letter to the paper, in which she said: “I hear the
way of these fire-eaters is to give the challenged party the choice of
weapons, which being the case, I’ll tell you in confidence that I never
fight with anything but broom-sticks, or hot water, or a shovelful of
coals, the former of which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be
objectionable to him.”

Lincoln accepted the challenge, and selected broadswords as the weapons.
Judge Herndon (Lincoln’s law partner) gives the closing of this affair
as follows:

“The laws of Illinois prohibited dueling, and Lincoln demanded that
the meeting should be outside the state. Shields undoubtedly knew that
Lincoln was opposed to fighting a duel--that his moral sense would
revolt at the thought, and that he would not be likely to break the
law by fighting in the state. Possibly he thought Lincoln would make a
humble apology. Shields was brave, but foolish, and would not listen to
overtures for explanation. It was arranged that the meeting should be
in Missouri, opposite Alton. They proceeded to the place selected, but
friends interfered, and there was no duel. There is little doubt that
the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled
hickory logs could have cleft the skull of his antagonist, but he had
no such intention. He repeatedly said to the friends of Shields that in
writing the first article he had no thought of anything personal. The
Auditor’s vanity had been sorely wounded by the second letter, in regard
to which Lincoln could not make any explanation except that he had had
no hand in writing it. The affair set all Springfield to laughing at
Shields.”




“DONE WITH THE BIBLE.”

Lincoln never told a better story than this:

A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was quite a
distance from any other house.

The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in coarse linen
pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. The pants, manufactured
after the old fashion, with baggy legs, and a flap in the front, were
made to attach to his frame without the aid of suspenders.

A single button held his shirt in position, and that was at the collar.
He rose up in the pulpit, and with a loud voice announced his text thus:
“I am the Christ whom I shall represent to-day.”

About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy pantaloons. The
old preacher, not wishing to interrupt the steady flow of his sermon,
slapped away on his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder, but his
efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on ascending higher
and higher.

Continuing the sermon, the preacher loosened the central button which
graced the waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick off came that
easy-fitting garment.

But, meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of the
waistband, and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher’s anatomy
which lay underneath the back of his shirt.

Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding
on. The next movement on the preacher’s part was for the collar button,
and with one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt.

The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; at length one old
lady in the rear part of the room rose up, and, glancing at the excited
object in the pulpit, shouted at the top of her voice: “If you represent
Christ, then I’m done with the Bible.”




HIS KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NATURE.

Once, when Lincoln was pleading a case, the opposing lawyer had all the
advantage of the law; the weather was warm, and his opponent, as was
admissible in frontier courts, pulled off his coat and vest as he grew
warm in the argument.

At that time, shirts with buttons behind were unusual. Lincoln took in
the situation at once. Knowing the prejudices of the primitive people
against pretension of all sorts, or any affectation of superior social
rank, arising, he said: “Gentlemen of the jury, having justice on my
side, I don’t think you will be at all influenced by the gentleman’s
pretended knowledge of the law, when you see he does not even know which
side of his shirt should be in front.” There was a general laugh, and
Lincoln’s case was won.




A MISCHIEVOUS OX.

President Lincoln once told the following story of Colonel W., who had
been elected to the Legislature, and had also been judge of the County
Court. His elevation, however, had made him somewhat pompous, and he
became very fond of using big words. On his farm he had a very large and
mischievous ox, called “Big Brindle,” which very frequently broke down
his neighbors’ fences, and committed other depredations, much to the
Colonel’s annoyance.

One morning after breakfast, in the presence of Lincoln, who had stayed
with him over night, and who was on his way to town, he called his
overseer and said to him:

“Mr. Allen, I desire you to impound ‘Big Brindle,’ in order that I may
hear no animadversions on his eternal depredations.”

Allen bowed and walked off, sorely puzzled to know what the Colonel
wanted him to do. After Colonel W. left for town, he went to his wife
and asked her what the Colonel meant by telling him to impound the ox.

“Why, he meant to tell you to put him in a pen,” said she.

Allen left to perform the feat, for it was no inconsiderable one, as
the animal was wild and vicious, but, after a great deal of trouble and
vexation, succeeded.

“Well,” said he, wiping the perspiration from his brow and
soliloquizing, “this is impounding, is it? Now, I am dead sure that the
Colonel will ask me if I impounded ‘Big Brindle,’ and I’ll bet I puzzle
him as he did me.”

The next day the Colonel gave a dinner party, and as he was not
aristocratic, Allen, the overseer, sat down with the company. After the
second or third glass was discussed, the Colonel turned to the overseer
and said:

“Eh, Mr. Allen, did you impound ‘Big Brindle,’ sir?”

Allen straightened himself, and looking around at the company, replied:

“Yes, I did, sir; but ‘Old Brindle’ transcended the impanel of the
impound, and scatterlophisticated all over the equanimity of the
forest.”

The company burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, while the
Colonel’s face reddened with discomfiture.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” demanded the Colonel.

“Why, I mean, Colonel,” replied Allen, “that ‘Old Brindle,’ being
prognosticated with an idea of the cholera, ripped and teared, snorted
and pawed dirt, jumped the fence, tuck to the woods, and would not be
impounded nohow.”

This was too much; the company roared again, the Colonel being forced
to join in the laughter, and in the midst of the jollity Allen left the
table, saying to himself as he went, “I reckon the Colonel won’t ask me
to impound any more oxen.”




THE PRESIDENTIAL “CHIN-FLY.”

Some of Mr. Lincoln’s intimate friends once called his attention to
a certain member of his Cabinet who was quietly working to secure a
nomination for the Presidency, although knowing that Mr. Lincoln was to
be a candidate for re-election. His friends insisted that the Cabinet
officer ought to be made to give up his Presidential aspirations or be
removed from office. The situation reminded Mr. Lincoln of a story:

“My brother and I,” he said, “were once plowing corn, I driving the
horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on one occasion
he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs, could scarcely
keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow, I found an
enormous chin-fly fastened upon him, and knocked him off. My brother
asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn’t want the old horse
bitten in that way. ‘Why,’ said my brother, ‘that’s all that made him
go.’ Now,” said Mr. Lincoln, “if Mr.---- has a Presidential chin-fly
biting him, I’m not going to knock him off, if it will only make his
department go.”




‘SQUIRE BAGLY’S PRECEDENT.

Mr. T. W. S. Kidd, of Springfield, says that he once heard a lawyer
opposed to Lincoln trying to convince a jury that precedent was superior
to law, and that custom made things legal in all cases. When Lincoln
arose to answer him he told the jury he would argue his case in the same
way.

“Old ‘Squire Bagly, from Menard, came into my office and said, ‘Lincoln,
I want your advice as a lawyer. Has a man what’s been elected justice of
the peace a right to issue a marriage license?’ I told him he had not;
when the old ‘squire threw himself back in his chair very indignantly,
and said, ‘Lincoln, I thought you was a lawyer. Now Bob Thomas and me
had a bet on this thing, and we agreed to let you decide; but if this is
your opinion I don’t want it, for I know a thunderin’ sight better, for
I have been ‘squire now for eight years and have done it all the time.’”




HE’D NEED HIS GUN.

When the President, early in the War, was anxious about the defenses
of Washington, he told a story illustrating his feelings in the case.
General Scott, then Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, had
but 1,500 men, two guns and an old sloop of war, the latter anchored
in the Potomac, with which to protect the National Capital, and the
President was uneasy.

To one of his queries as to the safety of Washington, General Scott had
replied, “It has been ordained, Mr. President, that the city shall not
be captured by the Confederates.”

“But we ought to have more men and guns here,” was the Chief Executive’s
answer. “The Confederates are not such fools as to let a good chance to
capture Washington go by, and even if it has been ordained that the city
is safe, I’d feel easier if it were better protected. All this reminds
me of the old trapper out in the West who had been assured by some ‘city
folks’ who had hired him as a guide that all matters regarding life and
death were prearranged.

“‘It is ordained,’ said one of the party to the old trapper, ‘that you
are to die at a certain time, and no one can kill you before that time.
If you met a thousand Indians, and your death had not been ordained for
that day, you would certainly escape.’

“‘I don’t exactly understand this “ordained” business,’ was the
trapper’s reply. ‘I don’t care to run no risks. I always have my gun
with me, so that if I come across some reds I can feel sure that I won’t
cross the Jordan ‘thout taking some of ‘em with me. Now, for instance,
if I met an Indian in the woods; he drew a bead on me--sayin’, too, that
he wasn’t more’n ten feet away--an’ I didn’t have nothing to protect
myself; say it was as bad as that, the redskin bein’ dead ready to kill
me; now, even if it had been ordained that the Indian (sayin’ he was a
good shot), was to die that very minute, an’ I wasn’t, what would I do
‘thout my gun?’

“There you are,” the President remarked; “even if it has been ordained
that the city of Washington will never be taken by the Southerners, what
would we do in case they made an attack upon the place, without men and
heavy guns?”




KEPT UP THE ARGUMENT.

Judge T. Lyle Dickey of Illinois related that when the excitement
over the Kansas Nebraska bill first broke out, he was with Lincoln and
several friends attending court. One evening several persons, including
himself and Lincoln, were discussing the slavery question. Judge
Dickey contended that slavery was an institution which the Constitution
recognized, and which could not be disturbed. Lincoln argued that
ultimately slavery must become extinct. “After awhile,” said Judge
Dickey, “we went upstairs to bed. There were two beds in our room, and
I remember that Lincoln sat up in his night shirt on the edge of the
bed arguing the point with me. At last we went to sleep. Early in
the morning I woke up and there was Lincoln half sitting up in bed.
‘Dickey,’ said he, ‘I tell you this nation cannot exist half slave and
half free.’ ‘Oh, Lincoln,’ said I, ‘go to sleep.”’




EQUINE INGRATITUDE.

President Lincoln, while eager that the United States troops should
be supplied with the most modern and serviceable weapons, often took
occasion to put his foot down upon the mania for experimenting with
which some of his generals were afflicted. While engaged in these
experiments much valuable time was wasted, the enemy was left to do as
he thought best, no battles were fought, and opportunities for winning
victories allowed to pass.

The President was an exceedingly practical man, and when an invention,
idea or discovery was submitted to him, his first step was to ascertain
how any or all of them could be applied in a way to be of benefit to the
army. As to experimenting with “contrivances” which, to his mind, could
never be put to practical use, he had little patience.

“Some of these generals,” said he, “experiment so long and so much with
newfangled, fancy notions that when they are finally brought to a
head they are useless. Either the time to use them has gone by, or the
machine, when put in operation, kills more than it cures.

“One of these generals, who has a scheme for ‘condensing’ rations,
is willing to swear his life away that his idea, when carried to
perfection, will reduce the cost of feeding the Union troops to almost
nothing, while the soldiers themselves will get so fat that they’ll
‘bust out’ of their uniforms. Of course, uniforms cost nothing, and real
fat men are more active and vigorous than lean, skinny ones, but that is
getting away from my story.

“There was once an Irishman--a cabman--who had a notion that he could
induce his horse to live entirely on shavings. The latter he could get
for nothing, while corn and oats were pretty high-priced. So he daily
lessened the amount of food to the horse, substituting shavings for the
corn and oats abstracted, so that the horse wouldn’t know his rations
were being cut down.

“However, just as he had achieved success in his experiment, and the
horse had been taught to live without other food than shavings, the
ungrateful animal ‘up and died,’ and he had to buy another.

“So far as this general referred to is concerned, I’m afraid
the soldiers will all be dead at the time when his experiment is
demonstrated as thoroughly successful.”




‘TWAS “MOVING DAY.”

Speed, who was a prosperous young merchant of Springfield, reports
that Lincoln’s personal effects consisted of a pair of saddle-bags,
containing two or three lawbooks, and a few pieces of clothing. Riding
on a borrowed horse, he thus made his appearance in Springfield. When he
discovered that a single bedstead would cost seventeen dollars he said,
“It is probably cheap enough, but I have not enough money to pay for
it.” When Speed offered to trust him, he said: “If I fail here as a
lawyer, I will probably never pay you at all.” Then Speed offered to
share large double bed with him.

“Where is your room?” Lincoln asked.

“Upstairs,” said Speed, pointing from the store leading to his room.

Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went
upstairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, and with a face
beaming with pleasure and smiles, exclaimed: “Well, Speed, I’m moved.”




“ABE’S” HAIR NEEDED COMBING.

“By the way,” remarked President Lincoln one day to Colonel Cannon, a
close personal friend, “I can tell you a good story about my hair. When
I was nominated at Chicago, an enterprising fellow thought that a great
many people would like to see how ‘Abe’ Lincoln looked, and, as I had
not long before sat for a photograph, the fellow, having seen it, rushed
over and bought the negative.

“He at once got no end of wood-cuts, and so active was their circulation
they were soon selling in all parts of the country.

“Soon after they reached Springfield, I heard a boy crying them for sale
on the streets. ‘Here’s your likeness of “Abe” Lincoln!’ he shouted.
‘Buy one; price only two shillings! Will look a great deal better when
he gets his hair combed!”’




WOULD “TAKE TO THE WOODS.”

Secretary of State Seward was bothered considerably regarding the
complication into which Spain had involved the United States government
in connection with San Domingo, and related his troubles to the
President. Negotiations were not proceeding satisfactorily, and things
were mixed generally. We wished to conciliate Spain, while the negroes
had appealed against Spanish oppression.

The President did not, to all appearances, look at the matter seriously,
but, instead of treating the situation as a grave one, remarked that
Seward’s dilemma reminded him of an interview between two negroes in
Tennessee.

One was a preacher, who, with the crude and strange notions of his
ignorant race, was endeavoring to admonish and enlighten his brother
African of the importance of religion and the danger of the future.

“Dar are,” said Josh, the preacher, “two roads befo’ you, Joe; be
ca’ful which ob dese you take. Narrow am de way dat leads straight to
destruction; but broad am de way dat leads right to damnation.”

Joe opened his eyes with affright, and under the spell of the awful
danger before him, exclaimed, “Josh, take which road you please; I shall
go troo de woods.”

“I am not willing,” concluded the President, “to assume any new troubles
or responsibilities at this time, and shall therefore avoid going to the
one place with Spain, or with the negro to the other, but shall ‘take to
the woods.’ We will maintain an honest and strict neutrality.”




LINCOLN CARRIED HER TRUNK.

“My first strong impression of Mr. Lincoln,” says a lady of Springfield,
“was made by one of his kind deeds. I was going with a little friend for
my first trip alone on the railroad cars. It was an epoch of my life.
I had planned for it and dreamed of it for weeks. The day I was to go
came, but as the hour of the train approached, the hackman, through
some neglect, failed to call for my trunk. As the minutes went on,
I realized, in a panic of grief, that I should miss the train. I was
standing by the gate, my hat and gloves on, sobbing as if my heart would
break, when Mr. Lincoln came by.

“‘Why, what’s the matter?’ he asked, and I poured out all my story.

“‘How big’s the trunk? There’s still time, if it isn’t too big.’ And he
pushed through the gate and up to the door. My mother and I took him up
to my room, where my little old-fashioned trunk stood, locked and tied.
‘Oh, ho,’ he cried, ‘wipe your eyes and come on quick.’ And before I
knew what he was going to do, he had shouldered the trunk, was down
stairs, and striding out of the yard. Down the street he went fast as
his long legs could carry him, I trotting behind, drying my tears as I
went. We reached the station in time. Mr. Lincoln put me on the train,
kissed me good-bye, and told me to have a good time. It was just like
him.”




BOAT HAD TO STOP.

Lincoln never failed to take part in all political campaigns in
Illinois, as his reputation as a speaker caused his services to be in
great demand. As was natural, he was often the target at which many of
the “Smart Alecks” of that period shot their feeble bolts, but Lincoln
was so ready with his answers that few of them cared to engage him a
second time.

In one campaign Lincoln was frequently annoyed by a young man who
entertained the idea that he was a born orator. He had a loud voice, was
full of language, and so conceited that he could not understand why the
people did not recognize and appreciate his abilities.

This callow politician delighted in interrupting public speakers, and
at last Lincoln determined to squelch him. One night while addressing a
large meeting at Springfield, the fellow became so offensive that
“Abe” dropped the threads of his speech and turned his attention to the
tormentor.

“I don’t object,” said Lincoln, “to being interrupted with sensible
questions, but I must say that my boisterous friend does not always make
inquiries which properly come under that head. He says he is afflicted
with headaches, at which I don’t wonder, as it is a well-known fact that
nature abhors a vacuum, and takes her own way of demonstrating it.

“This noisy friend reminds me of a certain steamboat that used to run on
the Illinois river. It was an energetic boat, was always busy. When they
built it, however, they made one serious mistake, this error being in
the relative sizes of the boiler and the whistle. The latter was usually
busy, too, and people were aware that it was in existence.

“This particular boiler to which I have reference was a six-foot one,
and did all that was required of it in the way of pushing the boat
along; but as the builders of the vessel had made the whistle a six-foot
one, the consequence was that every time the whistle blew the boat had
to stop.”




MCCLELLAN’S “SPECIAL TALENT.”

President Lincoln one day remarked to a number of personal friends who
had called upon him at the White House:

“General McClellan’s tardiness and unwillingness to fight the enemy or
follow up advantages gained, reminds me of a man back in Illinois who
knew a few law phrases but whose lawyer lacked aggressiveness. The man
finally lost all patience and springing to his feet vociferated, ‘Why
don’t you go at him with a fi. fa., a demurrer, a capias, a surrebutter,
or a ne exeat, or something; or a nundam pactum or a non est?’

“I wish McClellan would go at the enemy with something--I don’t care
what. General McClellan is a pleasant and scholarly gentleman. He is
an admirable engineer, but he seems to have a special talent for a
stationary engine.”




HOW “JAKE” GOT AWAY.

One of the last, if not the very last story told by President Lincoln,
was to one of his Cabinet who came to see him, to ask if it would be
proper to permit “Jake” Thompson to slip through Maine in disguise and
embark for Portland.

The President, as usual, was disposed to be merciful, and to permit
the arch-rebel to pass unmolested, but Secretary Stanton urged that he
should be arrested as a traitor.

“By permitting him to escape the penalties of treason,” persisted the
War Secretary, “you sanction it.”

“Well,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “let me tell you a story. There was an
Irish soldier here last summer, who wanted something to drink stronger
than water, and stopped at a drug-shop, where he espied a soda-fountain.
‘Mr. Doctor,’ said he, ‘give me, plase, a glass of soda-wather, an’
if yez can put in a few drops of whiskey unbeknown to any one, I’ll be
obleeged.’ Now,” continued Mr. Lincoln, “if ‘Jake’ Thompson is permitted
to go through Maine unbeknown to any one, what’s the harm? So don’t have
him arrested.”

MORE LIGHT AND LESS NOISE.

The President was bothered to death by those persons who boisterously
demanded that the War be pushed vigorously; also, those who shouted
their advice and opinions into his weary ears, but who never suggested
anything practical. These fellows were not in the army, nor did they
ever take any interest, in a personal way, in military matters, except
when engaged in dodging drafts.

“That reminds me,” remarked Mr. Lincoln one day, “of a farmer who lost
his way on the Western frontier. Night came on, and the embarrassments
of his position were increased by a furious tempest which suddenly burst
upon him. To add to his discomfort, his horse had given out, leaving him
exposed to all the dangers of the pitiless storm.

“The peals of thunder were terrific, the frequent flashes of lightning
affording the only guide on the road as he resolutely trudged onward,
leading his jaded steed. The earth seemed fairly to tremble beneath him
in the war of elements. One bolt threw him suddenly upon his knees.

“Our traveler was not a prayerful man, but finding himself involuntarily
brought to an attitude of devotion, he addressed himself to the Throne
of Grace in the following prayer for his deliverance:

“‘O God! hear my prayer this time, for Thou knowest it is not often that
I call upon Thee. And, O Lord! if it is all the same to Thee, give us a
little more light and a little less noise.’

“I wish,” the President said, sadly, “there was a stronger disposition
manifested on the part of our civilian warriors to unite in suppressing
the rebellion, and a little less noise as to how and by whom the chief
executive office shall be administered.”




ONE BULLET AND A HATFUL.

Lincoln made the best of everything, and if he couldn’t get what he
wanted he took what he could get. In matters of policy, while President
he acted according to this rule. He would take perilous chances, even
when the result was, to the minds of his friends, not worth the risk he
had run.

One day at a meeting of the Cabinet, it being at the time when it seemed
as though war with England and France could not be avoided, Secretary
of State Seward and Secretary of War Stanton warmly advocated that the
United States maintain an attitude, the result of which would have been
a declaration of hostilities by the European Powers mentioned.

“Why take any more chances than are absolutely necessary?” asked the
President.

“We must maintain our honor at any cost,” insisted Secretary Seward.

“We would be branded as cowards before the entire world,” Secretary
Stanton said.

“But why run the greater risk when we can take a smaller one?” queried
the President calmly. “The less risk we run the better for us. That
reminds me of a story I heard a day or two ago, the hero of which was
on the firing line during a recent battle, where the bullets were flying
thick.

“Finally his courage gave way entirely, and throwing down his gun, he
ran for dear life.

“As he was flying along at top speed he came across an officer who drew
his revolver and shouted, ‘Go back to your regiment at once or I will
shoot you!’

“‘Shoot and be hanged,’ the racer exclaimed. ‘What’s one bullet to a
whole hatful?’”




LINCOLN’S STORY TO PEACE COMMISSIONERS.

Among the reminiscences of Lincoln left by Editor Henry J. Raymond, is
the following:

Among the stories told by Lincoln, which is freshest in my mind, one
which he related to me shortly after its occurrence, belongs to the
history of the famous interview on board the River Queen, at Hampton
Roads, between himself and Secretary Seward and the rebel Peace
Commissioners. It was reported at the time that the President told a
“little story” on that occasion, and the inquiry went around among the
newspapers, “What was it?”

The New York Herald published what purported to be a version of it, but
the “point” was entirely lost, and it attracted no attention. Being in
Washington a few days subsequent to the interview with the Commissioners
(my previous sojourn there having terminated about the first of last
August), I asked Mr. Lincoln one day if it was true that he told
Stephens, Hunter and Campbell a story.

“Why, yes,” he replied, manifesting some surprise, “but has it
leaked out? I was in hopes nothing would be said about it, lest some
over-sensitive people should imagine there was a degree of levity in
the intercourse between us.” He then went on to relate the circumstances
which called it out.

“You see,” said he, “we had reached and were discussing the slavery
question. Mr. Hunter said, substantially, that the slaves, always
accustomed to an overseer, and to work upon compulsion, suddenly freed,
as they would be if the South should consent to peace on the basis of
the ‘Emancipation Proclamation,’ would precipitate not only themselves,
but the entire Southern society, into irremediable ruin. No work would
be done, nothing would be cultivated, and both blacks and whites would
starve!”

Said the President: “I waited for Seward to answer that argument, but as
he was silent, I at length said: ‘Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great
deal better about this argument than I, for you have always lived under
the slave system. I can only say, in reply to your statement of the
case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case,
who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of hogs.
It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to get around this was a
puzzle to him. At length he hit on the plan of planting an immense field
of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the whole
herd into the field, and let them have full swing, thus saving not only
the labor of feeding the hogs, but also that of digging the potatoes.
Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence,
counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along.

“‘Well, well,’ said he, ‘Mr. Case, this is all very fine. Your hogs are
doing very well just now, but you know out here in Illinois the frost
comes early, and the ground freezes for a foot deep. Then what you going
to do?’

“This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case had not taken into
account. Butchering time for hogs was ‘way on in December or January! He
scratched his head, and at length stammered: ‘Well, it may come pretty
hard on their snouts, but I don’t see but that it will be “root, hog, or
die.”’”




“ABE” GOT THE WORST OF IT.

When Lincoln was a young lawyer in Illinois, he and a certain Judge once
got to bantering one another about trading horses; and it was agreed
that the next morning at nine o’clock they should make a trade, the
horses to be unseen up to that hour, and no backing out, under a
forfeiture of $25. At the hour appointed, the Judge came up, leading the
sorriest-looking specimen of a horse ever seen in those parts. In a few
minutes Mr. Lincoln was seen approaching with a wooden saw-horse upon
his shoulders.

Great were the shouts and laughter of the crowd, and both were greatly
increased when Lincoln, on surveying the Judge’s animal, set down his
saw-horse, and exclaimed:

“Well, Judge, this is the first time I ever got the worst of it in a
horse trade.”




IT DEPENDED UPON HIS CONDITION.

The President had made arrangements to visit New York, and was told that
President Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, would be glad to
furnish a special train.

“I don’t doubt it a bit,” remarked the President, “for I know Mr.
Garrett, and like him very well, and if I believed--which I don’t, by
any means--all the things some people say about his ‘secesh’ principles,
he might say to you as was said by the Superintendent of a certain
railroad to a son of one my predecessors in office. Some two years after
the death of President Harrison, the son of his successor in this office
wanted to take his father on an excursion somewhere or other, and went
to the Superintendent’s office to order a special train.

“This Superintendent was a Whig of the most uncompromising sort, who
hated a Democrat more than all other things on the earth, and promptly
refused the young man’s request, his language being to the effect
that this particular railroad was not running special trains for the
accommodation of Presidents of the United States just at that season.

“The son of the President was much surprised and exceedingly annoyed.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘you have run special Presidential trains, and I know
it. Didn’t you furnish a special train for the funeral of President
Harrison?’

“‘Certainly we did,’ calmly replied the Superintendent, with no
relaxation of his features, ‘and if you will only bring your father here
in the same shape as General Harrison was, you shall have the best train
on the road.”’

When the laughter had subsided, the President said: “I shall take
pleasure in accepting Mr. Garrett’s offer, as I have no doubts whatever
as to his loyalty to the United States government or his respect for the
occupant of the Presidential office.”




“GOT DOWN TO THE RAISINS.”

A. B. Chandler, chief of the telegraph office at the War Department,
occupied three rooms, one of which was called “the President’s room,”
 so much of his time did Mr. Lincoln spend there. Here he would read
over the telegrams received for the several heads of departments. Three
copies of all messages received were made--one for the President, one
for the War Department records and one for Secretary Stanton.

Mr. Chandler told a story as to the manner in which the President read
the despatches:

“President Lincoln’s copies were kept in what we called the ‘President’s
drawer’ of the ‘cipher desk.’ He would come in at any time of the night
or day, and go at once to this drawer, and take out a file of telegrams,
and begin at the top to read them. His position in running over these
telegrams was sometimes very curious.

“He had a habit of sitting frequently on the edge of his chair, with his
right knee dragged down to the floor. I remember a curious expression
of his when he got to the bottom of the new telegrams and began on those
that he had read before. It was, ‘Well, I guess I have got down to the
raisins.’

“The first two or three times he said this he made no explanation, and I
did not ask one. But one day, after he had made the remark, he looked up
under his eyebrows at me with a funny twinkle in his eyes, and said: ‘I
used to know a little girl out West who sometimes was inclined to eat
too much. One day she ate a good many more raisins than she ought to,
and followed them up with a quantity of other goodies. They made her
very sick. After a time the raisins began to come.

“She gasped and looked at her mother and said: ‘Well, I will be better
now I guess, for I have got down to the raisins.’”




“HONEST ABE” SWALLOWS HIS ENEMIES.

“‘Honest Abe’ Taking Them on the Half-Shell” was one of the cartoons
published in 1860 by one of the illustrated periodicals. As may be
seen, it represents Lincoln in a “Political Oyster House,” preparing to
swallow two of his Democratic opponents for the Presidency--Douglas
and Breckinridge. He performed the feat at the November election.
The Democratic party was hopelessly split in 1860 The Northern wing
nominated Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, as their candidate,
the Southern wing naming John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky; the
Constitutional Unionists (the old American of Know-Nothing party) placed
John Bell, of Tennessee, in the field, and against these was put Abraham
Lincoln, who received the support of the Abolitionists.

Lincoln made short work of his antagonists when the election came
around. He received a large majority in the Electoral College, while
nearly every Northern State voted majorities for him at the polls.
Douglas had but twelve votes in the Electoral College, while Bell had
thirty-nine. The votes of the Southern States, then preparing to secede,
were, for the most part, thrown for Breckinridge. The popular vote was:
Lincoln, 1,857,610; Douglas, 1,365,976; Breckinridge, 847,953; Bell,
590,631; total vote, 4,662,170. In the Electoral College Lincoln
received 180; Douglas, 12; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; Lincoln’s
majority over all, 57.




SAVING HIS WIND.

Judge H. W. Beckwith of Danville, Ill., said that soon after the Ottawa
debate between Lincoln and Douglas he passed the Chenery House, then
the principal hotel in Springfield. The lobby was crowded with partisan
leaders from various sections of the state, and Mr. Lincoln, from his
greater height, was seen above the surging mass that clung about him
like a swarm of bees to their ruler. The day was warm, and at the first
chance he broke away and came out for a little fresh air, wiping the
sweat from his face.

“As he passed the door he saw me,” said Judge Beckwith, “and, taking
my hand, inquired for the health and views of his ‘friends over in
Vermillion county.’ He was assured they were wide awake, and further
told that they looked forward to the debate between him and Senator
Douglas with deep concern. From the shadow that went quickly over his
face, the pained look that came to give way quickly to a blaze of eyes
and quiver of lips, I felt that Mr. Lincoln had gone beneath my mere
words and caught my inner and current fears as to the result. And then,
in a forgiving, jocular way peculiar to him, he said: ‘Sit down; I have
a moment to spare, and will tell you a story.’ Having been on his feet
for some time, he sat on the end of the stone step leading into the
hotel door, while I stood closely fronting him.

“‘You have,’ he continued, ‘seen two men about to fight?’

“‘Yes, many times.’

“‘Well, one of them brags about what he means to do. He jumps high in
the air, cracking his heels together, smites his fists, and wastes his
wreath trying to scare somebody. You see the other fellow, he says not
a word,’--here Mr. Lincoln’s voice and manner changed to great
earnestness, and repeating--‘you see the other man says not a word. His
arms are at his sides, his fists are closely doubled up, his head is
drawn to the shoulder, and his teeth are set firm together. He is saving
his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off he will win it, or
die a-trying.’”




RIGHT FOR, ONCE, ANYHOW.

Where men bred in courts, accustomed to the world, or versed in
diplomacy, would use some subterfuge, or would make a polite speech,
or give a shrug of the shoulders, as the means of getting out of an
embarrassing position, Lincoln raised a laugh by some bold west-country
anecdote, and moved off in the cloud of merriment produced by the joke.
When Attorney-General Bates was remonstrating apparently against
the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial
importance, the President interposed with: “Come now, Bates, he’s not
half as bad as you think. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a
good turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court one
morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, and I had
no horse.

“The judge overtook me in his carriage.

“‘Hallo, Lincoln! are you not going to the court-house? Come in and I
will give you a seat!’

“Well, I got in, and the Judge went on reading his papers. Presently the
carriage struck a stump on one side of the road, then it hopped off to
the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver was jerking from side to
side in his seat, so I says:

“‘Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a little too much this
morning.’

“‘Well, I declare, Lincoln,’ said he, ‘I should not much wonder if
you were right, for he has nearly upset me half a dozen times since
starting.’

“So, putting his head out of the window, he shouted, ‘Why, you infernal
scoundrel, you are drunk!’

“Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning round with great
gravity, the coachman said:

“‘Begorra! that’s the first rightful decision that you have given for
the last twelvemonth.’”

While the company were laughing, the President beat a quiet retreat from
the neighborhood.




“PITY THE POOR ORPHAN.”

After the War was well on, and several battles had been fought, a lady
from Alexandria asked the President for an order to release a certain
church which had been taken for a Federal hospital. The President said
he could do nothing, as the post surgeon at Alexandria was immovable,
and then asked the lady why she did not donate money to build a
hospital.

“We have been very much embarrassed by the war,” she replied, “and our
estates are much hampered.”

“You are not ruined?” asked the President.

“No, sir, but we do not feel that we should give up anything we have
left.”

The President, after some reflection, then said: “There are more battles
yet to be fought, and I think God would prefer that your church be
devoted to the care and alleviation of the sufferings of our poor
fellows. So, madam, you will excuse me. I can do nothing for you.”

Afterward, in speaking of this incident, President Lincoln said that the
lady, as a representative of her class in Alexandria, reminded him of
the story of the young man who had an aged father and mother owning
considerable property. The young man being an only son, and believing
that the old people had outlived their usefulness, assassinated them
both. He was accused, tried and convicted of the murder. When the judge
came to pass sentence upon him, and called upon him to give any reason
he might have why the sentence of death should not be passed upon
him, he with great promptness replied that he hoped the court would be
lenient upon him because he was a poor orphan!

“BAP.” McNABB’S BOOSTER.

It is true that Lincoln did not drink, never swore, was a stranger to
smoking and lived a moral life generally, but he did like horse-racing
and chicken fighting. New Salem, Illinois, where Lincoln was “clerking,”
 was known the neighborhood around as a “fast” town, and the average
young man made no very desperate resistance when tempted to join in the
drinking and gambling bouts.

“Bap.” McNabb was famous for his ability in both the raising and the
purchase of roosters of prime fighting quality, and when his birds
fought the attendance was large. It was because of the “flunking” of
one of “Bap.’s” roosters that Lincoln was enabled to make a point when
criticising McClellan’s unreadiness and lack of energy.

One night there was a fight on the schedule, one of “Bap.” McNabb’s
birds being a contestant. “Bap.” brought a little red rooster, whose
fighting qualities had been well advertised for days in advance, and
much interest was manifested in the outcome. As the result of these
contests was generally a quarrel, in which each man, charging foul play,
seized his victim, they chose Lincoln umpire, relying not only on his
fairness but his ability to enforce his decisions. Judge Herndon, in his
“Abraham Lincoln,” says of this notable event:

“I cannot improve on the description furnished me in February, 1865, by
one who was present.

“They formed a ring, and the time having arrived, Lincoln, with one hand
on each hip and in a squatting position, cried, ‘Ready.’ Into the ring
they toss their fowls, ‘Bap.’s’ red rooster along with the rest. But
no sooner had the little beauty discovered what was to be done than he
dropped his tail and ran.

“The crowd cheered, while ‘Bap.,’ in disappointment, picked him up and
started away, losing his quarter (entrance fee) and carrying home his
dishonored fowl. Once arrived at the latter place he threw his pet down
with a feeling of indignation and chagrin.

“The little fellow, out of sight of all rivals, mounted a woodpile and
proudly flirting out his feathers, crowed with all his might. ‘Bap.’
looked on in disgust.

“‘Yes, you little cuss,’ he exclaimed, irreverently, ‘you’re great on
dress parade, but not worth a darn in a fight.”’

It is said, according to Judge Herndon, that Lincoln considered
McClellan as “great on dress parade,” but not so much in a fight.




A LOW-DOWN TRICK.

When Lincoln was a candidate of the Know Nothings for the State
Legislature, the party was over-confident, and the Democrats pursued a
still-hunt. Lincoln was defeated. He compared the situation to one of
the camp-followers of General Taylor’s army, who had secured a barrel of
cider, erected a tent, and commenced selling it to the thirsty soldiers
at twenty-five cents a drink, but he had sold but little before another
sharp one set up a tent at his back, and tapped the barrel so as to
flow on his side, and peddled out No. 1 cider at five cents a drink, of
course, getting the latter’s entire trade on the borrowed capital.

“The Democrats,” said Mr. Lincoln, “had played Knownothing on a cheaper
scale than had the real devotees of Sam, and had raked down his pile
with his own cider!”




END FOR END.

Judge H. W. Beckwith, of Danville, Ill., in his “Personal Recollections
of Lincoln,” tells a story which is a good example of Lincoln’s way of
condensing the law and the facts of an issue in a story: “A man, by vile
words, first provoked and then made a bodily attack upon another. The
latter, in defending himself, gave the other much the worst of the
encounter. The aggressor, to get even, had the one who thrashed him
tried in our Circuit Court on a charge of an assault and battery. Mr.
Lincoln defended, and told the jury that his client was in the fix of
a man who, in going along the highway with a pitchfork on his shoulder,
was attacked by a fierce dog that ran out at him from a farmer’s
dooryard. In parrying off the brute with the fork, its prongs stuck into
the brute and killed him.

“‘What made you kill my dog?’ said the farmer.

“‘What made him try to bite me?’

“‘But why did you not go at him with the other end of the pitchfork?’

“‘Why did he not come after me with his other end?’

“At this Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his long arms an imaginary dog,
and pushed its tail end toward the jury. This was the defensive plea of
‘son assault demesne’--loosely, that ‘the other fellow brought on the
fight,’--quickly told, and in a way the dullest mind would grasp and
retain.”




LET SIX SKUNKS GO.

The President had decided to select a new War Minister, and the Leading
Republican Senators thought the occasion was opportune to change the
whole seven Cabinet ministers. They, therefore, earnestly advised him to
make a clean sweep, and select seven new men, and so restore the waning
confidence of the country.

The President listened with patient courtesy, and when the Senators had
concluded, he said, with a characteristic gleam of humor in his eye:

“Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole Cabinet because I
have made one change reminds me of a story I once heard in Illinois,
of a farmer who was much troubled by skunks. His wife insisted on his
trying to get rid of them.

“He loaded his shotgun one moonlight night and awaited developments.
After some time the wife heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes
the farmer entered the house.

“‘What luck have you?’ asked she.

“‘I hid myself behind the wood-pile,’ said the old man, ‘with the
shotgun pointed towards the hen roost, and before long there appeared
not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he
raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best to let the
other six go.”’

The Senators laughed and retired.




HOW HE GOT BLACKSTONE.

The following story was told by Mr. Lincoln to Mr. A. J. Conant, the
artist, who painted his portrait in Springfield in 1860:

“One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my
store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He
asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his
wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not
want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a
dollar for it. Without further examination, I put it away in the store
and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I
came upon the barrel, and, emptying it upon the floor to see what it
contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of
Blackstone’s Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had
plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were
busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more
I read”--this he said with unusual emphasis--“the more intensely
interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly
absorbed. I read until I devoured them.”




A JOB FOR THE NEW CABINETMAKER.

This cartoon, labeled “A Job for the New Cabinetmaker,” was printed in
“Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” on February 2d, 1861, a month and
two days before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United
States. The Southern states had seceded from the Union, the Confederacy
was established, with Jefferson Davis as its President, the Union had
been split in two, and the task Lincoln had before him was to glue the
two parts of the Republic together. In his famous speech, delivered a
short time before his nomination for the Presidency by the Republican
National Convention at Chicago, in 1860, Lincoln had said: “A house
divided against itself cannot stand; this nation cannot exist half slave
and half free.” After his inauguration as President, Mr. Lincoln went
to work to glue the two pieces together, and after four years of bloody
war, and at immense cost, the job was finished; the house of the Great
American Republic was no longer divided; the severed sections--the North
and the South--were cemented tightly; the slaves were freed, peace was
firmly established, and the Union of states was glued together so well
that the nation is stronger now than ever before. Lincoln was just the
man for that job, and the work he did will last for all time. “The New
Cabinetmaker” knew his business thoroughly, and finished his task of
glueing in a workmanlike manner. At the very moment of its completion,
five days after the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox, the Martyr
President fell at the hands of the assassin, J. Wilkes Booth.




“I CAN STAND IT IF THEY CAN.”

United States Senator Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, Henry Winter Davis,
of Maryland, and Wendell Phillips were strongly opposed to President
Lincoln’s re-election, and Wade and Davis issued a manifesto. Phillips
made several warm speeches against Lincoln and his policy.

When asked if he had read the manifesto or any of Phillips’ speeches,
the President replied:

“I have not seen them, nor do I care to see them. I have seen enough to
satisfy me that I am a failure, not only in the opinion of the people
in rebellion, but of many distinguished politicians of my own party. But
time will show whether I am right or they are right, and I am content to
abide its decision.

“I have enough to look after without giving much of my time to the
consideration of the subject of who shall be my successor in office. The
position is not an easy one; and the occupant, whoever he may be, for
the next four years, will have little leisure to pluck a thorn or plant
a rose in his own pathway.”

It was urged that this opposition must be embarrassing to his
Administration, as well as damaging to the party. He replied: “Yes, that
is true; but our friends, Wade, Davis, Phillips, and others are hard
to please. I am not capable of doing so. I cannot please them without
wantonly violating not only my oath, but the most vital principles upon
which our government was founded.

“As to those who, like Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my
policy and cavil at my official acts, I shall not complain of them. I
accord them the utmost freedom of speech and liberty of the press, but
shall not change the policy I have adopted in the full belief that I am
right.

“I feel on this subject as an old Illinois farmer once expressed himself
while eating cheese. He was interrupted in the midst of his repast by
the entrance of his son, who exclaimed, ‘Hold on, dad! there’s skippers
in that cheese you’re eating!’

“‘Never mind, Tom,’ said he, as he kept on munching his cheese, ‘if they
can stand it I can.’”




LINCOLN MISTAKEN FOR ONCE.

President Lincoln was compelled to acknowledge that he made at least one
mistake in “sizing up” men. One day a very dignified man called at the
White House, and Lincoln’s heart fell when his visitor approached. The
latter was portly, his face was full of apparent anxiety, and Lincoln
was willing to wager a year’s salary that he represented some Society
for the Easy and Speedy Repression of Rebellions.

The caller talked fluently, but at no time did he give advice or suggest
a way to put down the Confederacy. He was full of humor, told a clever
story or two, and was entirely self-possessed.

At length the President inquired, “You are a clergyman, are you not,
sir?”

“Not by a jug full,” returned the stranger heartily.

Grasping him by the hand Lincoln shook it until the visitor squirmed.
“You must lunch with us. I am glad to see you. I was afraid you were a
preacher.”

“I went to the Chicago Convention,” the caller said, “as a friend of Mr.
Seward. I have watched you narrowly ever since your inauguration, and
I called merely to pay my respects. What I want to say is this: I think
you are doing everything for the good of the country that is in
the power of man to do. You are on the right track. As one of your
constituents I now say to you, do in future as you d---- please, and I
will support you!”

This was spoken with tremendous effect.

“Why,” said Mr. Lincoln in great astonishment, “I took you to be a
preacher. I thought you had come here to tell me how to take Richmond,”
 and he again grasped the hand of his strange visitor.

Accurate and penetrating as Mr. Lincoln’s judgment was concerning men,
for once he had been wholly mistaken. The scene was comical in the
extreme. The two men stood gazing at each other. A smile broke from the
lips of the solemn wag and rippled over the wide expanse of his homely
face like sunlight overspreading a continent, and Mr. Lincoln was
convulsed with laughter.

He stayed to lunch.




FORGOT EVERYTHING HE KNEW.

President Lincoln, while entertaining a few friends, is said to have
related the following anecdote of a man who knew too much:

During the administration of President Jackson there was a singular
young gentleman employed in the Public Postoffice in Washington.

His name was G.; he was from Tennessee, the son of a widow, a neighbor
of the President, on which account the old hero had a kind feeling for
him, and always got him out of difficulties with some of the higher
officials, to whom his singular interference was distasteful.

Among other things, it is said of him that while employed in the General
Postoffice, on one occasion he had to copy a letter to Major H., a
high official, in answer to an application made by an old gentleman in
Virginia or Pennsylvania, for the establishment of a new postoffice.

The writer of the letter said the application could not be granted, in
consequence of the applicant’s “proximity” to another office.

When the letter came into G.’s hand to copy, being a great stickler for
plainness, he altered “proximity” to “nearness to.”

Major H. observed it, and asked G. why he altered his letter.

“Why,” replied G., “because I don’t think the man would understand what
you mean by proximity.”

“Well,” said Major H., “try him; put in the ‘proximity’ again.”

In a few days a letter was received from the applicant, in which he very
indignantly said that his father had fought for liberty in the second
war for independence, and he should like to have the name of the
scoundrel who brought the charge of proximity or anything else wrong
against him.

“There,” said G., “did I not say so?”

G. carried his improvements so far that Mr. Berry, the
Postmaster-General, said to him: “I don’t want you any longer; you know
too much.”

Poor G. went out, but his old friend got him another place.

This time G.’s ideas underwent a change. He was one day very busy
writing, when a stranger called in and asked him where the Patent Office
was.

“I don’t know,” said G.

“Can you tell me where the Treasury Department is?” said the stranger.

“No,” said G.

“Nor the President’s house?”

“No.”

The stranger finally asked him if he knew where the Capitol was.

“No,” replied G.

“Do you live in Washington, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” said G.

“Good Lord! and don’t you know where the Patent Office, Treasury,
President’s House and Capitol are?”

“Stranger,” said G., “I was turned out of the postoffice for knowing too
much. I don’t mean to offend in that way again.

“I am paid for keeping this book.

“I believe I know that much; but if you find me knowing anything more
you may take my head.”

“Good morning,” said the stranger.




HE LOVED A GOOD STORY.

Judge Breese, of the Supreme bench, one of the most distinguished of
American jurists, and a man of great personal dignity, was about to open
court at Springfield, when Lincoln called out in his hearty way: “Hold
on, Breese! Don’t open court yet! Here’s Bob Blackwell just going to
tell a story!” The judge passed on without replying, evidently regarding
it as beneath the dignity of the Supreme Court to delay proceedings for
the sake of a story.




HEELS RAN AWAY WITH THEM.

In an argument against the opposite political party at one time during a
campaign, Lincoln said: “My opponent uses a figurative expression to
the effect that ‘the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are
sound in the heart and head.’ The first branch of the figure--that
is the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel--I admit is not merely
figuratively but literally true. Who that looks but for a moment at
their hundreds of officials scampering away with the public money to
Texas, to Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a villain may
hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most
distressingly affected in their heels with a species of running itch?

“It seems that this malady of their heels operates on the sound-headed
and honest-hearted creatures very much as the cork leg in the comic song
did on its owner, which, when he once got started on it, the more he
tried to stop it, the more it would run away.

“At the hazard of wearing this point threadbare, I will relate
an anecdote the situation calls to my mind, which seems to be too
strikingly in point to be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always
boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, but who invariably
retreated without orders at the first charge of the engagement, being
asked by his captain why he did so, replied, ‘Captain, I have as brave
a heart as Julius Caesar ever had, but somehow or other, whenever danger
approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with it.’

“So with the opposite party--they take the public money into their hands
for the most laudable purpose that wise heads and honest hearts can
dictate; but before they can possibly get it out again, their rascally,
vulnerable heels will run away with them.”




WANTED TO BURN HIM DOWN TO THE STUMP.

Preston King once introduced A. J. Bleeker to the President, and the
latter, being an applicant for office, was about to hand Mr. Lincoln his
vouchers, when he was asked to read them. Bleeker had not read very far
when the President disconcerted him by the exclamation, “Stop a minute!
You remind me exactly of the man who killed the dog; in fact, you are
just like him.”

“In what respect?” asked Bleeker, not feeling he had received a
compliment.

“Well,” replied the President, “this man had made up his mind to kill
his dog, an ugly brute, and proceeded to knock out his brains with a
club. He continued striking the dog after the latter was dead until a
friend protested, exclaiming, ‘You needn’t strike him any more; the dog
is dead; you killed him at the first blow.’

“‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘I know that; but I believe in punishment after
death.’ So, I see, you do.”

Bleeker acknowledged it was possible to overdo a good thing, and
then came back at the President with an anecdote of a good priest who
converted an Indian from heathenism to Christianity; the only difficulty
he had with him was to get him to pray for his enemies. “This Indian
had been taught to overcome and destroy all his friends he didn’t like,”
 said Bleeker, “but the priest told him that while that might be the
Indian method, it was not the doctrine of Christianity or the Bible.
‘Saint Paul distinctly says,’ the priest told him, ‘If thine enemy
hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.’

“The Indian shook his head at this, but when the priest added, ‘For
in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head,’ Poor Lo was
overcome with emotion, fell on his knees, and with outstretched hands
and uplifted eyes invoked all sorts of blessings on the heads of all his
enemies, supplicating for pleasant hunting-grounds, a large supply of
squaws, lots of papooses, and all other Indian comforts.

“Finally the good priest interrupted him (as you did me, Mr. President),
exclaiming, ‘Stop, my son! You have discharged your Christian duty, and
have done more than enough.’

“‘Oh, no, father,’ replied the Indian; ‘let me pray! I want to burn him
down to the stump!”




HAD A “KICK” COMING.

During the war, one of the Northern Governors, who was able, earnest
and untiring in aiding the administration, but always complaining,
sent dispatch after dispatch to the War Office, protesting against
the methods used in raising troops. After reading all his papers,
the President said, in a cheerful and reassuring tone to the
Adjutant-General:

“Never mind, never mind; those dispatches don’t mean anything. Just go
right ahead. The Governor is like a boy I once saw at a launching. When
everything was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him under the ship
to knock away the trigger and let her go.

“At the critical moment everything depended on the boy. He had to do the
job well by a direct, vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still
while the boat slid over him.

“The boy did everything right, but he yelled as if he were being
murdered from the time he got under the keel until he got out. I thought
the hide was all scraped off his back, but he wasn’t hurt at all.

“The master of the yard told me that this boy was always chosen for that
job; that he did his work well; that he never had been hurt, but that he
always squealed in that way.

“That’s just the way with Governor--. Make up your mind that he is not
hurt, and that he is doing the work right, and pay no attention to his
squealing. He only wants to make you understand how hard his task is,
and that he is on hand performing it.”




THE CASE OF BETSY ANN DOUGHERTY.

Many requests and petitions made to Mr. Lincoln when he was President
were ludicrous and trifling, but he always entered into them with that
humor-loving spirit that was such a relief from the grave duties of his
great office.

Once a party of Southerners called on him in behalf of one Betsy Ann
Dougherty. The spokesman, who was an ex-Governor, said:

“Mr. President, Betsy Ann Dougherty is a good woman. She lived in my
county and did my washing for a long time. Her husband went off and
joined the rebel army, and I wish you would give her a protection
paper.” The solemnity of this appeal struck Mr. Lincoln as uncommonly
ridiculous.

The two men looked at each other--the Governor desperately earnest, and
the President masking his humor behind the gravest exterior. At last
Mr. Lincoln asked, with inimitable gravity, “Was Betsy Ann a good
washerwoman?” “Oh, yes, sir, she was, indeed.”

“Was your Betsy Ann an obliging woman?” “Yes, she was certainly very
kind,” responded the Governor, soberly. “Could she do other things than
wash?” continued Mr. Lincoln with the same portentous gravity.

“Oh, yes; she was very kind--very.”

“Where is Betsy Ann?”

“She is now in New York, and wants to come back to Missouri, but she is
afraid of banishment.”

“Is anybody meddling with her?”

“No; but she is afraid to come back unless you will give her a
protection paper.”

Thereupon Mr. Lincoln wrote on a visiting card the following:

“Let Betsy Ann Dougherty alone as long as she behaves herself.

“A. LINCOLN.”

He handed this card to her advocate, saying, “Give this to Betsy Ann.”

“But, Mr. President, couldn’t you write a few words to the officers that
would insure her protection?”

“No,” said Mr. Lincoln, “officers have no time now to read letters. Tell
Betsy Ann to put a string in this card and hang it around her neck. When
the officers see this, they will keep their hands off your Betsy Ann.”




HAD TO WEAR A WOODEN SWORD.

Captain “Abe” Lincoln and his company (in the Black Hawk War) were
without any sort of military knowledge, and both were forced to acquire
such knowledge by attempts at drilling. Which was the more awkward, the
“squad” or the commander, it would have been difficult to decide.

In one of Lincoln’s earliest military problems was involved the process
of getting his company “endwise” through a gate. Finally he shouted,
“This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again
on the other side of the gate!”

Lincoln was one of the first of his company to be arraigned for
unmilitary conduct. Contrary to the rules he fired a gun “within the
limits,” and had his sword taken from him. The next infringement of
rules was by some of the men, who stole a quantity of liquor, drank it,
and became unfit for duty, straggling out of the ranks the next day, and
not getting together again until late at night.

For allowing this lawlessness the captain was condemned to wear a wooden
sword for two days. These were merely interesting but trivial incidents
of the campaign. Lincoln was from the very first popular with his men,
although one of them told him to “go to the devil.”




“ABE” STIRRING THE “BLACK” COALS.

Under the caption, “The American Difficulty,” “Punch” printed on May
11th, 1861, the cartoon reproduced here. The following text was placed
beneath the illustration: PRESIDENT ABE: “What a nice White House this
would be, if it were not for the blacks!” It was the idea in England,
and, in fact, in all the countries on the European continent, that
the War of the Rebellion was fought to secure the freedom of the negro
slaves. Such was not the case. The freedom of the slaves was one of
the necessary consequences of the Civil War, but not the cause of that
bloody four years’ conflict. The War was the result of the secession of
the states of the South from the Union, and President “Abe’s” main aim
was to compel the seceding states to resume their places in the Federal
Union of states.

The blacks did not bother President “Abe” in the least as he knew he
would be enabled to give them their freedom when the proper time came.
He had the project of freeing them in his mind long before he issued his
Emancipation Proclamation, the delay in promulgating that document
being due to the fact that he did not wish to estrange the hundreds of
thousands of patriots of the border states who were fighting for the
preservation of the Union, and not for the freedom of the negro slaves.
President “Abe” had patience, and everything came out all right in the
end.




GETTING RID OF AN ELEPHANT.

Charles A. Dana, who was Assistant Secretary of War under Mr. Stanton,
relates the following: A certain Thompson had been giving the government
considerable trouble. Dana received information that Thompson was about
to escape to Liverpool.

Calling upon Stanton, Dana was referred to Mr. Lincoln.

“The President was at the White House, business hours were over, Lincoln
was washing his hands. ‘Hallo, Dana,’ said he, as I opened the door,
‘what is it now?’ ‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘here is the Provost Marshal of
Portland, who reports that Jacob Thompson is to be in town to-night,
and inquires what orders we have to give.’ ‘What does Stanton say?’
he asked. ‘Arrest him,’ I replied. ‘Well,’ he continued, drawling his
words, ‘I rather guess not. When you have an elephant on your hands, and
he wants to run away, better let him run.’”




GROTESQUE, YET FRIGHTFUL.

The nearest Lincoln ever came to a fight was when he was in the vicinity
of the skirmish at Kellogg’s Grove, in the Black Hawk War. The rangers
arrived at the spot after the engagement and helped bury the five men
who were killed.

Lincoln told Noah Brooks, one of his biographers, that he “remembered
just how those men looked as we rode up the little hill where their camp
was. The red light of the morning sun was streaming upon them as they
lay, heads toward us, on the ground. And every man had a round, red spot
on the top of his head about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had
taken his scalp. It was frightful, but it was grotesque; and the red
sunlight seemed to paint everything all over.”

Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid picture, and added, somewhat
irrelevantly, “I remember that one man had on buckskin breeches.”




“ABE” WAS NO DUDE.

Always indifferent in matters of dress, Lincoln cut but small figure in
social circles, even in the earliest days of Illinois. His trousers were
too short, his hat too small, and, as a rule, the buttons on the back of
his coat were nearer his shoulder blades than his waist.

No man was richer than his fellows, and there was no aristocracy;
the women wore linsey-woolsey of home manufacture, and dyed them in
accordance with the tastes of the wearers; calico was rarely seen, and a
woman wearing a dress of that material was the envy of her sisters.

There being no shoemakers the women wore moccasins, and the men made
their own boots. A hunting shirt, leggins made of skins, buckskin
breeches, dyed green, constituted an apparel no maiden could withstand.




CHARACTERISTIC OF LINCOLN.

One man who knew Lincoln at New Salem, says the first time he saw him he
was lying on a trundle-bed covered with books and papers and rocking a
cradle with his foot.

The whole scene was entirely characteristic--Lincoln reading and
studying, and at the same time helping his landlady by quieting her
child.

A gentleman who knew Mr. Lincoln well in early manhood says: “Lincoln at
this period had nothing but plenty of friends.”

After the customary hand-shaking on one occasion in the White House at
Washington several gentlemen came forward and asked the President for
his autograph. One of them gave his name as “Cruikshank.” “That reminds
me,” said Mr. Lincoln, “of what I used to be called when a young
man--‘Long-shanks!’”




“PLOUGH ALL ‘ROUND HIM.”

Governor Blank went to the War Department one day in a towering rage:

“I suppose you found it necessary to make large concessions to him, as
he returned from you perfectly satisfied,” suggested a friend.

“Oh, no,” the President replied, “I did not concede anything. You have
heard how that Illinois farmer got rid of a big log that was too big to
haul out, too knotty to split, and too wet and soggy to burn.

“‘Well, now,’ said he, in response to the inquiries of his neighbors
one Sunday, as to how he got rid of it, ‘well, now, boys, if you won’t
divulge the secret, I’ll tell you how I got rid of it--I ploughed around
it.’

“Now,” remarked Lincoln, in conclusion, “don’t tell anybody, but that’s
the way I got rid of Governor Blank. I ploughed all round him, but it
took me three mortal hours to do it, and I was afraid every minute he’d
see what I was at.”




“I’VE LOST MY APPLE.”

During a public “reception,” a farmer from one of the border counties
of Virginia told the President that the Union soldiers, in passing his
farm, had helped themselves not only to hay, but his horse, and he
hoped the President would urge the proper officer to consider his claim
immediately.

Mr. Lincoln said that this reminded him of an old acquaintance of his,
“Jack” Chase, a lumberman on the Illinois, a steady, sober man, and the
best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick to take the logs over
the rapids; but he was skilful with a raft, and always kept her straight
in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and “Jack” was made
captain of her. He always used to take the wheel, going through the
rapids. One day when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the
boiling current, and “Jack’s” utmost vigilance was being exercised to
keep her in the narrow channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed
him with:

“Say, Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a
minute--I’ve lost my apple overboard!”




LOST HIS CERTIFICATE OF CHARACTER.

Mr. Lincoln prepared his first inaugural address in a room over a
store in Springfield. His only reference works were Henry Clay’s
great compromise speech of 1850, Andrew Jackson’s Proclamation against
Nullification, Webster’s great reply to Hayne, and a copy of the
Constitution.

When Mr. Lincoln started for Washington, to be inaugurated, the inaugural
address was placed in a special satchel and guarded with special care.
At Harrisburg the satchel was given in charge of Robert T. Lincoln, who
accompanied his father. Before the train started from Harrisburg the
precious satchel was missing. Robert thought he had given it to a waiter
at the hotel, but a long search failed to reveal the missing satchel
with its precious document. Lincoln was annoyed, angry, and finally in
despair. He felt certain that the address was lost beyond recovery, and,
as it only lacked ten days until the inauguration, he had no time to
prepare another. He had not even preserved the notes from which the
original copy had been written.

Mr. Lincoln went to Ward Lamon, his former law partner, then one of his
bodyguards, and informed him of the loss in the following words:

“Lamon, I guess I have lost my certificate of moral character, written
by myself. Bob has lost my gripsack containing my inaugural address.” Of
course, the misfortune reminded him of a story.

“I feel,” said Mr. Lincoln, “a good deal as the old member of the
Methodist Church did when he lost his wife at the camp meeting, and
went up to an old elder of the church and asked him if he could tell him
whereabouts in h--l his wife was. In fact, I am in a worse fix than my
Methodist friend, for if it were only a wife that were missing, mine
would be sure to bob up somewhere.”

The clerk at the hotel told Mr. Lincoln that he would probably find his
missing satchel in the baggage-room. Arriving there, Mr. Lincoln saw a
satchel which he thought was his, and it was passed out to him. His key
fitted the lock, but alas! when it was opened the satchel contained
only a soiled shirt, some paper collars, a pack of cards and a bottle of
whisky. A few minutes later the satchel containing the inaugural address
was found among the pile of baggage.

The recovery of the address also reminded Mr. Lincoln of a story, which
is thus narrated by Ward Lamon in his “Recollections of Abraham Lincoln”:

The loss of the address and the search for it was the subject of a great
deal of amusement. Mr. Lincoln said many funny things in connection with
the incident. One of them was that he knew a fellow once who had saved
up fifteen hundred dollars, and had placed it in a private banking
establishment. The bank soon failed, and he afterward received ten per
cent of his investment. He then took his one hundred and fifty dollars
and deposited it in a savings bank, where he was sure it would be safe.
In a short time this bank also failed, and he received at the final
settlement ten per cent on the amount deposited. When the fifteen
dollars was paid over to him, he held it in his hand and looked at it
thoughtfully; then he said, “Now, darn you, I have got you reduced to a
portable shape, so I’ll put you in my pocket.” Suiting the action to the
word, Mr. Lincoln took his address from the bag and carefully placed
it in the inside pocket of his vest, but held on to the satchel with
as much interest as if it still contained his “certificate of moral
character.”




NOTE PRESENTED FOR PAYMENT.

The great English funny paper, London “Punch,” printed this cartoon on
September 27th, 1862. It is intended to convey the idea that Lincoln,
having asserted that the war would be over in ninety days, had not
redeemed his word: The text under the Cartoon in Punch was:

MR. SOUTH TO MR. NORTH: “Your ‘ninety-day’ promissory note isn’t taken
up yet, sirree!”

The tone of the cartoon is decidedly unfriendly. The North finally took
up the note, but the South had to pay it. “Punch” was not pleased
with the result, but “Mr. North” did not care particularly what this
periodical thought about it. The United States, since then, has been
prepared to take up all of its obligations when due, but it must be
acknowledged that at the time this cartoon was published the outlook was
rather dark and gloomy. Lincoln did not despair, however; but although
business was in rather bad shape for a time, the financial skies finally
cleared, business was resumed at the old stand, and Uncle Sam’s credit
is now as good, or better, than other nations’ cash in hand.




DOG WAS A “LEETLE BIT AHEAD.”

Lincoln could not sympathize with those Union generals who were prone to
indulge in high-sounding promises, but whose performances did not by any
means come up to their predictions as to what they would do if they ever
met the enemy face to face. He said one day, just after one of these
braggarts had been soundly thrashed by the Confederates:

“These fellows remind me of the fellow who owned a dog which, so he
said, just hungered and thirsted to combat and eat up wolves. It was a
difficult matter, so the owner declared, to keep that dog from devoting
the entire twenty-four hours of each day to the destruction of his
enemies. He just ‘hankered’ to get at them.

“One day a party of this dog-owner’s friends thought to have some sport.
These friends heartily disliked wolves, and were anxious to see the dog
eat up a few thousand. So they organized a hunting party and invited
the dog-owner and the dog to go with them. They desired to be personally
present when the wolf-killing was in progress.

“It was noticed that the dog-owner was not over-enthusiastic in the
matter; he pleaded a ‘business engagement,’ but as he was the most
notorious and torpid of the town loafers, and wouldn’t have recognized a
‘business engagement’ had he met it face to face, his excuse was treated
with contempt. Therefore he had to go.

“The dog, however, was glad enough to go, and so the party started out.
Wolves were in plenty, and soon a pack was discovered, but when the
‘wolf-hound’ saw the ferocious animals he lost heart, and, putting his
tail between his legs, endeavored to slink away. At last--after many
trials--he was enticed into the small growth of underbrush where the
wolves had secreted themselves, and yelps of terror betrayed the fact
that the battle was on.

“Away flew the wolves, the dog among them, the hunting party following
on horseback. The wolves seemed frightened, and the dog was restored to
public favor. It really looked as if he had the savage creatures on the
run, as he was fighting heroically when last sighted.

“Wolves and dog soon disappeared, and it was not until the party arrived
at a distant farmhouse that news of the combatants was gleaned.

“‘Have you seen anything of a wolf-dog and a pack of wolves around here?’
was the question anxiously put to the male occupant of the house, who
stood idly leaning upon the gate.

“‘Yep,’ was the short answer.

“‘How were they going?’

“‘Purty fast.’

“‘What was their position when you saw them?’

“‘Well,’ replied the farmer, in a most exasperatingly deliberate way,
‘the dog was a leetle bit ahead.’

“Now, gentlemen,” concluded the President, “that’s the position in which
you’ll find most of these bragging generals when they get into a fight
with the enemy. That’s why I don’t like military orators.”




“ABE’S” FIGHT WITH NEGROES.

When Lincoln was nineteen years of age, he went to work for a Mr.
Gentry, and, in company with Gentry’s son, took a flatboat load of
provisions to New Orleans. At a plantation six miles below Baton Rouge,
while the boat was tied up to the shore in the dead hours of the night,
and Abe and Allen were fast asleep in the bed, they were startled by
footsteps on board. They knew instantly that it was a gang of negroes
come to rob and perhaps murder them. Allen, thinking to frighten the
negroes, called out, “Bring guns, Lincoln, and shoot them!” Abe came
without the guns, but fell among the negroes with a huge bludgeon and
belabored them most cruelly, following them onto the bank. They rushed
back to their boat and hastily put out into the stream. It is said that
Lincoln received a scar in this tussle which he carried with him to his
grave. It was on this trip that he saw the workings of slavery for the
first time. The sight of New Orleans was like a wonderful panorama
to his eyes, for never before had he seen wealth, beauty, fashion
and culture. He returned home with new and larger ideas and stronger
opinions of right and justice.




NOISE LIKE A TURNIP.

“Every man has his own peculiar and particular way of getting at
and doing things,” said President Lincoln one day, “and he is often
criticised because that way is not the one adopted by others. The great
idea is to accomplish what you set out to do. When a man is successful
in whatever he attempts, he has many imitators, and the methods used are
not so closely scrutinized, although no man who is of good intent will
resort to mean, underhanded, scurvy tricks.

“That reminds me of a fellow out in Illinois, who had better luck in
getting prairie chickens than any one in the neighborhood. He had a
rusty old gun no other man dared to handle; he never seemed to exert
himself, being listless and indifferent when out after game, but he
always brought home all the chickens he could carry, while some of
the others, with their finely trained dogs and latest improved
fowling-pieces, came home alone.

“‘How is it, Jake?’ inquired one sportsman, who, although a good shot,
and knew something about hunting, was often unfortunate, ‘that you never
come home without a lot of birds?’

“Jake grinned, half closed his eyes, and replied: ‘Oh, I don’t know that
there’s anything queer about it. I jes’ go ahead an’ git ‘em.’

“‘Yes, I know you do; but how do you do it?’

“‘You’ll tell.’

“‘Honest, Jake, I won’t say a word. Hope to drop dead this minute.’

“‘Never say nothing, if I tell you?’

“‘Cross my heart three times.’

“This reassured Jake, who put his mouth close to the ear of his eager
questioner, and said, in a whisper:

“‘All you got to do is jes’ to hide in a fence corner an’ make a noise
like a turnip. That’ll bring the chickens every time.’”




WARDING OFF GOD’S VENGEANCE.

When Lincoln was a candidate for re-election to the Illinois Legislature
in 1836, a meeting was advertised to be held in the court-house in
Springfield, at which candidates of opposing parties were to speak. This
gave men of spirit and capacity a fine opportunity to show the stuff of
which they were made.

George Forquer was one of the most prominent citizens; he had been a
Whig, but became a Democrat--possibly for the reason that by means of
the change he secured the position of Government land register, from
President Andrew Jackson. He had the largest and finest house in
the city, and there was a new and striking appendage to it, called
a lightning-rod! The meeting was very large. Seven Whig and seven
Democratic candidates spoke.

Lincoln closed the discussion. A Kentuckian (Joshua F. Speed), who had
heard Henry Clay and other distinguished Kentucky orators, stood near
Lincoln, and stated afterward that he “never heard a more effective
speaker;... the crowd seemed to be swayed by him as he pleased.” What
occurred during the closing portion of this meeting must be given in
full, from Judge Arnold’s book:

“Forquer, although not a candidate, asked to be heard for the Democrats,
in reply to Lincoln. He was a good speaker, and well known throughout
the county. His special task that day was to attack and ridicule the
young countryman from Salem.

“Turning to Lincoln, who stood within a few feet of him, he said:
‘This young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry that the task
devolves upon me.’ He then proceeded, in a very overbearing way, and
with an assumption of great superiority, to attack Lincoln and his
speech. He was fluent and ready with the rough sarcasm of the stump, and
he went on to ridicule the person, dress and arguments of Lincoln
with so much success that Lincoln’s friends feared that he would be
embarrassed and overthrown.”

“The Clary’s Grove boys were present, and were restrained with difficulty
from ‘getting up a fight’ in behalf of their favorite (Lincoln), they
and all his friends feeling that the attack was ungenerous and unmanly.

“Lincoln, however, stood calm, but his flashing eye and pale cheek
indicated his indignation. As soon as Forquer had closed he took
the stand, and first answered his opponent’s arguments fully and
triumphantly. So impressive were his words and manner that a hearer
(Joshua F. Speed) believes that he can remember to this day and repeat
some of the expressions.

“Among other things he said: ‘The gentleman commenced his speech by
saying that “this young man,” alluding to me, “must be taken down.” I
am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and the trades of a
politician, but,’ said he, pointing to Forquer, ‘live long or die young,
I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics,
and with the change receive an office worth $3,000 a year, and then,’
continued he, ‘feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house, to
protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!’”




JEFF DAVIS AND CHARLES THE FIRST.

Jefferson Davis insisted on being recognized by his official title as
commander or President in the regular negotiation with the Government.
This Mr. Lincoln would not consent to.

Mr. Hunter thereupon referred to the correspondence between King Charles
the First and his Parliament as a precedent for a negotiation between
a constitutional ruler and rebels. Mr. Lincoln’s face then wore that
indescribable expression which generally preceded his hardest hits, and
he remarked: “Upon questions of history, I must refer you to Mr. Seward,
for he is posted in such things, and I don’t profess to be; but my only
distinct recollection of the matter is, that Charles lost his head.”




LOVED SOLDIERS’ HUMOR.

Lincoln loved anything that savored of wit or humor among the soldiers.
He used to relate two stories to show, he said, that neither death nor
danger could quench the grim humor of the American soldier:

“A soldier of the Army of the Potomac was being carried to the rear of
battle with both legs shot off, who, seeing a pie-woman, called out,
‘Say, old lady, are them pies sewed or pegged?’

“And there was another one of the soldiers at the battle of
Chancellorsville, whose regiment, waiting to be called into the fight,
was taking coffee. The hero of the story put to his lips a crockery
mug which he had carried with care through several campaigns. A stray
bullet, just missing the tinker’s head, dashed the mug into fragments
and left only the handle on his finger. Turning his head in that
direction, he scowled, ‘Johnny, you can’t do that again!’”




BAD TIME FOR A BARBECUE.

Captain T. W. S. Kidd of Springfield was the crier of the court in the
days when Mr. Lincoln used to ride the circuit.

“I was younger than he,” says Captain Kidd, “but he had a sort of
admiration for me, and never failed to get me into his stories. I was a
story-teller myself in those days, and he used to laugh very heartily at
some of the stories I told him.

“Now and then he got me into a good deal of trouble. I was a Democrat,
and was in politics more or less. A good many of our Democratic voters
at that time were Irishmen. They came to Illinois in the days of the
old canal, and did their honest share in making that piece of internal
improvement an accomplished fact.

“One time Mr. Lincoln told the story of one of those important young
fellows--not an Irishman--who lived in every town, and have the cares
of state on their shoulders. This young fellow met an Irishman on the
street, and called to him, officiously: ‘Oh, Mike, I’m awful glad I
met you. We’ve got to do something to wake up the boys. The campaign is
coming on, and we’ve got to get out voters. We’ve just had a meeting up
here, and we’re going to have the biggest barbecue that ever was heard
of in Illinois. We are going to roast two whole oxen, and we’re going to
have Douglas and Governor Cass and some one from Kentucky, and all the
big Democratic guns, and we’re going to have a great big time.’

“‘By dad, that’s good!’ says the Irishman. ‘The byes need stirrin’ up.’

“‘Yes, and you’re on one of the committees, and you want to hustle
around and get them waked up, Mike.’

“‘When is the barbecue to be?’ asked Mike.

“‘Friday, two weeks.’

“‘Friday, is it? Well, I’ll make a nice committeeman, settin’ the
barbecue on a day with half of the Dimocratic party of Sangamon county
can’t ate a bite of mate. Go on wid ye.’

“Lincoln told that story in one of his political speeches, and when the
laugh was over he said: ‘Now, gentlemen, I know that story is true, for
Tom Kidd told it to me.’ And then the Democrats would make trouble for
me for a week afterward, and I’d have to explain.”




HE’D SEE IT AGAIN.

About two years before Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he
went to Bloomington, Illinois, to try a case of some importance. His
opponent--who afterward reached a high place in his profession--was a
young man of ability, sensible but sensitive, and one to whom the loss
of a case was a great blow. He therefore studied hard and made much
preparation.

This particular case was submitted to the jury late at night, and,
although anticipating a favorable verdict, the young attorney spent a
sleepless night in anxiety. Early next morning he learned, to his great
chagrin, that he had lost the case.

Lincoln met him at the court-house some time after the jury had come in,
and asked him what had become of his case.

With lugubrious countenance and in a melancholy tone the young man
replied, “It’s gone to hell.”

“Oh, well,” replied Lincoln, “then you will see it again.”




CALL ANOTHER WITNESS.

When arguing a case in court, Mr. Lincoln never used a word which the
dullest juryman could not understand. Rarely, if ever, did a Latin term
creep into his arguments. A lawyer, quoting a legal maxim one day
in court, turned to Lincoln, and said: “That is so, is it not, Mr.
Lincoln?”

“If that’s Latin.” Lincoln replied, “you had better call another
witness.”




A CONTEST WITH LITTLE “TAD.”

Mr. Carpenter, the artist, relates the following incident: “Some
photographers came up to the White House to make some stereoscopic
studies for me of the President’s office. They requested a dark closet
in which to develop the pictures, and, without a thought that I was
infringing upon anybody’s rights, I took them to an unoccupied room of
which little ‘Tad’ had taken possession a few days before, and, with
the aid of a couple of servants, had fitted up a miniature theater, with
stage, curtains, orchestra, stalls, parquette and all. Knowing that the
use required would interfere with none of his arrangements, I led the
way to this apartment.

“Everything went on well, and one or two pictures had been taken, when
suddenly there was an uproar. The operator came back to the office and
said that ‘Tad’ had taken great offense at the occupation of his room
without his consent, and had locked the door, refusing all admission.

“The chemicals had been taken inside, and there was no way of getting at
them, he having carried off the key. In the midst of this conversation
‘Tad’ burst in, in a fearful passion. He laid all the blame upon
me--said that I had no right to use his room, and the men should not go
in even to get their things. He had locked the door and they should not
go there again--‘they had no business in his room!’

“Mr. Lincoln was sitting for a photograph, and was still in the chair.
He said, very mildly, ‘Tad, go and unlock the door.’ Tad went off
muttering into his mother’s room, refusing to obey. I followed him into
the passage, but no coaxing would pacify him. Upon my return to the
President, I found him still patiently in the chair, from which he had
not risen. He said: ‘Has not the boy opened the door?’ I replied that we
could do nothing with him--he had gone off in a great pet. Mr. Lincoln’s
lips came together firmly, and then, suddenly rising, he strode across
the passage with the air of one bent on punishment, and disappeared
in the domestic apartments. Directly he returned with the key to the
theater, which he unlocked himself.

“‘Tad,’ said he, half apologetically, ‘is a peculiar child. He was
violently excited when I went to him. I said, “Tad, do you know that you
are making your father a great deal of trouble?” He burst into tears,
instantly giving me up the key.’”




REMINDED HIM OF “A LITTLE STORY.”

When Lincoln’s attention was called to the fact that, at one time in
his boyhood, he had spelled the name of the Deity with a small “g,” he
replied:

“That reminds me of a little story. It came about that a lot of
Confederate mail was captured by the Union forces, and, while it was
not exactly the proper thing to do, some of our soldiers opened several
letters written by the Southerners at the front to their people at home.

“In one of these missives the writer, in a postscript, jotted down this
assertion:

“‘We’ll lick the Yanks termorrer, if goddlemity (God Almighty) spares
our lives.’

“That fellow was in earnest, too, as the letter was written the day
before the second battle of Manassas.”




“FETCHED SEVERAL SHORT ONES.”

“The first time I ever remember seeing ‘Abe’ Lincoln,” is the testimony
of one of his neighbors, “was when I was a small boy and had gone with
my father to attend some kind of an election. One of the neighbors,
James Larkins, was there.

“Larkins was a great hand to brag on anything he owned. This time it was
his horse. He stepped up before ‘Abe,’ who was in a crowd, and commenced
talking to him, boasting all the while of his animal.

“‘I have got the best horse in the country,’ he shouted to his young
listener. ‘I ran him nine miles in exactly three minutes, and he never
fetched a long breath.’

“‘I presume,’ said ‘Abe,’ rather dryly, ‘he fetched a good many short
ones, though.’”




LINCOLN LUGS THE OLD MAN.

On May 3rd, 1862, “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” printed this
cartoon, over the title of “Sandbag Lincoln and the Old Man of the Sea,
Secretary of the Navy Welles.” It was intended to demonstrate that the
head of the Navy Department was incompetent to manage the affairs of the
Navy; also that the Navy was not doing as good work as it might.

When this cartoon was published, the United States Navy had cleared and
had under control the Mississippi River as far south as Memphis;
had blockaded all the cotton ports of the South; had assisted in the
reduction of a number of Confederate forts; had aided Grant at Fort
Donelson and the battle of Shiloh; the Monitor had whipped the ironclad
terror, Merrimac (the Confederates called her the Virginia); Admiral
Farragut’s fleet had compelled the surrender of the city of New Orleans,
the great forts which had defended it, and the Federal Government
obtained control of the lower Mississippi.

“The Old Man of the Sea” was therefore, not a drag or a weight upon
President Lincoln, and the Navy was not so far behind in making a good
record as the picture would have the people of the world believe. It was
not long after the Monitor’s victory that the United States Navy was
the finest that ever plowed the seas. The building of the Monitor also
revolutionized naval warfare.




McCLELLAN WAS “INTRENCHING.”

About a week after the Chicago Convention, a gentleman from New York
called upon the President, in company with the Assistant Secretary of
War, Mr. Dana.

In the course of conversation, the gentleman said: “What do you think,
Mr. President, is the reason General McClellan does not reply to the
letter from the Chicago Convention?”

“Oh!” replied Mr. Lincoln, with a characteristic twinkle of the eye, “he
is intrenching!”




MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT, ANYWAY.

From the day of his nomination by the Chicago convention, gifts poured
in upon Lincoln. Many of these came in the form of wearing apparel. Mr.
George Lincoln, of Brooklyn, who brought to Springfield, in January,
1861, a handsome silk hat to the President-elect, the gift of a New
York hatter, told some friends that in receiving the hat Lincoln laughed
heartily over the gifts of clothing, and remarked to Mrs. Lincoln:
“Well, wife, if nothing else comes out of this scrape, we are going to
have some new clothes, are we not?”




VICIOUS OXEN HAVE SHORT HORNS.

In speaking of the many mean and petty acts of certain members of
Congress, the President, while talking on the subject one day with
friends, said:

“I have great sympathy for these men, because of their temper and their
weakness; but I am thankful that the good Lord has given to the vicious
ox short horns, for if their physical courage were equal to their
vicious disposition, some of us in this neck of the woods would get
hurt.”




LINCOLN’S NAME FOR “WEEPING WATER.”

“I was speaking one time to Mr. Lincoln,” said Governor Saunders, “of
Nebraska, of a little Nebraskan settlement on the Weeping Water, a
stream in our State.”

“‘Weeping Water!’ said he.

“Then with a twinkle in his eye, he continued.

“‘I suppose the Indians out there call Minneboohoo, don’t they? They
ought to, if Laughing Water is Minnehaha in their language.’”




PETER CARTWRIGHT’S DESCRIPTION OF LINCOLN.

Peter Cartwright, the famous and eccentric old Methodist preacher, who
used to ride a church circuit, as Mr. Lincoln and others did the court
circuit, did not like Lincoln very well, probably because Mr. Lincoln
was not a member of his flock, and once defeated the preacher for
Congress. This was Cartwright’s description of Lincoln: “This Lincoln is
a man six feet four inches tall, but so angular that if you should
drop a plummet from the center of his head it would cut him three times
before it touched his feet.”




NO DEATHS IN HIS HOUSE.

A gentleman was relating to the President how a friend of his had been
driven away from New Orleans as a Unionist, and how, on his expulsion,
when he asked to see the writ by which he was expelled, the deputation
which called on him told him the Government would do nothing illegal,
and so they had issued no illegal writs, and simply meant to make him go
of his own free will.

“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that reminds me of a hotel-keeper down at St.
Louis, who boasted that he never had a death in his hotel, for whenever
a guest was dying in his house he carried him out to die in the gutter.”




PAINTED HIS PRINCIPLES.

The day following the adjournment of the Baltimore Convention, at which
President Lincoln was renominated, various political organizations
called to pay their respects to the President. While the Philadelphia
delegation was being presented, the chairman of that body, in
introducing one of the members, said:

“Mr. President, this is Mr. S., of the second district of our State,--a
most active and earnest friend of yours and the cause. He has, among
other things, been good enough to paint, and present to our league
rooms, a most beautiful portrait of yourself.”

President Lincoln took the gentleman’s hand in his, and shaking it
cordially said, with a merry voice, “I presume, sir, in painting your
beautiful portrait, you took your idea of me from my principles and not
from my person.”




DIGNIFYING THE STATUTE.

Lincoln was married--he balked at the first date set for the ceremony
and did not show up at all--November 4, 1842, under most happy auspices.
The officiating clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Dresser, used the Episcopal
church service for marriage. Lincoln placed the ring upon the bride’s
finger, and said, “With this ring I now thee wed, and with all my
worldly goods I thee endow.”

Judge Thomas C. Browne, who was present, exclaimed, “Good gracious,
Lincoln! the statute fixes all that!”

“Oh, well,” drawled Lincoln, “I just thought I’d add a little dignity to
the statute.”




LINCOLN CAMPAIGN MOTTOES.

The joint debates between Lincoln and Douglas were attended by crowds
of people, and the arrival of both at the places of speaking were in the
nature of a triumphal procession. In these processions there were many
banners bearing catch-phrases and mottoes expressing the sentiment of the
people on the candidates and the issues.

The following were some of the mottoes on the Lincoln banners:

     +----------------------------------------------------------+
     |Westward the star of empire takes its way;                |
     |The girls link on to Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay.|
     +----------------------------------------------------------+

                 +----------------------+
                 |Abe, the Giant-Killer.|
                 +----------------------+

            +---------------------------------+
            |Edgar County for the Tall Sucker.|
            +---------------------------------+

            +----------------------------------+
            |Free Territories and Free Men,    |
            |  Free Pulpits and Free Preachers,|
            |Free Press and a Free Pen,        |
            |  Free Schools and Free Teachers. |
            +----------------------------------+




GIVING AWAY THE CASE.

Between the first election and inauguration of Mr. Lincoln the disunion
sentiment grew rapidly in the South, and President Buchanan’s failure to
stop the open acts of secession grieved Mr. Lincoln sorely. Mr. Lincoln
had a long talk with his friend, Judge Gillespie, over the state of
affairs. One incident of the conversation is thus narrated by the Judge:

“When I retired, it was the master of the house and chosen ruler of the
country who saw me to my room. ‘Joe,’ he said, as he was about to leave
me, ‘I am reminded and I suppose you will never forget that trial down
in Montgomery county, where the lawyer associated with you gave away the
whole case in his opening speech. I saw you signaling to him, but you
couldn’t stop him.

“‘Now, that’s just the way with me and Buchanan. He is giving away the
case, and I have nothing to say, and can’t stop him. Good-night.’”




POSING WITH A BROOMSTICK.

Mr. Leonard Volk, the artist, relates that, being in Springfield when
Lincoln’s nomination for President was announced, he called upon Mr.
Lincoln, whom he found looking smiling and happy. “I exclaimed, ‘I
am the first man from Chicago, I believe, who has had the honor of
congratulating you on your nomination for President.’ Then those two
great hands took both of mine with a grasp never to be forgotten,
and while shaking, I said, ‘Now that you will doubtless be the next
President of the United States, I want to make a statue of you, and
shall try my best to do you justice.’

“Said he, ‘I don’t doubt it, for I have come to the conclusion that you
are an honest man,’ and with that greeting, I thought my hands in a fair
way of being crushed.

“On the Sunday following, by agreement, I called to make a cast of Mr.
Lincoln’s hands. I asked him to hold something in his hands, and told
him a stick would do. Thereupon he went to the woodshed, and I heard the
saw go, and he soon returned to the dining-room, whittling off the end
of a piece of broom handle. I remarked to him that he need not whittle
off the edges. ‘Oh, well,’ said he, ‘I thought I would like to have it
nice.’”




“BOTH LENGTH AND BREADTH.”

During Lincoln’s first and only term in Congress--he was elected in
1846--he formed quite a cordial friendship with Stephen A. Douglas, a
member of the United States Senate from Illinois, and the beaten one in
the contest as to who should secure the hand of Miss Mary Todd. Lincoln
was the winner; Douglas afterwards beat him for the United States
Senate, but Lincoln went to the White House.

During all of the time that they were rivals in love and in politics
they remained the best of friends personally. They were always glad to
see each other, and were frequently together. The disparity in their
size was always the more noticeable upon such occasions, and they well
deserved their nicknames of “Long Abe” and the “Little Giant.” Lincoln
was the tallest man in the National House of Representatives, and
Douglas the shortest (and perhaps broadest) man the Senate, and when
they appeared on the streets together much merriment was created.
Lincoln, when joked about the matter, replied, in a very serious tone,
“Yes, that’s about the length and breadth of it.”




“ABE” RECITES A SONG.

Lincoln couldn’t sing, and he also lacked the faculty of musical
adaptation. He had a liking for certain ballads and songs, and while he
memorized and recited their lines, someone else did the singing. Lincoln
often recited for the delectation of his friends, the following, the
authorship of which is unknown:

  The first factional fight in old Ireland, they say,
  Was all on account of St. Patrick’s birthday;
  It was somewhere about midnight without any doubt,
  And certain it is, it made a great rout.

  On the eighth day of March, as some people say,
  St. Patrick at midnight he first saw the day;
  While others assert ‘twas the ninth he was born--
  ‘Twas all a mistake--between midnight and morn.

  Some blamed the baby, some blamed the clock;
  Some blamed the doctor, some the crowing cock.
  With all these close questions sure no one could know,
  Whether the babe was too fast or the clock was too slow.

  Some fought for the eighth, for the ninth some would die;
  He who wouldn’t see right would have a black eye.
  At length these two factions so positive grew,
  They each had a birthday, and Pat he had two.

  Till Father Mulcahay who showed them their sins,
  He said none could have two birthdays but as twins.
  “Now boys, don’t be fighting for the eight or the nine;
  Don’t quarrel so always, now why not combine.”

  Combine eight with nine. It is the mark;
  Let that be the birthday. Amen! said the clerk.
  So all got blind drunk, which completed their bliss,
  And they’ve kept up the practice from that day to this.




“MANAGE TO KEEP HOUSE.”

Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, introduced his brother, William T.
Sherman (then a civilian) to President Lincoln in March, 1861. Sherman
had offered his services, but, as in the case of Grant, they had been
refused.

After the Senator had transacted his business with the President, he
said: “Mr. President, this is my brother, Colonel Sherman, who is just
up from Louisiana; he may give you some information you want.”

To this Lincoln replied, as reported by Senator Sherman himself: “Ah!
How are they getting along down there?”

Sherman answered: “They think they are getting along swimmingly; they
are prepared for war.”

To which Lincoln responded: “Oh, well, I guess we’ll manage to keep the
house.”

“Tecump,” whose temper was not the mildest, broke out on “Brother John”
 as soon as they were out of the White House, cursed the politicians
roundly, and wound up with, “You have got things in a h--l of a fix, and
you may get out as best you can.”

Sherman was one of the very few generals who gave Lincoln little or no
worry.




GRANT “TUMBLED” RIGHT AWAY.

General Grant told this story about Lincoln some years after the War:

“Just after receiving my commission as lieutenant-general the President
called me aside to speak to me privately. After a brief reference to
the military situation, he said he thought he could illustrate what he
wanted to say by a story. Said he:

“‘At one time there was a great war among the animals, and one side had
great difficulty in getting a commander who had sufficient confidence in
himself. Finally they found a monkey by the name of Jocko, who said he
thought he could command their army if his tail could be made a little
longer. So they got more tail and spliced it on to his caudal appendage.

“‘He looked at it admiringly, and then said he thought he ought to
have still more tail. This was added, and again he called for more. The
splicing process was repeated many times until they had coiled Jocko’s
tail around the room, filling all the space.

“‘Still he called for more tail, and, there being no other place to coil
it, they began wrapping it around his shoulders. He continued his call
for more, and they kept on winding the additional tail around him until
its weight broke him down.’

“I saw the point, and, rising from my chair, replied, ‘Mr. President, I
will not call for any more assistance unless I find it impossible to do
with what I already have.’”




“DON’T KILL HIM WITH YOUR FIST.”

Ward Lamon, Marshal of the District of Columbia during Lincoln’s time in
Washington, was a powerful man; his strength was phenomenal, and a
blow from his fist was like unto that coming from the business end of a
sledge.

Lamon tells this story, the hero of which is not mentioned by name, but
in all probability his identity can be guessed:

“On one occasion, when the fears of the loyal element of the city
(Washington) were excited to fever-heat, a free fight near the old
National Theatre occurred about eleven o’clock one night. An officer,
in passing the place, observed what was going on, and seeing the great
number of persons engaged, he felt it to be his duty to command the
peace.

“The imperative tone of his voice stopped the fighting for a moment, but
the leader, a great bully, roughly pushed back the officer and told him
to go away or he would whip him. The officer again advanced and said,
‘I arrest you,’ attempting to place his hand on the man’s shoulder, when
the bully struck a fearful blow at the officer’s face.

“This was parried, and instantly followed by a blow from the fist of the
officer, striking the fellow under the chin and knocking him senseless.
Blood issued from his mouth, nose and ears. It was believed that the
man’s neck was broken. A surgeon was called, who pronounced the case a
critical one, and the wounded man was hurried away on a litter to the
hospital.

“There the physicians said there was concussion of the brain, and that
the man would die. All the medical skill that the officer could procure
was employed in the hope of saving the life of the man. His
conscience smote him for having, as he believed, taken the life of a
fellow-creature, and he was inconsolable.

“Being on terms of intimacy with the President, about two o’clock that
night the officer went to the White House, woke up Mr. Lincoln, and
requested him to come into his office, where he told him his story. Mr.
Lincoln listened with great interest until the narrative was completed,
and then asked a few questions, after which he remarked:

“‘I am sorry you had to kill the man, but these are times of war, and
a great many men deserve killing. This one, according to your story,
is one of them; so give yourself no uneasiness about the matter. I will
stand by you.’

“‘That is not why I came to you. I knew I did my duty, and had no fears
of your disapproval of what I did,’ replied the officer; and then he
added: ‘Why I came to you was, I felt great grief over the unfortunate
affair, and I wanted to talk to you about it.’

“Mr. Lincoln then said, with a smile, placing his hand on the officer’
shoulder: ‘You go home now and get some sleep; but let me give you this
piece of advice--hereafter, when you have occasion to strike a man,
don’t hit him with your fist; strike him with a club, a crowbar, or with
something that won’t kill him.’”




COULD BE ARBITRARY.

Lincoln could be arbitrary when occasion required. This is the letter he
wrote to one of the Department heads:

“You must make a job of it, and provide a place for the bearer of this,
Elias Wampole. Make a job of it with the collector and have it done. You
can do it for me, and you must.”

There was no delay in taking action in this matter. Mr. Wampole, or
“Eli,” as he was thereafter known, “got there.”




A GENERAL BUSTIFICATION.

Many amusing stories are told of President Lincoln and his gloves. At
about the time of his third reception he had on a tight-fitting pair of
white kids, which he had with difficulty got on. He saw approaching in
the distance an old Illinois friend named Simpson, whom he welcomed with
a genuine Sangamon county (Illeenoy) shake, which resulted in bursting
his white kid glove, with an audible sound. Then, raising his brawny
hand up before him, looking at it with an indescribable expression, he
said, while the whole procession was checked, witnessing this scene:

“Well, my old friend, this is a general bustification. You and I were
never intended to wear these things. If they were stronger they might do
well enough to keep out the cold, but they are a failure to shake hands
with between old friends like us. Stand aside, Captain, and I’ll see you
shortly.”

Simpson stood aside, and after the unwelcome ceremony was terminated he
rejoined his old Illinois friend in familiar intercourse.




MAKING QUARTERMASTERS.

H. C. Whitney wrote in 1866: “I was in Washington in the Indian service
for a few days before August, 1861, and I merely said to President
Lincoln one day: ‘Everything is drifting into the war, and I guess you
will have to put me in the army.’

“The President looked up from his work and said, good-humoredly:
‘I’m making generals now; in a few days I will be making quartermasters,
and then I’ll fix you.’”




NO POSTMASTERS IN HIS POCKET.

In the “Diary of a Public Man” appears this jocose anecdote:

“Mr. Lincoln walked into the corridor with us; and, as he bade us
good-by and thanked Blank for what he had told him, he again brightened
up for a moment and asked him in an abrupt kind of way, laying his hand
as he spoke with a queer but not uncivil familiarity on his shoulder,
‘You haven’t such a thing as a postmaster in your pocket, have you?’

“Blank stared at him in astonishment, and I thought a little in alarm, as
if he suspected a sudden attack of insanity; then Mr. Lincoln went on:

‘You see it seems to me kind of unnatural that you shouldn’t have at
least a postmaster in your pocket. Everybody I’ve seen for days past has
had foreign ministers and collectors, and all kinds, and I thought you
couldn’t have got in here without having at least a postmaster get into
your pocket!’”




HE “SKEWED” THE LINE.

When a surveyor, Mr. Lincoln first platted the town of Petersburg, Ill.
Some twenty or thirty years afterward the property-owners along one
of the outlying streets had trouble in fixing their boundaries. They
consulted the official plat and got no relief. A committee was sent
to Springfield to consult the distinguished surveyor, but he failed to
recall anything that would give them aid, and could only refer them to
the record. The dispute therefore went into the courts. While the trial
was pending, an old Irishman named McGuire, who had worked for some
farmer during the summer, returned to town for the winter. The case
being mentioned in his presence, he promptly said: “I can tell you all
about it. I helped carry the chain when Abe Lincoln laid out this
town. Over there where they are quarreling about the lines, when he was
locating the street, he straightened up from his instrument and said:
‘If I run that street right through, it will cut three or four feet off
the end of ----‘s house. It’s all he’s got in the world and he never
could get another. I reckon it won’t hurt anything out here if I skew
the line a little and miss him.”’

The line was “skewed,” and hence the trouble, and more testimony
furnished as to Lincoln’s abounding kindness of heart, that would not
willingly harm any human being.




“WHEREAS,” HE STOLE NOTHING.

One of the most celebrated courts-martial during the War was that
of Franklin W. Smith and his brother, charged with defrauding the
government. These men bore a high character for integrity. At this time,
however, courts-martial were seldom invoked for any other purpose than
to convict the accused, and the Smiths shared the usual fate of persons
whose cases were submitted to such arbitrament. They were kept in
prison, their papers seized, their business destroyed, and their
reputations ruined, all of which was followed by a conviction.

The finding of the court was submitted to the President, who, after a
careful investigation, disapproved the judgment, and wrote the following
endorsement upon the papers:

“Whereas, Franklin W. Smith had transactions with the Navy Department to
the amount of a million and a quarter of dollars; and:

“Whereas, he had a chance to steal at least a quarter of a million
and was only charged with stealing twenty-two hundred dollars, and the
question now is about his stealing one hundred, I don’t believe he stole
anything at all.

“Therefore, the record and the findings are disapproved, declared null
and void, and the defendants are fully discharged.”




NOT LIKE THE POPE’S BULL.

President Lincoln, after listening to the arguments and appeals of a
committee which called upon him at the White House not long before the
Emancipation Proclamation was issued, said:

“I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must
necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope’s bull against the comet.”




COULD HE TELL?

A “high” private of the One Hundred and Fortieth Infantry Regiment,
Pennsylvania Volunteers, wounded at Chancellorsville, was taken to
Washington. One day, as he was becoming convalescent, a whisper ran down
the long row of cots that the President was in the building and would
soon pass by. Instantly every boy in blue who was able arose, stood
erect, hands to the side, ready to salute his Commander-in-Chief.

The Pennsylvanian stood six feet seven inches in his stockings. Lincoln
was six feet four. As the President approached this giant towering above
him, he stopped in amazement, and casting his eyes from head to foot
and from foot to head, as if contemplating the immense distance from one
extremity to the other, he stood for a moment speechless.

At length, extending his hand, he exclaimed, “Hello, comrade, do you
know when your feet get cold?”




DARNED UNCOMFORTABLE SITTING.

“Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” of March 2nd, 1861, two days
previous to the inauguration of President-elect Lincoln, contained the
caricature reproduced here. It was intended to convey the idea that
the National Administration would thereafter depend upon the support
of bayonets to uphold it, and the text underneath the picture ran as
follows:

OLD ABE: “Oh, it’s all well enough to say that I must support the
dignity of my high office by force--but it’s darned uncomfortable
sitting, I can tell yer.”

This journal was not entirely friendly to the new Chief Magistrate, but
it could not see into the future. Many of the leading publications of
the East, among them some of those which condemned slavery and were
opposed to secession, did not believe Lincoln was the man for the
emergency, but instead of doing what they could do to help him along,
they attacked him most viciously. No man, save Washington, was more
brutally lied about than Lincoln, but he bore all the slurs and thrusts,
not to mention the open, cruel antagonism of those who should have been
his warmest friends, with a fortitude and patience few men have ever
shown. He was on the right road, and awaited the time when his course
should receive the approval it merited.




“WHAT’S-HIS-NAME” GOT THERE.

General James B. Fry told a good one on Secretary of War Stanton,
who was worsted in a contention with the President. Several
brigadier-generals were to be selected, and Lincoln maintained that
“something must be done in the interest of the Dutch.” Many complaints
had come from prominent men, born in the Fatherland, but who were
fighting for the Union.

“Now, I want Schimmelpfennig given one of those brigadierships.”

Stanton was stubborn and headstrong, as usual, but his manner and tone
indicated that the President would have his own way in the end. However,
he was not to be beaten without having made a fight.

“But, Mr. President,” insisted the Iron War Secretary, “it may be that
this Mr. Schim--what’s-his-name--has no recommendations showing his
fitness. Perhaps he can’t speak English.”

“That doesn’t matter a bit, Stanton,” retorted Lincoln, “he may be deaf
and dumb for all I know, but whatever language he speaks, if any, we can
furnish troops who will understand what he says. That name of his will
make up for any differences in religion, politics or understanding, and
I’ll take the risk of his coming out all right.”

Then, slamming his great hand upon the Secretary’s desk, he said,
“Schim-mel-fen-nig must be appointed.”

And he was, there and then.




A REALLY GREAT GENERAL.

“Do you know General A--?” queried the President one day to a friend who
had “dropped in” at the White House.

“Certainly; but you are not wasting any time thinking about him, are
you?” was the rejoinder.

“You wrong him,” responded the President, “he is a really great man, a
philosopher.”

“How do you make that out? He isn’t worth the powder and ball necessary
to kill him so I have heard military men say,” the friend remarked.

“He is a mighty thinker,” the President returned, “because he has
mastered that ancient and wise admonition, ‘Know thyself;’ he has formed
an intimate acquaintance with himself, knows as well for what he is
fitted and unfitted as any man living. Without doubt he is a remarkable
man. This War has not produced another like him.”

“How is it you are so highly pleased with General A---- all at once?”

“For the reason,” replied Mr. Lincoln, with a merry twinkle of the
eye, “greatly to my relief, and to the interests of the country, he has
resigned. The country should express its gratitude in some substantial
way.”




“SHRUNK UP NORTH.”

There was no member of the Cabinet from the South when Attorney-General
Bates handed in his resignation, and President Lincoln had a great deal
of trouble in making a selection. Finally Titian F. Coffey consented to
fill the vacant place for a time, and did so until the appointment of
Mr. Speed.

In conversation with Mr. Coffey the President quaintly remarked:

“My Cabinet has shrunk up North, and I must find a Southern man. I
suppose if the twelve Apostles were to be chosen nowadays, the shrieks
of locality would have to be heeded.”




LINCOLN ADOPTED THE SUGGESTION.

It is not generally known that President Lincoln adopted a suggestion
made by Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase in regard to the
Emancipation Proclamation, and incorporated it in that famous document.

After the President had read it to the members of the Cabinet he
asked if he had omitted anything which should be added or inserted to
strengthen it. It will be remembered that the closing paragraph of the
Proclamation reads in this way:

“And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted
by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and
the gracious favor of Almighty God!” President Lincoln’s draft of the
paper ended with the word “mankind,” and the words, “and the gracious
favor of Almighty God,” were those suggested by Secretary Chase.




SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.

It was the President’s overweening desire to accommodate all persons
who came to him soliciting favors, but the opportunity was never offered
until an untimely and unthinking disease, which possessed many of the
characteristics of one of the most dreaded maladies, confined him to his
bed at the White House.

The rumor spread that the President was afflicted with this disease,
while the truth was that it was merely a very mild attack of varioloid.
The office-seekers didn’t know the facts, and for once the Executive
Mansion was clear of them.

One day, a man from the West, who didn’t read the papers, but wanted the
postoffice in his town, called at the White House. The President,
being then practically a well man, saw him. The caller was engaged in
a voluble endeavor to put his capabilities in the most favorable light,
when the President interrupted him with the remark that he would be
compelled to make the interview short, as his doctor was due.

“Why, Mr. President, are you sick?” queried the visitor.

“Oh, nothing much,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “but the physician says he
fears the worst.”

“What worst, may I ask?”

“Smallpox,” was the answer; “but you needn’t be scared. I’m only in the
first stages now.”

The visitor grabbed his hat, sprang from his chair, and without a word
bolted for the door.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” said the President placidly; “sit down and talk
awhile.”

“Thank you, sir; I’ll call again,” shouted the Westerner, as he
disappeared through the opening in the wall.

“Now, that’s the way with people,” the President said, when relating
the story afterward. “When I can’t give them what they want, they’re
dissatisfied, and say harsh things about me; but when I’ve something to
give to everybody they scamper off.”




TOO MANY PIGS FOR THE TEATS.

An applicant for a sutlership in the army relates this story: “In the
winter of 1864, after serving three years in the Union Army, and being
honorably discharged, I made application for the post sutlership at
Point Lookout. My father being interested, we made application to Mr.
Stanton, the Secretary of War. We obtained an audience, and were ushered
into the presence of the most pompous man I ever met. As I entered he
waved his hand for me to stop at a given distance from him, and then put
these questions, viz.:

“‘Did you serve three years in the army?’

“‘I did, sir.’

“‘Were you honorably discharged?’

“‘I was, sir.’

“‘Let me see your discharge.’

“I gave it to him. He looked it over, then said:

‘Were you ever wounded?’ I told him yes, at the battle of Williamsburg,
May 5, 1861.

“He then said: ‘I think we can give this position to a soldier who has
lost an arm or leg, he being more deserving; and he then said I looked
hearty and healthy enough to serve three years more. He would not give
me a chance to argue my case.

“The audience was at an end. He waved his hand to me. I was then
dismissed from the august presence of the Honorable Secretary of War.

“My father was waiting for me in the hallway, who saw by my countenance
that I was not successful. I said to my father:

“‘Let us go over to Mr. Lincoln; he may give us more satisfaction.’

“He said it would do me no good, but we went over. Mr. Lincoln’s
reception room was full of ladies and gentlemen when we entered.

“My turn soon came. Lincoln turned to my father and said:

“‘Now, gentlemen, be pleased to be as quick as possible with your
business, as it is growing late.’

“My father then stepped up to Lincoln and introduced me to him. Lincoln
then said:

“‘Take a seat, gentlemen, and state your business as quickly as
possible.’

“There was but one chair by Lincoln, so he motioned my father to sit,
while I stood. My father stated the business to him as stated above. He
then said:

“‘Have you seen Mr. Stanton?’

“We told him yes, that he had refused. He (Mr. Lincoln) then said:

“‘Gentlemen, this is Mr. Stanton’s business; I cannot interfere with
him; he attends to all these matters and I am sorry I cannot help you.’

“He saw that we were disappointed, and did his best to revive our
spirits. He succeeded well with my father, who was a Lincoln man, and
who was a staunch Republican.

“Mr. Lincoln then said:

“‘Now, gentlemen, I will tell you, what it is; I have thousands of
applications like this every day, but we cannot satisfy all for this
reason, that these positions are like office seekers--there are too many
pigs for the teats.’

“The ladies who were listening to the conversation placed their
handkerchiefs to their faces and turned away. But the joke of ‘Old Abe’
put us all in a good humor. We then left the presence of the greatest
and most just man who ever lived to fill the Presidential chair.’”




GREELEY CARRIES LINCOLN TO THE LUNATIC ASYLUM.

No sooner was Abraham Lincoln made the candidate for the Presidency of
the Republican Party, in 1860, than the opposition began to lampoon and
caricature him. In the cartoon here reproduced, which is given the title
of:

“The Republican Party Going to the Right House,” Lincoln is represented
as entering the Lunatic Asylum, riding on a rail, carried by
Horace Greeley, the great Abolitionist; Lincoln, followed by his
“fellow-cranks,” is assuring the latter that the millennium is “going to
begin,” and that all requests will be granted.

Lincoln’s followers are depicted as those men and women composing the
“free love” element; those who want religion abolished; negroes, who
want it understood that the white man has no rights his black brother is
bound to respect; women suffragists, who demand that men be made subject
to female authority; tramps, who insist upon free lodging-houses;
criminals, who demand the right to steal from all they meet; and toughs,
who want the police forces abolished, so that “the b’hoys” can “run
wid de masheen,” and have “a muss” whenever they feel like it, without
interference by the authorities.




THE LAST TIME HE SAW DOUGLAS.

Speaking of his last meeting with Judge Douglas, Mr. Lincoln said:
“One day Douglas came rushing in and said he had just got a telegraph
dispatch from some friends in Illinois urging him to come out and help
set things right in Egypt, and that he would go, or stay in Washington,
just where I thought he could do the most good.

“I told him to do as he chose, but that probably he could do best in
Illinois. Upon that he shook hands with me, and hurried away to catch
the next train. I never saw him again.”




HURT HIS LEGS LESS.

Lincoln was one of the attorneys in a case of considerable importance,
court being held in a very small and dilapidated schoolhouse out in the
country; Lincoln was compelled to stoop very much in order to enter
the door, and the seats were so low that he doubled up his legs like a
jackknife.

Lincoln was obliged to sit upon a school bench, and just in front of him
was another, making the distance between him and the seat in front of
him very narrow and uncomfortable.

His position was almost unbearable, and in order to carry out his
preference which he secured as often as possible, and that was “to sit
as near to the jury as convenient,” he took advantage of his discomfort
and finally said to the Judge on the “bench”:

“Your Honor, with your permission, I’ll sit up nearer to the gentlemen
of the jury, for it hurts my legs less to rub my calves against the
bench than it does to skin my shins.”




A LITTLE SHY OR GRAMMAR.

When Mr. Lincoln had prepared his brief letter accepting the
Presidential nomination he took it to Dr. Newton Bateman, the State
Superintendent of Education.

“Mr. Schoolmaster,” he said, “here is my letter of acceptance. I am
not very strong on grammar and I wish you to see if it is all right. I
wouldn’t like to have any mistakes in it.”.

The doctor took the letter and after reading it, said:

“There is only one change I should suggest, Mr. Lincoln, you have
written ‘It shall be my care to not violate or disregard it in any
part,’ you should have written ‘not to violate.’ Never split an
infinitive, is the rule.”

Mr. Lincoln took the manuscript, regarding it a moment with a puzzled
air, “So you think I better put those two little fellows end to end, do
you?” he said as he made the change.




HIS FIRST SATIRICAL WRITING.

Reuben and Charles Grigsby were married in Spencer county, Indiana, on
the same day to Elizabeth Ray and Matilda Hawkins, respectively. They
met the next day at the home of Reuben Grigsby, Sr., and held a double
infare, to which most of the county was invited, with the exception of
the Lincolns. This Abraham duly resented, and it resulted in his
first attempt at satirical writing, which he called “The Chronicles of
Reuben.”

The manuscript was lost, and not recovered until 1865, when a house
belonging to one of the Grigsbys was torn down. In the loft a boy found
a roll of musty old papers, and was intently reading them, when he was
asked what he was doing.

“Reading a portion of the Scriptures that haven’t been revealed yet,”
 was the response. This was Lincoln’s “Chronicles,” which is herewith
given:

“THE CHRONICLES OF REUBEN.”

“Now, there was a man whose name was Reuben, and the same was very
great in substance, in horses and cattle and swine, and a very great
household.

“It came to pass when the sons of Reuben grew up that they were desirous
of taking to themselves wives, and, being too well known as to honor
in their own country, they took a journey into a far country and there
procured for themselves wives.

“It came to pass also that when they were about to make the return home
they sent a messenger before them to bear the tidings to their parents.

“These, inquiring of the messenger what time their sons and wives would
come, made a great feast and called all their kinsmen and neighbors in,
and made great preparation.

“When the time drew nigh, they sent out two men to meet the grooms and
their brides, with a trumpet to welcome them, and to accompany them.

“When they came near unto the house of Reuben, the father, the messenger
came before them and gave a shout, and the whole multitude ran out with
shouts of joy and music, playing on all kinds of instruments.

“Some were playing on harps, some on viols, and some blowing on rams’
horns.

“Some also were casting dust and ashes toward Heaven, and chief among
them all was Josiah, blowing his bugle and making sounds so great the
neighboring hills and valleys echoed with the resounding acclamation.

“When they had played and their harps had sounded till the grooms and
brides approached the gates, Reuben, the father, met them and welcomed
them to his house.

“The wedding feast being now ready, they were all invited to sit down
and eat, placing the bridegrooms and their brides at each end of the
table.

“Waiters were then appointed to serve and wait on the guests. When all
had eaten and were full and merry, they went out again and played and
sung till night.

“And when they had made an end of feasting and rejoicing the multitude
dispersed, each going to his own home.

“The family then took seats with their waiters to converse while
preparations were being made in two upper chambers for the brides and
grooms.

“This being done, the waiters took the two brides upstairs, placing one
in a room at the right hand of the stairs and the other on the left.

“The waiters came down, and Nancy, the mother, then gave directions to
the waiters of the bridegrooms, and they took them upstairs, but placed
them in the wrong rooms.

“The waiters then all came downstairs.

“But the mother, being fearful of a mistake, made inquiry of the
waiters, and learning the true facts, took the light and sprang
upstairs.

“It came to pass she ran to one of the rooms and exclaimed, ‘O Lord,
Reuben, you are with the wrong wife.’

“The young men, both alarmed at this, ran out with such violence against
each other, they came near knocking each other down.

“The tumult gave evidence to those below that the mistake was certain.

“At last they all came down and had a long conversation about who made
the mistake, but it could not be decided.

“So ended the chapter.”

The original manuscript of “The Chronicles of Reuben” was last in the
possession of Redmond Grigsby, of Rockport, Indiana. A newspaper which
had obtained a copy of the “Chronicles,” sent a reporter to interview
Elizabeth Grigsby, or Aunt Betsy, as she was called, and asked her about
the famous manuscript and the mistake made at the double wedding.

“Yes, they did have a joke on us,” said Aunt Betsy. “They said my man
got into the wrong room and Charles got into my room. But it wasn’t so.
Lincoln just wrote that for mischief. Abe and my man often laughed about
that.”




LIKELY TO DO IT.

An officer, having had some trouble with General Sherman, being very
angry, presented himself before Mr. Lincoln, who was visiting the camp,
and said, “Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance. This morning I
went to General Sherman and he threatened to shoot me.”

“Threatened to shoot you?” asked Mr. Lincoln. “Well, (in a stage
whisper) if I were you I would keep away from him; if he threatens to
shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it.”




“THE ENEMY ARE ‘OURN’”

Early in the Presidential campaign of 1864, President Lincoln said one
night to a late caller at the White House:

“We have met the enemy and they are ‘ourn!’ I think the cabal of
obstructionists ‘am busted.’ I feel certain that, if I live, I am going
to be re-elected. Whether I deserve to be or not, it is not for me
to say; but on the score even of remunerative chances for speculative
service, I now am inspired with the hope that our disturbed country
further requires the valuable services of your humble servant. ‘Jordan
has been a hard road to travel,’ but I feel now that, notwithstanding
the enemies I have made and the faults I have committed, I’ll be dumped
on the right side of that stream.

“I hope, however, that I may never have another four years of such
anxiety, tribulation and abuse. My only ambition is and has been to put
down the rebellion and restore peace, after which I want to resign
my office, go abroad, take some rest, study foreign governments, see
something of foreign life, and in my old age die in peace with all of
the good of God’s creatures.”




“AND--HERE I AM!”

An old acquaintance of the President visited him in Washington. Lincoln
desired to give him a place. Thus encouraged, the visitor, who was an
honest man, but wholly inexperienced in public affairs or business,
asked for a high office, Superintendent of the Mint.

The President was aghast, and said: “Good gracious! Why didn’t he ask to
be Secretary of the Treasury, and have done with it?”

Afterward, he said: “Well, now, I never thought Mr.---- had anything
more than average ability, when we were young men together. But, then, I
suppose he thought the same thing about me, and--here I am!”




SAFE AS LONG AS THEY WERE GOOD.

At the celebrated Peace Conference, whereat there was much “pow-wow”
 and no result, President Lincoln, in response to certain remarks by the
Confederate commissioners, commented with some severity upon the conduct
of the Confederate leaders, saying they had plainly forfeited all right
to immunity from punishment for their treason.

Being positive and unequivocal in stating his views concerning
individual treason, his words were of ominous import. There was a pause,
during which Commissioner Hunter regarded the speaker with a steady,
searching look. At length, carefully measuring his words, Mr. Hunter
said:

“Then, Mr. President, if we understand you correctly, you think that
we of the Confederacy have committed treason; are traitors to your
Government; have forfeited our rights, and are proper subjects for the
hangman. Is not that about what your words imply?”

“Yes,” replied President Lincoln, “you have stated the proposition
better than I did. That is about the size of it!”

Another pause, and a painful one succeeded, and then Hunter, with a
pleasant smile remarked:

“Well, Mr. Lincoln, we have about concluded that we shall not be hanged
as long as you are President--if we behave ourselves.”

And Hunter meant what he said.




“SMELT NO ROYALTY IN OUR CARRIAGE.”

On one occasion, in going to meet an appointment in the southern part of
the Sucker State--that section of Illinois called Egypt--Lincoln, with
other friends, was traveling in the “caboose” of a freight train, when
the freight was switched off the main track to allow a special train to
pass.

Lincoln’s more aristocratic rival (Stephen A. Douglas) was being
conveyed to the same town in this special. The passing train was
decorated with banners and flags, and carried a band of music, which was
playing “Hail to the Chief.”

As the train whistled past, Lincoln broke out in a fit of laughter, and
said: “Boys, the gentleman in that car evidently smelt no royalty in our
carriage.”




HELL A MILE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

Ward Lamon told this story of President Lincoln, whom he found one day
in a particularly gloomy frame of mind. Lamon said:

“The President remarked, as I came in, ‘I fear I have made Senator Wade,
of Ohio, my enemy for life.’

“‘How?’ I asked.

“‘Well,’ continued the President, ‘Wade was here just now urging me
to dismiss Grant, and, in response to something he said, I remarked,
“Senator, that reminds me of a story.”’

“‘What did Wade say?’ I inquired of the President.

“‘He said, in a petulant way,’ the President responded, ‘“It is with
you, sir, all story, story! You are the father of every military blunder
that has been made during the war. You are on your road to hell, sir,
with this government, by your obstinacy, and you are not a mile off this
minute.”’

“‘What did you say then?’

“I good-naturedly said to him,’ the President replied, ‘“Senator, that
is just about from here to the Capitol, is it not?” He was very angry,
grabbed up his hat and cane, and went away.’”




HIS “GLASS HACK”

President Lincoln had not been in the White House very long before Mrs.
Lincoln became seized with the idea that a fine new barouche was about
the proper thing for “the first lady in the land.” The President did not
care particularly about it one way or the other, and told his wife to
order whatever she wanted.

Lincoln forgot all about the new vehicle, and was overcome with
astonishment one afternoon when, having acceded to Mrs. Lincoln’s desire
to go driving, he found a beautiful barouche standing in front of the
door of the White House.

His wife watched him with an amused smile, but the only remark he made
was, “Well, Mary, that’s about the slickest ‘glass hack’ in town, isn’t
it?”




LEAVE HIM KICKING.

Lincoln, in the days of his youth, was often unfaithful to his Quaker
traditions. On the day of election in 1840, word came to him that one
Radford, a Democratic contractor, had taken possession of one of the
polling places with his workmen, and was preventing the Whigs from
voting. Lincoln started off at a gait which showed his interest in the
matter in hand.

He went up to Radford and persuaded him to leave the polls, remarking
at the same time: “Radford, you’ll spoil and blow, if you live much
longer.”

Radford’s prudence prevented an actual collision, which, it is said,
Lincoln regretted. He told his friend Speed he wanted Radford to show
fight so that he might “knock him down and leave him kicking.”




“WHO COMMENCED THIS FUSS?”

President Lincoln was at all times an advocate of peace, provided it
could be obtained honorably and with credit to the United States. As
to the cause of the Civil War, which side of Mason and Dixon’s line was
responsible for it, who fired the first shots, who were the aggressors,
etc., Lincoln did not seem to bother about; he wanted to preserve the
Union, above all things. Slavery, he was assured, was dead, but he
thought the former slaveholders should be recompensed.

To illustrate his feelings in the matter he told this story:

“Some of the supporters of the Union cause are opposed to accommodate or
yield to the South in any manner or way because the Confederates began
the war; were determined to take their States out of the Union, and,
consequently, should be held responsible to the last stage for whatever
may come in the future. Now this reminds me of a good story I heard
once, when I lived in Illinois.

“A vicious bull in a pasture took after everybody who tried to cross the
lot, and one day a neighbor of the owner was the victim. This man was a
speedy fellow and got to a friendly tree ahead of the bull, but not in
time to climb the tree. So he led the enraged animal a merry race around
the tree, finally succeeding in seizing the bull by the tail.

“The bull, being at a disadvantage, not able to either catch the man or
release his tail, was mad enough to eat nails; he dug up the earth with
his feet, scattered gravel all around, bellowed until you could hear
him for two miles or more, and at length broke into a dead run, the man
hanging onto his tail all the time.

“While the bull, much out of temper, was legging it to the best of his
ability, his tormentor, still clinging to the tail, asked, ‘Darn you,
who commenced this fuss?’

“It’s our duty to settle this fuss at the earliest possible moment, no
matter who commenced it. That’s my idea of it.”




“ABE’S” LITTLE JOKE.

When General W. T. Sherman, November 12th, 1864, severed all
communication with the North and started for Savannah with his
magnificent army of sixty thousand men, there was much anxiety for
a month as to his whereabouts. President Lincoln, in response to an
inquiry, said: “I know what hole Sherman went in at, but I don’t know
what hole he’ll come out at.”

Colonel McClure had been in consultation with the President one day,
about two weeks after Sherman’s disappearance, and in this connection
related this incident:

“I was leaving the room, and just as I reached the door the President
turned around, and, with a merry twinkling of the eye, inquired,
‘McClure, wouldn’t you like to hear something from Sherman?’

“The inquiry electrified me at the instant, as it seemed to imply that
Lincoln had some information on the subject. I immediately answered,
‘Yes, most of all, I should like to hear from Sherman.’

“To this President Lincoln answered, with a hearty laugh: ‘Well, I’ll be
hanged if I wouldn’t myself.’”




WHAT SUMMER THOUGHT.

Although himself a most polished, even a fastidious, gentleman, Senator
Sumner never allowed Lincoln’s homely ways to hide his great qualities.
He gave him a respect and esteem at the start which others accorded only
after experience. The Senator was most tactful, too, in his dealings
with Mrs. Lincoln, and soon had a firm footing in the household. That he
was proud of this, perhaps a little boastful, there is no doubt.

Lincoln himself appreciated this. “Sumner thinks he runs me,” he said,
with an amused twinkle, one day.




A USELESS DOG.

When Hood’s army had been scattered into fragments, President Lincoln,
elated by the defeat of what had so long been a menacing force on the
borders of Tennessee was reminded by its collapse of the fate of a
savage dog belonging to one of his neighbors in the frontier settlements
in which he lived in his youth. “The dog,” he said, “was the terror of
the neighborhood, and its owner, a churlish and quarrelsome fellow, took
pleasure in the brute’s forcible attitude.

“Finally, all other means having failed to subdue the creature, a man
loaded a lump of meat with a charge of powder, to which was attached a
slow fuse; this was dropped where the dreaded dog would find it, and the
animal gulped down the tempting bait.

“There was a dull rumbling, a muffled explosion, and fragments of the
dog were seen flying in every direction. The grieved owner, picking up
the shattered remains of his cruel favorite, said: ‘He was a good dog,
but as a dog, his days of usefulness are over.’ Hood’s army was a good
army,” said Lincoln, by way of comment, “and we were all afraid of it,
but as an army, its usefulness is gone.”




ORIGIN OF THE “INFLUENCE” STORY.

Judge Baldwin, of California, being in Washington, called one day on
General Halleck, then Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, and,
presuming upon a familiar acquaintance in California a few years since,
solicited a pass outside of our lines to see a brother in Virginia,
not thinking that he would meet with a refusal, as both his brother and
himself were good Union men.

“We have been deceived too often,” said General Halleck, “and I regret I
can’t grant it.”

Judge B. then went to Stanton, and was very briefly disposed of with
the same result. Finally, he obtained an interview with Mr. Lincoln, and
stated his case.

“Have you applied to General Halleck?” inquired the President.

“Yes, and met with a flat refusal,” said Judge B.

“Then you must see Stanton,” continued the President.

“I have, and with the same result,” was the reply.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Lincoln, with a smile, “I can do nothing; for you
must know that I have very little influence with this Administration,
although I hope to have more with the next.”




FELT SORRY FOR BOTH.

Many ladies attended the famous debates between Lincoln and Douglas, and
they were the most unprejudiced listeners. “I can recall only one fact
of the debates,” says Mrs. William Crotty, of Seneca, Illinois, “that
I felt so sorry for Lincoln while Douglas was speaking, and then to my
surprise I felt so sorry for Douglas when Lincoln replied.”

The disinterested to whom it was an intellectual game, felt the power
and charm of both men.




WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

“What made the deepest impression upon you?” inquired a friend one day,
“when you stood in the presence of the Falls of Niagara, the greatest of
natural wonders?”

“The thing that struck me most forcibly when I saw the Falls,” Lincoln
responded, with characteristic deliberation, “was, where in the world
did all that water come from?”




“LONG ABE” FOUR YEARS LONGER.

The second election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United
States was the reward of his courage and genius bestowed upon him by the
people of the Union States. General George B. McClellan was his opponent
in 1864 upon the platform that “the War is a failure,” and carried but
three States--New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. The States which did
not think the War was a failure were those in New England, New York,
Pennsylvania, all the Western commonwealths, West Virginia, Tennessee,
Louisiana, Arkansas and the new State of Nevada, admitted into the Union
on October 31st. President Lincoln’s popular majority over McClellan,
who never did much toward making the War a success, was more than four
hundred thousand. Underneath the cartoon reproduced here, from “Harper’s
Weekly” of November 26th, 1864, were the words, “Long Abraham Lincoln a
Little Longer.”

But the beloved President’s time upon earth was not to be much longer,
as he was assassinated just one month and ten days after his second
inauguration. Indeed, the words, “a little longer,” printed below the
cartoon, were strangely prophetic, although not intended to be such.

The people of the United States had learned to love “Long Abe,” their
affection being of a purely personal nature, in the main. No other Chief
Executive was regarded as so sincerely the friend of the great mass of
the inhabitants of the Republic as Lincoln. He was, in truth, one of
“the common people,” having been born among them, and lived as one of
them.

Lincoln’s great height made him an easy subject for the cartoonist, and
they used it in his favor as well as against him.




“ALL SICKER’N YOUR MAN.”

A Commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands was to be appointed, and eight
applicants had filed their papers, when a delegation from the South
appeared at the White House on behalf of a ninth. Not only was their
man fit--so the delegation urged--but was also in bad health, and a
residence in that balmy climate would be of great benefit to him.

The President was rather impatient that day, and before the members of
the delegation had fairly started in, suddenly closed the interview with
this remark:

“Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for
that place, and they are all ‘sicker’n’ your man.”




EASIER TO EMPTY THE POTOMAC.

An officer of low volunteer rank persisted in telling and re-telling his
troubles to the President on a summer afternoon when Lincoln was tired
and careworn.

After listening patiently, he finally turned upon the man, and, looking
wearily out upon the broad Potomac in the distance, said in a peremptory
tone that ended the interview:

“Now, my man, go away, go away. I cannot meddle in your case. I could as
easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the
details of the army.”




HE WANTED A STEADY HAND.

When the Emancipation Proclamation was taken to Mr. Lincoln by Secretary
Seward, for the President’s signature, Mr. Lincoln took a pen, dipped
it in the ink, moved his hand to the place for the signature, held it
a moment, then removed his hand and dropped the pen. After a little
hesitation, he again took up the pen and went through the same movement
as before. Mr. Lincoln then turned to Mr. Seward and said:

“I have been shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning, and my right
arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history, it will be
for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I
sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say,
‘He hesitated.’”

He then turned to the table, took up the pen again, and slowly, firmly
wrote “Abraham Lincoln,” with which the whole world is now familiar.

He then looked up, smiled, and said, “That will do.”




LINCOLN SAW STANTON ABOUT IT.

Mr. Lovejoy, heading a committee of Western men, discussed an important
scheme with the President, and the gentlemen were then directed to
explain it to Secretary of War Stanton.

Upon presenting themselves to the Secretary, and showing the President’s
order, the Secretary said: “Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?”

“He did, sir.”

“Then he is a d--d fool,” said the angry Secretary.

“Do you mean to say that the President is a d--d fool?” asked Lovejoy,
in amazement.

“Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that.”

The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once to the President and
related the result of the conference.

“Did Stanton say I was a d--d fool?” asked Lincoln at the close of the
recital.

“He did, sir, and repeated it.”

After a moment’s pause, and looking up, the President said: “If Stanton
said I was a d--d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always
right, and generally says what he means. I will slip over and see him.”




MRS. LINCOLN’S SURPRISE.

A good story is told of how Mrs. Lincoln made a little surprise for her
husband.

In the early days it was customary for lawyers to go from one county to
another on horseback, a journey which often required several weeks.
On returning from one of these trips, late one night, Mr. Lincoln
dismounted from his horse at the familiar corner and then turned to go
into the house, but stopped; a perfectly unknown structure was before
him. Surprised, and thinking there must be some mistake, he went across
the way and knocked at a neighbor’s door. The family had retired, and so
called out:

“Who’s there?”

“Abe Lincoln,” was the reply. “I am looking for my house. I thought it
was across the way, but when I went away a few weeks ago there was only
a one-story house there and now there is a two-story house in its place.
I think I must be lost.”

The neighbors then explained that Mrs. Lincoln had added another story
during his absence. And Mr. Lincoln laughed and went to his remodeled
house.




MENACE TO THE GOVERNMENT.

The persistence of office-seekers nearly drove President Lincoln wild.
They slipped in through the half-opened doors of the Executive Mansion;
they dogged his steps if he walked; they edged their way through the
crowds and thrust their papers in his hands when he rode; and, taking it
all in all, they well-nigh worried him to death.

He once said that if the Government passed through the Rebellion without
dismemberment there was the strongest danger of its falling a prey to
the rapacity of the office-seeking class.

“This human struggle and scramble for office, for a way to live without
work, will finally test the strength of our institutions,” were the
words he used.




TROOPS COULDN’T FLY OVER IT.

On April 20th a delegation from Baltimore appeared at the White House
and begged the President that troops for Washington be sent around and
not through Baltimore.

President Lincoln replied, laughingly: “If I grant this concession, you
will be back tomorrow asking that no troops be marched ‘around’ it.”

The President was right. That afternoon, and again on Sunday and Monday,
committees sought him, protesting that Maryland soil should not be
“polluted” by the feet of soldiers marching against the South.

The President had but one reply: “We must have troops, and as they can
neither crawl under Maryland nor fly over it, they must come across it.”




PAT WAS “FORNINST THE GOVERNMENT.”

The Governor-General of Canada, with some of his principal officers,
visited President Lincoln in the summer of 1864.

They had been very troublesome in harboring blockade runners, and they
were said to have carried on a large trade from their ports with the
Confederates. Lincoln treated his guests with great courtesy.

After a pleasant interview, the Governor, alluding to the coming
Presidential election said, jokingly, but with a grain of sarcasm: “I
understand Mr. President, that everybody votes in this country. If we
remain until November, can we vote?”

“You remind me,” replied the President, “of a countryman of yours, a
green emigrant from Ireland. Pat arrived on election day, and perhaps
was as eager as your Excellency to vote, and to vote early, and late and
often.

“So, upon landing at Castle Garden, he hastened to the nearest voting
place, and as he approached, the judge who received the ballots
inquired, ‘Who do you want to vote for? On which side are you?’ Poor Pat
was embarrassed; he did not know who were the candidates. He stopped,
scratched his head, then, with the readiness of his countrymen, he said:

“‘I am forninst the Government, anyhow. Tell me, if your Honor plase:
which is the rebellion side, and I’ll tell you haw I want to vote. In
ould Ireland, I was always on the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick,
I’ll do that same in America.’ Your Excellency,” said Mr. Lincoln,
“would, I should think, not be at all at a loss on which side to vote!”




“CAN’T SPARE THIS MAN.”

One night, about eleven o’clock, Colonel A. K. McClure, whose intimacy
with President Lincoln was so great that he could obtain admittance to
the Executive Mansion at any and all hours, called at the White House to
urge Mr. Lincoln to remove General Grant from command.

After listening patiently for a long time, the President, gathering
himself up in his chair, said, with the utmost earnestness:

“I can’t spare this man; he fights!”

In relating the particulars of this interview, Colonel McClure said:

“That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough, and that Grant was
safe in Lincoln’s hands against his countless hosts of enemies. The only
man in all the nation who had the power to save Grant was Lincoln,
and he had decided to do it. He was not influenced by any personal
partiality for Grant, for they had never met.

“It was not until after the battle of Shiloh, fought on the 6th and
7th of April, 1862, that Lincoln was placed in a position to exercise a
controlling influence in shaping the destiny of Grant. The first reports
from the Shiloh battle-field created profound alarm throughout the
entire country, and the wildest exaggerations were spread in a floodtide
of vituperation against Grant.

“The few of to-day who can recall the inflamed condition of public
sentiment against Grant caused by the disastrous first day’s battle
at Shiloh will remember that he was denounced as incompetent for his
command by the public journals of all parties in the North, and with
almost entire unanimity by Senators and Congressmen, regardless of
political affinities.

“I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and
in giving my reasons for it I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming
protest from the loyal people of the land against Grant’s continuance in
command.

“I did not forget that Lincoln was the one man who never allowed
himself to appear as wantonly defying public sentiment. It seemed to
me impossible for him to save Grant without taking a crushing load of
condemnation upon himself; but Lincoln was wiser than all those
around him, and he not only saved Grant, but he saved him by such
well-concerted effort that he soon won popular applause from those who
were most violent in demanding Grant’s dismissal.”




HIS TEETH CHATTERED.

During the Lincoln-Douglas joint debates of 1858, the latter accused
Lincoln of having, when in Congress, voted against the appropriation
for supplies to be sent the United States soldiers in Mexico. In reply,
Lincoln said: “This is a perversion of the facts. I was opposed to the
policy of the administration in declaring war against Mexico; but
when war was declared I never failed to vote for the support of
any proposition looking to the comfort of our poor fellows who were
maintaining the dignity of our flag in a war that I thought unnecessary
and unjust.”

He gradually became more and more excited; his voice thrilled and his
whole frame shook. Sitting on the stand was O. B. Ficklin, who had
served in Congress with Lincoln in 1847. Lincoln reached back, took
Ficklin by the coat-collar, back of his neck, and in no gentle manner
lifted him from his seat as if he had been a kitten, and roared:
“Fellow-citizens, here is Ficklin, who was at that time in Congress with
me, and he knows it is a lie.”

He shook Ficklin until his teeth chattered. Fearing he would shake
Ficklin’s head off, Ward Lamon grasped Lincoln’s hand and broke his
grip.

After the speaking was over, Ficklin, who had warm personal friendship
with him, said: “Lincoln, you nearly shook all the Democracy out of me
to-day.”




“AARON GOT HIS COMMISSION.”

President Lincoln was censured for appointing one that had zealously
opposed his second term.

He replied: “Well, I suppose Judge E., having been disappointed before,
did behave pretty ugly, but that wouldn’t make him any less fit for the
place; and I think I have Scriptural authority for appointing him.

“You remember when the Lord was on Mount Sinai getting out a commission
for Aaron, that same Aaron was at the foot of the mountain making a
false god for the people to worship. Yet Aaron got his commission, you
know.”




LINCOLN AND THE MINISTERS.

At the time of Lincoln’s nomination, at Chicago, Mr. Newton Bateman,
Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Illinois, occupied
a room adjoining and opening into the Executive Chamber at Springfield.
Frequently this door was open during Mr. Lincoln’s receptions, and
throughout the seven months or more of his occupation he saw him nearly
every day. Often, when Mr. Lincoln was tired, he closed the door against
all intruders, and called Mr. Bateman into his room for a quiet talk. On
one of these occasions, Mr. Lincoln took up a book containing canvass
of the city of Springfield, in which he lived, showing the candidate
for whom each citizen had declared it his intention to vote in the
approaching election. Mr. Lincoln’s friends had, doubtless at his own
request, placed the result of the canvass in his hands. This was towards
the close of October, and only a few days before election. Calling Mr.
Bateman to a seat by his side, having previously locked all the doors,
he said:

“Let us look over this book; I wish particularly to see how the
ministers if Springfield are going to vote.” The leaves were turned, one
by one, and as the names were examined Mr. Lincoln frequently asked if
this one and that one was not a minister, or an elder, or a member of
such and such a church, and sadly expressed his surprise on receiving an
affirmative answer. In that manner he went through the book, and then he
closed it, and sat silently for some minutes regarding a memorandum in
pencil which lay before him. At length he turned to Mr. Bateman, with a
face full of sadness, and said:

“Here are twenty-three ministers of different denominations, and all
of them are against me but three, and here are a great many prominent
members of churches, a very large majority are against me. Mr. Bateman,
I am not a Christian--God knows I would be one--but I have carefully
read the Bible, and I do not so understand this book,” and he drew forth
a pocket New Testament.

“These men well know,” he continued, “that I am for freedom in the
Territories, freedom everywhere, as free as the Constitution and the
laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this,
and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human
bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me; I do
not understand it at all.”

Here Mr. Lincoln paused--paused for long minutes, his features
surcharged with emotion. Then he rose and walked up and down the
reception-room in the effort to retain or regain his self-possession.
Stopping at last, he said, with a trembling voice and cheeks wet with
tears:

“I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see
the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place
and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing,
but Truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty
is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them
that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and Reason
say the same, and they will find it so.

“Douglas doesn’t care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God
cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with God’s help I shall
not fail. I may not see the end, but it will come, and I shall be
vindicated; and these men will find they have not read their Bible
right.”

Much of this was uttered as if he were speaking to himself, and with
a sad, earnest solemnity of manner impossible to be described. After a
pause he resumed:

“Doesn’t it seem strange that men can ignore the moral aspect of this
contest? No revelation could make it plainer to me that slavery or the
Government must be destroyed. The future would be something awful, as
I look at it, but for this rock on which I stand” (alluding to the
Testament which he still held in his hand), “especially with the
knowledge of how these ministers are going to vote. It seems as if God
had borne with this thing (slavery) until the teachers of religion have
come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character
and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of
wrath will be poured out.”

Everything he said was of a peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone,
and all was tinged with a touching melancholy. He repeatedly referred to
his conviction that the day of wrath was at hand, and that he was to be
an actor in the terrible struggle which would issue in the overthrow of
slavery, although he might not live to see the end.

After further reference to a belief in the Divine Providence and the
fact of God in history, the conversation turned upon prayer. He freely
stated his belief in the duty, privilege, and efficacy of prayer, and
intimated, in no unmistakable terms, that he had sought in that way
Divine guidance and favor. The effect of this conversation upon the
mind of Mr. Bateman, a Christian gentleman whom Mr. Lincoln profoundly
respected, was to convince him that Mr. Lincoln had, in a quiet way,
found a path to the Christian standpoint--that he had found God,
and rested on the eternal truth of God. As the two men were about to
separate, Mr. Bateman remarked:

“I have not supposed that you were accustomed to think so much upon this
class of subjects; certainly your friends generally are ignorant of the
sentiments you have expressed to me.”

He replied quickly: “I know they are, but I think more on these subjects
than upon all others, and I have done so for years; and I am willing you
should know it.”




HARDTACK BETTER THAN GENERALS.

Secretary of War Stanton told the President the following story, which
greatly amused the latter, as he was especially fond of a joke at the
expense of some high military or civil dignitary.

Stanton had little or no sense of humor.

When Secretary Stanton was making a trip up the Broad River in North
Carolina, in a tugboat, a Federal picket yelled out, “What have you got
on board of that tug?”

The severe and dignified answer was, “The Secretary of War and
Major-General Foster.”

Instantly the picket roared back, “We’ve got Major-Generals enough up
here. Why don’t you bring us up some hardtack?”




GOT THE PREACHER.

A story told by a Cabinet member tended to show how accurately Lincoln
could calculate political results in advance--a faculty which remained
with him all his life.

“A friend, who was a Democrat, had come to him early in the canvass and
told him he wanted to see him elected, but did not like to vote against
his party; still he would vote for him, if the contest was to be so
close that every vote was needed.

“A short time before the election Lincoln said to him: ‘I have got the
preacher, and I don’t want your vote.’”




BIG JOKE ON HALLECK.

When General Halleck was Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, with
headquarters at Washington, President Lincoln unconsciously played a big
practical joke upon that dignified officer. The President had spent
the night at the Soldiers’ Home, and the next morning asked Captain
Derickson, commanding the company of Pennsylvania soldiers, which was
the Presidential guard at the White House and the Home--wherever the
President happened to be--to go to town with him.

Captain Derickson told the story in a most entertaining way:

“When we entered the city, Mr. Lincoln said he would call at General
Halleck’s headquarters and get what news had been received from the
army during the night. I informed him that General Cullum, chief aid to
General Halleck, was raised in Meadville, and that I knew him when I was
a boy.

“He replied, ‘Then we must see both the gentlemen.’ When the carriage
stopped, he requested me to remain seated, and said he would bring the
gentlemen down to see me, the office being on the second floor. In a
short time the President came down, followed by the other gentlemen.
When he introduced them to me, General Cullum recognized and seemed
pleased to see me.

“In General Halleck I thought I discovered a kind of quizzical look,
as much as to say, ‘Isn’t this rather a big joke to ask the
Commander-in-Chief of the army down to the street to be introduced to a
country captain?’”




STORIES BETTER THAN DOCTORS.

A gentleman, visiting a hospital at Washington, heard an occupant of one
of the beds laughing and talking about the President, who had been there
a short time before and gladdened the wounded with some of his stories.
The soldier seemed in such good spirits that the gentleman inquired:

“You must be very slightly wounded?”

“Yes,” replied the brave fellow, “very slightly--I have only lost one
leg, and I’d be glad enough to lose the other, if I could hear some more
of ‘Old Abe’s’ stories.”




SHORT, BUT EXCITING.

William B. Wilson, employed in the telegraph office at the War
Department, ran over to the White House one day to summon Mr. Lincoln.
He described the trip back to the War Department in this manner:

“Calling one of his two younger boys to join him, we then started from
the White House, between stately trees, along a gravel path which led to
the rear of the old War Department building. It was a warm day, and Mr.
Lincoln wore as part of his costume a faded gray linen duster which hung
loosely around his long gaunt frame; his kindly eye was beaming with
good nature, and his ever-thoughtful brow was unruffled.

“We had barely reached the gravel walk before he stooped over, picked up
a round smooth pebble, and shooting it off his thumb, challenged us to
a game of ‘followings,’ which we accepted. Each in turn tried to hit
the outlying stone, which was being constantly projected onward by
the President. The game was short, but exciting; the cheerfulness
of childhood, the ambition of young manhood, and the gravity of the
statesman were all injected into it.

“The game was not won until the steps of the War Department were
reached. Every inch of progression was toughly contested, and when the
President was declared victor, it was only by a hand span. He appeared
to be as much pleased as if he had won a battle.”




MR. BULL DIDN’T GET HIS COTTON.

Because of the blockade, by the Union fleets, of the Southern cotton
ports, England was deprived of her supply of cotton, and scores of
thousands of British operatives were thrown out of employment by the
closing of the cotton mills at Manchester and other cities in Great
Britain. England (John Bull) felt so badly about this that the British
wanted to go to war on account of it, but when the United States eagle
ruffled up its wings the English thought over the business and concluded
not to fight.

“Harper’s Weekly” of May 16th, 1863, contained the cartoon we reproduce,
which shows John Bull as manifesting much anxiety regarding the cotton
he had bought from the Southern planters, but which the latter could not
deliver. Beneath the cartoon is this bit of dialogue between John
Bull and President Lincoln: MR. BULL (confiding creature): “Hi want my
cotton, bought at fi’pence a pound.”

MR. LINCOLN: “Don’t know anything about it, my dear sir. Your friends,
the rebels, are burning all the cotton they can find, and I confiscate
the rest. Good-morning, John!”

As President Lincoln has a big fifteen-inch gun at his side, the black
muzzle of which is pressed tightly against Mr. Bull’s waistcoat, the
President, to all appearances, has the best of the argument “by a long
shot.” Anyhow, Mr. Bull had nothing more to say, but gave the cotton
matter up as a bad piece of business, and pocketed the loss.




STICK TO AMERICAN PRINCIPLES.

President Lincoln’s first conclusion (that Mason and Slidell should be
released) was the real ground on which the Administration submitted. “We
must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals.” It
was to many, as Secretary of the Treasury Chase declared it was to him,
“gall and wormwood.” James Russell Lowell’s verse expressed best the
popular feeling:

We give the critters back, John, Cos Abram thought ‘twas right; It
warn’t your bullyin’ clack, John, Provokin’ us to fight.

The decision raised Mr. Lincoln immeasurably in the view of thoughtful
men, especially in England.




USED “RUDE TACT.”

General John C. Fremont, with headquarters at St. Louis, astonished the
country by issuing a proclamation declaring, among other things, that
the property, real and personal, of all the persons in the State of
Missouri who should take up arms against the United States, or who
should be directly proved to have taken an active part with its enemies
in the field, would be confiscated to public use and their slaves, if
they had any, declared freemen.

The President was dismayed; he modified that part of the proclamation
referring to slaves, and finally replaced Fremont with General Hunter.

Mrs. Fremont (daughter of Senator T. H. Benton), her husband’s real
chief of staff, flew to Washington and sought Mr. Lincoln. It was
midnight, but the President gave her an audience. Without waiting for an
explanation, she violently charged him with sending an enemy to Missouri
to look into Fremont’s case, and threatening that if Fremont desired to
he could set up a government for himself.

“I had to exercise all the rude tact I have to avoid quarreling with
her,” said Mr. Lincoln afterwards.




“ABE” ON A WOODPILE.

Lincoln’s attempt to make a lawyer of himself under adverse and
unpromising circumstances--he was a bare-footed farm-hand--excited
comment. And it was not to be wondered. One old man, who was yet alive
as late as 1901, had often employed Lincoln to do farm work for him, and
was surprised to find him one day sitting barefoot on the summit of a
woodpile and attentively reading a book.

“This being an unusual thing for farm-hands in that early day to do,”
 said the old man, when relating the story, “I asked him what he was
reading.

“‘I’m not reading,’ he answered. ‘I’m studying.’

“‘Studying what?’ I inquired.

“‘Law, sir,’ was the emphatic response.

“It was really too much for me, as I looked at him sitting there proud
as Cicero. ‘Great God Almighty!’ I exclaimed, and passed on.” Lincoln
merely laughed and resumed his “studies.”




TAKING DOWN A DANDY.

In a political campaign, Lincoln once replied to Colonel Richard Taylor,
a self-conceited, dandified man, who wore a gold chain and ruffled
shirt. His party at that time was posing as the hard-working bone and
sinew of the land, while the Whigs were stigmatized as aristocrats,
ruffled-shirt gentry. Taylor making a sweeping gesture, his overcoat
became torn open, displaying his finery. Lincoln in reply said, laying
his hand on his jeans-clad breast:

“Here is your aristocrat, one of your silk-stocking gentry, at your
service.” Then, spreading out his hands, bronzed and gaunt with toil:
“Here is your rag-basin with lily-white hands. Yes, I suppose, according
to my friend Taylor, I am a bloated aristocrat.”




WHEN OLD ABE GOT MAD.

Soon after hostilities broke out between the North and South, Congress
appointed a Committee on the Conduct of the War. This committee beset
Mr. Lincoln and urged all sorts of measures. Its members were aggressive
and patriotic, and one thing they determined upon was that the Army of
the Potomac should move. But it was not until March that they became
convinced that anything would be done.

One day early in that month, Senator Chandler, of Michigan, a member of
the committee, met George W. Julian. He was in high glee. “‘Old’ Abe is
mad,” said Julian, “and the War will now go on.”




WANTED TO “BORROW” THE ARMY.

During one of the periods when things were at a standstill, the
Washington authorities, being unable to force General McClellan to
assume an aggressive attitude, President Lincoln went to the general’s
headquarters to have a talk with him, but for some reason he was unable
to get an audience.

Mr. Lincoln returned to the White House much disturbed at his failure
to see the commander of the Union forces, and immediately sent for two
general officers, to have a consultation. On their arrival, he told
them he must have some one to talk to about the situation, and as he
had failed to see General McClellan, he wished their views as to the
possibility or probability of commencing active operations with the Army
of the Potomac.

“Something’s got to be done,” said the President, emphatically, “and
done right away, or the bottom will fall out of the whole thing. Now, if
McClellan doesn’t want to use the army for awhile, I’d like to borrow it
from him and see if I can’t do something or other with it.

“If McClellan can’t fish, he ought at least to be cutting bait at a time
like this.”




YOUNG “SUCKER” VISITORS.

After Mr. Lincoln’s nomination for the Presidency, the Executive
Chamber, a large, fine room in the State House at Springfield, was set
apart for him, where he met the public until after his election.

As illustrative of the nature of many of his calls, the following
incident was related by Mr. Holland, an eye-witness: “Mr. Lincoln being
in conversation with a gentleman one day, two raw, plainly-dressed young
‘Suckers’ entered the room, and bashfully lingered near the door. As
soon as he observed them, and saw their embarrassment, he rose and
walked to them, saying: ‘How do you do, my good fellows? What can I do
for you? Will you sit down?’ The spokesman of the pair, the shorter of
the two, declined to sit, and explained the object of the call thus:
He had had a talk about the relative height of Mr. Lincoln and his
companion, and had asserted his belief that they were of exactly the
same height. He had come in to verify his judgment. Mr. Lincoln smiled,
went and got his cane, and, placing the end of it upon the wall, said”
 ‘Here, young man, come under here.’ “The young man came under the
cane as Mr. Lincoln held it, and when it was perfectly adjusted to his
height, Mr. Lincoln said:

“‘Now, come out, and hold the cane.’

“This he did, while Mr. Lincoln stood under. Rubbing his head back and
forth to see that it worked easily under the measurement, he stepped
out, and declared to the sagacious fellow who was curiously looking on,
that he had guessed with remarkable accuracy--that he and the young man
were exactly the same height. Then he shook hands with them and sent
them on their way. Mr. Lincoln would just as soon have thought of
cutting off his right hand as he would have thought of turning those
boys away with the impression that they had in any way insulted his
dignity.”




“AND YOU DON’T WEAR HOOPSKIRTS.”

An Ohio Senator had an appointment with President Lincoln at six
o’clock, and as he entered the vestibule of the White House his
attention was attracted toward a poorly clad young woman, who was
violently sobbing. He asked her the cause of her distress. She said she
had been ordered away by the servants, after vainly waiting many hours
to see the President about her only brother, who had been condemned to
death. Her story was this:

She and her brother were foreigners, and orphans. They had been in this
country several years. Her brother enlisted in the army, but, through
bad influences, was induced to desert. He was captured, tried and
sentenced to be shot--the old story.

The poor girl had obtained the signatures of some persons who had
formerly known him, to a petition for a pardon, and alone had come
to Washington to lay the case before the President. Thronged as the
waiting-rooms always were, she had passed the long hours of two days
trying in vain to get an audience, and had at length been ordered away.

The gentleman’s feelings were touched. He said to her that he had come
to see the President, but did not know as he should succeed. He told
her, however, to follow him upstairs, and he would see what could be
done for her.

Just before reaching the door, Mr. Lincoln came out, and, meeting his
friend, said good-humoredly, “Are you not ahead of time?” The gentleman
showed him his watch, with the hand upon the hour of six.

“Well,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I have been so busy to-day that I
have not had time to get a lunch. Go in and sit down; I will be back
directly.”

The gentleman made the young woman accompany him into the office, and
when they were seated, said to her: “Now, my good girl, I want you to
muster all the courage you have in the world. When the President comes
back, he will sit down in that armchair. I shall get up to speak to him,
and as I do so you must force yourself between us, and insist upon his
examination of your papers, telling him it is a case of life and death,
and admits of no delay.” These instructions were carried out to the
letter. Mr. Lincoln was at first somewhat surprised at the apparent
forwardness of the young woman, but observing her distressed appearance,
he ceased conversation with his friend, and commenced an examination of
the document she had placed in his hands.

Glancing from it to the face of the petitioner, whose tears had broken
forth afresh, he studied its expression for a moment, and then his eye
fell upon her scanty but neat dress. Instantly his face lighted up.

“My poor girl,” said he, “you have come here with no Governor, or
Senator, or member of Congress to plead your cause. You seem honest and
truthful; and you don’t wear hoopskirts--and I will be whipped but I
will pardon your brother.” And he did.




LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN’S SENTINELS.

President Lincoln’s favorite son, Tad, having been sportively
commissioned a lieutenant in the United States Army by Secretary
Stanton, procured several muskets and drilled the men-servants of the
house in the manual of arms without attracting the attention of his
father. And one night, to his consternation, he put them all on duty,
and relieved the regular sentries, who, seeing the lad in full uniform,
or perhaps appreciating the joke, gladly went to their quarters. His
brother objected; but Tad insisted upon his rights as an officer. The
President laughed but declined to interfere, but when the lad had lost
his little authority in his boyish sleep, the Commander-in-Chief of the
Army and Navy of the United States went down and personally discharged
the sentries his son had put on the post.




DOUGLAS HELD LINCOLN’S HAT.

When Mr. Lincoln delivered his first inaugural he was introduced by his
friend, United States Senator E. D. Baker, of Oregon. He carried a cane
and a little roll--the manuscript of his inaugural address. There was
moment’s pause after the introduction, as he vainly looked for a spot
where he might place his high silk hat.

Stephen A. Douglas, the political antagonist of his whole public life,
the man who had pressed him hardest in the campaign of 1860, was seated
just behind him. Douglas stepped forward quickly, and took the hat which
Mr. Lincoln held helplessly in his hand.

“If I can’t be President,” Douglas whispered smilingly to Mrs. Brown,
a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln and a member of the President’s party, “I at
least can hold his hat.”




THE DEAD MAN SPOKE.

Mr. Lincoln once said in a speech: “Fellow-citizens, my friend, Mr.
Douglas, made the startling announcement to-day that the Whigs are all
dead.

“If that be so, fellow-citizens, you will now experience the novelty of
hearing a speech from a dead man; and I suppose you might properly say,
in the language of the old hymn:

“‘Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.’”




MILITARY SNAILS NOT SPEEDY.

President Lincoln--as he himself put it in conversation one day with a
friend--“fairly ached” for his generals to “get down to business.” These
slow generals he termed “snails.”

Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were his favorites, for they were
aggressive. They did not wait for the enemy to attack. Too many of the
others were “lingerers,” as Lincoln called them. They were magnificent
in defense, and stubborn and brave, but their names figured too much on
the “waiting list.”

The greatest fault Lincoln found with so many of the commanders on the
Union side was their unwillingness to move until everything was exactly
to their liking.

Lincoln could not understand why these leaders of Northern armies
hesitated.




OUTRAN THE JACK-RABBIT.

When the Union forces were routed in the first battle of Bull Run, there
were many civilians present, who had gone out from Washington to witness
the battle. Among the number were several Congressmen. One of these was
a tall, long-legged fellow, who wore a long-tailed coat and a high plug
hat. When the retreat began, this Congressman was in the lead of the
entire crowd fleeing toward Washington. He outran all the rest, and was
the first man to arrive in the city. No person ever made such good use
of long legs as this Congressman. His immense stride carried him yards
at every bound. He went over ditches and gullies at a single leap, and
cleared a six-foot fence with a foot to spare. As he went over the fence
his plug hat blew off, but he did not pause. With his long coat-tails
flying in the wind, he continued straight ahead for Washington.

Many of those behind him were scared almost to death, but the flying
Congressman was such a comical figure that they had to laugh in spite of
their terror.

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed the description of how this Congressman led the race
from Bull’s Run, and laughed at it heartily.

“I never knew but one fellow who could run like that,” he said, “and
he was a young man out in Illinois. He had been sparking a girl, much
against the wishes of her father. In fact, the old man took such a
dislike to him that he threatened to shoot him if he ever caught him
around his premises again.

“One evening the young man learned that the girl’s father had gone
to the city, and he ventured out to the house. He was sitting in the
parlor, with his arm around Betsy’s waist, when he suddenly spied the
old man coming around the corner of the house with a shotgun. Leaping
through a window into the garden, he started down a path at the top
of his speed. He was a long-legged fellow, and could run like greased
lightning. Just then a jack-rabbit jumped up in the path in front of
him. In about two leaps he overtook the rabbit. Giving it a kick that
sent it high in the air, he exclaimed: ‘Git out of the road, gosh dern
you, and let somebody run that knows how.’

“I reckon,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that the long-legged Congressman, when he
saw the rebel muskets, must have felt a good deal like that young fellow
did when he saw the old man’s shot-gun.”

“FOOLING” THE PEOPLE.

Lincoln was a strong believer in the virtue of dealing honestly with the
people.

“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens,” he said
to a caller at the White House, “you can never regain their respect and
esteem.

“It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can
even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the
people all the time.”




“ABE, YOU CAN’T PLAY THAT ON ME.”

The night President-elect Lincoln arrived at Washington, one man was
observed watching Lincoln very closely as he walked out of the railroad
station. Standing a little to one side, the man looked very sharply at
Lincoln, and, as the latter passed, seized hold of his hand, and said in
a loud tone of voice, “Abe, you can’t play that on me!”

Ward Lamon and the others with Lincoln were instantly alarmed, and would
have struck the stranger had not Lincoln hastily said, “Don’t strike
him! It is Washburne. Don’t you know him?”

Mr. Seward had given Congressman Washburne a hint of the time the train
would arrive, and he had the right to be at the station when the
train steamed in, but his indiscreet manner of loudly addressing the
President-elect might have led to serious consequences to the latter.




HIS “BROAD” STORIES.

Mrs. Rose Linder Wilkinson, who often accompanied her father, Judge
Linder, in the days when he rode circuit with Mr. Lincoln, tells the
following story:

“At night, as a rule, the lawyers spent awhile in the parlor, and
permitted the women who happened to be along to sit with them. But after
half an hour or so we would notice it was time for us to leave them. I
remember traveling the circuit one season when the young wife of one of
the lawyers was with him. The place was so crowded that she and I were
made to sleep together. When the time came for banishing us from the
parlor, we went up to our room and sat there till bed-time, listening
to the roars that followed each ether swiftly while those lawyers
down-stairs told stories and laughed till the rafters rang.

“In the morning Mr. Lincoln said to me: ‘Rose, did we disturb your sleep
last night?’ I answered, ‘No, I had no sleep’--which was not entirely
true but the retort amused him. Then the young lawyer’s wife complained
to him that we were not fairly used. We came along with them, young
women, and when they were having the best time we were sent away like
children to go to bed in the dark.

“‘But, Madame,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘you would not enjoy the things we
laugh at.’ And then he entered into a discussion on what have been
termed his ‘broad’ stories. He deplored the fact that men seemed to
remember them longer and with less effort than any others.

“My father said: ‘But, Lincoln, I don’t remember the “broad” part of
your stories so much as I do the moral that is in them,’ and it was a
thing in which they were all agreed.”




SORRY FOR THE HORSES.

When President Lincoln heard of the Confederate raid at Fairfax, in
which a brigadier-general and a number of valuable horses were captured,
he gravely observed:

“Well, I am sorry for the horses.”

“Sorry for the horses, Mr. President!” exclaimed the Secretary of
War, raising his spectacles and throwing himself back in his chair in
astonishment.

“Yes,” replied Mr., Lincoln, “I can make a brigadier-general in five
minutes, but it is not easy to replace a hundred and ten horses.”




MILD REBUKE TO A DOCTOR.

Dr. Jerome Walker, of Brooklyn, told how Mr. Lincoln once administered
to him a mild rebuke. The doctor was showing Mr. Lincoln through the
hospital at City Point.

“Finally, after visiting the wards occupied by our invalid and
convalescing soldiers,” said Dr. Walker, “we came to three wards
occupied by sick and wounded Southern prisoners. With a feeling of
patriotic duty, I said: ‘Mr. President, you won’t want to go in there;
they are only rebels.’

“I will never forget how he stopped and gently laid his large hand upon
my shoulder and quietly answered, ‘You mean Confederates!’ And I have
meant Confederates ever since.

“There was nothing left for me to do after the President’s remark but to
go with him through these three wards; and I could not see but that he
was just as kind, his hand-shakings just as hearty, his interest just as
real for the welfare of the men, as when he was among our own soldiers.”




COLD MOLASSES WAS SWIFTER.

“Old Pap,” as the soldiers called General George H. Thomas, was
aggravatingly slow at a time when the President wanted him to “get
a move on”; in fact, the gallant “Rock of Chickamauga” was evidently
entered in a snail-race.

“Some of my generals are so slow,” regretfully remarked Lincoln one day,
“that molasses in the coldest days of winter is a race horse compared to
them.

“They’re brave enough, but somehow or other they get fastened in a fence
corner, and can’t figure their way out.”




LINCOLN CALLS MEDILL A COWARD.

Joseph Medill, for many years editor of the Chicago Tribune, not long
before his death, told the following story regarding the “talking to”
 President Lincoln gave himself and two other Chicago gentlemen who went
to Washington to see about reducing Chicago’s quota of troops after the
call for extra men was made by the President in 1864:

“In 1864, when the call for extra troops came, Chicago revolted. She had
already sent 22,000 troops up to that time, and was drained. When the
call came there were no young men to go, and no aliens except what were
bought. The citizens held a mass meeting and appointed three persons, of
whom I was one, to go to Washington and ask Stanton to give Cook County
a new enrollment. On reaching Washington, we went to Stanton with our
statement. He refused entirely to give us the desired aid. Then we went
to Lincoln. ‘I cannot do it,’ he said, ‘but I will go with you to the
War Department, and Stanton and I will hear both sides.’

“So we all went over to the War Department together. Stanton and General
Frye were there, and they, of course, contended that the quota should
not be changed. The argument went on for some time, and was finally
referred to Lincoln, who had been sitting silently listening.

“I shall never forget how he suddenly lifted his head and turned on us a
black and frowning face.

“‘Gentlemen,’ he said, in a voice full of bitterness, ‘after Boston,
Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing war on this country.
The Northwest has opposed the South as New England has opposed the
South. It is you who are largely responsible for making blood flow as it
has.

“‘You called for war until we had it. You called for Emancipation, and
I have given it to you. Whatever you have asked, you have had. Now you
come here begging to be let off from the call for men, which I have
made to carry out the war which you demanded. You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves. I have a right to expect better things of you.

“‘Go home and raise your six thousand extra men. And you, Medill, you
are acting like a coward. You and your Tribune have had more influence
than any paper in the Northwest in making this war. You can influence
great masses, and yet you cry to be spared at a moment when your cause
is suffering. Go home and send us those men!’

“I couldn’t say anything. It was the first time I ever was whipped, and
I didn’t have an answer. We all got up and went out, and when the door
closed one of my colleagues said:

“‘Well, gentlemen, the old man is right. We ought to be ashamed of
ourselves. Let us never say anything about this, but go home and raise
the men.’

“And we did--six thousand men--making twenty-eight thousand in the War
from a city of one hundred and fifty-six thousand. But there might have
been crape on every door, almost, in Chicago, for every family had lost
a son or a husband. I lost two brothers. It was hard for the mothers.”




THEY DIDN’T BUILD IT.

In 1862 a delegation of New York millionaires waited upon President
Lincoln to request that he furnish a gunboat for the protection of New
York harbor.

Mr. Lincoln, after listening patiently, said: “Gentlemen, the credit of
the Government is at a very low ebb; greenbacks are not worth more than
forty or fifty cents on the dollar; it is impossible for me, in the
present condition of things, to furnish you a gunboat, and, in this
condition of things, if I was worth half as much as you, gentlemen, are
represented to be, and as badly frightened as you seem to be, I would
build a gunboat and give it to the Government.”




STANTON’S ABUSE OF LINCOLN.

President Lincoln’s sense of duty to the country, together with his keen
judgment of men, often led to the appointment of persons unfriendly to
him. Some of these appointees were, as well, not loyal to the National
Government, for that matter.

Regarding Secretary of War Stanton’s attitude toward Lincoln, Colonel A.
K. McClure, who was very close to President Lincoln, said:

“After Stanton’s retirement from the Buchanan Cabinet when Lincoln
was inaugurated, he maintained the closest confidential relations with
Buchanan, and wrote him many letters expressing the utmost contempt for
Lincoln, the Cabinet, the Republican Congress, and the general policy of
the Administration.

“These letters speak freely of the ‘painful imbecility of Lincoln,’
of the ‘venality and corruption’ which ran riot in the government, and
expressed the belief that no better condition of things was possible
‘until Jeff Davis turns out the whole concern.’

“He was firmly impressed for some weeks after the battle of Bull Run
that the government was utterly overthrown, as he repeatedly refers to
the coming of Davis into the National Capital.

“In one letter he says that ‘in less than thirty days Davis will be in
possession of Washington;’ and it is an open secret that Stanton advised
the revolutionary overthrow of the Lincoln government, to be replaced by
General McClellan as military dictator. These letters, bad as they are,
are not the worst letters written by Stanton to Buchanan. Some of
them were so violent in their expressions against Lincoln and the
administration that they have been charitably withheld from the
public, but they remain in the possession of the surviving relatives of
President Buchanan.

“Of course, Lincoln had no knowledge of the bitterness exhibited by
Stanton to himself personally and to his administration, but if he had
known the worst that Stanton ever said or wrote about him, I doubt
not that he would have called him to the Cabinet in January, 1862. The
disasters the army suffered made Lincoln forgetful of everything but the
single duty of suppressing the rebellion.

“Lincoln was not long in discovering that in his new Secretary of War he
had an invaluable but most troublesome Cabinet officer, but he saw
only the great and good offices that Stanton was performing for the
imperilled Republic.

“Confidence was restored in financial circles by the appointment of
Stanton, and his name as War Minister did more to strengthen the faith
of the people in the government credit than would have been probable
from the appointment of any other man of that day.

“He was a terror to all the hordes of jobbers and speculators and
camp-followers whose appetites had been whetted by a great war, and he
enforced the strictest discipline throughout our armies.

“He was seldom capable of being civil to any officer away from the army
on leave of absence unless he had been summoned by the government for
conference or special duty, and he issued the strictest orders from time
to time to drive the throng of military idlers from the capital and
keep them at their posts. He was stern to savagery in his enforcement of
military law. The wearied sentinel who slept at his post found no mercy
in the heart of Stanton, and many times did Lincoln’s humanity overrule
his fiery minister.

“Any neglect of military duty was sure of the swiftest punishment, and
seldom did he make even just allowance for inevitable military disaster.
He had profound, unfaltering faith in the Union cause, and, above all,
he had unfaltering faith in himself.

“He believed that he was in all things except in name Commander-in-Chief
of the armies and the navy of the nation, and it was with unconcealed
reluctance that he at times deferred to the authority of the President.”




THE NEGRO AND THE CROCODILE.

In one of his political speeches, Judge Douglas made use of the
following figure of speech: “As between the crocodile and the negro,
I take the side of the negro; but as between the negro and the white
man--I would go for the white man every time.”

Lincoln, at home, noted that; and afterwards, when he had occasion
to refer to the remark, he said: “I believe that this is a sort of
proposition in proportion, which may be stated thus: ‘As the negro is
to the white man, so is the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro may
rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man
may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or reptile.’”




LINCOLN WAS READY TO FIGHT.

On one occasion, Colonel Baker was speaking in a court-house, which had
been a storehouse, and, on making some remarks that were offensive to
certain political rowdies in the crowd, they cried: “Take him off the
stand!”

Immediate confusion followed, and there was an attempt to carry the
demand into execution. Directly over the speaker’s head was an old
skylight, at which it appeared Mr. Lincoln had been listening to the
speech. In an instant, Mr. Lincoln’s feet came through the skylight,
followed by his tall and sinewy frame, and he was standing by Colonel
Baker’s side. He raised his hand and the assembly subsided into silence.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Lincoln, “let us not disgrace the age and country
in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guaranteed.
Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. I am
here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can
prevent it.” The suddenness of his appearance, his perfect calmness and
fairness, and the knowledge that he would do what he had promised to do,
quieted all disturbance, and the speaker concluded his remarks without
difficulty.




IT WAS UP-HILL WORK.

Two young men called on the President from Springfield, Illinois.
Lincoln shook hands with them, and asked about the crops, the weather,
etc.

Finally one of the young men said, “Mother is not well, and she sent me
up to inquire of you how the suit about the Wells property is getting
on.”

Lincoln, in the same even tone with which he had asked the question,
said: “Give my best wishes and respects to your mother, and tell her I
have so many outside matters to attend to now that I have put that case,
and others, in the hands of a lawyer friend of mine, and if you will
call on him (giving name and address) he will give you the information
you want.”

After they had gone, a friend, who was present, said: “Mr. Lincoln, you
did not seem to know the young men?”

He laughed and replied: “No, I had never seen them before, and I had to
beat around the bush until I found who they were. It was up-hill work,
but I topped it at last.”




LEE’S SLIM ANIMAL.

President Lincoln wrote to General Hooker on June 5, 1863, warning
Hooker not to run any risk of being entangled on the Rappahannock “like
an ox jumped half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs, front and
rear, without a fair chance to give one way or kick the other.” On the
10th he warned Hooker not to go south of the Rappahannock upon Lee’s
moving north of it. “I think Lee’s army and not Richmond is your true
objective power. If he comes toward the upper Potomac, follow on his
flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens
his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stay where he is,
fret him, and fret him.”

On the 14th again he says: “So far as we can make out here, the enemy
have Milroy surrounded at Winchester, and Tyler at Martinsburg. If they
could hold out for a few days, could you help them? If the head of Lee’s
army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the flank road between
Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim
somewhere; could you not break him?”




“MRS. NORTH AND HER ATTORNEY.”

In the issue of London “Punch” of September 24th, 1864, President
Lincoln is pictured as sitting at a table in his law office, while in a
chair to his right is a client, Mrs. North. The latter is a fine client
for any attorney to have on his list, being wealthy and liberal, but as
the lady is giving her counsel, who has represented her in a legal way
for four years, notice that she proposes to put her legal business in
the hands of another lawyer, the dejected look upon the face of Attorney
Lincoln is easily accounted for. “Punch” puts these words in the lady’s
mouth:

MRS. NORTH: “You see, Mr. Lincoln, we have failed utterly in our course
of action; I want peace, and so, if you cannot effect an amicable
arrangement, I must put the case into other hands.”

In this cartoon, “Punch” merely reflected the idea, or sentiment,
current in England in 1864, that the North was much dissatisfied with
the War policy of President Lincoln; and would surely elect General
McClellan to succeed the Westerner in the White House. At the election
McClellan carried but one Northern State--New Jersey, where he was
born--President Lincoln sweeping the country like a prairie fire.

“Punch” had evidently been deceived by some bold, bad man, who wanted a
little spending money, and sold the prediction to the funny journal with
a certificate of character attached, written by--possibly--a member of
the Horse Marines. “Punch,” was very much disgusted to find that its
credulity and faith in mankind had been so imposed upon, especially when
the election returns showed that “the-War-is-a-failure” candidate ran
so slowly that Lincoln passed him as easily as though the Democratic
nominee was tied to a post.




SATISFACTION TO THE SOUL.

In the far-away days when “Abe” went to school in Indiana, they had
exercises, exhibitions and speaking-meetings in the schoolhouse or the
church, and “Abe” was the “star.” His father was a Democrat, and at that
time “Abe” agreed with his parent. He would frequently make political
and other speeches to the boys and explain tangled questions.

Booneville was the county seat of Warrick county, situated about fifteen
miles from Gentryville. Thither “Abe” walked to be present at the
sittings of the court, and listened attentively to the trials and the
speeches of the lawyers.

One of the trials was that of a murderer. He was defended by Mr.
John Breckinridge, and at the conclusion of his speech “Abe” was so
enthusiastic that he ventured to compliment him. Breckinridge looked at
the shabby boy, thanked him, and passed on his way.

Many years afterwards, in 1862, Breckinridge called on the President,
and he was told, “It was the best speech that I, up to that time, had
ever heard. If I could, as I then thought, make as good a speech as
that, my soul would be satisfied.”




WITHDREW THE COLT.

Mr. Alcott, of Elgin, Ill., tells of seeing Mr. Lincoln coming away from
church unusually early one Sunday morning. “The sermon could not have
been more than half way through,” says Mr. Alcott. “‘Tad’ was slung
across his left arm like a pair of saddlebags, and Mr. Lincoln was
striding along with long, deliberate steps toward his home. On one of
the street corners he encountered a group of his fellow-townsmen. Mr.
Lincoln anticipated the question which was about to be put by the group,
and, taking his figure of speech from practices with which they were
only too familiar, said: ‘Gentlemen, I entered this colt, but he kicked
around so I had to withdraw him.”’




“TAD” GOT HIS DOLLAR.

No matter who was with the President, or how intently absorbed, his
little son “Tad” was always welcome. He almost always accompanied his
father.

Once, on the way to Fortress Monroe, he became very troublesome.
The President was much engaged in conversation with the party who
accompanied him, and he at length said:

“‘Tad,’ if you will be a good boy, and not disturb me any more until we
get to Fortress Monroe, I will give you a dollar.”

The hope of reward was effectual for awhile in securing silence, but,
boylike, “Tad” soon forgot his promise, and was as noisy as ever. Upon
reaching their destination, however, he said, very promptly: “Father,
I want my dollar.” Mr. Lincoln looked at him half-reproachfully for an
instant, and then, taking from his pocketbook a dollar note, he said
“Well, my son, at any rate, I will keep my part of the bargain.”




TELLS AN EDITOR ABOUT NASBY.

Henry J. Raymond, the famous New York editor, thus tells of Mr.
Lincoln’s fondness for the Nasby letters:

“It has been well said by a profound critic of Shakespeare, and it
occurs to me as very appropriate in this connection, that the spirit
which held the woe of Lear and the tragedy of “Hamlet” would have broken
had it not also had the humor of the “Merry Wives of Windsor” and the
merriment of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“This is as true of Mr. Lincoln as it was of Shakespeare. The capacity
to tell and enjoy a good anecdote no doubt prolonged his life.

“The Saturday evening before he left Washington to go to the front, just
previous to the capture of Richmond, I was with him from seven o’clock
till nearly twelve. It had been one of his most trying days. The
pressure of office-seekers was greater at this juncture than I ever knew
it to be, and he was almost worn out.

“Among the callers that evening was a party composed of two Senators,
a Representative, an ex-Lieutenant-Governor of a Western State, and
several private citizens. They had business of great importance,
involving the necessity of the President’s examination of voluminous
documents. Pushing everything aside, he said to one of the party:

“‘Have you seen the Nasby papers?’

“‘No, I have not,’ was the reply; ‘who is Nasby?’

“‘There is a chap out in Ohio,’ returned the President, ‘who has been
writing a series of letters in the newspapers over the signature of
Petroleum V. Nasby. Some one sent me a pamphlet collection of them the
other day. I am going to write to “Petroleum” to come down here, and I
intend to tell him if he will communicate his talent to me, I will swap
places with him!’

“Thereupon he arose, went to a drawer in his desk, and, taking out
the ‘Letters,’ sat down and read one to the company, finding in their
enjoyment of it the temporary excitement and relief which another man
would have found in a glass of wine. The instant he had ceased, the book
was thrown aside, his countenance relapsed into its habitual serious
expression, and the business was entered upon with the utmost
earnestness.”




LONG AND SHORT OF IT.

On the occasion of a serenade, the President was called for by the crowd
assembled. He appeared at a window with his wife (who was somewhat below
the medium height), and made the following “brief remarks”:

“Here I am, and here is Mrs. Lincoln. That’s the long and the short of
it.”




MORE PEGS THAN HOLES.

Some gentlemen were once finding fault with the President because
certain generals were not given commands.

“The fact is,” replied President Lincoln, “I have got more pegs than I
have holes to put them in.”




“WEBSTER COULDN’T HAVE DONE MORE.”

Lincoln “got even” with the Illinois Central Railroad Company, in 1855,
in a most substantial way, at the same time secured sweet revenge for an
insult, unwarranted in every way, put upon him by one of the officials
of that corporation.

Lincoln and Herndon defended the Illinois Central Railroad in an action
brought by McLean County, Illinois, in August, 1853, to recover taxes
alleged to be due the county from the road. The Legislature had granted
the road immunity from taxation, and this was a case intended to test
the constitutionality of the law. The road sent a retainer fee of $250.

In the lower court the case was decided in favor of the railroad. An
appeal to the Supreme Court followed, was argued twice, and finally
decided in favor of the road. This last decision was rendered some time
in 1855. Lincoln then went to Chicago and presented the bill for legal
services. Lincoln and Herndon only asked for $2,000 more.

The official to whom he was referred, after looking at the bill,
expressed great surprise.

“Why, sir,” he exclaimed, “this is as much as Daniel Webster himself
would have charged. We cannot allow such a claim.”

“Why not?” asked Lincoln.

“We could have hired first-class lawyers at that figure,” was the
response.

“We won the case, didn’t we?” queried Lincoln.

“Certainly,” replied the official.

“Daniel Webster, then,” retorted Lincoln in no amiable tone, “couldn’t
have done more,” and “Abe” walked out of the official’s office.

Lincoln withdrew the bill, and started for home. On the way he stopped
at Bloomington, where he met Grant Goodrich, Archibald Williams, Norman
B. Judd, O. H. Browning, and other attorneys, who, on learning of his
modest charge for the valuable services rendered the railroad, induced
him to increase the demand to $5,000, and to bring suit for that sum.

This was done at once. On the trial six lawyers certified that the bill
was reasonable, and judgment for that sum went by default; the judgment
was promptly paid, and, of course, his partner, Herndon, got “your half
Billy,” without delay.




LINCOLN MET CLAY.

When a member of Congress, Lincoln went to Lexington, Kentucky, to hear
Henry Clay speak. The Westerner, a Kentuckian by birth, and destined
to reach the great goal Clay had so often sought, wanted to meet the
“Millboy of the Slashes.” The address was a tame affair, as was the
personal greeting when Lincoln made himself known. Clay was courteous,
but cold. He may never have heard of the man, then in his presence, who
was to secure, without solicitation, the prize which he for many years
had unsuccessfully sought. Lincoln was disenchanted; his ideal was
shattered. One reason why Clay had not realized his ambition had become
apparent.

Clay was cool and dignified; Lincoln was cordial and hearty. Clay’s hand
was bloodless and frosty, with no vigorous grip in it; Lincoln’s was
warm, and its clasp was expressive of kindliness and sympathy.




REMINDED “ABE” OF A LITTLE JOKE.

President Lincoln had a little joke at the expense of General George B.
McClellan, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in opposition
to the Westerner in 1864. McClellan was nominated by the Democratic
National Convention, which assembled at Chicago, but after he had
been named, and also during the campaign, the military candidate was
characteristically slow in coming to the front.

President Lincoln had his eye upon every move made by General McClellan
during the campaign, and when reference was made one day, in his
presence, to the deliberation and caution of the New Jerseyite,
Mr. Lincoln remarked, with a twinkle in his eye, “Perhaps he is
intrenching.”

The cartoon we reproduce appeared in “Harper’s Weekly,” September 17th,
1864, and shows General McClellan, with his little spade in hand, being
subjected to the scrutiny of the President--the man who gave McClellan,
when the latter was Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, every
opportunity in the world to distinguish himself. There is a smile on the
face of “Honest Abe,” which shows conclusively that he does not regard
his political opponent as likely to prove formidable in any way.
President Lincoln “sized up” McClellan in 1861-2, and knew, to a
fraction, how much of a man he was, what he could do, and how he went
about doing it. McClellan was no politician, while the President was the
shrewdest of political diplomats.




HIS DIGNITY SAVED HIM.

When Washington had become an armed camp, and full of soldiers,
President Lincoln and his Cabinet officers drove daily to one or another
of these camps. Very often his outing for the day was attending some
ceremony incident to camp life: a military funeral, a camp wedding, a
review, a flag-raising. He did not often make speeches. “I have made a
great many poor speeches,” he said one day, in excusing himself, “and
I now feel relieved that my dignity does not permit me to be a public
speaker.”




THE MAN HE WAS LOOKING FOR

Judge Kelly, of Pennsylvania, who was one of the committee to advise
Lincoln of his nomination, and who was himself a great many feet high,
had been eyeing Lincoln’s lofty form with a mixture of admiration and
possibly jealousy.

This had not escaped Lincoln, and as he shook hands with the judge he
inquired, “What is your height?”

“Six feet three. What is yours, Mr. Lincoln?”

“Six feet four.”

“Then,” said the judge, “Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for
years my heart has been aching for a President that I could look up to,
and I’ve at last found him.”




HIS CABINET CHANCES POOR.

Mr. Jeriah Bonham, in describing a visit he paid Lincoln at his room in
the State House at Springfield, where he found him quite alone, except
that two of his children, one of whom was “Tad,” were with him.

“The door was open.

“We walked in and were at once recognized and seated--the two boys still
continuing their play about the room. “Tad” was spinning his top; and
Lincoln, as we entered, had just finished adjusting the string for him
so as to give the top the greatest degree of force. He remarked that he
was having a little fun with the boys.”

At another time, at Lincoln’s residence, “Tad” came into the room, and,
putting his hand to his mouth, and his mouth to his father’s ear, said,
in a boy’s whisper: “Ma says come to supper.”

All heard the announcement; and Lincoln, perceiving this, said: “You
have heard, gentlemen, the announcement concerning the interesting state
of things in the dining-room. It will never do for me, if elected, to
make this young man a member of my Cabinet, for it is plain he cannot be
trusted with secrets of state.”

THE GENERAL WAS “HEADED IN”

A Union general, operating with his command in West Virginia, allowed
himself and his men to be trapped, and it was feared his force would be
captured by the Confederates. The President heard the report read by the
operator, as it came over the wire, and remarked:

“Once there was a man out West who was ‘heading’ a barrel, as they used
to call it. He worked like a good fellow in driving down the hoops, but
just about the time he thought he had the job done, the head would fall
in. Then he had to do the work all over again.

“All at once a bright idea entered his brain, and he wondered how it
was he hadn’t figured it out before. His boy, a bright, smart lad, was
standing by, very much interested in the business, and, lifting the young
one up, he put him inside the barrel, telling him to hold the head in
its proper place, while he pounded down the hoops on the sides. This
worked like a charm, and he soon had the ‘heading’ done.

“Then he realized that his boy was inside the barrel, and how to get him
out he couldn’t for his life figure out. General Blank is now inside the
barrel, ‘headed in,’ and the job now is to get him out.”




SUGAR-COATED.

Government Printer Defrees, when one of the President’s messages
was being printed, was a good deal disturbed by the use of the term
“sugar-coated,” and finally went to Mr. Lincoln about it.

Their relations to each other being of the most intimate character, he
told the President frankly that he ought to remember that a message
to Congress was a different affair from a speech at a mass meeting in
Illinois; that the messages became a part of history, and should be
written accordingly.

“What is the matter now?” inquired the President.

“Why,” said Defrees, “you have used an undignified expression in the
message”; and, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, “I would alter the
structure of that, if I were you.”

“Defrees,” replied the President, “that word expresses exactly my
idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this
country when people won’t know exactly what ‘sugar-coated’ means.”




COULD MAKE “RABBIT-TRACKS.”

When a grocery clerk at New Salem, the annual election came around. A
Mr. Graham was clerk, but his assistant was absent, and it was necessary
to find a man to fill his place. Lincoln, a “tall young man,” had
already concentrated on himself the attention of the people of the town,
and Graham easily discovered him. Asking him if he could write, “Abe”
 modestly replied, “I can make a few rabbit-tracks.” His rabbit-tracks
proving to be legible and even graceful, he was employed.

The voters soon discovered that the new assistant clerk was honest and
fair, and performed his duties satisfactorily, and when, the work done,
he began to “entertain them with stories,” they found that their town
had made a valuable personal and social acquisition.




LINCOLN PROTECTED CURRENCY ISSUES.

Marshal Ward Lamon was in President Lincoln’s office in the White House
one day, and casually asked the President if he knew how the currency
of the country was made. Greenbacks were then under full headway of
circulation, these bits of paper being the representatives of United
State money.

“Our currency,” was the President’s answer, “is made, as the lawyers
would put it, in their legal way, in the following manner, to-wit:
The official engraver strikes off the sheets, passes them over to the
Register of the Currency, who, after placing his earmarks upon them,
signs the same; the Register turns them over to old Father Spinner, who
proceeds to embellish them with his wonderful signature at the bottom;
Father Spinner sends them to Secretary of the Treasury Chase, and he, as
a final act in the matter, issues them to the public as money--and may
the good Lord help any fellow that doesn’t take all he can honestly get
of them!”

Taking from his pocket a $5 greenback, with a twinkle in his eye,
the President then said: “Look at Spinner’s signature! Was there ever
anything like it on earth? Yet it is unmistakable; no one will ever be
able to counterfeit it!”

Lamon then goes on to say:

“‘But,’ I said, ‘you certainly don’t suppose that Spinner actually wrote
his name on that bill, do you?’

“‘Certainly, I do; why not?’ queried Mr. Lincoln.

“I then asked, ‘How much of this currency have we afloat?’

“He remained thoughtful for a moment, and then stated the amount.

“I continued: ‘How many times do you think a man can write a signature
like Spinner’s in the course of twenty-four hours?’

“The beam of hilarity left the countenance of the President at once.
He put the greenback into his vest pocket, and walked the floor; after
awhile he stopped, heaved a long breath and said: ‘This thing frightens
me!’ He then rang for a messenger and told him to ask the Secretary of
the Treasury to please come over to see him.

“Mr. Chase soon put in an appearance; President Lincoln stated the cause
of his alarm, and asked Mr. Chase to explain in detail the operations,
methods, system of checks, etc., in his office, and a lengthy discussion
followed, President Lincoln contending there were not sufficient
safeguards afforded in any degree in the money-making department, and
Secretary Chase insisting that every protection was afforded he could
devise.”

Afterward the President called the attention of Congress to this
important question, and devices were adopted whereby a check was put
upon the issue of greenbacks that no spurious ones ever came out of the
Treasury Department, at least. Counterfeiters were busy, though, but
this was not the fault of the Treasury.




LINCOLN’S APOLOGY TO GRANT.

“General Grant is a copious worker and fighter,” President Lincoln wrote
to General Burnside in July, 1863, “but a meagre writer or telegrapher.”

Grant never wrote a report until the battle was over.

President Lincoln wrote a letter to General Grant on July 13th, 1863,
which indicated the strength of the hold the successful fighter had upon
the man in the White House.

It ran as follows:

“I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.

“I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost
inestimable service you have done the country.

“I write to say a word further.

“When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should
do what you finally did--march the troops across the neck, run the
batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any
faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I, that the
Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed.

“When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I
thought you should go down the river and join General Banks; and when
you turned northward, east of Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.

“I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and
I was wrong.”




LINCOLN SAID “BY JING.”




Lincoln never used profanity, except when he quoted it to illustrate a
point in a story. His favorite expressions when he spoke with emphasis
were “By dear!” and “By jing!”

Just preceding the Civil War he sent Ward Lamon on a ticklish mission to
South Carolina.

When the proposed trip was mentioned to Secretary Seward, he opposed it,
saying, “Mr. President, I fear you are sending Lamon to his grave. I am
afraid they will kill him in Charleston, where the people are excited
and desperate. We can’t spare Lamon, and we shall feel badly if anything
happens to him.”

Mr. Lincoln said in reply: “I have known Lamon to be in many a close
place, and he has never, been in one that he didn’t get out of, somehow.
By jing! I’ll risk him. Go ahead, Lamon, and God bless you! If you
can’t bring back any good news, bring a palmetto.” Lamon brought back a
palmetto branch, but no promise of peace.




IT TICKLED THE LITTLE WOMAN.

Lincoln had been in the telegraph office at Springfield during the
casting of the first and second ballots in the Republican National
Convention at Chicago, and then left and went over to the office of the
State Journal, where he was sitting conversing with friends while the
third ballot was being taken.

In a few moments came across the wires the announcement of the result.
The superintendent of the telegraph company wrote on a scrap of paper:
“Mr. Lincoln, you are nominated on the third ballot,” and a boy ran with
the message to Lincoln.

He looked at it in silence, amid the shouts of those around him; then
rising and putting it in his pocket, he said quietly: “There’s a little
woman down at our house would like to hear this; I’ll go down and tell
her.”




“SHALL ALL FALL TOGETHER.”

After Lincoln had finished that celebrated speech in “Egypt” (as a
section of Southern Illinois was formerly designated), in the course
of which he seized Congressman Ficklin by the coat collar and shook him
fiercely, he apologized. In return, Ficklin said Lincoln had “nearly
shaken the Democracy out of him.” To this Lincoln replied:

“That reminds me of what Paul said to Agrippa, which, in language and
substance, was about this: ‘I would to God that such Democracy as you
folks here in Egypt have were not only almost, but altogether, shaken
out of, not only you, but all that heard me this day, and that you would
all join in assisting in shaking off the shackles of the bondmen by all
legitimate means, so that this country may be made free as the good Lord
intended it.’”

Said Ficklin in rejoinder: “Lincoln, I remember of reading somewhere in
the same book from which you get your Agrippa story, that Paul, whom
you seem to desire to personate, admonished all servants (slaves) to be
obedient to them that are their masters according to the flesh, in fear
and trembling.

“It would seem that neither our Savior nor Paul saw the iniquity of
slavery as you and your party do. But you must not think that where you
fail by argument to convince an old friend like myself and win him over
to your heterodox abolition opinions, you are justified in resorting to
violence such as you practiced on me to-day.

“Why, I never had such a shaking up in the whole course of my life.
Recollect that that good old book that you quote from somewhere says in
effect this: ‘Woe be unto him who goeth to Egypt for help, for he shall
fall. The holpen shall fall, and they shall all fall together.’”




DEAD DOG NO CURE.

Lincoln’s quarrel with Shields was his last personal encounter. In
later years it became his duty to give an official reprimand to a young
officer who had been court-martialed for a quarrel with one of his
associates. The reprimand is probably the gentlest on record:

“Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can
spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all
the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the loss
of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than
equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own.

“Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for
the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”




“THOROUGH” IS A GOOD WORD.

Some one came to the President with a story about a plot to accomplish
some mischief in the Government. Lincoln listened to what was a very
superficial and ill-formed story, and then said: “There is one
thing that I have learned, and that you have not. It is only one
word--‘thorough.’”

Then, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump to emphasize his
meaning, he added, “thorough!”




THE CABINET WAS A-SETTIN’.

Being in Washington one day, the Rev. Robert Collyer thought he’d take a
look around. In passing through the grounds surrounding the White House,
he cast a glance toward the Presidential residence, and was astonished
to see three pairs of feet resting on the ledge of an open window in one
of the apartments of the second story. The divine paused for a moment,
calmly surveyed the unique spectacle, and then resumed his walk toward
the War Department.

Seeing a laborer at work not far from the Executive Mansion, Mr.
Collyer asked him what it all meant. To whom did the feet belong, and,
particularly, the mammoth ones? “You old fool,” answered the workman,
“that’s the Cabinet, which is a-settin’, an’ them thar big feet belongs
to ‘Old Abe.’”




A BULLET THROUGH HIS HAT.

A soldier tells the following story of an attempt upon the life of Mr.
Lincoln “One night I was doing sentinel duty at the entrance to the
Soldiers’ Home. This was about the middle of August, 1864. About eleven
o’clock I heard a rifle shot, in the direction of the city, and shortly
afterwards I heard approaching hoof-beats. In two or three minutes a
horse came dashing up. I recognized the belated President. The President
was bareheaded. The President simply thought that his horse had taken
fright at the discharge of the firearms.

“On going back to the place where the shot had been heard, we found
the President’s hat. It was a plain silk hat, and upon examination we
discovered a bullet hole through the crown.

“The next day, upon receiving the hat, the President remarked that it
was made by some foolish marksman, and was not intended for him; but
added that he wished nothing said about the matter.

“The President said, philosophically: ‘I long ago made up my mind that
if anybody wants to kill me, he will do it. Besides, in this case, it
seems to me, the man who would succeed me would be just as objectionable
to my enemies--if I have any.’

“One dark night, as he was going out with a friend, he took along a
heavy cane, remarking, good-naturedly: ‘Mother (Mrs. Lincoln) has got a
notion into her head that I shall be assassinated, and to please her I
take a cane when I go over to the War Department at night--when I don’t
forget it.’”




NO KIND TO GET TO HEAVEN ON.

Two ladies from Tennessee called at the White House one day and begged
Mr. Lincoln to release their husbands, who were rebel prisoners at
Johnson’s Island. One of the fair petitioners urged as a reason for the
liberation of her husband that he was a very religious man, and rang the
changes on this pious plea.

“Madam,” said Mr. Lincoln, “you say your husband is a religious man.
Perhaps I am not a good judge of such matters, but in my opinion the
religion that makes men rebel and fight against their government is not
the genuine article; nor is the religion the right sort which reconciles
them to the idea of eating their bread in the sweat of other men’s
faces. It is not the kind to get to heaven on.”

Later, however, the order of release was made, President Lincoln
remarking, with impressive solemnity, that he would expect the ladies
to subdue the rebellious spirit of their husbands, and to that end he
thought it would be well to reform their religion. “True patriotism,”
 said he, “is better than the wrong kind of piety.”




THE ONLY REAL PEACEMAKER.

During the Presidential campaign of 1864 much ill-feeling was displayed
by the opposition to President Lincoln. The Democratic managers issued
posters of large dimensions, picturing the Washington Administration as
one determined to rule or ruin the country, while the only salvation for
the United States was the election of McClellan.

We reproduce one of these 1864 campaign posters on this page, the title
of which is, “The True Issue; or ‘That’s What’s the Matter.’”

The dominant idea or purpose of the cartoon-poster was to demonstrate
McClellan’s availability. Lincoln, the Abolitionist, and Davis, the
Secessionist, are pictured as bigots of the worst sort, who were
determined that peace should not be restored to the distracted country,
except upon the lines laid down by them. McClellan, the patriotic
peacemaker, is shown as the man who believed in the preservation of the
Union above all things--a man who had no fads nor vagaries.

This peacemaker, McClellan, standing upon “the War-is-a-failure”
 platform, is portrayed as a military chieftain, who would stand no
nonsense; who would compel Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Davis to cease their
quarreling; who would order the soldiers on both sides to quit their
blood-letting and send the combatants back to the farm, workshop and
counting-house; and the man whose election would restore order out of
chaos, and make everything bright and lovely.




THE APPLE WOMAN’S PASS.

One day when President Lincoln was receiving callers a buxom Irish woman
came into the office, and, standing before the President, with her hands
on her hips, said:

“Mr. Lincoln, can’t I sell apples on the railroad?”

President Lincoln replied: “Certainly, madam, you can sell all you
wish.”

“But,” she said, “you must give me a pass, or the soldiers will not let
me.”

President Lincoln then wrote a few lines and gave them to her.

“Thank you, sir; God bless you!” she exclaimed as she departed joyfully.




SPLIT RAILS BY THE YARD.

It was in the spring of 1830 that “Abe” Lincoln, “wearing a jean jacket,
shrunken buckskin trousers, a coonskin cap, and driving an ox-team,”
 became a citizen of Illinois. He was physically and mentally equipped
for pioneer work. His first desire was to obtain a new and decent suit
of clothes, but, as he had no money, he was glad to arrange with Nancy
Miller to make him a pair of trousers, he to split four hundred fence
rails for each yard of cloth--fourteen hundred rails in all. “Abe” got
the clothes after awhile.

It was three miles from his father’s cabin to her wood-lot, where he
made the forest ring with the sound of his ax. “Abe” had helped his
father plow fifteen acres of land, and split enough rails to fence it,
and he then helped to plow fifty acres for another settler.




THE QUESTION OF LEGS.

Whenever the people of Lincoln’s neighborhood engaged in dispute;
whenever a bet was to be decided; when they differed on points of
religion or politics; when they wanted to get out of trouble, or desired
advice regarding anything on the earth, below it, above it, or under the
sea, they went to “Abe.”

Two fellows, after a hot dispute lasting some hours, over the problem
as to how long a man’s legs should be in proportion to the size of his
body, stamped into Lincoln’s office one day and put the question to him.

Lincoln listened gravely to the arguments advanced by both contestants,
spent some time in “reflecting” upon the matter, and then, turning
around in his chair and facing the disputants, delivered his opinion
with all the gravity of a judge sentencing a fellow-being to death.

“This question has been a source of controversy,” he said, slowly
and deliberately, “for untold ages, and it is about time it should be
definitely decided. It has led to bloodshed in the past, and there is no
reason to suppose it will not lead to the same in the future.

“After much thought and consideration, not to mention mental worry and
anxiety, it is my opinion, all side issues being swept aside, that a
man’s lower limbs, in order to preserve harmony of proportion, should be
at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground.”




TOO MANY WIDOWS ALREADY.

A Union officer in conversation one day told this story:

“The first week I was with my command there were twenty-four deserters
sentenced by court-martial to be shot, and the warrants for their
execution were sent to the President to be signed. He refused.

“I went to Washington and had an interview. I said:

“‘Mr. President, unless these men are made an example of, the army
itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many.’

“He replied: ‘Mr. General, there are already too many weeping widows in
the United States. For God’s sake, don’t ask me to add to the number,
for I won’t do it.’”




GOD NEEDED THAT CHURCH.

In the early stages of the war, after several battles had been fought,
Union troops seized a church in Alexandria, Va., and used it as a
hospital.

A prominent lady of the congregation went to Washington to see Mr.
Lincoln and try to get an order for its release.

“Have you applied to the surgeon in charge at Alexandria?” inquired Mr.
Lincoln.

“Yes, sir, but I can do nothing with him,” was the reply.

“Well, madam,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that is an end of it, then. We put him
there to attend to just such business, and it is reasonable to suppose
that he knows better what should be done under the circumstances than I
do.”

The lady’s face showed her keen disappointment. In order to learn her
sentiment, Mr. Lincoln asked:

“How much would you be willing to subscribe toward building a hospital
there?”

She said that the war had depreciated Southern property so much that she
could afford to give but little.

“This war is not over yet,” said Mr. Lincoln, “and there will likely
be another fight very soon. That church may be very useful in which to
house our wounded soldiers. It is my candid opinion that God needs that
church for our wounded fellows; so, madam, I can do nothing for you.”




THE MAN DOWN SOUTH.

An amusing instance of the President’s preoccupation of mind occurred
at one of his levees, when he was shaking hands with a host of visitors
passing him in a continuous stream.

An intimate acquaintance received the usual conventional hand-shake and
salutation, but perceiving that he was not recognized, kept his ground
instead of moving on, and spoke again, when the President, roused to
a dim consciousness that something unusual had happened, perceived
who stood before him, and, seizing his friend’s hand, shook it again
heartily, saying:

“How do you do? How do you do? Excuse me for not noticing you. I was
thinking of a man down South.”

“The man down South” was General W. T. Sherman, then on his march to the
sea.




COULDN’T LET GO THE HOG.

When Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania described the terrible butchery at
the battle of Fredericksburg, Mr. Lincoln was almost broken-hearted.

The Governor regretted that his description had so sadly affected the
President. He remarked: “I would give all I possess to know how to
rescue you from this terrible war.” Then Mr. Lincoln’s wonderful
recuperative powers asserted themselves and this marvelous man was
himself.

Lincoln’s whole aspect suddenly changed, and he relieved his mind by
telling a story.

“This reminds me, Governor,” he said, “of an old farmer out in Illinois
that I used to know.

“He took it into his head to go into hog-raising. He sent out to Europe
and imported the finest breed of hogs he could buy.

“The prize hog was put in a pen, and the farmer’s two mischievous boys,
James and John, were told to be sure not to let it out. But James, the
worst of the two, let the brute out the next day. The hog went straight
for the boys, and drove John up a tree, then the hog went for the seat
of James’ trousers, and the only way the boy could save himself was by
holding on to the hog’s tail.

“The hog would not give up his hunt, nor the boy his hold! After they
had made a good many circles around the tree, the boy’s courage began to
give out, and he shouted to his brother, ‘I say, John, come down, quick,
and help me let go this hog!’

“Now, Governor, that is exactly my case. I wish some one would come and
help me to let the hog go.”




THE CABINET LINCOLN WANTED.

Judge Joseph Gillespie, of Chicago, was a firm friend of Mr. Lincoln,
and went to Springfield to see him shortly before his departure for the
inauguration.

“It was,” said judge Gillespie, “Lincoln’s Gethsemane. He feared he was
not the man for the great position and the great events which confronted
him. Untried in national affairs, unversed in international diplomacy,
unacquainted with the men who were foremost in the politics of the
nation, he groaned when he saw the inevitable War of the Rebellion
coming on. It was in humility of spirit that he told me he believed that
the American people had made a mistake in selecting him.

“In the course of our conversation he told me if he could select his
cabinet from the old bar that had traveled the circuit with him in
the early days, he believed he could avoid war or settle it without a
battle, even after the fact of secession.

“‘But, Mr. Lincoln,’ said I, ‘those old lawyers are all Democrats.’

“‘I know it,’ was his reply. ‘But I would rather have Democrats whom I
know than Republicans I don’t know.’”




READY FOR “BUTCHER-DAY.”

Leonard Swett told this eminently characteristic story:

“I remember one day being in his room when Lincoln was sitting at his
table with a large pile of papers before him, and after a pleasant talk
he turned quite abruptly and said: ‘Get out of the way, Swett; to-morrow
is butcher-day, and I must go through these papers and see if I cannot
find some excuse to let these poor fellows off.’

“The pile of papers he had were the records of courts-martial of men who
on the following day were to be shot.”




“THE BAD BIRD AND THE MUDSILL.”

It took quite a long time, as well as the lives of thousands of men, to
say nothing of the cost in money, to take Richmond, the Capital City of
the Confederacy. In this cartoon, taken from “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper,” of February 21, 1863, Jeff Davis is sitting upon the
Secession eggs in the “Richmond” nest, smiling down upon President
Lincoln, who is up to his waist in the Mud of Difficulties.

The President finally waded through the morass, in which he had become
immersed, got to the tree, climbed its trunk, reached the limb, upon
which the “bad bird” had built its nest, threw the mother out, destroyed
the eggs of Secession and then took the nest away with him, leaving the
“bad bird” without any home at all.

The “bad bird” had its laugh first, but the last laugh belonged to the
“mudsill,” as the cartoonist was pleased to call the President of the
United States. It is true that the President got his clothes and hat all
covered with mud, but as the job was a dirty one, as well as one that
had to be done, the President didn’t care. He was able to get another
suit of clothes, as well as another hat, but the “bad bird” couldn’t,
and didn’t, get another nest.

The laugh was on the “bad bird” after all.




GAVE THE SOLDIER HIS FISH.

Once, when asked what he remembered about the war with Great Britain,
Lincoln replied: “Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day and
caught a little fish, which I was taking home. I met a soldier in the
road, and, having been always told at home that we must be good to the
soldiers, I gave him my fish.”

This must have been about 1814, when “Abe” was five years of age.




A PECULIAR LAWYER.

Lincoln was once associate counsel for a defendant in a murder case.
He listened to the testimony given by witness after witness against his
client, until his honest heart could stand it no longer; then, turning
to his associate, he said: “The man is guilty; you defend him--I can’t,”
 and when his associate secured a verdict of acquittal, Lincoln refused
to share the fee to the extent of one cent.

Lincoln would never advise clients to enter into unwise or unjust
lawsuits, always preferring to refuse a retainer rather than be a party
to a case which did not commend itself to his sense of justice.




IF THEY’D ONLY “SKIP.”

General Creswell called at the White House to see the President the day
of the latter’s assassination. An old friend, serving in the Confederate
ranks, had been captured by the Union troops and sent to prison. He
had drawn an affidavit setting forth what he knew about the man,
particularly mentioning extenuating circumstances.

Creswell found the President very happy. He was greeted with: “Creswell,
old fellow, everything is bright this morning. The War is over. It has
been a tough time, but we have lived it out,--or some of us have,” and
he dropped his voice a little on the last clause of the sentence. “But
it is over; we are going to have good times now, and a united country.”

General Creswell told his story, read his affidavit, and said, “I know
the man has acted like a fool, but he is my friend, and a good fellow;
let him out; give him to me, and I will be responsible that he won’t
have anything more to do with the rebs.”

“Creswell,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “you make me think of a lot of young
folks who once started out Maying. To reach their destination, they had
to cross a shallow stream, and did so by means of an old flatboat. When
the time came to return, they found to their dismay that the old scow
had disappeared. They were in sore trouble, and thought over all manner
of devices for getting over the water, but without avail.

“After a time, one of the boys proposed that each fellow should pick up
the girl he liked best and wade over with her. The masterly proposition
was carried out, until all that were left upon the island was a little
short chap and a great, long, gothic-built, elderly lady.

“Now, Creswell, you are trying to leave me in the same predicament. You
fellows are all getting your own friends out of this scrape; and you
will succeed in carrying off one after another, until nobody but Jeff
Davis and myself will be left on the island, and then I won’t know what
to do. How should I feel? How should I look, lugging him over?

“I guess the way to avoid such an embarrassing situation is to let them
all out at once.”

He made a somewhat similar illustration at an informal Cabinet meeting,
at which the disposition of Jefferson Davis and other prominent
Confederates was discussed. Each member of the Cabinet gave his
opinion; most of them were for hanging the traitors, or for some severe
punishment. President Lincoln said nothing.

Finally, Joshua F. Speed, his old and confidential friend, who had
been invited to the meeting, said, “I have heard the opinion of your
Ministers, and would like to hear yours.”

“Well, Josh,” replied President Lincoln, “when I was a boy in Indiana,
I went to a neighbor’s house one morning and found a boy of my own size
holding a coon by a string. I asked him what he had and what he was
doing.

“He says, ‘It’s a coon. Dad cotched six last night, and killed all but
this poor little cuss. Dad told me to hold him until he came back, and
I’m afraid he’s going to kill this one too; and oh, “Abe,” I do wish he
would get away!’

“‘Well, why don’t you let him loose?’

“‘That wouldn’t be right; and if I let him go, Dad would give me h--.
But if he got away himself, it would be all right.’

“Now,” said the President, “if Jeff Davis and those other fellows will
only get away, it will be all right. But if we should catch them, and I
should let them go, ‘Dad would give me h--!’”




FATHER OF THE “GREENBACK.”

Don Piatt, a noted journalist of Washington, told the story of the first
proposition to President Lincoln to issue interest-bearing notes as
currency, as follows:

“Amasa Walker, a distinguished financier of New England, suggested that
notes issued directly from the Government to the people, as currency,
should bear interest. This for the purpose, not only of making the notes
popular, but for the purpose of preventing inflation, by inducing people
to hoard the notes as an investment when the demands of trade would fail
to call them into circulation as a currency.

“This idea struck David Taylor, of Ohio, with such force that he sought
Mr. Lincoln and urged him to put the project into immediate execution.
The President listened patiently, and at the end said, ‘That is a good
idea, Taylor, but you must go to Chase. He is running that end of the
machine, and has time to consider your proposition.’

“Taylor sought the Secretary of the Treasury, and laid before him Amasa
Walker’s plan. Secretary Chase heard him through in a cold, unpleasant
manner, and then said: ‘That is all very well, Mr. Taylor; but there is
one little obstacle in the way that makes the plan impracticable, and
that is the Constitution.’

“Saying this, he turned to his desk, as if dismissing both Mr. Taylor
and his proposition at the same moment.

“The poor enthusiast felt rebuked and humiliated. He returned to the
President, however, and reported his defeat. Mr. Lincoln looked at
the would-be financier with the expression at times so peculiar to
his homely face, that left one in doubt whether he was jesting or in
earnest. ‘Taylor!’ he exclaimed, ‘go back to Chase and tell him not
to bother himself about the Constitution. Say that I have that sacred
instrument here at the White House, and I am guarding it with great
care.’

“Taylor demurred to this, on the ground that Secretary Chase showed by
his manner that he knew all about it, and didn’t wish to be bored by any
suggestion.

“‘We’ll see about that,’ said the President, and taking a card from the
table, he wrote upon it:

“‘The Secretary of the Treasury will please consider Mr. Taylor’s
proposition. We must have money, and I think this a good way to get it.

“‘A. LINCOLN.’”




MAJOR ANDERSON’S BAD MEMORY.

Among the men whom Captain Lincoln met in the Black Hawk campaign were
Lieutenant-Colonel Zachary Taylor, Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, President
of the Confederacy, and Lieutenant Robert Anderson, all of the United
States Army.

Judge Arnold, in his “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” relates that Lincoln and
Anderson did not meet again until some time in 1861. After Anderson had
evacuated Fort Sumter, on visiting Washington, he called at the White
House to pay his respects to the President. Lincoln expressed his thanks
to Anderson for his conduct at Fort Sumter, and then said:

“Major, do you remember of ever meeting me before?”

“No, Mr. President, I have no recollection of ever having had that
pleasure.”

“My memory is better than yours,” said Lincoln; “you mustered me into
the service of the United States in 1832, at Dixon’s Ferry, in the Black
Hawk war.”




NO VANDERBILT.

In February, 1860, not long before his nomination for the Presidency,
Lincoln made several speeches in Eastern cities. To an Illinois
acquaintance, whom he met at the Astor House, in New York, he said: “I
have the cottage at Springfield, and about three thousand dollars in
money. If they make me Vice-President with Seward, as some say they
will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand, and that
is as much as any man ought to want.”




SQUASHED A BRUTAL LIE.

In September, 1864, a New York paper printed the following brutal story:

“A few days after the battle of Antietam, the President was driving
over the field in an ambulance, accompanied by Marshal Lamon, General
McClellan and another officer. Heavy details of men were engaged in
the task of burying the dead. The ambulance had just reached the
neighborhood of the old stone bridge, where the dead were piled
highest, when Mr. Lincoln, suddenly slapping Marshal Lamon on the knee,
exclaimed: ‘Come, Lamon, give us that song about “Picayune Butler”;
McClellan has never heard it.’

“‘Not now, if you please,’ said General McClellan, with a shudder; ‘I
would prefer to hear it some other place and time.’”

President Lincoln refused to pay any attention to the story, would
not read the comments made upon it by the newspapers, and would permit
neither denial nor explanation to be made. The National election was
coming on, and the President’s friends appealed to him to settle the
matter for once and all. Marshal Lamon was particularly insistent, but
the President merely said:

“Let the thing alone. If I have not established character enough to
give the lie to this charge, I can only say that I am mistaken in my
own estimate of myself. In politics, every man must skin his own skunk.
These fellows are welcome to the hide of this one. Its body has already
given forth its unsavory odor.”

But Lamon would not “let the thing alone.” He submitted to Lincoln a
draft of what he conceived to be a suitable explanation, after reading
which the President said:

“Lamon, your ‘explanation’ is entirely too belligerent in tone for so
grave a matter. There is a heap of ‘cussedness’ mixed up with your usual
amiability, and you are at times too fond of a fight. If I were you, I
would simply state the facts as they were. I would give the statement as
you have here, without the pepper and salt. Let me try my hand at it.”

The President then took up a pen and wrote the following, which was
copied and sent out as Marshal Lamon’s refutation of the shameless
slander:

“The President has known me intimately for nearly twenty years, and has
often heard me sing little ditties. The battle of Antietam was fought on
the 17th day of September, 1862. On the first day of October, just
two weeks after the battle, the President, with some others, including
myself, started from Washington to visit the Army, reaching Harper’s
Ferry at noon of that day.

“In a short while General McClellan came from his headquarters near the
battleground, joined the President, and with him reviewed the troops
at Bolivar Heights that afternoon, and at night returned to his
headquarters, leaving the President at Harper’s Ferry.

“On the morning of the second, the President, with General Sumner,
reviewed the troops respectively at Loudon Heights and Maryland Heights,
and at about noon started to General McClellan’s headquarters, reaching
there only in time to see very little before night.

“On the morning of the third all started on a review of the Third Corps
and the cavalry, in the vicinity of the Antietam battle-ground. After
getting through with General Burnside’s corps, at the suggestion of
General McClellan, he and the President left their horses to be led, and
went into an ambulance to go to General Fitz John Porter’s corps, which
was two or three miles distant.

“I am not sure whether the President and General McClellan were in the
same ambulance, or in different ones; but myself and some others were
in the same with the President. On the way, and on no part of the
battleground, and on what suggestions I do not remember, the President
asked me to sing the little sad song that follows (“Twenty Years Ago,
Tom”), which he had often heard me sing, and had always seemed to like
very much.

“After it was over, some one of the party (I do not think it was the
President) asked me to sing something else; and I sang two or three
little comic things, of which ‘Picayune Butler’ was one. Porter’s corps
was reached and reviewed; then the battle-ground was passed over, and
the most noted parts examined; then, in succession, the cavalry and
Franklin’s corps were reviewed, and the President and party returned
to General McClellan’s headquarters at the end of a very hard, hot and
dusty day’s work.

“Next day (the 4th), the President and General McClellan visited such
of the wounded as still remained in the vicinity, including the
now lamented General Richardson; then proceeded to and examined the
South-Mountain battle-ground, at which point they parted, General
McClellan returning to his camp, and the President returning to
Washington, seeing, on the way, General Hartsoff, who lay wounded at
Frederick Town.

“This is the whole story of the singing and its surroundings. Neither
General McClellan nor any one else made any objections to the singing;
the place was not on the battle-field; the time was sixteen days after
the battle; no dead body was seen during the whole time the President
was absent from Washington, nor even a grave that had not been rained on
since the time it was made.”




“ONE WAR AT A TIME.”

Nothing in Lincoln’s entire career better illustrated the surprising
resources of his mind than his manner of dealing with “The Trent
Affair.” The readiness and ability with which he met this perilous
emergency, in a field entirely new to his experience, was worthy the
most accomplished diplomat and statesman. Admirable, also, was his cool
courage and self-reliance in following a course radically opposed to
the prevailing sentiment throughout the country and in Congress, and
contrary to the advice of his own Cabinet.

Secretary of the Navy Welles hastened to approve officially the act of
Captain Wilkes in apprehending the Confederate Commissioners Mason and
Slidell, Secretary Stanton publicly applauded, and even Secretary
of State Seward, whose long public career had made him especially
conservative, stated that he was opposed to any concession or surrender
of Mason and Slidell.

But Lincoln, with great sagacity, simply said, “One war at a time.”




PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS.

The President made his last public address on the evening of April 11th,
1865, to a gathering at the White House. Said he:

“We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.

“The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the
principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace,
whose joyous expression cannot be restrained.

“In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow must not
be forgotten.

“Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be
overlooked; their honors must not be parceled out with others.

“I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting
the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for plan or execution,
is mine.

“To General Grant, his skillful officers and brave men, all belongs.”




NO OTHERS LIKE THEM.

One day an old lady from the country called on President Lincoln, her
tanned face peering up to his through a pair of spectacles. Her errand
was to present Mr. Lincoln a pair of stockings of her own make a yard
long. Kind tears came to his eyes as she spoke to him, and then,
holding the stockings one in each hand, dangling wide apart for
general inspection, he assured her that he should take them with him to
Washington, where (and here his eyes twinkled) he was sure he should not
be able to find any like them.

Quite a number of well-known men were in the room with the President
when the old lady made her presentation. Among them was George S.
Boutwell, who afterwards became Secretary of the Treasury.

The amusement of the company was not at all diminished by Mr. Boutwell’s
remark, that the lady had evidently made a very correct estimate of Mr.
Lincoln’s latitude and longitude.




CASH WAS AT HAND.

Lincoln was appointed postmaster at New Salem by President Jackson. The
office was given him because everybody liked him, and because he was the
only man willing to take it who could make out the returns. Lincoln was
pleased, because it gave him a chance to read every newspaper taken
in the vicinity. He had never been able to get half the newspapers he
wanted before.

Years after the postoffice had been discontinued and Lincoln had
become a practicing lawyer at Springfield, an agent of the Postoffice
Department entered his office and inquired if Abraham Lincoln was
within. Lincoln responded to his name, and was informed that the
agent had called to collect the balance due the Department since the
discontinuance of the New Salem office.

A shade of perplexity passed over Lincoln’s face, which did not escape
the notice of friends present. One of them said at once:

“Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let us help you.”

He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books
a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, asked the agent how
much the amount of his debt was.

The sum was named, and then Lincoln opened the trunk, pulled out a
little package of coin wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the
exact sum, amounting to more than seventeen dollars.

After the agent had left the room, he remarked quietly that he had never
used any man’s money but his own. Although this sum had been in his
hands during all those years, he had never regarded it as available,
even for any temporary use of his own.




WELCOMED THE LITTLE GIRLS.

At a Saturday afternoon reception at the White House, many persons
noticed three little girls, poorly dressed, the children of some
mechanic or laboring man, who had followed the visitors into the White
House to gratify their curiosity. They passed around from room to room,
and were hastening through the reception-room, with some trepidation,
when the President called to them:

“Little girls, are you going to pass me without shaking hands?”

Then he bent his tall, awkward form down, and shook each little girl
warmly by the hand. Everybody in the apartment was spellbound by the
incident, so simple in itself.




“DON’T SWAP HORSES”

Uncle Sam was pretty well satisfied with his horse, “Old Abe,” and, as
shown at the Presidential election of 1864, made up his mind to keep
him, and not “swap” the tried and true animal for a strange one.
“Harper’s Weekly” of November 12th, 1864, had a cartoon which
illustrated how the people of the United States felt about the matter
better than anything published at the time. We reproduce it on this
page. Beneath the picture was this text:

JOHN BULL: “Why don’t you ride the other horse a bit? He’s the best
animal.” (Pointing to McClellan in the bushes at the rear.)

BROTHER JONATHAN: “Well, that may be; but the fact is, OLD ABE is just
where I can put my finger on him; and as for the other--though they say
he’s some when out in the scrub yonder--I never know where to find him.”




MOST VALUABLE POLITICAL ATTRIBUTE.

“One time I remember I asked Mr. Lincoln what attribute he considered
most valuable to the successful politician,” said Captain T. W. S. Kidd,
of Springfield.

“He laid his hand on my shoulder and said, very earnestly:

“‘To be able to raise a cause which shall produce an effect, and then
fight the effect.’

“The more you think about it, the more profound does it become.”




“ABE” RESENTED THE INSULT.

A cashiered officer, seeking to be restored through the power of the
executive, became insolent, because the President, who believed the man
guilty, would not accede to his repeated requests, at last said, “Well,
Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to do me justice!”

This was too aggravating even for Mr. Lincoln; rising he suddenly seized
the disgraced officer by the coat collar, and marched him forcibly to
the door, saying as he ejected him into the passage:

“Sir, I give you fair warning never to show your face in this room
again. I can bear censure, but not insult. I never wish to see your face
again.”




ONE MAN ISN’T MISSED.

Salmon P. Chase, when Secretary of the Treasury, had a disagreement with
other members of the Cabinet, and resigned.

The President was urged not to accept it, as “Secretary Chase is to-day
a national necessity,” his advisers said.

“How mistaken you are!” Lincoln quietly observed. “Yet it is not
strange; I used to have similar notions. No! If we should all be turned
out to-morrow, and could come back here in a week, we should find our
places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we did, and in
many instances better.

“Now, this reminds me of what the Irishman said. His verdict was that
‘in this country one man is as good as another; and, for the matter
of that, very often a great deal better.’ No; this Government does not
depend upon the life of any man.”




“STRETCHED THE FACTS.”

George B. Lincoln, a prominent merchant of Brooklyn, was traveling
through the West in 1855-56, and found himself one night in a town on
the Illinois River, by the name of Naples. The only tavern of the place
had evidently been constructed with reference to business on a small
scale. Poor as the prospect seemed, Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but
to put up at the place.

The supper-room was also used as a lodging-room. Mr. Lincoln told his
host that he thought he would “go to bed.”

“Bed!” echoed the landlord. “There is no bed for you in this house
unless you sleep with that man yonder. He has the only one we have to
spare.”

“Well,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “the gentleman has possession, and perhaps
would not like a bed-fellow.”

Upon this a grizzly head appeared out of the pillows, and said:

“What is your name?”

“They call me Lincoln at home,” was the reply.

“Lincoln!” repeated the stranger; “any connection of our Illinois
Abraham?”

“No,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “I fear not.”

“Well,” said the old gentleman, “I will let any man by the name of
‘Lincoln’ sleep with me, just for the sake of the name. You have heard
of Abe?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes, very often,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “No man could travel far
in this State without hearing of him, and I would be very glad to claim
connection if I could do so honestly.”

“Well,” said the old gentleman, “my name is Simmons. ‘Abe’ and I used
to live and work together when young men. Many a job of woodcutting and
rail-splitting have I done up with him. Abe Lincoln was the likeliest
boy in God’s world. He would work all day as hard as any of us and study
by firelight in the log-house half the night; and in this way he made
himself a thorough, practical surveyor. Once, during those days, I was
in the upper part of the State, and I met General Ewing, whom President
Jackson had sent to the Northwest to make surveys. I told him about Abe
Lincoln, what a student he was, and that I wanted he should give him a
job. He looked over his memorandum, and, holding out a paper, said:

“‘There is County must be surveyed; if your friend can do the work
properly, I shall be glad to have him undertake it--the compensation
will be six hundred dollars.’

“Pleased as I could be, I hastened to Abe, after I got home, with an
account of what I had secured for him. He was sitting before the fire
in the log-cabin when I told him; and what do you think was his answer?
When I finished, he looked up very quietly, and said:

“‘Mr. Simmons, I thank you very sincerely for your kindness, but I don’t
think I will undertake the job.’

“‘In the name of wonder,’ said I, ‘why? Six hundred does not grow upon
every bush out here in Illinois.’

“‘I know that,’ said Abe, ‘and I need the money bad enough, Simmons,
as you know; but I have never been under obligation to a Democratic
Administration, and I never intend to be so long as I can get my living
another way. General Ewing must find another man to do his work.’”

A friend related this story to the President one day, and asked him if
it were true.

“Pollard Simmons!” said Lincoln. “Well do I remember him. It is correct
about our working together, but the old man must have stretched the
facts somewhat about the survey of the county. I think I should have
been very glad of the job at the time, no matter what Administration was
in power.”




IT LENGTHENED THE WAR.

President Lincoln said, long before the National political campaign of
1864 had opened:

“If the unworthy ambition of politicians and the jealousy that exists in
the army could be repressed, and all unite in a common aim and a common
endeavor, the rebellion would soon be crushed.”




HIS THEORY OF THE REBELLION.

The President once explained to a friend the theory of the Rebellion by
the aid of the maps before him.

Running his long fore-finger down the map, he stopped at Virginia.

“We must drive them away from here” (Manassas Gap), he said, “and clear
them out of this part of the State so that they cannot threaten us here
(Washington) and get into Maryland.

“We must keep up a good and thorough blockade of their ports. We must
march an army into East Tennessee and liberate the Union sentiment
there. Finally we must rely on the people growing tired and saying to
their leaders, ‘We have had enough of this thing, we will bear it no
longer.’”

Such was President Lincoln’s plan for heading off the Rebellion in the
summer of 1861. How it enlarged as the War progressed, from a call for
seventy thousand volunteers to one for five hundred thousand men and
$500,000,000 is a matter of well-known history.




RAN AWAY WHEN VICTORIOUS.

Three or four days after the battle of Bull Run, some gentlemen who had
been on the field called upon the President.

He inquired very minutely regarding all the circumstances of the affair,
and, after listening with the utmost attention, said, with a touch of
humor: “So it is your notion that we whipped the rebels and then ran
away from them!”




WANTED STANTON SPANKED.

Old Dennis Hanks was sent to Washington at one time by persons
interested in securing the release from jail of several men accused of
being copperheads. It was thought Old Dennis might have some influence
with the President.

The latter heard Dennis’ story and then said: “I will send for Mr.
Stanton. It is his business.”

Secretary Stanton came into the room, stormed up and down, and said the
men ought to be punished more than they were. Mr. Lincoln sat quietly in
his chair and waited for the tempest to subside, and then quietly said
to Stanton he would like to have the papers next day.

When he had gone, Dennis said:

“‘Abe,’ if I was as big and as ugly as you are, I would take him over my
knee and spank him.”

The President replied: “No, Stanton is an able and valuable man for this
Nation, and I am glad to bear his anger for the service he can give the
Nation.”




STANTON WAS OUT OF TOWN.

The quaint remark of the President to an applicant, “My dear sir, I have
not much influence with the Administration,” was one of Lincoln’s little
jokes.

Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, once replied to an order from the
President to give a colonel a commission in place of the resigning
brigadier:

“I shan’t do it, sir! I shan’t do it! It isn’t the way to do it, sir,
and I shan’t do it. I don’t propose to argue the question with you,
sir.”

A few days after, the friend of the applicant who had presented the
order to Secretary Stanton called upon the President and related his
reception. A look of vexation came over the face of the President, and
he seemed unwilling to talk of it, and desired the friend to see him
another day. He did so, when he gave his visitor a positive order for
the promotion. The latter told him he would not speak to Secretary
Stanton again until he apologized.

“Oh,” said the President, “Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe, and Dana
is acting. He will attend to it for you.”

This he said with a manner of relief, as if it was a piece of good luck
to find a man there who would obey his orders.

The nomination was sent to the Senate and confirmed.




IDENTIFIED THE COLORED MAN.

Many applications reached Lincoln as he passed to and from the White
House and the War Department. One day as he crossed the park he was
stopped by a negro, who told him a pitiful story. The President wrote
him out a check, which read. “Pay to colored man with one leg five
dollars.”




OFFICE SEEKERS WORSE THAN WAR.

When the Republican party came into power, Washington swarmed with
office-seekers. They overran the White House and gave the President
great annoyance. The incongruity of a man in his position, and with
the very life of the country at stake, pausing to appoint postmasters,
struck Mr. Lincoln forcibly. “What is the matter, Mr. Lincoln,” said
a friend one day, when he saw him looking particularly grave and
dispirited. “Has anything gone wrong at the front?” “No,” said the
President, with a tired smile. “It isn’t the war; it’s the postoffice at
Brownsville, Missouri.”




HE “SET ‘EM UP.”

Immediately after Mr. Lincoln’s nomination for President at the Chicago
Convention, a committee, of which Governor Morgan, of New York, was
chairman, visited him in Springfield, Ill., where he was officially
informed of his nomination.

After this ceremony had passed, Mr. Lincoln remarked to the company that
as a fit ending to an interview so important and interesting as that
which had just taken place, he supposed good manners would require that
he should treat the committee with something to drink; and opening
the door that led into the rear, he called out, “Mary! Mary!” A girl
responded to the call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words in an
undertone, and, closing the door, returned again and talked with his
guests. In a few minutes the maid entered, bearing a large waiter,
containing several glass tumblers, and a large pitcher, and placed them
upon the center-table. Mr. Lincoln arose, and, gravely addressing the
company, said: “Gentlemen, we must pledge our mutual health in the most
healthy beverage that God has given to man--it is the only beverage I
have ever used or allowed my family to use, and I cannot conscientiously
depart from it on the present occasion. It is pure Adam’s ale from the
spring.” And, taking the tumbler, he touched it to his lips, and pledged
them his highest respects in a cup of cold water. Of course, all his
guests admired his consistency, and joined in his example.




WASN’T STANTON’S SAY.

A few days before the President’s death, Secretary Stanton tendered
his resignation as Secretary of War. He accompanied the act with a most
heartfelt tribute to Mr. Lincoln’s constant friendship and faithful
devotion to the country, saying, also, that he, as Secretary, had
accepted the position to hold it only until the war should end, and that
now he felt his work was done, and his duty was to resign.

Mr. Lincoln was greatly moved by the Secretary’s words, and, tearing in
pieces the paper containing the resignation, and throwing his arms about
the Secretary, he said:

“Stanton, you have been a good friend and a faithful public servant, and
it is not for you to say when you will no longer be needed here.”

Several friends of both parties were present on the occasion, and there
was not a dry eye that witnessed the scene.




“JEFFY” THREW UP THE SPONGE.

When the War was fairly on, many people were astonished to find that
“Old Abe” was a fighter from “way back.” No one was the victim of
greater amazement than Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate
States of America. Davis found out that “Abe” was not only a hard
hitter, but had staying qualities of a high order. It was a fight to
a “finish” with “Abe,” no compromises being accepted. Over the title,
“North and South,” the issue of “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper”
 of December 24th, 1864, contained the cartoon, see reproduce on this
page. Underneath the picture were the lines:

“Now, Jeffy, when you think you have had enough of this, say so, and
I’ll leave off.” (See President’s message.) In his message to Congress,
December 6th,

President Lincoln said: “No attempt at negotiation with the insurgent
leader could result in any good. He would accept of nothing short of the
severance of the Union.”

Therefore, Father Abraham, getting “Jeffy’s” head “in chancery,”
 proceeded to change the appearance and size of the secessionist’s
countenance, much to the grief and discomfort of the Southerner. It was
Lincoln’s idea to re-establish the Union, and he carried out his purpose
to the very letter. But he didn’t “leave off” until “Jeffy” cried
“enough.”




DIDN’T KNOW GRANT’S PREFERENCE.

In October, 1864, President Lincoln, while he knew his re-election to
the White House was in no sense doubtful, knew that if he lost New
York and with it Pennsylvania on the home vote, the moral effect of
his triumph would be broken and his power to prosecute the war and make
peace would be greatly impaired. Colonel A. K. McClure was with Lincoln
a good deal of the time previous to the November election, and tells
this story:

“His usually sad face was deeply shadowed with sorrow when I told him
that I saw no reasonable prospect of carrying Pennsylvania on the home
vote, although we had about held our own in the hand-to-hand conflict
through which we were passing.

“‘Well, what is to be done?’ was Lincoln’s inquiry, after the whole
situation had been presented to him. I answered that the solution of the
problem was a very simple and easy one--that Grant was idle in front of
Petersburg; that Sheridan had won all possible victories in the Valley;
and that if five thousand Pennsylvania soldiers could be furloughed home
from each army, the election could be carried without doubt.

“Lincoln’s face’ brightened instantly at the suggestion, and I saw that
he was quite ready to execute it. I said to him: ‘Of course, you can
trust want to make the suggestion to him to furlough five thousand
Pennsylvania troops for two weeks?’

“‘To my surprise, Lincoln made no answer, and the bright face of a few
moments before was instantly shadowed again. I was much disconcerted,
as I supposed that Grant was the one man to whom Lincoln could turn with
absolute confidence as his friend. I then said, with some earnestness:
‘Surely, Mr. President, you can trust Grant with a confidential
suggestion to furlough Pennsylvania troops?’

“Lincoln remained silent and evidently distressed at the proposition I
was pressing upon him. After a few moments, and speaking with emphasis,
I said: ‘It can’t be possible that Grant is not your friend; he can’t be
such an ingrate?’

“Lincoln hesitated for some time, and then answered in these words:
‘Well, McClure, I have no reason to believe that Grant prefers my
election to that of McClellan.’

“I believe Lincoln was mistaken in his distrust of Grant.”




JUSTICE vs. NUMBERS.

Lincoln was constantly bothered by members of delegations of
“goody-goodies,” who knew all about running the War, but had no inside
information as to what was going on. Yet, they poured out their advice
in streams, until the President was heartily sick of the whole business,
and wished the War would find some way to kill off these nuisances.

“How many men have the Confederates now in the field?” asked one of
these bores one day.

“About one million two hundred thousand,” replied the President.

“Oh, my! Not so many as that, surely, Mr. Lincoln.”

“They have fully twelve hundred thousand, no doubt of it. You see, all
of our generals when they get whipped say the enemy outnumbers them
from three or five to one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred
thousand men in the field, and three times four make twelve,--don’t you
see it? It is as plain to be seen as the nose on a man’s face; and at
the rate things are now going, with the great amount of speculation and
the small crop of fighting, it will take a long time to overcome twelve
hundred thousand rebels in arms.

“If they can get subsistence they have everything else, except a just
cause. Yet it is said that ‘thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel
just.’ I am willing, however, to risk our advantage of thrice in justice
against their thrice in numbers.”




NO FALSE PRIDE IN LINCOLN.

General McClellan had little or no conception of the greatness of
Abraham Lincoln. As time went on, he began to show plainly his contempt
of the President, frequently allowing him to wait in the ante-room of
his house while he transacted business with others. This discourtesy was
so open that McClellan’s staff noticed it, and newspaper correspondents
commented on it. The President was too keen not to see the situation,
but he was strong enough to ignore it. It was a battle he wanted from
McClellan, not deference.

“I will hold McClellan’s horse, if he will only bring us success,” he
said one day.




EXTRA MEMBER OF THE CABINET.

G. H. Giddings was selected as the bearer of a message from the
President to Governor Sam Houston, of Texas. A conflict had arisen there
between the Southern party and the Governor, Sam Houston, and on March
18 the latter had been deposed. When Mr. Lincoln heard of this, he
decided to try to get a message to the Governor, offering United States
support if he would put himself at the head of the Union party of the
State.

Mr. Giddings thus told of his interview with the President:

“He said to me that the message was of such importance that, before
handing it to me, he would read it to me. Before beginning to read he
said, ‘This is a confidential and secret message. No one besides my
Cabinet and myself knows anything about it, and we are all sworn to
secrecy. I am going to swear you in as one of my Cabinet.’

“And then he said to me in a jocular way, ‘Hold up your right hand,’
which I did.

“‘Now,’ said he, consider yourself a member of my Cabinet.”’




HOW LINCOLN WAS ABUSED.

With the possible exception of President Washington, whose political
opponents did not hesitate to rob the vocabulary of vulgarity and
wickedness whenever they desired to vilify the Chief Magistrate, Lincoln
was the most and “best” abused man who ever held office in the United
States. During the first half of his initial term there was no epithet
which was not applied to him.

One newspaper in New York habitually characterized him as “that hideous
baboon at the other end of the avenue,” and declared that “Barnum should
buy and exhibit him as a zoological curiosity.”

Although the President did not, to all appearances, exhibit annoyance
because of the various diatribes printed and spoken, yet the fact is
that his life was so cruelly embittered by these and other expressions
quite as virulent, that he often declared to those most intimate with
him, “I would rather be dead than, as President, thus abused in the
house of my friends.”




HOW “FIGHTING JOE” WAS APPOINTED.

General “Joe” Hooker, the fourth commander of the noble but unfortunate
Army of the Potomac, was appointed to that position by President Lincoln
in January, 1863. General Scott, for some reason, disliked Hooker
and would not appoint him. Hooker, after some months of discouraging
waiting, decided to return to California, and called to pay his respects
to President Lincoln. He was introduced as Captain Hooker, and to the
surprise of the President began the following speech:

“Mr. President, my friend makes a mistake. I am not Captain Hooker, but
was once Lieutenant-Colonel Hooker of the regular army. I was lately
a farmer in California, but since the Rebellion broke out I have been
trying to get into service, but I find I am not wanted.

“I am about to return home; but before going, I was anxious to pay my
respects to you, and express my wishes for your personal welfare and
success in quelling this Rebellion. And I want to say to you a word
more.

“I was at Bull Run the other day, Mr. President, and it is no vanity
in me to say, I am a darned sight better general than you had on the
field.”

This was said, not in the tone of a braggart, but of a man who knew what
he was talking about. Hooker did not return to California, but in a
few weeks Captain Hooker received from the President a commission as
Brigadier-General Hooker.




KEPT HIS COURAGE UP.

The President, like old King Saul, when his term was about to expire,
was in a quandary concerning a further lease of the Presidential office.
He consulted again the “prophetess” of Georgetown, immortalized by his
patronage.

She retired to an inner chamber, and, after raising and consulting more
than a dozen of distinguished spirits from Hades, she returned to the
reception-parlor, where the chief magistrate awaited her, and declared
that General Grant would capture Richmond, and that “Honest Old Abe”
 would be next President.

She, however, as the report goes, told him to beware of Chase.




A FORTUNE-TELLER’S PREDICTION.

Lincoln had been born and reared among people who were believers in
premonitions and supernatural appearances all his life, and he once
declared to his friends that he was “from boyhood superstitious.”

He at one time said to Judge Arnold that “the near approach of the
important events of his life were indicated by a presentiment or a
strange dream, or in some other mysterious way it was impressed upon him
that something important was to occur.” This was earlier than 1850.

It is said that on his second visit to New Orleans, Lincoln and his
companion, John Hanks, visited an old fortune-teller--a voodoo negress.
Tradition says that “during the interview she became very much excited,
and after various predictions, exclaimed: ‘You will be President, and
all the negroes will be free.’”

That the old voodoo negress should have foretold that the visitor would
be President is not at all incredible. She doubtless told this to many
aspiring lads, but Lincoln, so it is avowed took the prophecy seriously.




TOO MUCH POWDER.

So great was Lincoln’s anxiety for the success of the Union arms that he
considered no labor on his part too arduous, and spent much of his time
in looking after even the small details.

Admiral Dahlgren was sent for one morning by the President, who said
“Well, captain, here’s a letter about some new powder.”

After reading the letter he showed the sample of powder, and remarked
that he had burned some of it, and did not believe it was a good
article--here was too much residuum.

“I will show you,” he said; and getting a small piece of paper, placed
thereupon some of the powder, then went to the fire and with the tongs
picked up a coal, which he blew, clapped it on the powder, and after the
resulting explosion, added, “You see there is too much left there.”




SLEEP STANDING UP.

McClellan was a thorn in Lincoln’s side--“always up in the air,” as
the President put it--and yet he hesitated to remove him. “The Young
Napoleon” was a good organizer, but no fighter. Lincoln sent him
everything necessary in the way of men, ammunition, artillery and
equipments, but he was forever unready.

Instead of making a forward movement at the time expected, he would
notify the President that he must have more men. These were given him as
rapidly as possible, and then would come a demand for more horses, more
this and that, usually winding up with a demand for still “more men.”

Lincoln bore it all in patience for a long time, but one day, when he
had received another request for more men, he made a vigorous protest.

“If I gave McClellan all the men he asks for,” said the President, “they
couldn’t find room to lie down. They’d have to sleep standing up.”




SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT ANOTHER BATTLE.

General Meade, after the great victory at Gettysburg, was again face to
face with General Lee shortly afterwards at Williamsport, and even the
former’s warmest friends agree that he might have won in another battle,
but he took no action. He was not a “pushing” man like Grant. It
was this negligence on the part of Meade that lost him the rank of
Lieutenant-General, conferred upon General Sheridan.

A friend of Meade’s, speaking to President Lincoln and intimating that
Meade should have, after that battle, been made Commander-in-Chief of
the Union Armies, received this reply from Lincoln:

“Now, don’t misunderstand me about General Meade. I am profoundly
grateful down to the bottom of my boots for what he did at Gettysburg,
but I think that if I had been General Meade I would have fought another
battle.”




LINCOLN UPBRAIDED LAMON.

In one of his reminiscences of Lincoln, Ward Lamon tells how keenly the
President-elect always regretted the “sneaking in act” when he made the
celebrated “midnight ride,” which he took under protest, and landed him
in Washington known to but a few. Lamon says:

“The President was convinced that he committed a grave mistake in
listening to the solicitations of a ‘professional spy’ and of friends
too easily alarmed, and frequently upbraided me for having aided him
to degrade himself at the very moment in all his life when his behavior
should have exhibited the utmost dignity and composure.

“Neither he nor the country generally then understood the true facts
concerning the dangers to his life. It is now an acknowledged fact that
there never was a moment from the day he crossed the Maryland line, up
to the time of his assassination, that he was not in danger of death by
violence, and that his life was spared until the night of the 14th of
April, 1865, only through the ceaseless and watchful care of the guards
thrown around him.”




MARKED OUT A FEW WORDS.

President Lincoln was calm and unmoved when England and France were
blustering and threatening war. At Lincoln’s instance Secretary of State
Seward notified the English Cabinet and the French Emperor that as
ours was merely a family quarrel of a strictly private and confidential
nature, there was no call for meddling; also that they would have a war
on their hands in a very few minutes if they didn’t keep their hands
off.

Many of Seward’s notes were couched in decidedly peppery terms, some
expressions being so tart that President Lincoln ran his pen through
them.




LINCOLN SILENCES SEWARD.

General Farnsworth told the writer nearly twenty years ago that, being
in the War Office one day, Secretary Stanton told him that at the last
Cabinet meeting he had learned a lesson he should never forget, and
thought he had obtained an insight into Mr. Lincoln’s wonderful power
over the masses. The Secretary said a Cabinet meeting was called to
consider our relations with England in regard to the Mason-Slidell
affair. One after another of the Cabinet presented his views, and Mr.
Seward read an elaborate diplomatic dispatch, which he had prepared.

Finally Mr. Lincoln read what he termed “a few brief remarks upon the
subject,” and asked the opinions of his auditors. They unanimously
agreed that our side of the question needed no more argument than was
contained in the President’s “few brief remarks.”

Mr. Seward said he would be glad to adopt the remarks, and, giving them
more of the phraseology usual in diplomatic circles, send them to Lord
Palmerston, the British premier.

“Then,” said Secretary Stanton, “came the demonstration. The President,
half wheeling in his seat, threw one leg over the chair-arm, and,
holding the letter in his hand, said, ‘Seward, do you suppose Palmerston
will understand our position from that letter, just as it is?’

“‘Certainly, Mr. President.’

“‘Do you suppose the London Times will?’

“‘Certainly.’

“‘Do you suppose the average Englishman of affairs will?’

“‘Certainly; it cannot be mistaken in England.’

“‘Do you suppose that a hackman out on his box (pointing to the street)
will understand it?’

“‘Very readily, Mr. President.’

“‘Very well, Seward, I guess we’ll let her slide just as she is.’

“And the letter did ‘slide,’ and settled the whole business in a manner
that was effective.”




BROUGHT THE HUSBAND UP.

One morning President Lincoln asked Major Eckert, on duty at the White
House, “Who is that woman crying out in the hall? What is the matter
with her?”

Eckert said it was a woman who had come a long distance expecting to go
down to the army to see her husband. An order had gone out a short time
before to allow no women in the army, except in special cases.

Mr. Lincoln sat moodily for a moment after hearing this story, and
suddenly looking up, said, “Let’s send her down. You write the order,
Major.”

Major Eckert hesitated a moment, and replied, “Would it not be better
for Colonel Hardie to write the order?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that is better; let Hardie write it.”

The major went out, and soon returned, saying, “Mr. President, would
it not be better in this case to let the woman’s husband come to
Washington?”

Mr. Lincoln’s face lighted up with pleasure. “Yes, yes,” was the
President’s answer in a relieved tone; “that’s the best way; bring him
up.”

The order was written, and the man was sent to Washington.




NO WAR WITHOUT BLOOD-LETTING.

“You can’t carry on war without blood-letting,” said Lincoln one day.

The President, although almost feminine in his kind-heartedness, knew
not only this, but also that large bodies of soldiers in camp were at
the mercy of diseases of every sort, the result being a heavy casualty
list.

Of the (estimated) half-million men of the Union armies who gave up
their lives in the War of the Rebellion--1861-65--fully seventy-five
per cent died of disease. The soldiers killed upon the field of battle
constituted a comparatively small proportion of the casualties.




LINCOLN’S TWO DIFFICULTIES.

London “Punch” caricatured President Lincoln in every possible way,
holding him and the Union cause up to the ridicule of the world so far
as it could. On August 23rd, 1862, its cartoon entitled “Lincoln’s Two
Difficulties” had the text underneath: LINCOLN: “What? No money! No
men!” “Punch” desired to create the impression that the Washington
Government was in a bad way, lacking both money and men for the purpose
of putting down the Rebellion; that the United States Treasury was
bankrupt, and the people of the North so devoid of patriotism that they
would not send men for the army to assist in destroying the Confederacy.
The truth is, that when this cartoon was printed the North had five
hundred thousand men in the field, and, before the War closed, had
provided fully two million and a half troops. The report of the
Secretary of the Treasury which showed the financial affairs and
situation of the United States up to July, 1862. The receipts of
the National Government for the year ending June 30th, 1862, were
$10,000,000 in excess of the expenditures, although the War was costing
the country $2,000,000 per day; the credit of the United States was
good, and business matters were in a satisfactory state. The Navy, by
August 23rd, 1862, had received eighteen thousand additional men,
and was in fine shape; the people of the North stood ready to supply
anything the Government needed, so that, all things taken together, the
“Punch” cartoon was not exactly true, as the facts and figures
abundantly proved.




WHITE ELEPHANT ON HIS HANDS.

An old and intimate friend from Springfield called on President Lincoln
and found him much depressed.

The President was reclining on a sofa, but rising suddenly he said to
his friend:

“You know better than any man living that from my boyhood up my ambition
was to be President. I am President of one part of this divided country
at least; but look at me! Oh, I wish I had never been born!

“I’ve a white elephant on my hands--one hard to manage. With a fire
in my front and rear to contend with, the jealousies of the military
commanders, and not receiving that cordial co-operative support from
Congress that could reasonably be expected with an active and formidable
enemy in the field threatening the very life-blood of the Government, my
position is anything but a bed of roses.”




WHEN LINCOLN AND GRANT CLASHED.

Ward Lamon, one of President Lincoln’s law partners, and his most
intimate friend in Washington, has this to relate:

“I am not aware that there was ever a serious discord or
misunderstanding between Mr. Lincoln and General Grant, except on a
single occasion. From the commencement of the struggle, Lincoln’s policy
was to break the backbone of the Confederacy by depriving it of its
principal means of subsistence.

“Cotton was its vital aliment; deprive it of this, and the rebellion
must necessarily collapse. The Hon. Elihu B. Washburne from the outset
was opposed to any contraband traffic with the Confederates.

“Lincoln had given permits and passes through the lines to two
persons--Mr. Joseph Mattox of Maryland and General Singleton of
Illinois--to enable them to bring cotton and other Southern products
from Virginia. Washburne heard of it, called immediately on Mr. Lincoln,
and, after remonstrating with him on the impropriety of such a demarche,
threatened to have General Grant countermand the permits if they were
not revoked.

“Naturally, both became excited. Lincoln declared that he did not
believe General Grant would take upon himself the responsibility of such
an act. ‘I will show you, sir; I will show you whether Grant will do it
or not,’ responded Mr. Washburne, as he abruptly withdrew.

“By the next boat, subsequent to this interview, the Congressman left
Washington for the headquarters of General Grant. He returned shortly
afterward to the city, and so likewise did Mattox and Singleton. Grant
had countermanded the permits.

“Under all the circumstances, it was, naturally, a source of exultation
to Mr. Washburne and his friends, and of corresponding surprise and
mortification to the President. The latter, however, said nothing
further than this:

“‘I wonder when General Grant changed his mind on this subject? He was
the first man, after the commencement of this War, to grant a permit for
the passage of cotton through the lines, and that to his own father.’

“The President, however, never showed any resentment toward General
Grant.

“In referring afterwards to the subject, the President said: ‘It made
me feel my insignificance keenly at the moment; but if my friends
Washburne, Henry Wilson and others derive pleasure from so unworthy a
victory over me, I leave them to its full enjoyment.’

“This ripple on the otherwise unruffled current of their intercourse did
not disturb the personal relations between Lincoln and Grant; but there
was little cordiality between the President and Messrs. Washburne and
Wilson afterwards.”




WON JAMES GORDON BENNETT’S SUPPORT.

The story as to how President Lincoln won the support of James Gordon
Bennett, Sr., founder of the New York Herald, is a most interesting one.
It was one of Lincoln’s shrewdest political acts, and was brought about
by the tender, in an autograph letter, of the French Mission to Bennett.

The New York Times was the only paper in the metropolis which supported
him heartily, and President Lincoln knew how important it was to have
the support of the Herald. He therefore, according to the way Colonel
McClure tells it, carefully studied how to bring its editor into close
touch with himself.

The outlook for Lincoln’s re-election was not promising. Bennett had
strongly advocated the nomination of General McClellan by the Democrats,
and that was ominous of hostility to Lincoln; and when McClellan was
nominated he was accepted on all sides as a most formidable candidate.

It was in this emergency that Lincoln’s political sagacity served him
sufficiently to win the Herald to his cause, and it was done by the
confidential tender of the French Mission. Bennett did not break over to
Lincoln at once, but he went by gradual approaches.

His first step was to declare in favor of an entirely new candidate,
which was an utter impossibility. He opened a “leader” in the Herald on
the subject in this way: “Lincoln has proved a failure; McClellan
has proved a failure; Fremont has proved a failure; let us have a new
candidate.”

Lincoln, McClellan and Fremont were then all in the field as nominated
candidates, and the Fremont defection was a serious threat to Lincoln.
Of course, neither Lincoln nor McClellan declined, and the Herald,
failing to get the new man it knew to be an impossibility, squarely
advocated Lincoln’s re-election.

Without consulting any one, and without any public announcement:
whatever, Lincoln wrote to Bennett, asking him to accept the mission to
France. The offer was declined. Bennett valued the offer very much more
than the office, and from that day until the day of the President’s
death he was one of Lincoln’s most appreciative friends and hearty
supporters on his own independent line.




STOOD BY THE “SILENT MAN.”

Once, in reply to a delegation, which visited the White House, the
members of which were unusually vociferous in their demands that the
Silent Man (as General Grant was called) should be relieved from duty,
the President remarked:

“What I want and what the people want is generals who will fight battles
and win victories.

“Grant has done this, and I propose to stand by him.”

This declaration found its way into the newspapers, and Lincoln was
upheld by the people of the North, who, also, wanted “generals who will
fight battles and win victories.”




A VERY BRAINY NUBBIN.

President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward met Alexander H.
Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, on February 2nd, 1865, on
the River Queen, at Fortress Monroe. Stephens was enveloped in overcoats
and shawls, and had the appearance of a fair-sized man. He began to take
off one wrapping after another, until the small, shriveled old man stood
before them.

Lincoln quietly said to Seward: “This is the largest shucking for so
small a nubbin that I ever saw.”

President Lincoln had a friendly conference, but presented his ultimatum
that the one and only condition of peace was that Confederates “must
cease their resistance.”




SENT TO HIS “FRIENDS.”

During the Civil War, Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, had shown
himself, in the National House of Representatives and elsewhere, one
of the bitterest and most outspoken of all the men of that class which
insisted that “the war was a failure.” He declared that it was the
design of “those in power to establish a despotism,” and that they had
“no intention of restoring the Union.” He denounced the conscription
which had been ordered, and declared that men who submitted to be
drafted into the army were “unworthy to be called free men.” He spoke of
the President as “King Lincoln.”

Such utterances at this time, when the Government was exerting itself to
the utmost to recruit the armies, were dangerous, and Vallandigham was
arrested, tried by court-martial at Cincinnati, and sentenced to be
placed in confinement during the war.

General Burnside, in command at Cincinnati, approved the sentence,
and ordered that he be sent to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor; but the
President ordered that he be sent “beyond our lines into those of
his friends.” He was therefore escorted to the Confederate lines in
Tennessee, thence going to Richmond. He did not meet with a very cordial
reception there, and finally sought refuge in Canada.

Vallandigham died in a most peculiar way some years after the close of
the War, and it was thought by many that his death was the result of
premeditation upon his part.




GO DOWN WITH COLORS FLYING.

In August, 1864, the President called for five hundred thousand
more men. The country was much depressed. The Confederates had, in
comparatively small force, only a short time before, been to the very
gates of Washington, and returned almost unharmed.

The Presidential election was impending. Many thought another call for
men at such a time would insure, if not destroy, Mr. Lincoln’s chances
for re-election. A friend said as much to him one day, after the
President had told him of his purpose to make such a call.

“As to my re-election,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “it matters not. We must
have the men. If I go down, I intend to go, like the Cumberland, with my
colors flying!”




ALL WERE TRAGEDIES.

The cartoon reproduced below was published in “Harper’s Weekly” on
January 31st, 1863, the explanatory text, underneath, reading in this
way:

MANAGER LINCOLN: “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to say that the tragedy
entitled ‘The Army of the Potomac’ has been withdrawn on account of
quarrels among the leading performers, and I have substituted three
new and striking farces, or burlesques, one, entitled ‘The Repulse of
Vicksburg,’ by the well-known favorite, E. M. Stanton, Esq., and
the others, ‘The Loss of the Harriet Lane,’ and ‘The Exploits of the
Alabama’--a very sweet thing in farces, I assure you--by the veteran
composer, Gideon Welles. (Unbounded applause by the Copperheads).”

In July, after this cartoon appeared, the Army of the Potomac defeated
Lee at Gettysburg, and sounded the death-knell of the Confederacy;
General Hooker, with his corps from this Army opened the Tennessee
River, thus affording some relief to the Union troops in Chattanooga;
Hooker’s men also captured Lookout Mountain, and assisted in taking
Missionary Ridge.

General Grant converted the farce “The Repulse of Vicksburg” into a
tragedy for the Copperheads, taking that stronghold on July 4th, and
Captain Winslow, with the Union man-of-war Kearsarge, meeting the
Confederate privateer Alabama, off the coast of France, near Cherbourg,
fought the famous ship to a finish and sunk her. Thus the tragedy of
“The Army of the Potomac” was given after all, and Playwright Stanton
and Composer Welles were vindicated, their compositions having been
received by the public with great favor.




“HE’S THE BEST OF US.”

Secretary of State Seward did not appreciate President Lincoln’s ability
until he had been associated with him for quite a time, but he was
awakened to a full realization of the greatness of the Chief Executive
“all of a sudden.”

Having submitted “Some Thoughts for the President’s Consideration”--a
lengthy paper intended as an outline of the policy, both domestic and
foreign, the Administration should pursue--he was not more surprised
at the magnanimity and kindness of President Lincoln’s reply than the
thorough mastery of the subject displayed by the President.

A few months later, when the Secretary had begun to understand Mr.
Lincoln, he was quick and generous to acknowledge his power.

“Executive force and vigor are rare qualities,” he wrote to Mrs. Seward.
“The President is the best of us.”




HOW LINCOLN “COMPOSED.”

Superintendent Chandler, of the Telegraph Office in the War Department,
once told how President Lincoln wrote telegrams. Said he:

“Mr. Lincoln frequently wrote telegrams in my office. His method of
composition was slow and laborious. It was evident that he thought out
what he was going to say before he touched his pen to the paper. He
would sit looking out of the window, his left elbow on the table, his
hand scratching his temple, his lips moving, and frequently he spoke the
sentence aloud or in a half whisper.

“After he was satisfied that he had the proper expression, he would
write it out. If one examines the originals of Mr. Lincoln’s telegrams
and letters, he will find very few erasures and very little interlining.
This was because he had them definitely in his mind before writing them.

“In this he was the exact opposite of Mr. Stanton, who wrote with
feverish haste, often scratching out words, and interlining frequently.
Sometimes he would seize a sheet which he had filled, and impatiently
tear it into pieces.”




HAMLIN MIGHT DO IT.

Several United States Senators urged President Lincoln to muster
Southern slaves into the Union Army. Lincoln replied:

“Gentlemen, I have put thousands of muskets into the hands of loyal
citizens of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Western North Carolina. They have
said they could defend themselves, if they had guns. I have given them
the guns. Now, these men do not believe in mustering-in the negro. If I
do it, these thousands of muskets will be turned against us. We should
lose more than we should gain.”

Being still further urged, President Lincoln gave them this answer:

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I can’t do it. I can’t see it as you do. You may
be right, and I may be wrong; but I’ll tell you what I can do; I can
resign in favor of Mr. Hamlin. Perhaps Mr. Hamlin could do it.”

The matter ended there, for the time being.




THE GUN SHOT BETTER.

The President took a lively interest in all new firearm improvements and
inventions, and it sometimes happened that, when an inventor could get
nobody else in the Government to listen to him, the President would
personally test his gun. A former clerk in the Navy Department tells an
incident illustrative.

He had stayed late one night at his desk, when he heard some one
striding up and down the hall muttering: “I do wonder if they have gone
already and left the building all alone.” Looking out, the clerk was
surprised to see the President.

“Good evening,” said Mr. Lincoln. “I was just looking for that man who
goes shooting with me sometimes.”

The clerk knew Mr. Lincoln referred to a certain messenger of the
Ordnance Department who had been accustomed to going with him to test
weapons, but as this man had gone home, the clerk offered his services.
Together they went to the lawn south of the White House, where Mr.
Lincoln fixed up a target cut from a sheet of white Congressional
notepaper.

“Then pacing off a distance of about eighty or a hundred feet,” writes
the clerk, “he raised the rifle to a level, took a quick aim, and drove
the round of seven shots in quick succession, the bullets shooting all
around the target like a Gatling gun and one striking near the center.

“‘I believe I can make this gun shoot better,’ said Mr. Lincoln, after
we had looked at the result of the first fire. With this he took from
his vest pocket a small wooden sight which he had whittled from a pine
stick, and adjusted it over the sight of the carbine. He then shot two
rounds, and of the fourteen bullets nearly a dozen hit the paper!”




LENIENT WITH McCLELLAN.

General McClellan, aside from his lack of aggressiveness, fretted
the President greatly with his complaints about military matters, his
obtrusive criticism regarding political matters, and especially at his
insulting declaration to the Secretary of War, dated June 28th, 1862,
just after his retreat to the James River.

General Halleck was made Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces in July,
1862, and September 1st McClellan was called to Washington. The day
before he had written his wife that “as a matter of self-respect,
I cannot go there.” President Lincoln and General Halleck called at
McClellan’s house, and the President said: “As a favor to me, I wish
you would take command of the fortifications of Washington and all the
troops for the defense of the capital.”

Lincoln thought highly of McClellan’s ability as an organizer and
his strength in defense, yet any other President would have had him
court-martialed for using this language, which appeared in McClellan’s
letter of June 28th:

“If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to
you or to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to
sacrifice this army.”

This letter, although addressed to the Secretary of War, distinctly
embraced the President in the grave charge of conspiracy to defeat
McClellan’s army and sacrifice thousands of the lives of his soldiers.




DIDN’T WANT A MILITARY REPUTATION.

Lincoln was averse to being put up as a military hero.

When General Cass was a candidate for the Presidency his friends sought
to endow him with a military reputation.

Lincoln, at that time a representative in Congress, delivered a speech
before the House, which, in its allusion to Mr. Cass, was exquisitely
sarcastic and irresistibly humorous:

“By the way, Mr. Speaker,” said Lincoln, “do you know I am a military
hero?

“Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came
away.

“Speaking of General Cass’s career reminds me of my own.

“I was not at Stillman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to
Hull’s surrender; and like him I saw the place very soon afterwards.

“It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break,
but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion.

“If General Cass went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I
surpassed him in charging upon the wild onion.

“If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had
a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and although I never
fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say that I was often very
hungry.”

Lincoln concluded by saying that if he ever turned Democrat and should
run for the Presidency, he hoped they would not make fun of him by
attempting to make him a military hero.




“SURRENDER NO SLAVE.”

About March, 1862, General Benjamin F. Butler, in command at Fortress
Monroe, advised President Lincoln that he had determined to regard all
slaves coming into his camps as contraband of war, and to employ their
labor under fair compensation, and Secretary of War Stanton replied to
him, in behalf of the President, approving his course, and saying,
“You are not to interfere between master and slave on the one hand, nor
surrender slaves who may come within your lines.”

This was a significant milestone of progress to the great end that was
thereafter to be reached.




CONSCRIPTING DEAD MEN.

Mr. Lincoln being found fault with for making another “call,” said that
if the country required it, he would continue to do so until the matter
stood as described by a Western provost marshal, who says:

“I listened a short time since to a butternut-clad individual, who
succeeded in making good his escape, expatiate most eloquently on
the rigidness with which the conscription was enforced south of the
Tennessee River. His response to a question propounded by a citizen ran
somewhat in this wise:

“‘Do they conscript close over the river?’

“‘Stranger, I should think they did! They take every man who hasn’t been
dead more than two days!’

“If this is correct, the Confederacy has at least a ghost of a chance
left.”

And of another, a Methodist minister in Kansas, living on a small
salary, who was greatly troubled to get his quarterly instalment. He at
last told the non-paying trustees that he must have his money, as he was
suffering for the necessaries of life.

“Money!” replied the trustees; “you preach for money? We thought you
preached for the good of souls!”

“Souls!” responded the reverend; “I can’t eat souls; and if I could it
would take a thousand such as yours to make a meal!”

“That soul is the point, sir,” said the President.




LINCOLN’S REJECTED MANUSCRIPT.

On February 5th, 1865, President Lincoln formulated a message to
Congress, proposing the payment of $400,000,000 to the South as
compensation for slaves lost by emancipation, and submitted it to his
Cabinet, only to be unanimously rejected.

Lincoln sadly accepted the decision, and filed away the manuscript
message, together with this indorsement thereon, to which his signature
was added: “February 5, 1865. To-day these papers, which explain
themselves, were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet unanimously
disapproved by them.”

When the proposed message was disapproved, Lincoln soberly asked: “How
long will the war last?”

To this none could make answer, and he added: “We are spending now, in
carrying on the war, $3,000,000 a day, which will amount to all this
money, besides all the lives.”




LINCOLN AS A STORY WRITER.

In his youth, Mr. Lincoln once got an idea for a thrilling, romantic
story. One day, in Springfield, he was sitting with his feet on the
window sill, chatting with an acquaintance, when he suddenly changed the
drift of the conversation by saying: “Did you ever write out a story in
your mind? I did when I was a little codger. One day a wagon with a lady
and two girls and a man broke down near us, and while they were fixing
up, they cooked in our kitchen. The woman had books and read us stories,
and they were the first I had ever heard. I took a great fancy to one
of the girls; and when they were gone I thought of her a great deal,
and one day when I was sitting out in the sun by the house I wrote out
a story in my mind. I thought I took my father’s horse and followed
the wagon, and finally I found it, and they were surprised to see me. I
talked with the girl, and persuaded her to elope with me; and that night
I put her on my horse, and we started off across the prairie. After
several hours we came to a camp; and when we rode up we found it was the
one we had left a few hours before, and went in. The next night we tried
again, and the same thing happened--the horse came back to the same
place; and then we concluded that we ought not to elope. I stayed until
I had persuaded her father to give her to me. I always meant to write
that story out and publish it, and I began once; but I concluded that it
was not much of a story. But I think that was the beginning of love with
me.”




LINCOLN’S IDEAS ON CROSSING A RIVER WHEN HE GOT TO IT.

Lincoln’s reply to a Springfield (Illinois) clergyman, who asked him
what was to be his policy on the slavery question was most apt:

“Well, your question is rather a cool one, but I will answer it by
telling you a story:

“You know Father B., the old Methodist preacher? and you know Fox River
and its freshets?

“Well, once in the presence of Father B., a young Methodist was worrying
about Fox River, and expressing fears that he should be prevented from
fulfilling some of his appointments by a freshet in the river.

“Father B. checked him in his gravest manner. Said he:

“‘Young man, I have always made it a rule in my life not to cross Fox
River till I get to it.’

“And,” said the President, “I am not going to worry myself over the
slavery question till I get to it.”

A few days afterward a Methodist minister called on the President, and
on being presented to him, said, simply:

“Mr. President, I have come to tell you that I think we have got to Fox
River!”

Lincoln thanked the clergyman, and laughed heartily.




PRESIDENT NOMINATED FIRST.

The day of Lincoln’s second nomination for the Presidency he forgot
all about the Republican National Convention, sitting at Baltimore,
and wandered over to the War Department. While there, a telegram came
announcing the nomination of Johnson as Vice-President.

“What,” said Lincoln to the operator, “do they nominate a Vice-President
before they do a President?”

“Why,” replied the astonished official, “have you not heard of your own
nomination? It was sent to the White House two hours ago.”

“It is all right,” replied the President; “I shall probably find it on
my return.”




“THEM GILLITEENS.”

The illustrated newspapers of the United States and England had a good
deal of fun, not only with President Lincoln, but the latter’s Cabinet
officers and military commanders as well. It was said by these
funny publications that the President had set up a guillotine in his
“back-yard,” where all those who offended were beheaded with both
neatness, and despatch. “Harper’s Weekly” of January 3rd, 1863,
contained a cartoon labeled “Those Guillotines; a Little Incident at the
White House,” the personages figuring in the “incident” being Secretary
of War Stanton and a Union general who had been unfortunate enough to
lose a battle to the Confederates. Beneath the cartoon was the following
dialogue:

SERVANT: “If ye plase, sir, them Gilliteens has arrove.” MR. LINCOLN:
“All right, Michael. Now, gentlemen, will you be kind enough to step out
in the back-yard?”

The hair and whiskers of Secretary of War Stanton are ruffled and awry,
and his features are not calm and undisturbed, indicating that he has
an idea of what’s the matter in that back-yard; the countenance of the
officer in the rear of the Secretary of War wears rather an anxious, or
worried, look, and his hair isn’t combed smoothly, either.

President Lincoln’s frequent changes among army commanders--before
he found Grant, Sherman and Sheridan--afforded an opportunity the
caricaturists did not neglect, and some very clever cartoons were the
consequence.




“CONSIDER THE SYMPATHY OF LINCOLN.”

Consider the sympathy of Abraham Lincoln. Do you know the story of
William Scott, private? He was a boy from a Vermont farm.

There had been a long march, and the night succeeding it he had stood on
picket. The next day there had been another long march, and that night
William Scott had volunteered to stand guard in the place of a sick
comrade who had been drawn for the duty.

It was too much for William Scott. He was too tired. He had been found
sleeping on his beat.

The army was at Chain Bridge. It was in a dangerous neighborhood.
Discipline must be kept.

William Scott was apprehended, tried by court-martial, sentenced to
be shot. News of the case was carried to Lincoln. William Scott was a
prisoner in his tent, expecting to be shot next day.

But the flaps of his tent were parted, and Lincoln stood before him.
Scott said:

“The President was the kindest man I had ever seen; I knew him at once
by a Lincoln medal I had long worn.

“I was scared at first, for I had never before talked with a great man;
but Mr. Lincoln was so easy with me, so gentle, that I soon forgot my
fright.

“He asked me all about the people at home, the neighbors, the farm, and
where I went to school, and who my schoolmates were. Then he asked
me about mother and how she looked; and I was glad I could take her
photograph from my bosom and show it to him.

“He said how thankful I ought to be that my mother still lived, and how,
if he were in my place, he would try to make her a proud mother, and
never cause her a sorrow or a tear.

“I cannot remember it all, but every word was so kind.

“He had said nothing yet about that dreadful next morning; I thought it
must be that he was so kind-hearted that he didn’t like to speak of it.

“But why did he say so much about my mother, and my not causing her a
sorrow or a tear, when I knew that I must die the next morning?

“But I supposed that was something that would have to go unexplained;
and so I determined to brace up and tell him that I did not feel a bit
guilty, and ask him wouldn’t he fix it so that the firing party would
not be from our regiment.

“That was going to be the hardest of all--to die by the hands of my
comrades.

“Just as I was going to ask him this favor, he stood up, and he says to
me:

“‘My boy, stand up here and look me in the face.’

“I did as he bade me.

“‘My boy,’ he said, ‘you are not going to be shot to-morrow. I believe
you when you tell me that you could not keep awake.

“‘I am going to trust you, and send you back to your regiment.

“‘But I have been put to a good deal of trouble on your account.

“‘I have had to come up here from Washington when I have got a great
deal to do; and what I want to know is, how are you going to pay my
bill?’

“There was a big lump in my throat; I could scarcely speak. I had
expected to die, you see, and had kind of got used to thinking that way.

“To have it all changed in a minute! But I got it crowded down, and
managed to say:

“‘I am grateful, Mr. Lincoln! I hope I am as grateful as ever a man can
be to you for saving my life.

“‘But it comes upon me sudden and unexpected like. I didn’t lay out for
it at all; but there is some way to pay you, and I will find it after a
little.

“‘There is the bounty in the savings bank; I guess we could borrow some
money on the mortgage of the farm.’

“‘There was my pay was something, and if he would wait until pay-day
I was sure the boys would help; so I thought we could make it up if it
wasn’t more than five or six hundred dollars.

“‘But it is a great deal more than that,’ he said.

“Then I said I didn’t just see how, but I was sure I would find some
way--if I lived.

“Then Mr. Lincoln put his hands on my shoulders, and looked into my face
as if he was sorry, and said; “‘My boy, my bill is a very large one.
Your friends cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the farm, nor all your
comrades!

“‘There is only one man in all the world who can pay it, and his name is
William Scott!

“‘If from this day William Scott does his duty, so that, if I was there
when he comes to die, he can look me in the face as he does now, and
say, I have kept my promise, and I have done my duty as a soldier, then
my debt will be paid.

“‘Will you make that promise and try to keep it?”

The promise was given. Thenceforward there never was such a soldier as
William Scott.

This is the record of the end. It was after one of the awful battles of
the Peninsula. He was shot all to pieces. He said:

“Boys, I shall never see another battle. I supposed this would be my
last. I haven’t much to say.

“You all know what you can tell them at home about me.

“I have tried to do the right thing! If any of you ever have the chance
I wish you would tell President Lincoln that I have never forgotten the
kind words he said to me at the Chain Bridge; that I have tried to be a
good soldier and true to the flag; that I should have paid my whole
debt to him if I had lived; and that now, when I know that I am dying,
I think of his kind face, and thank him again, because he gave me the
chance to fall like a soldier in battle, and not like a coward, by the
hands of my comrades.”

What wonder that Secretary Stanton said, as he gazed upon the tall form
and kindly face as he lay there, smitten down by the assassin’s bullet,
“There lies the most perfect ruler of men who ever lived.”




SAVED A LIFE.

One day during the Black Hawk War a poor old Indian came into the camp
with a paper of safe conduct from General Lewis Cass in his possession.
The members of Lincoln’s company were greatly exasperated by late Indian
barbarities, among them the horrible murder of a number of women and
children, and were about to kill him; they said the safe-conduct paper
was a forgery, and approached the old savage with muskets cocked to
shoot him.

Lincoln rushed forward, struck up the weapons with his hands, and
standing in front of the victim, declared to the Indian that he should
not be killed. It was with great difficulty that the men could be kept
from their purpose, but the courage and firmness of Lincoln thwarted
them.

Lincoln was physically one of the bravest of men, as his company
discovered.




LINCOLN PLAYED BALL.

Frank P. Blair, of Chicago, tells an incident, showing Mr. Lincoln’s
love for children and how thoroughly he entered into all of their
sports:

“During the war my grandfather, Francis P. Blair, Sr., lived at Silver
Springs, north of Washington, seven miles from the White House. It was a
magnificent place of four or five hundred acres, with an extensive lawn
in the rear of the house. The grandchildren gathered there frequently.

“There were eight or ten of us, our ages ranging from eight to twelve
years. Although I was but seven or eight years of age, Mr. Lincoln’s
visits were of such importance to us boys as to leave a clear impression
on my memory. He drove out to the place quite frequently. We boys, for
hours at a time played ‘town ball’ on the vast lawn, and Mr. Lincoln
would join ardently in the sport. I remember vividly how he ran with the
children; how long were his strides, and how far his coat-tails stuck
out behind, and how we tried to hit him with the ball, as he ran the
bases. He entered into the spirit of the play as completely as any of
us, and we invariably hailed his coming with delight.”




HIS PASSES TO RICHMOND NOT HONORED.

A man called upon the President and solicited a pass for Richmond.

“Well,” said the President, “I would be very happy to oblige, if my
passes were respected; but the fact is, sir, I have, within the past
two years, given passes to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to
Richmond, and not one has got there yet.”

The applicant quietly and respectfully withdrew on his tiptoes.




“PUBLIC HANGMAN” FOR THE UNITED STATES.

A certain United States Senator, who believed that every man who
believed in secession should be hanged, asked the President what he
intended to do when the War was over.

“Reconstruct the machinery of this Government,” quickly replied Lincoln.

“You are certainly crazy,” was the Senator’s heated response. “You
talk as if treason was not henceforth to be made odious, but that
the traitors, cutthroats and authors of this War should not only go
unpunished, but receive encouragement to repeat their treason with
impunity! They should be hanged higher than Haman, sir! Yes, higher than
any malefactor the world has ever known!”

The President was entirely unmoved, but, after a moment’s pause, put a
question which all but drove his visitor insane.

“Now, Senator, suppose that when this hanging arrangement has been
agreed upon, you accept the post of Chief Executioner. If you will take
the office, I will make you a brigadier general and Public Hangman for
the United States. That would just about suit you, wouldn’t it?”

“I am a gentleman, sir,” returned the Senator, “and I certainly thought
you knew me better than to believe me capable of doing such dirty work.
You are jesting, Mr. President.”

The President was extremely patient, exhibiting no signs of ire, and to
this bit of temper on the part of the Senator responded:

“You speak of being a gentleman; yet you forget that in this free
country all men are equal, the vagrant and the gentleman standing on the
same ground when it comes to rights and duties, particularly in time
of war. Therefore, being a gentleman, as you claim, and a law-abiding
citizen, I trust, you are not exempt from doing even the dirty work at
which your high spirit revolts.”

This was too much for the Senator, who quitted the room abruptly, and
never again showed his face in the White House while Lincoln occupied
it.

“He won’t bother me again,” was the President’s remark as he departed.




FEW, BUT BOISTEROUS.

Lincoln was a very quiet man, and went about his business in a quiet
way, making the least noise possible. He heartily disliked those
boisterous people who were constantly deluging him with advice, and
shouting at the tops of their voices whenever they appeared at the White
House. “These noisy people create a great clamor,” said he one day, in
conversation with some personal friends, “and remind me, by the way, of
a good story I heard out in Illinois while I was practicing, or trying
to practice, some law there. I will say, though, that I practiced more
law than I ever got paid for.

“A fellow who lived just out of town, on the bank of a large marsh,
conceived a big idea in the money-making line. He took it to a prominent
merchant, and began to develop his plans and specifications. ‘There are
at least ten million frogs in that marsh near me, an’ I’ll just arrest a
couple of carloads of them and hand them over to you. You can send them
to the big cities and make lots of money for both of us. Frogs’ legs are
great delicacies in the big towns, an’ not very plentiful. It won’t
take me more’n two or three days to pick ‘em. They make so much noise
my family can’t sleep, and by this deal I’ll get rid of a nuisance and
gather in some cash.’

“The merchant agreed to the proposition, promised the fellow he would
pay him well for the two carloads. Two days passed, then three, and
finally two weeks were gone before the fellow showed up again, carrying
a small basket. He looked weary and ‘done up,’ and he wasn’t talkative
a bit. He threw the basket on the counter with the remark, ‘There’s your
frogs.’

“‘You haven’t two carloads in that basket, have you?’ inquired the
merchant.

“‘No,’ was the reply, ‘and there ain’t no two carloads in all this
blasted world.’

“‘I thought you said there were at least ten millions of ‘em in
that marsh near you, according to the noise they made,’ observed the
merchant. ‘Your people couldn’t sleep because of ‘em.’

“‘Well,’ said the fellow, ‘accordin’ to the noise they made, there was,
I thought, a hundred million of ‘em, but when I had waded and swum that
there marsh day and night fer two blessed weeks, I couldn’t harvest
but six. There’s two or three left yet, an’ the marsh is as noisy as it
uster be. We haven’t catched up on any of our lost sleep yet. Now, you
can have these here six, an’ I won’t charge you a cent fer ‘em.’

“You can see by this little yarn,” remarked the President, “that these
boisterous people make too much noise in proportion to their numbers.”




KEEP PEGGING AWAY.

Being asked one time by an “anxious” visitor as to what he would do
in certain contingencies--provided the rebellion was not subdued after
three or four years of effort on the part of the Government?

“Oh,” replied the President, “there is no alternative but to keep
‘pegging’ away!”




BEWARE OF THE TAIL.

After the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, Governor Morgan, of
New York, was at the White House one day, when the President said:

“I do not agree with those who say that slavery is dead. We are like
whalers who have been long on a chase--we have at last got the harpoon
into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or, with one ‘flop’
of his tail, he will yet send us all into eternity!”




“LINCOLN’S DREAM.”

President Lincoln was depicted as a headsman in a cartoon printed in
“Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,” on February 14, 1863, the title
of the picture being “Lincoln’s Dreams; or, There’s a Good Time Coming.”

The cartoon, reproduced here, represents, on the right, the Union
Generals who had been defeated by the Confederates in battle, and had
suffered decapitation in consequence--McDowell, who lost at Bull Run;
McClellan, who failed to take Richmond, when within twelve miles of that
city and no opposition, comparatively; and Burnside, who was so badly
whipped at Fredericksburg. To the left of the block, where the President
is standing with the bloody axe in his hand, are shown the members
of the Cabinet--Secretary of State Seward, Secretary of War Stanton,
Secretary of the Navy Welles, and others--each awaiting his turn. This
part of the “Dream” was never realized, however, as the President did
not decapitate any of his Cabinet officers.

It was the idea of the cartoonist to hold Lincoln up as a man who would
not countenance failure upon the part of subordinates, but visit the
severest punishment upon those commanders who did not win victories.
After Burnside’s defeat at Fredericksburg, he was relieved by Hooker,
who suffered disaster at Chancellorsville; Hooker was relieved by Meade,
who won at Gettysburg, but was refused promotion because he did not
follow up and crush Lee; Rosecrans was all but defeated at Chickamauga,
and gave way to Grant, who, of all the Union commanders, had never
suffered defeat. Grant was Lincoln’s ideal fighting man, and the “Old
Commander” was never superseded.




THERE WAS NO NEED OF A STORY.

Dr. Hovey, of Dansville, New York, thought he would call and see the
President.

Upon arriving at the White House he found the President on horseback,
ready for a start.

Approaching him, he said:

“President Lincoln, I thought I would call and see you before leaving
the city, and hear you tell a story.”

The President greeted him pleasantly, and asked where he was from.

“From Western New York.”

“Well, that’s a good enough country without stories,” replied the
President, and off he rode.




LINCOLN A MAN OF SIMPLE HABITS.

Lincoln’s habits at the White House were as simple as they were at his
old home in Illinois.

He never alluded to himself as “President,” or as occupying “the
Presidency.”

His office he always designated as “the place.”

“Call me Lincoln,” said he to a friend; “Mr. President” had become so
very tiresome to him.

“If you see a newsboy down the street, send him up this way,” said he to
a passenger, as he stood waiting for the morning news at his gate.

Friends cautioned him about exposing himself so openly in the midst of
enemies; but he never heeded them.

He frequently walked the streets at night, entirely unprotected; and
felt any check upon his movements a great annoyance.

He delighted to see his familiar Western friends; and he gave them
always a cordial welcome.

He met them on the old footing, and fell at once into the accustomed
habits of talk and story-telling.

An old acquaintance, with his wife, visited Washington. Mr. and Mrs.
Lincoln proposed to these friends a ride in the Presidential carriage.

It should be stated in advance that the two men had probably never seen
each other with gloves on in their lives, unless when they were used as
protection from the cold.

The question of each--Lincoln at the White House, and his friend at the
hotel--was, whether he should wear gloves.

Of course the ladies urged gloves; but Lincoln only put his in his
pocket, to be used or not, according to the circumstances.

When the Presidential party arrived at the hotel, to take in their
friends, they found the gentleman, overcome by his wife’s persuasions,
very handsomely gloved.

The moment he took his seat he began to draw off the clinging kids,
while Lincoln began to draw his on!

“No! no! no!” protested his friend, tugging at his gloves. “It is none
of my doings; put up your gloves, Mr. Lincoln.”

So the two old friends were on even and easy terms, and had their ride
after their old fashion.




HIS LAST SPEECH.

President Lincoln was reading the draft of a speech. Edward, the
conservative but dignified butler of the White House, was seen
struggling with Tad and trying to drag him back from the window from
which was waving a Confederate flag, captured in some fight and given to
the boy. Edward conquered and Tad, rushing to find his father, met him
coming forward to make, as it proved, his last speech.

The speech began with these words, “We meet this evening, not in sorrow,
but in gladness of heart.” Having his speech written in loose leaves,
and being compelled to hold a candle in the other hand, he would let the
loose leaves drop to the floor one by one. “Tad” picked them up as they
fell, and impatiently called for more as they fell from his father’s
hand.




FORGOT EVERYTHING HE KNEW BEFORE.

President Lincoln, while entertaining a few select friends, is said to
have related the following anecdote of a man who knew too much:

He was a careful, painstaking fellow, who always wanted to be absolutely
exact, and as a result he frequently got the ill-will of his less
careful superiors.

During the administration of President Jackson there was a singular
young gentleman employed in the Public Postoffice in Washington.

His name was G.; he was from Tennessee, the son of a widow, a neighbor
of the President, on which account the old hero had a kind feeling for
him, and always got him out of difficulties with some of the higher
officials, to whom his singular interference was distasteful.

Among other things, it is said of him that while employed in the General
Postoffice, on one occasion he had to copy a letter to Major H., a
high official, in answer to an application made by an old gentleman in
Virginia or Pennsylvania, for the establishment of a new postoffice.

The writer of the letter said the application could not be granted, in
consequence of the applicant’s “proximity” to another office.

When the letter came into G.’s hand to copy, being a great stickler for
plainness, he altered “proximity” to “nearness to.”

Major H. observed it, and asked G. why he altered his letter.

“Why,” replied G., “because I don’t think the man would understand what
you mean by proximity.”

“Well,” said Major H., “try him; put in the ‘proximity’ again.”

In a few days a letter was received from the applicant, in which he very
indignantly said that his father had fought for liberty in the second
war for independence, and he should like to have the name of the
scoundrel who brought the charge of proximity or anything else wrong
against him.

“There,” said G., “did I not say so?”

G. carried his improvements so far that Mr. Berry, the
Postmaster-General, said to him: “I don’t want you any longer; you know
too much.”

Poor G. went out, but his old friend got him another place.

This time G.’s ideas underwent a change. He was one day very busy
writing, when a stranger called in and asked him where the Patent Office
was.

“I don’t know,” said G.

“Can you tell me where the Treasury Department is?” said the stranger.

“No,” said G.

“Nor the President’s house?”

“No.”

The stranger finally asked him if he knew where the Capitol was.

“No,” replied G.

“Do you live in Washington, sir?”

“Yes, sir,” said G.

“Good Lord! and don’t you know where the Patent Office, Treasury,
President’s house and Capitol are?”

“Stranger,” said G., “I was turned out of the postoffice for knowing too
much. I don’t mean to offend in that way again.

“I am paid for keeping this book.

“I believe I know that much; but if you find me knowing anything more
you may take my head.”

“Good morning,” said the stranger.




LINCOLN BELIEVED IN EDUCATION.

“That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby
be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by
which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears
to be an object of vital importance; even on this account alone, to say
nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being
able to read the Scriptures and other works, both of a religious and
moral nature, for themselves.

“For my part, I desire to see the time when education, by its means,
morality, sobriety, enterprise and integrity, shall become much more
general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power
to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might
have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.”




LINCOLN ON THE DRED SCOTT DECISION.

In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26th, 1857, Lincoln referred
to the decision of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, of the United States
Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, in this manner:

“The Chief justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes as a
fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now
than it was in the days of the Revolution.

“In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man’s bondage
in the new countries was prohibited; but now Congress decides that it
will not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it
could not if it would.

“In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all,
and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of
the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed and sneered at, and
constructed and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise
from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

“All the powers of earth seem combining against the slave; Mammon is
after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the
day is fast joining the cry.”




LINCOLN MADE MANY NOTABLE SPEECHES.

Abraham Lincoln made many notable addresses and speeches during his
career previous to the time of his election to the Presidency.

However, beautiful in thought and expression as they were, they were not
appreciated by those who heard and read them until after the people
of the United States and the world had come to understand the man who
delivered them.

Lincoln had the rare and valuable faculty of putting the most sublime
feeling into his speeches; and he never found it necessary to incumber
his wisest, wittiest and most famous sayings with a weakening mass of
words.

He put his thoughts into the simplest language, so that all might
comprehend, and he never said anything which was not full of the deepest
meaning.




WHAT AILED THE BOYS.

Mr. Roland Diller, who was one of Mr. Lincoln’s neighbors in
Springfield, tells the following:

“I was called to the door one day by the cries of children in the
street, and there was Mr. Lincoln, striding by with two of his boys,
both of whom were wailing aloud. ‘Why, Mr. Lincoln, what’s the matter
with the boys?’ I asked.

“‘Just what’s the matter with the whole world,’ Lincoln replied. ‘I’ve
got three walnuts, and each wants two.’”




TAD’S CONFEDERATE FLAG.

One of the prettiest incidents in the closing days of the Civil War
occurred when the troops, ‘marching home again,’ passed in grand form,
if with well-worn uniforms and tattered bunting, before the White House.

Naturally, an immense crowd had assembled on the streets, the lawns,
porches, balconies, and windows, even those of the executive mansion
itself being crowded to excess. A central figure was that of the
President, Abraham Lincoln, who, with bared head, unfurled and waved our
Nation’s flag in the midst of lusty cheers.

But suddenly there was an unexpected sight.

A small boy leaned forward and sent streaming to the air the banner of
the boys in gray. It was an old flag which had been captured from the
Confederates, and which the urchin, the President’s second son, Tad, had
obtained possession of and considered an additional triumph to unfurl on
this all-important day.

Vainly did the servant who had followed him to the window plead with
him to desist. No, Master Tad, Pet of the White House, was not to be
prevented from adding to the loyal demonstration of the hour.

To his surprise, however, the crowd viewed it differently. Had it
floated from any other window in the capital that day, no doubt it would
have been the target of contempt and abuse; but when the President,
understanding what had happened, turned, with a smile on his grand,
plain face, and showed his approval by a gesture and expression, cheer
after cheer rent the air.




CALLED BLESSINGS ON THE AMERICAN WOMEN.

President Lincoln attended a Ladies’ Fair for the benefit of the Union
soldiers, at Washington, March 16th, 1864.

In his remarks he said:

“I appear to say but a word.

“This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all
classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldiers. For it has
been said, ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life,’ and, while
all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake,
and often yields it up in his country’s cause.

“The highest merit, then, is due the soldiers.

“In this extraordinary war extraordinary developments have manifested
themselves such as have not been seen in former wars; and among these
manifestations nothing has been more remarkable than these fairs for the
relief of suffering soldiers and their families, and the chief agents in
these fairs are the women of America!

“I am not accustomed to the use of language of eulogy; I have never
studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if
all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the
world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would
not do them justice for their conduct during the war.

“I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!”




LINCOLN’S “ORDER NO. 252.”

After the United States had enlisted former negro slaves as soldiers to
fight alongside the Northern troops for the maintenance of the integrity
of the Union, so great was the indignation of the Confederate Government
that President Davis declared he would not recognize blacks captured in
battle and in uniform as prisoners of war. This meant that he would have
them returned to their previous owners, have them flogged and fined for
running away from their masters, or even shot if he felt like it. This
attitude of the President of the Confederate States of America led to
the promulgation of President Lincoln’s famous “Order No. 252,” which,
in effect, was a notification to the commanding officers of the Southern
forces that if negro prisoners of war were not treated as such, the
Union commanders would retaliate. “Harper’s Weekly” of August 15th,
1863, contained a clever cartoon, which we reproduce, representing
President Lincoln holding the South by the collar, while “Old
Abe” shouts the following words of warning to Jeff Davis, who,
cat-o’-nine-tails in hand, is in pursuit of a terrified little negro
boy:

MR. LINCOLN: “Look here, Jeff Davis! If you lay a finger on that boy, to
hurt him, I’ll lick this ugly cub of yours within an inch of his life!”

Much to the surprise of the Confederates, the negro soldiers fought
valiantly; they were fearless when well led, obeyed orders without
hesitation, were amenable to discipline, and were eager and anxious, at
all times, to do their duty. In battle they were formidable opponents,
and in using the bayonet were the equal of the best trained troops. The
Southerners hated them beyond power of expression.




TALKED TO THE NEGROES OF RICHMOND.

The President walked through the streets of Richmond--without a guard
except a few seamen--in company with his son “Tad,” and Admiral Porter,
on April 4th, 1865, the day following the evacuation of the city.

Colored people gathered about him on every side, eager to see and thank
their liberator. Mr. Lincoln addressed the following remarks to one of
these gatherings:

“My poor friends, you are free--free as air. You can cast off the name
of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more.

“Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as He gave it to others,
and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years.

“But you must try to deserve this priceless boon. Let the world see that
you merit it, and are able to maintain it by your good work.

“Don’t let your joy carry you into excesses; learn the laws, and obey
them. Obey God’s commandments, and thank Him for giving you liberty, for
to Him you owe all things.

“There, now, let me pass on; I have but little time to spare.

“I want to see the Capitol, and must return at once to Washington to
secure to you that liberty which you seem to prize so highly.”




“ABE” ADDED A SAVING CLAUSE.

Lincoln fell in love with Miss Mary S. Owens about 1833 or so, and,
while she was attracted toward him she was not passionately fond of him.

Lincoln’s letter of proposal of marriage, sent by him to Miss Owens,
while singular, unique, and decidedly unconventional, was certainly not
very ardent. He, after the fashion of the lawyer, presented the matter
very cautiously, and pleaded his own cause; then presented her side
of the case, advised her not “to do it,” and agreed to abide by her
decision.

Miss Owens respected Lincoln, but promptly rejected him--really very
much to “Abe’s” relief.




HOW “JACK” WAS “DONE UP.”

Not far from New Salem, Illinois, at a place called Clary’s Grove, a
gang of frontier ruffians had established headquarters, and the champion
wrestler of “The Grove” was “Jack” Armstrong, a bully of the worst type.

Learning that Abraham was something of a wrestler himself, “Jack” sent
him a challenge. At that time and in that community a refusal would have
resulted in social and business ostracism, not to mention the stigma of
cowardice which would attach.

It was a great day for New Salem and “The Grove” when Lincoln and
Armstrong met. Settlers within a radius of fifty miles flocked to the
scene, and the wagers laid were heavy and many. Armstrong proved a
weakling in the hands of the powerful Kentuckian, and “Jack’s” adherents
were about to mob Lincoln when the latter’s friends saved him from
probable death by rushing to the rescue.




ANGELS COULDN’T SWEAR IT RIGHT.

The President was once speaking about an attack made on him by the
Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War for a certain alleged
blunder in the Southwest--the matter involved being one which had
fallen directly under the observation of the army officer to whom he was
talking, who possessed official evidence completely upsetting all the
conclusions of the Committee.

“Might it not be well for me,” queried the officer, “to set this matter
right in a letter to some paper, stating the facts as they actually
transpired?”

“Oh, no,” replied the President, “at least, not now. If I were to try to
read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as
well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how the
very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the
end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to
anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten thousand angels swearing I
was right would make no difference.”




“MUST GO, AND GO TO STAY.”

Ward Hill Lamon was President Lincoln’s Cerberus, his watch dog,
guardian, friend, companion and confidant. Some days before Lincoln’s
departure for Washington to be inaugurated, he wrote to Lamon at
Bloomington, that he desired to see him at once. He went to Springfield,
and Lincoln said:

“Hill, on the 11th I go to Washington, and I want you to go along with
me. Our friends have already asked me to send you as Consul to Paris.
You know I would cheerfully give you anything for which our friends may
ask or which you may desire, but it looks as if we might have war.

“In that case I want you with me. In fact, I must have you. So get
yourself ready and come along. It will be handy to have you around. If
there is to be a fight, I want you to help me to do my share of it, as
you have done in times past. You must go, and go to stay.”

This is Lamon’s version of it.




LINCOLN WASN’T BUYING NOMINATIONS.

To a party who wished to be empowered to negotiate reward for promises
of influence in the Chicago Convention, 1860, Mr. Lincoln replied:

“No, gentlemen; I have not asked the nomination, and I will not now buy
it with pledges.

“If I am nominated and elected, I shall not go into the Presidency as
the tool of this man or that man, or as the property of any factor or
clique.”




HE ENVIED THE SOLDIER AT THE FRONT.

After some very bad news had come in from the army in the field, Lincoln
remarked to Schuyler Colfax:

“How willingly would I exchange places to-day with the soldier who
sleeps on the ground in the Army of the Potomac!”




DON’T TRUST TOO FAR

In the campaign of 1852, Lincoln, in reply to Douglas’ speech, wherein
he spoke of confidence in Providence, replied: “Let us stand by our
candidate (General Scott) as faithfully as he has always stood by our
country, and I much doubt if we do not perceive a slight abatement of
Judge Douglas’ confidence in Providence as well as the people. I suspect
that confidence is not more firmly fixed with the judge than it was with
the old woman whose horse ran away with her in a buggy. She said she
‘trusted in Providence till the britchen broke,’ and then she ‘didn’t
know what in airth to do.’”




HE’D “RISK THE DICTATORSHIP.”

Lincoln’s great generosity to his leaders was shown when, in January,
1863, he assigned “Fighting Joe” Hooker to the command of the Army of
the Potomac. Hooker had believed in a military dictatorship, and it was
an open secret that McClellan might have become such had he possessed
the nerve. Lincoln, however, was not bothered by this prattle, as he
did not think enough of it to relieve McClellan of his command. The
President said to Hooker:

“I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying
that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it
was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.
Only those generals who gain success can be dictators.

“What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the
dictatorship.”

Lincoln also believed Hooker had not given cordial support to General
Burnside when he was in command of the army. In Lincoln’s own peculiarly
plain language, he told Hooker that he had done “a great wrong to the
country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.”




“MAJOR GENERAL, I RECKON.”

At one time the President had the appointment of a large additional
number of brigadier and major generals. Among the immense number of
applications, Mr. Lincoln came upon one wherein the claims of a certain
worthy (not in the service at all), “for a generalship” were glowingly
set forth. But the applicant didn’t specify whether he wanted to be
brigadier or major general.

The President observed this difficulty, and solved it by a lucid
indorsement. The clerk, on receiving the paper again, found written
across its back, “Major General, I reckon. A. Lincoln.”




WOULD SEE THE TRACKS.

Judge Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner, said that he never saw Lincoln
more cheerful than on the day previous to his departure from Springfield
for Washington, and Judge Gillespie, who visited him a few days earlier,
found him in excellent spirits.

“I told him that I believed it would do him good to get down to
Washington,” said Herndon.

“I know it will,” Lincoln replied. “I only wish I could have got there
to lock the door before the horse was stolen. But when I get to the
spot, I can find the tracks.”




“ABE” GAVE HER A “SURE TIP.”

If all the days Lincoln attended school were added together, they would
not make a single year’s time, and he never studied grammar or geography
or any of the higher branches. His first teacher in Indiana was Hazel
Dorsey, who opened a school in a log schoolhouse a mile and a half
from the Lincoln cabin. The building had holes for windows, which were
covered over with greased paper to admit light. The roof was just high
enough for a man to stand erect. It did not take long to demonstrate
that “Abe” was superior to any scholar in his class. His next teacher
was Andrew Crawford, who taught in the winter of 1822-3, in the same
little schoolhouse. “Abe” was an excellent speller, and it is said that
he liked to show off his knowledge, especially if he could help out
his less fortunate schoolmates. One day the teacher gave out the word
“defied.” A large class was on the floor, but it seemed that no one
would be able to spell it. The teacher declared he would keep the whole
class in all day and night if “defied” was not spelled correctly.

When the word came around to Katy Roby, she was standing where she
could see young “Abe.” She started, “d-e-f,” and while trying to decide
whether to spell the word with an “i” or a “y,” she noticed that Abe had
his finger on his eye and a smile on his face, and instantly took the
hint. She spelled the word correctly and school was dismissed.




THE PRESIDENT HAD KNOWLEDGE OF HIM.

Lincoln never forgot anyone or anything.

At one of the afternoon receptions at the White House a stranger shook
hands with him, and, as he did so, remarked casually, that he was
elected to Congress about the time Mr. Lincoln’s term as representative
expired, which happened many years before.

“Yes,” said the President, “You are from--” (mentioning the State).
“I remember reading of your election in a newspaper one morning on a
steamboat going down to Mount Vernon.”

At another time a gentleman addressed him, saying, “I presume, Mr.
President, you have forgotten me?”

“No,” was the prompt reply; “your name is Flood. I saw you last, twelve
years ago, at--” (naming the place and the occasion).

“I am glad to see,” he continued, “that the Flood goes on.”

Subsequent to his re-election a deputation of bankers from various
sections were introduced one day by the Secretary of the Treasury.

After a few moments of general conversation, Lincoln turned to one of
them and said:

“Your district did not give me so strong a vote at the last election as
it did in 1860.”

“I think, sir, that you must be mistaken,” replied the banker. “I have
the impression that your majority was considerably increased at the last
election.”

“No,” rejoined the President, “you fell off about six hundred votes.”

Then taking down from the bookcase the official canvass of 1860 and
1864, he referred to the vote of the district named, and proved to be
quite right in his assertion.




ONLY HALF A MAN.

As President Lincoln, arm in arm with ex-President Buchanan, entered the
Capitol, and passed into the Senate Chamber, filled to overflowing with
Senators, members of the Diplomatic Corps, and visitors, the contrast
between the two men struck every observer.

“Mr. Buchanan was so withered and bowed with age,” wrote George W.
Julian, of Indiana, who was among the spectators, “that in contrast with
the towering form of Mr. Lincoln he seemed little more than half a man.”




GRANT CONGRATULATED LINCOLN.

As soon as the result of the Presidential election of 1864 was known,
General Grant telegraphed from City Point his congratulations, and added
that “the election having passed off quietly... is a victory worth more
to the country than a battle won.”




“BRUTUS AND CAESAR.”

London “Punch” persistently maintained throughout the War for the Union
that the question of what to do with the blacks was the most bothersome
of all the problems President Lincoln had to solve. “Punch” thought the
Rebellion had its origin in an effort to determine whether there should
or should not be slavery in the United States, and was fought with this
as the main end in view. “Punch” of August 15th, 1863, contained the
cartoon reproduced on this page, the title being “Brutus and Caesar.”

President Lincoln was pictured as Brutus, while the ghost of Caesar,
which appeared in the tent of the American Brutus during the dark hours
of the night, was represented in the shape of a husky and anything but
ghost-like African, whose complexion would tend to make the blackest
tar look like skimmed milk in comparison. This was the text below the
cartoon: (From the American Edition of Shakespeare.) The Tent of Brutus
(Lincoln). Night. Enter the Ghost of Caesar.

BRUTUS: “Wall, now! Do tell! Who’s you?”

CAESAR: “I am dy ebil genus, Massa Linking. Dis child am awful
impressional!”

“Punch’s” cartoons were decidedly unfriendly in tone toward President
Lincoln, some of them being not only objectionable in the display of bad
taste, but offensive and vulgar. It is true that after the assassination
of the President, “Punch,” in illustrations, paid marked and deserved
tribute to the memory of the Great Emancipator, but it had little that
was good to say of him while he was among the living and engaged in
carrying out the great work for which he was destined to win eternal
fame.




HOW STANTON GOT INTO THE CABINET.

President Lincoln, well aware of Stanton’s unfriendliness, was surprised
when Secretary of the Treasury Chase told him that Stanton had expressed
the opinion that the arrest of the Confederate Commissioners, Mason and
Slidell, was legal and justified by international law. The President
asked Secretary Chase to invite Stanton to the White House, and Stanton
came. Mr. Lincoln thanked him for the opinion he had expressed, and
asked him to put it in writing.

Stanton complied, the President read it carefully, and, after putting
it away, astounded Stanton by offering him the portfolio of War.
Stanton was a Democrat, had been one of the President’s most persistent
vilifiers, and could not realize, at first, that Lincoln meant what he
said. He managed, however to say:

“I am both surprised and embarrassed, Mr. President, and would ask a
couple of days to consider this most important matter.”

Lincoln fully understood what was going on in Stanton’s mind, and then
said:

“This is a very critical period in the life of the nation, Mr. Stanton,
as you are well aware, and I well know you are as much interested in
sustaining the government as myself or any other man. This is no time to
consider mere party issues. The life of the nation is in danger. I
need the best counsellors around me. I have every confidence in your
judgment, and have concluded to ask you to become one of my counsellors.
The office of the Secretary of War will soon be vacant, and I am anxious
to have you take Mr. Cameron’s place.”

Stanton decided to accept.

“ABE” LIKE HIS FATHER.

“Abe” Lincoln’s father was never at loss for an answer. An old neighbor
of Thomas Lincoln--“Abe’s” father--was passing the Lincoln farm one day,
when he saw “Abe’s” father grubbing up some hazelnut bushes, and said to
him: “Why, Grandpap, I thought you wanted to sell your farm?”

“And so I do,” he replied, “but I ain’t goin’ to let my farm know it.”

“‘Abe’s’ jes’ like his father,” the old ones would say.




“NO MOON AT ALL.”

One of the most notable of Lincoln’s law cases was that in which he
defended William D. Armstrong, charged with murder. The case was one
which was watched during its progress with intense interest, and it had
a most dramatic ending.

The defendant was the son of Jack and Hannah Armstrong. The father was
dead, but Hannah, who had been very motherly and helpful to Lincoln
during his life at New Salem, was still living, and asked Lincoln to
defend him. Young Armstrong had been a wild lad, and was often in bad
company.

The principal witness had sworn that he saw young Armstrong strike the
fatal blow, the moon being very bright at the time.

Lincoln brought forward the almanac, which showed that at the time
the murder was committed there was no moon at all. In his argument,
Lincoln’s speech was so feelingly made that at its close all the men
in the jury-box were in tears. It was just half an hour when the jury
returned a verdict of acquittal.

Lincoln would accept no fee except the thanks of the anxious mother.




“ABE” A SUPERB MIMIC.

Lincoln’s reading in his early days embraced a wide range. He was
particularly fond of all stories containing fun, wit and humor, and
every one of these he came across he learned by heart, thus adding to
his personal store.

He improved as a reciter and retailer of the stories he had read and
heard, and as the reciter of tales of his own invention, and he had
ready and eager auditors.

Judge Herndon, in his “Abraham Lincoln,” relates that as a mimic Lincoln
was unequalled. An old neighbor said: “His laugh was striking. Such
awkward gestures belonged to no other man. They attracted universal
attention, from the old and sedate down to the schoolboy. Then, in a few
moments, he was as calm and thoughtful as a judge on the bench, and as
ready to give advice on the most important matters; fun and gravity grew
on him alike.”




WHY HE WAS CALLED “HONEST ABE.”

During the year Lincoln was in Denton Offutt’s store at New Salem, that
gentleman, whose business was somewhat widely and unwisely spread about
the country, ceased to prosper in his finances and finally failed. The
store was shut up, the mill was closed, and Abraham Lincoln was out of
business.

The year had been one of great advance, in many respects. He had made
new and valuable acquaintances, read many books, mastered the grammar of
his own tongue, won multitudes of friends, and became ready for a step
still further in advance.

Those who could appreciate brains respected him, and those whose ideas
of a man related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was while he
was performing the work of the store that he acquired the sobriquet
of “Honest Abe”--a characterization he never dishonored, and an
abbreviation that he never outgrew.

He was judge, arbitrator, referee, umpire, authority, in all disputes,
games and matches of man-flesh, horse-flesh, a pacificator in all
quarrels; everybody’s friend; the best-natured, the most sensible, the
best-informed, the most modest and unassuming, the kindest, gentlest,
roughest, strongest, best fellow in all New Salem and the region round
about.




“ABE’S” NAME REMAINED ON THE SIGN.

Enduring friendship and love of old associations were prominent
characteristics of President Lincoln. When about to leave Springfield
for Washington, he went to the dingy little law office which had
sheltered his saddest hours.

He sat down on the couch, and said to his law partner, Judge Herndon:

“Billy, you and I have been together for more than twenty years, and
have never passed a word. Will you let my name stay on the old sign
until I come back from Washington?”

The tears started to Herndon’s eyes. He put out his hand. “Mr. Lincoln,”
 said he, “I never will have any other partner while you live”; and to
the day of assassination, all the doings of the firm were in the name of
“Lincoln & Herndon.”




VERY HOMELY AT FIRST SIGHT.

Early in January, 1861, Colonel Alex. K. McClure, of Philadelphia,
received a telegram from President-elect Lincoln, asking him (McClure)
to visit him at Springfield, Illinois. Colonel McClure described his
disappointment at first sight of Lincoln in these words:

“I went directly from the depot to Lincoln’s house and rang the bell,
which was answered by Lincoln himself opening the door. I doubt whether
a wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him.

“Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill clad, with a homeliness of manner that was
unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered
that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in
the gravest period of its history.

“I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday--snuff-colored and
slouchy pantaloons, open black vest, held by a few brass buttons;
straight or evening dresscoat, with tightly fitting sleeves to
exaggerate his long, bony arms, and all supplemented by an awkwardness
that was uncommon among men of intelligence.

“Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat
down in his plainly furnished parlor, and were uninterrupted during the
nearly four hours that I remained with him, and little by little, as
his earnestness, sincerity and candor were developed in conversation, I
forgot all the grotesque qualities which so confounded me when I first
greeted him.”




THE MAN TO TRUST.

“If a man is honest in his mind,” said Lincoln one day, long before he
became President, “you are pretty safe in trusting him.”




“WUZ GOIN’ TER BE ‘HITCHED.”’

“Abe’s” nephew--or one of them--related a story in connection with
Lincoln’s first love (Anne Rutledge), and his subsequent marriage to
Miss Mary Todd. This nephew was a plain, every-day farmer, and
thought everything of his uncle, whose greatness he quite thoroughly
appreciated, although he did not pose to any extreme as the relative of
a President of the United States.

Said he one day, in telling his story:

“Us child’en, w’en we heerd Uncle ‘Abe’ wuz a-goin’ to be married, axed
Gran’ma ef Uncle ‘Abe’ never hed hed a gal afore, an’ she says, sez she,
‘Well, “Abe” wuz never a han’ nohow to run ‘round visitin’ much, or go
with the gals, neither, but he did fall in love with a Anne Rutledge,
who lived out near Springfield, an’ after she died he’d come home an’
ev’ry time he’d talk ‘bout her, he cried dreadful. He never could talk
of her nohow ‘thout he’d jes’ cry an’ cry, like a young feller.’

“Onct he tol’ Gran’ma they wuz goin’ ter be hitched, they havin’
promised each other, an’ thet is all we ever heered ‘bout it. But, so
it wuz, that arter Uncle ‘Abe’ hed got over his mournin’, he wuz married
ter a woman w’ich hed lived down in Kentuck.

“Uncle ‘Abe’ hisself tol’ us he wuz married the nex’ time he come up ter
our place, an’ w’en we ast him why he didn’t bring his wife up to see
us, he said: ‘She’s very busy and can’t come.’

“But we knowed better’n that. He wuz too proud to bring her up, ’cause
nothin’ would suit her, nohow. She wuzn’t raised the way we wuz, an’ wuz
different from us, and we heerd, tu, she wuz as proud as cud be.

“No, an’ he never brought none uv the child’en, neither.

“But then, Uncle ‘Abe,’ he wuzn’t to blame. We never thought he wuz
stuck up.”




HE PROPOSED TO SAVE THE UNION.

Replying to an editorial written by Horace Greeley, the President wrote:

“My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or to
destroy slavery.

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

“If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I
could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do
that.

“What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it
helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not
believe it would help to save the Union.

“I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the
cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the
cause.”




THE SAME OLD RUM.

One of President Lincoln’s friends, visiting at the White House, was
finding considerable fault with the constant agitation in Congress
of the slavery question. He remarked that, after the adoption of the
Emancipation policy, he had hoped for something new.

“There was a man down in Maine,” said the President, in reply, “who
kept a grocery store, and a lot of fellows used to loaf around for
their toddy. He only gave ‘em New England rum, and they drank pretty
considerable of it. But after awhile they began to get tired of that,
and kept asking for something new--something new--all the time. Well,
one night, when the whole crowd were around, the grocer brought out his
glasses, and says he, ‘I’ve got something New for you to drink, boys,
now.’

“‘Honor bright?’ said they.

“‘Honor bright,’ says he, and with that he sets out a jug. ‘Thar’ says
he, ‘that’s something new; it’s New England rum!’ says he.

“Now,” remarked the President, in conclusion, “I guess we’re a good deal
like that crowd, and Congress is a good deal like that store-keeper!”




SAVED LINCOLN’S LIFE

When Mr. Lincoln was quite a small boy he met with an accident that
almost cost him his life. He was saved by Austin Gollaher, a young
playmate. Mr. Gollaher lived to be more than ninety years of age, and
to the day of his death related with great pride his boyhood association
with Lincoln.

“Yes,” Mr. Gollaher once said, “the story that I once saved Abraham
Lincoln’s life is true. He and I had been going to school together for a
year or more, and had become greatly attached to each other. Then school
disbanded on account of there being so few scholars, and we did not see
each other much for a long while.

“One Sunday my mother visited the Lincolns, and I was taken along. ‘Abe’
and I played around all day. Finally, we concluded to cross the creek
to hunt for some partridges young Lincoln had seen the day before.
The creek was swollen by a recent rain, and, in crossing on the narrow
footlog, ‘Abe’ fell in. Neither of us could swim. I got a long pole and
held it out to ‘Abe,’ who grabbed it. Then I pulled him ashore.

“He was almost dead, and I was badly scared. I rolled and pounded him
in good earnest. Then I got him by the arms and shook him, the water
meanwhile pouring out of his mouth. By this means I succeeded in
bringing him to, and he was soon all right.

“Then a new difficulty confronted us. If our mothers discovered our
wet clothes they would whip us. This we dreaded from experience, and
determined to avoid. It was June, the sun was very warm, and we soon
dried our clothing by spreading it on the rocks about us. We promised
never to tell the story, and I never did until after Lincoln’s tragic
end.”




WOULD NOT RECALL A SINGLE WORD.

In conversation with some friends at the White House on New Year’s
evening, 1863, President Lincoln said, concerning his Emancipation
Proclamation:

“The signature looks a little tremulous, for my hand was tired, but my
resolution was firm.

“I told them in September, if they did not return to their allegiance,
and cease murdering our soldiers, I would strike at this pillar of their
strength.

“And now the promise shall be kept, and not one word of it will I ever
recall.”




OLD BROOM BEST AFTER ALL.

During the time the enemies of General Grant were making their bitterest
attacks upon him, and demanding that the President remove him from
command, “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,” of June 13, 1863, came
out with the cartoon reproduced. The text printed under the picture was
to the following effect:

OLD ABE: “Greeley be hanged! I want no more new brooms. I begin to think
that the worst thing about my old ones was in not being handled right.”

The old broom the President holds in his right hand is labeled “Grant.”
 The latter had captured Fort Donelson, defeated the Confederates at
Shiloh, Iuka, Port Gibson, and other places, and had Vicksburg in his
iron grasp. When the demand was made that Lincoln depose Grant, the
President answered, “I can’t spare this man; he fights!” Grant never
lost a battle and when he found the enemy he always fought him.
McClellan, Burnside, Pope and Hooker had been found wanting, so Lincoln
pinned his faith to Grant. As noted in the cartoon, Horace Greeley,
editor of the New York Tribune, Thurlow Weed, and others wanted Lincoln
to try some other new brooms, but President Lincoln was wearied with
defeats, and wanted a few victories to offset them. Therefore; he stood
by Grant, who gave him victories.




GOD WITH A LITTLE “g.”

     Abraham Lincoln
       his hand and pen
     he will be good
       but god Knows When

These lines were found written in young Lincoln’s own hand at the bottom
of a page whereon he had been ciphering. Lincoln always wrote a clear,
regular “fist.” In this instance he evidently did not appreciate the
sacredness of the name of the Deity, when he used a little “g.”

Lincoln once said he did not remember the time when he could not write.




“ABE’S” LOG.

It was the custom in Sangamon for the “menfolks” to gather at noon and
in the evening, when resting, in a convenient lane near the mill. They
had rolled out a long peeled log, on which they lounged while they
whittled and talked.

Lincoln had not been long in Sangamon before he joined this circle. At
once he became a favorite by his jokes and good-humor. As soon as
he appeared at the assembly ground the men would start him to
story-telling. So irresistibly droll were his “yarns” that whenever he’d
end up in his unexpected way the boys on the log would whoop and roll
off. The result of the rolling off was to polish the log like a mirror.
The men, recognizing Lincoln’s part in this polishing, christened their
seat “Abe’s log.”

Long after Lincoln had disappeared from Sangamon, “Abe’s log” remained,
and until it had rotted away people pointed it out, and repeated the
droll stories of the stranger.




IT WAS A FINE FIZZLE.

President Lincoln, in company with General Grant, was inspecting the
Dutch Gap Canal at City Point. “Grant, do you know what this reminds
me of? Out in Springfield, Ill., there was a blacksmith who, not having
much to do, took a piece of soft iron and attempted to weld it into an
agricultural implement, but discovered that the iron would not hold out;
then he concluded it would make a claw hammer; but having too much iron,
attempted to make an ax, but decided after working awhile that there was
not enough iron left. Finally, becoming disgusted, he filled the forge
full of coal and brought the iron to a white heat; then with his tongs
he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water
near by, exclaimed: ‘Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will
make a fizzle, anyhow.’” “I was afraid that was about what we had done
with the Dutch Gap Canal,” said General Grant.




A TEETOTALER.

When Lincoln was in the Black Hawk War as captain, the volunteer
soldiers drank in with delight the jests and stories of the tall
captain. Aesop’s Fables were given a new dress, and the tales of the
wild adventures that he had brought from Kentucky and Indiana were many,
but his inspiration was never stimulated by recourse to the whisky jug.

When his grateful and delighted auditors pressed this on him he had one
reply: “Thank you, I never drink it.”




NOT TO “OPEN SHOP” THERE.

President Lincoln was passing down Pennsylvania avenue in Washington one
day, when a man came running after him, hailed him, and thrust a bundle
of papers in his hands.

It angered him not a little, and he pitched the papers back, saying,
“I’m not going to open shop here.”




WE HAVE LIBERTY OF ALL KINDS.

Lincoln delivered a remarkable speech at Springfield, Illinois, when but
twenty-eight years of age, upon the liberty possessed by the people of
the United States.

In part, he said:

“In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the
American people, find our account running under date of the nineteenth
century of the Christian era.

“We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion
of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and
salubrity of climate.

“We find ourselves under the government of a system of political
institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and
religious liberty than any of which history of former times tells us.

“We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal
inheritors of these fundamental blessings.

“We toiled not in the acquisition or establishment of them; they are a
legacy bequeathed to us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now
lamented and departed race of ancestors.

“Theirs was the task (and nobly did they perform it) to possess
themselves, us, of this goodly land, to uprear upon its hills and
valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ‘tis ours to
transmit these--the former unprofaned by the foot of an intruder, the
latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation--to the
generation that fate shall permit the world to know.

“This task, gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to
posterity--all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

“How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the
approach of danger?

“Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean
and crush us at a blow?

“Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa, combined, with all
the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest,
with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from
the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand
years.

“At what point, then, is this approach of danger to be expected?

“I answer, if ever it reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot
come from abroad.

“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and
finisher.

“As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by
suicide.

“I hope I am not over-wary; but, if I am not, there is even now
something of ill-omen amongst us.

“I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country, the
disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of
the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the
executive ministers of justice.

“This disposition is awfully fearful in any community, and that it now
exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit it, it would be
a violation of truth and an insult to deny.

“Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the every-day news of the
times.

“They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana; they are
neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former, nor the burning sun
of the latter.

“They are not the creatures of climate, neither are they confined to the
slave-holding or non-slave-holding States.

“Alike they spring up among the pleasure-hunting Southerners and the
order-loving citizens of the land of steady habits.

“Whatever, then, their cause may be, it is common to the whole country.

“Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they may
undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing
beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or Presidential chair; but
such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle.

“What! Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a
Napoleon? Never!

“Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto
unexplored.

“It seeks no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of
fame, erected to the memory of others.

“It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief.

“It scorns to tread in the footpaths of any predecessor, however
illustrious.

“It thirsts and burns for distinction, and, if possible, it will have
it, whether at the expense of emancipating the slaves or enslaving
freemen.

“Another reason which once was, but which to the same extent is now no
more, has done much in maintaining our institutions thus far.

“I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the
Revolution had upon the passions of the people, as distinguished from
their judgment.

“But these histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They
were a fortress of strength.

“But what the invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of
time has done, the levelling of the walls.

“They were a forest of giant oaks, but the all-resisting hurricane swept
over them and left only here and there a lone trunk, despoiled of its
verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a
few more gentle breezes and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few
more rude storms, then to sink and be no more.

“They were the pillars of the temple of liberty, and now that they have
crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, the descendants, supply
the places with pillars hewn from the same solid quarry of sober reason.

“Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our
enemy.

“Reason--cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason--must furnish all the
materials for our support and defense.

“Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound
morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and the
laws; and then our country shall continue to improve, and our nation,
revering his name, and permitting no hostile foot to pass or desecrate
his resting-place, shall be the first to hear the last trump that shall
awaken our Washington.

“Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest as the rock of its
basis, and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution,
‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”




TOM CORWINS’S LATEST STORY.

One of Mr. Lincoln’s warm friends was Dr. Robert Boal, of Lacon,
Illinois. Telling of a visit he paid to the White House soon after Mr.
Lincoln’s inauguration, he said: “I found him the same Lincoln as a
struggling lawyer and politician that I did in Washington as President
of the United States, yet there was a dignity and self-possession about
him in his high official authority. I paid him a second call in the
evening. He had thrown off his reserve somewhat, and would walk up and
down the room with his hands to his sides and laugh at the joke he was
telling, or at one that was told to him. I remember one story he told to
me on this occasion.

“Tom Corwin, of Ohio, had been down to Alexandria, Va., that day and
had come back and told Lincoln a story which pleased him so much that
he broke out in a hearty laugh and said: ‘I must tell you Tom Corwin’s
latest. Tom met an old man at Alexandria who knew George Washington, and
he told Tom that George Washington often swore. Now, Corwin’s father had
always held the father of our country up as a faultless person and told
his son to follow in his footsteps.

“‘“Well,” said Corwin, “when I heard that George Washington was addicted
to the vices and infirmities of man, I felt so relieved that I just
shouted for joy.”’”




“CATCH ‘EM AND CHEAT ‘EM.”

The lawyers on the circuit traveled by Lincoln got together one night
and tried him on the charge of accepting fees which tended to lower
the established rates. It was the understood rule that a lawyer should
accept all the client could be induced to pay. The tribunal was known as
“The Ogmathorial Court.”

Ward Lamon, his law partner at the time, tells about it:

“Lincoln was found guilty and fined for his awful crime against the
pockets of his brethren of the bar. The fine he paid with great good
humor, and then kept the crowd of lawyers in uproarious laughter until
after midnight.

“He persisted in his revolt, however, declaring that with his consent
his firm should never during its life, or after its dissolution, deserve
the reputation enjoyed by those shining lights of the profession, ‘Catch
‘em and Cheat ‘em.’”




A JURYMAN’S SCORN.

Lincoln had assisted in the prosecution of a man who had robbed his
neighbor’s hen roosts. Jogging home along the highway with the foreman
of the jury that had convicted the hen stealer, he was complimented by
Lincoln on the zeal and ability of the prosecution, and remarked: “Why,
when the country was young, and I was stronger than I am now, I didn’t
mind packing off a sheep now and again, but stealing hens!” The good
man’s scorn could not find words to express his opinion of a man who
would steal hens.




HE “BROKE” TO WIN.

A lawyer, who was a stranger to Mr. Lincoln, once expressed to General
Linder the opinion that Mr. Lincoln’s practice of telling stories to the
jury was a waste of time.

“Don’t lay that flattering unction to your soul,” Linder answered;
“Lincoln is like Tansey’s horse, he ‘breaks to win.’”




WANTED HER CHILDREN BACK.

On the 3rd of January, 1863, “Harper’s Weekly” appeared with a cartoon
representing Columbia indignantly demanding of President Lincoln and
Secretary of War Stanton that they restore to her those of her sons
killed in battle. Below the picture is the reading matter:

COLUMBIA: “Where are my 15,000 sons--murdered at Fredericksburg?”

LINCOLN: “This reminds me of a little joke--”

COLUMBIA: “Go tell your joke at Springfield!!”

The battle of Fredericksburg was fought on December 13th, 1862, between
General Burnside, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and General Lee’s
force. The Union troops, time and again, assaulted the heights where
the Confederates had taken position, but were driven back with frightful
losses. The enemy, being behind breastworks, suffered comparatively
little. At the beginning of the fight the Confederate line was broken,
but the result of the engagement was disastrous to the Union cause.
Burnside had one thousand one hundred and fifty-two killed, nine
thousand one hundred and one wounded, and three thousand two hundred
and thirty-four missing, a total of thirteen thousand seven hundred and
seventy-one. General Lee’s losses, all told, were not much more than
five thousand men.

Burnside had succeeded McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac,
mainly, it was said, through the influence of Secretary of War Stanton.
Three months before, McClellan had defeated Lee at Antietam, the
bloodiest battle of the War, Lee’s losses footing up more than thirteen
thousand men. At Fredericksburg, Burnside had about one hundred and
twenty thousand men; at Antietam, McClellan had about eighty thousand.
It has been maintained that Burnside should not have fought this battle,
the chances of success being so few.




SIX FEET FOUR AT SEVENTEEN.

“Abe’s” school teacher, Crawford, endeavored to teach his pupils some of
the manners of the “polite society” of Indiana--1823 or so. This was a
part of his system:

One of the pupils would retire, and then come in as a stranger, and
another pupil would have to introduce him to all the members of the
school n what was considered “good manners.”

As “Abe” wore a linsey-woolsey shirt, buckskin breeches which were too
short and very tight, and low shoes, and was tall and awkward, he no
doubt created considerable merriment when his turn came. He was growing
at a fearful rate; he was fifteen years of age, and two years later
attained his full height of six feet four inches.




HAD RESPECT FOR THE EGGS.

Early in 1831, “Abe” was one of the guests of honor at a boat-launching,
he and two others having built the craft. The affair was a notable one,
people being present from the territory surrounding. A large party came
from Springfield with an ample supply of whisky, to give the boat and
its builders a send-off. It was a sort of bipartisan mass-meeting, but
there was one prevailing spirit, that born of rye and corn. Speeches
were made in the best of feeling, some in favor of Andrew Jackson and
some in favor of Henry Clay. Abraham Lincoln, the cook, told a number
of funny stories, and it is recorded that they were not of too refined a
character to suit the taste of his audience. A sleight-of-hand performer
was present, and among other tricks performed, he fried some eggs
in Lincoln’s hat. Judge Herndon says, as explanatory to the delay in
passing up the hat for the experiment, Lincoln drolly observed: “It was
out of respect for the eggs, not care for my hat.”




HOW WAS THE MILK UPSET?

William G. Greene, an old-time friend of Lincoln, was a student at
Illinois College, and one summer brought home with him, on a vacation,
Richard Yates (afterwards Governor of Illinois) and some other boys,
and, in order to entertain them, took them up to see Lincoln.

He found him in his usual position and at his usual occupation--flat on
his back, on a cellar door, reading a newspaper. This was the manner in
which a President of the United States and a Governor of Illinois became
acquainted with each other.

Greene says Lincoln repeated the whole of Burns, and a large quantity of
Shakespeare for the entertainment of the college boys, and, in return,
was invited to dine with them on bread and milk. How he managed to upset
his bowl of milk is not a matter of history, but the fact is that he
did so, as is the further fact that Greene’s mother, who loved
Lincoln, tried to smooth over the accident and relieve the young man’s
embarrassment.




“PULLED FODDER” FOR A BOOK.

Once “Abe” borrowed Weems’ “Life of Washington” from Joseph Crawford, a
neighbor. “Abe” devoured it; read it and re-read it, and when asleep put
it by him between the logs of the wall. One night a rain storm wet it
through and ruined it.

“I’ve no money,” said “Abe,” when reporting the disaster to Crawford,
“but I’ll work it out.”

“All right,” was Crawford’s response; “you pull fodder for three days,
an’ the book is your’n.”

“Abe” pulled the fodder, but he never forgave Crawford for putting so
much work upon him. He never lost an opportunity to crack a joke at his
expense, and the name “Blue-nose Crawford” “Abe” applied to him stuck to
him throughout his life.




PRAISES HIS RIVAL FOR OFFICE.

When Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for the Legislature, it was the
practice at that date in Illinois for two rival candidates to travel
over the district together. The custom led to much good-natured raillery
between them; and in such contests Lincoln was rarely, if ever, worsted.
He could even turn the generosity of a rival to account by his whimsical
treatment.

On one occasion, says Mr. Weir, a former resident of Sangamon county, he
had driven out from Springfield in company with a political opponent
to engage in joint debate. The carriage, it seems, belonged to his
opponent. In addressing the gathering of farmers that met them, Lincoln
was lavish in praise of the generosity of his friend.

“I am too poor to own a carriage,” he said, “but my friend has
generously invited me to ride with him. I want you to vote for me if you
will; but if not then vote for my opponent, for he is a fine man.”

His extravagant and persistent praise of his opponent appealed to the
sense of humor in his rural audience, to whom his inability to own a
carriage was by no means a disqualification.




ONE THING “ABE” DIDN’T LOVE.

Lincoln admitted that he was not particularly energetic when it came to
real hard work.

“My father,” said he one day, “taught me how to work, but not to love
it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell
stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh--anything but work.”




THE MODESTY OF GENIUS.

The opening of the year 1860 found Mr. Lincoln’s name freely mentioned
in connection with the Republican nomination for the Presidency. To be
classed with Seward, Chase, McLean, and other celebrities, was enough to
stimulate any Illinois lawyer’s pride; but in Mr. Lincoln’s case, if it
had any such effect, he was most artful in concealing it. Now and then,
some ardent friend, an editor, for example, would run his name up to the
masthead, but in all cases he discouraged the attempt.

“In regard to the matter you spoke of,” he answered one man who proposed
his name, “I beg you will not give it a further mention. Seriously, I do
not think I am fit for the Presidency.”




WHY SHE MARRIED HIM.

There was a “social” at Lincoln’s house in Springfield, and “Abe”
 introduced his wife to Ward Lamon, his law partner. Lamon tells the
story in these words:

“After introducing me to Mrs. Lincoln, he left us in conversation. I
remarked to her that her husband was a great favorite in the eastern
part of the State, where I had been stopping.

“‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘he is a great favorite everywhere. He is to be
President of the United States some day; if I had not thought so I never
would have married him, for you can see he is not pretty.

“‘But look at him, doesn’t he look as if he would make a magnificent
President?’”




NIAGARA FALLS.

(Written By Abraham Lincoln.)

The following article on Niagara Falls, in Mr. Lincoln’s handwriting,
was found among his papers after his death:

“Niagara Falls! By what mysterious power is it that millions and
millions are drawn from all parts of the world to gaze upon Niagara
Falls? There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just
as any intelligent man, knowing the causes, would anticipate without
seeing it. If the water moving onward in a great river reaches a point
where there is a perpendicular jog of a hundred feet in descent in
the bottom of the river, it is plain the water will have a violent
and continuous plunge at that point. It is also plain, the water, thus
plunging, will foam and roar, and send up a mist continuously, in
which last, during sunshine, there will be perpetual rainbows. The mere
physical of Niagara Falls is only this. Yet this is really a very small
part of that world’s wonder. Its power to excite reflection and emotion
is its great charm. The geologist will demonstrate that the plunge, or
fall, was once at Lake Ontario, and has worn its way back to its present
position; he will ascertain how fast it is wearing now, and so get
a basis for determining how long it has been wearing back from Lake
Ontario, and finally demonstrate by it that this world is at least
fourteen thousand years old. A philosopher of a slightly different turn
will say, ‘Niagara Falls is only the lip of the basin out of which pours
all the surplus water which rains down on two or three hundred thousand
square miles of the earth’s surface.’ He will estimate with approximate
accuracy that five hundred thousand tons of water fall with their full
weight a distance of a hundred feet each minute--thus exerting a force
equal to the lifting of the same weight, through the same space, in the
same time.

“But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus
first sought this continent--when Christ suffered on the cross--when
Moses led Israel through the Red Sea--nay, even when Adam first came
from the hand of his Maker; then, as now, Niagara was roaring here. The
eyes of that species of extinct giants whose bones fill the mounds of
America have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Contemporary with the
first race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong and
fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon, so
long dead that fragments of their monstrous bones alone testify that
they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara--in that long, long time never
still for a single moment (never dried), never froze, never slept, never
rested.”




MADE IT HOT FOR LINCOLN.

A lady relative, who lived for two years with the Lincolns, said that
Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of lying on the floor with the back of a
chair for a pillow when he read.

One evening, when in this position in the hall, a knock was heard at the
front door, and, although in his shirtsleeves, he answered the call. Two
ladies were at the door, whom he invited into the parlor, notifying them
in his open, familiar way, that he would “trot the women folks out.”

Mrs. Lincoln, from an adjoining room, witnessed the ladies’ entrance,
and, overhearing her husband’s jocose expression, her indignation was
so instantaneous she made the situation exceedingly interesting for him,
and he was glad to retreat from the house. He did not return till very
late at night, and then slipped quietly in at a rear door.




WOULDN’T HOLD TITLE AGAINST HIM.

During the rebellion the Austrian Minister to the United States
Government introduced to the President a count, a subject of the
Austrian government, who was desirous of obtaining a position in the
American army.

Being introduced by the accredited Minister of Austria he required no
further recommendation to secure the appointment; but, fearing that his
importance might not be fully appreciated by the republican President,
the count was particular in impressing the fact upon him that he bore
that title, and that his family was ancient and highly respectable.

President Lincoln listened with attention, until this unnecessary
commendation was mentioned; then, with a merry twinkle in his eye, he
tapped the aristocratic sprig of hereditary nobility on the shoulder in
the most fatherly way, as if the gentleman had made a confession of some
unfortunate circumstance connected with his lineage, for which he was in
no way responsible, and said:

“Never mind, you shall be treated with just as much consideration for all
that. I will see to it that your bearing a title shan’t hurt you.”




ONLY ONE LIFE TO LIVE.

A young man living in Kentucky had been enticed into the rebel army.
After a few months he became disgusted, and managed to make his way
back home. Soon after his arrival, the Union officer in command of the
military stationed in the town had him arrested as a rebel spy, and,
after a military trial he was condemned to be hanged.

President Lincoln was seen by one of his friends from Kentucky, who
explained his errand and asked for mercy. “Oh, yes, I understand; some
one has been crying, and worked upon your feelings, and you have come
here to work on mine.”

His friend then went more into detail, and assured him of his belief in
the truth of the story. After some deliberation, Mr. Lincoln, evidently
scarcely more than half convinced, but still preferring to err on the
side of mercy, replied:

“If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not
hurt this one; but after he is once dead we cannot bring him back, no
matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.”

And a reprieve was given on the spot.




COULDN’T LOCATE HIS BIRTHPLACE.

While the celebrated artist, Hicks, was engaged in painting Mr.
Lincoln’s portrait, just after the former’s first nomination for the
Presidency, he asked the great statesman if he could point out the
precise spot where he was born.

Lincoln thought the matter over for a day or two, and then gave the
artist the following memorandum:

“Springfield, Ill., June 14, 1860

“I was born February 12, 1809, in then Hardin county, Kentucky, at a
point within the now county of Larue, a mile or a mile and a half from
where Rodgen’s mill now is. My parents being dead, and my own memory not
serving, I know no means of identifying the precise locality. It was on
Nolen Creek.

“A. LINCOLN.”




“SAMBO” WAS “AFEARED.”

In his message to Congress in December, 1864, just after his
re-election, President Lincoln, in his message of December 6th, let
himself out, in plain, unmistakable terms, to the effect that the
freedmen should never be placed in bondage again. “Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper” of December 24th, 1864, printed the cartoon we
herewith reproduce, the text underneath running in this way:

UNCLE ABE: “Sambo, you are not handsome, any more than myself, but as
to sending you back to your old master, I’m not the man to do it--and,
what’s more, I won’t.” (Vice President’s message.)

Congress, at the previous sitting, had neglected to pass the resolution
for the Constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery, but, on the 31st
of January, 1865, the resolution was finally adopted, and the United
States Constitution soon had the new feature as one of its clauses, the
necessary number of State Legislatures approving it. President Lincoln
regarded the passage of this resolution by Congress as most important,
as the amendment, in his mind, covered whatever defects a rigid
construction of the Constitution might find in his Emancipation
Proclamation.

After the latter was issued, negroes were allowed to enlist in the Army,
and they fought well and bravely. After the War, in the reorganization
of the Regular Army, four regiments of colored men were provided
for--the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth
Infantry. In the cartoon, Sambo has evidently been asking “Uncle Abe” as
to the probability or possibility of his being again enslaved.




WHEN MONEY MIGHT BE USED.

Some Lincoln enthusiast in Kansas, with much more pretensions than
power, wrote him in March, 1860 proposing to furnish a Lincoln
delegation from that State to the Chicago Convention, and suggesting
that Lincoln should pay the legitimate expenses of organizing, electing,
and taking to the convention the promised Lincoln delegates.

To this Lincoln replied that “in the main, the use of money is wrong,
but for certain objects in a political contest the use of some is both
right and indispensable.” And he added: “If you shall be appointed a
delegate to Chicago, I will furnish $100 to bear the expenses of the
trip.”

He heard nothing further from the Kansas man until he saw an
announcement in the newspapers that Kansas had elected delegates and
instructed them for Seward.




“ABE” WAS NO BEAUTY.

Lincoln’s military service in the Back Hawk war had increased his
popularity at New Salem, and he was put up as a candidate for the
Legislature.

A. Y. Ellis describes his personal appearance at this time as follows:
“He wore a mixed jean coat, claw-hammer style, short in the sleeves and
bob-tailed; in fact, it was so short in the tail that he could not sit
on it; flax and tow linen pantaloons and a straw hat. I think he wore a
vest, but do not remember how it looked; he wore pot-metal boots.”




“HE’S JUST BEAUTIFUL.”

Lincoln’s great love for children easily won their confidence.

A little girl, who had been told that the President was very homely, was
taken by her father to see the President at the White House.

Lincoln took her upon his knee and chatted with her for a moment in his
merry way, when she turned to her father and exclaimed:

“Oh, Pa! he isn’t ugly at all; he’s just beautiful!”




BIG ENOUGH HOG FOR HIM.

To a curiosity-seeker who desired a permit to pass the lines to
visit the field of Bull Run, after the first battle, Lincoln made the
following reply:

“A man in Cortlandt county raised a porker of such unusual size that
strangers went out of their way to see it.

“One of them the other day met the old gentleman and inquired about the
animal.

“‘Wall, yes,’ the old fellow said, ‘I’ve got such a critter, mi’ty big
un; but I guess I’ll have to charge you about a shillin’ for lookin’ at
him.’

“The stranger looked at the old man for a minute or so, pulled out the
desired coin, handed it to him and started to go off. ‘Hold on,’ said
the other, ‘don’t you want to see the hog?’

“‘No,’ said the stranger; ‘I have seen as big a hog as I want to see!’

“And you will find that fact the case with yourself, if you should
happen to see a few live rebels there as well as dead ones.”




“ABE” OFFERS A SPEECH FOR SOMETHING TO EAT.

When Lincoln’s special train from Springfield to Washington reached the
Illinois State line, there was a stop for dinner. There was such a crowd
that Lincoln could scarcely reach the dining-room. “Gentlemen,” said he,
as he surveyed the crowd, “if you will make me a little path, so that I
can get through and get something to eat, I will make you a speech when
I get back.”




THEY UNDERSTOOD EACH OTHER.

When complaints were made to President Lincoln by victims of
Secretary of War Stanton’s harshness, rudeness, and refusal to be
obliging--particularly in cases where Secretary Stanton had refused
to honor Lincoln’s passes through the lines--the President would often
remark to this effect “I cannot always be sure that permits given by
me ought to be granted. There is an understanding between myself and
Stanton that when I send a request to him which cannot consistently be
granted, he is to refuse to honor it. This he sometimes does.”




FEW FENCE RAILS LEFT.

“There won’t be a tar barrel left in Illinois to-night,” said Senator
Stephen A. Douglas, in Washington, to his Senatorial friends, who asked
him, when the news of the nomination of Lincoln reached them, “Who is
this man Lincoln, anyhow?”

Douglas was right. Not only the tar barrels, but half the fences of the
State of Illinois went up in the fire of rejoicing.




THE “GREAT SNOW” OF 1830-31.

In explanation of Lincoln’s great popularity, D. W. Bartlett, in his
“Life and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln,” published in 1860 makes this
statement of “Abe’s” efficient service to his neighbors in the “Great
Snow” of 1830-31:

“The deep snow which occurred in 1830-31 was one of the chief troubles
endured by the early settlers of central and southern Illinois. Its
consequences lasted through several years. The people were ill-prepared
to meet it, as the weather had been mild and pleasant--unprecedentedly
so up to Christmas--when a snow-storm set in which lasted two days,
something never before known even among the traditions of the Indians,
and never approached in the weather of any winter since.

“The pioneers who came into the State (then a territory) in 1800 say the
average depth of snow was never, previous to 1830, more than knee-deep
to an ordinary man, while it was breast-high all that winter.
It became crusted over, so as, in some cases, to bear teams. Cattle
and horses perished, the winter wheat was killed, the meager stock of
provisions ran out, and during the three months’ continuance of the
snow, ice and continuous cold weather the most wealthy settlers came
near starving, while some of the poor ones actually did. It was in the
midst of such scenes that Abraham Lincoln attained his majority, and
commenced his career of bold and manly independence.....

“Communication between house and house was often entirely obstructed for
teams, so that the young and strong men had to do all the traveling on
foot; carrying from one neighbor what of his store he could spare to
another, and bringing back in return something of his store sorely
needed. Men living five, ten, twenty and thirty miles apart were called
‘neighbors’ then. Young Lincoln was always ready to perform these acts
of humanity, and was foremost in the counsels of the settlers when their
troubles seemed gathering like a thick cloud about them.”




CREDITOR PAID DEBTORS DEBT.

A certain rich man in Springfield, Illinois, sued a poor attorney for
$2.50, and Lincoln was asked to prosecute the case. Lincoln urged the
creditor to let the matter drop, adding, “You can make nothing out of
him, and it will cost you a good deal more than the debt to bring suit.”
 The creditor was still determined to have his way, and threatened
to seek some other attorney. Lincoln then said, “Well, if you are
determined that suit should be brought, I will bring it; but my charge
will be $10.”

The money was paid him, and peremptory orders were given that the suit
be brought that day. After the client’s departure Lincoln went out of
the office, returning in about an hour with an amused look on his face.

Asked what pleased him, he replied, “I brought suit against ----, and
then hunted him up, told him what I had done, handed him half of the
$10, and we went over to the squire’s office. He confessed judgment and
paid the bill.”

Lincoln added that he didn’t see any other way to make things
satisfactory for his client as well as the other.




HELPED OUT THE SOLDIERS.

Judge Thomas B. Bryan, of Chicago, a member of the Union Defense
Committee during the War, related the following concerning the original
copy of the Emancipation Proclamation:

“I asked Mr. Lincoln for the original draft of the Proclamation,” said
Judge Bryan, “for the benefit of our Sanitary Fair, in 1865. He sent it
and accompanied it with a note in which he said:

“‘I had intended to keep this paper, but if it will help the soldiers, I
give it to you.’

“The paper was put up at auction and brought $3,000. The buyer afterward
sold it again to friends of Mr. Lincoln at a greatly advanced price, and
it was placed in the rooms of the Chicago Historical Society, where it
was burned in the great fire of 1871.”




EVERY FELLOW FOR HIMSELF.

An elegantly dressed young Virginian assured Lincoln that he had done a
great deal of hard manual labor in his time. Much amused at this solemn
declaration, Lincoln said:

“Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off
at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is
different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t
get there.”




“BUTCHER-KNIFE BOYS” AT THE POLLS.

When young Lincoln had fully demonstrated that he was the champion
wrestler in the country surrounding New Salem, the men of “de gang” at
Clary’s Grove, whose leader “Abe” had downed, were his sworn political
friends and allies.

Their work at the polls was remarkably effective. When the “Butcherknife
boys,” the “huge-pawed boys,” and the “half-horse-half-alligator men”
 declared for a candidate the latter was never defeated.




NO “SECOND COMING” FOR SPRINGFIELD.

Soon after the opening of Congress in 1861, Mr. Shannon, from
California, made the customary call at the White House. In the
conversation that ensued, Mr Shannon said: “Mr. President, I met an old
friend of yours in California last summer, a Mr. Campbell, who had a
good deal to say of your Springfield life.”

“Ah!” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I am glad to hear of him. Campbell used
to be a dry fellow in those days,” he continued. “For a time he was
Secretary of State. One day during the legislative vacation, a meek,
cadaverous-looking man, with a white neck-cloth, introduced himself to
him at his office, and, stating that he had been informed that Mr. C.
had the letting of the hall of representatives, he wished to secure
it, if possible, for a course of lectures he desired to deliver in
Springfield.

“‘May I ask,’ said the Secretary, ‘what is to be the subject of your
lectures?’

“‘Certainly,’ was the reply, with a very solemn expression of
countenance. ‘The course I wish to deliver is on the Second Coming of
our Lord.’

“‘It is of no use,’ said C.; ‘if you will take my advice, you will not
waste your time in this city. It is my private opinion that, if the Lord
has been in Springfield once, He will never come the second time!’”




HOW HE WON A FRIEND.

J. S. Moulton, of Chicago, a master in chancery and influential in
public affairs, looked upon the candidacy of Mr. Lincoln for President
as something in the nature of a joke. He did not rate the Illinois man
in the same class with the giants of the East. In fact he had expressed
himself as by no means friendly to the Lincoln cause.

Still he had been a good friend to Lincoln and had often met him when
the Springfield lawyer came to Chicago. Mr. Lincoln heard of Moulton’s
attitude, but did not see Moulton until after the election, when the
President-elect came to Chicago and was tendered a reception at one of
the big hotels.

Moulton went up in the line to pay his respects to the newly-elected
chief magistrate, purely as a formality, he explained to his companions.
As Moulton came along the line Mr. Lincoln grasped Moulton’s hand with
his right, and with his left took the master of chancery by the shoulder
and pulled him out of the line.

“You don’t belong in that line, Moulton,” said Mr. Lincoln. “You belong
here by me.”

Everyone at the reception was a witness to the honoring of Moulton. From
that hour every faculty that Moulton possessed was at the service of the
President. A little act of kindness, skillfully bestowed, had won him;
and he stayed on to the end.




NEVER SUED A CLIENT.

If a client did not pay, Lincoln did not believe in suing for the fee.
When a fee was paid him his custom was to divide the money into two
equal parts, put one part into his pocket, and the other into an
envelope labeled “Herndon’s share.”




THE LINCOLN HOUSEHOLD GOODS.

It is recorded that when “Abe” was born, the household goods of his
father consisted of a few cooking utensils, a little bedding, some
carpenter tools, and four hundred gallons of the fierce product of the
mountain still.




RUNNING THE MACHINE.

One of the cartoon-posters issued by the Democratic National Campaign
Committee in the fall of 1864 is given here. It had the legend, “Running
the Machine,” printed beneath; the “machine” was Secretary Chase’s
“Greenback Mill,” and the mill was turning out paper money by the
million to satisfy the demands of greedy contractors. “Uncle Abe” is
pictured as about to tell one of his funny stories, of which the scene
“reminds” him; Secretary of War Stanton is receiving a message from the
front, describing a great victory, in which one prisoner and one gun
were taken; Secretary of State Seward is handing an order to a messenger
for the arrest of a man who had called him a “humbug,” the habeas corpus
being suspended throughout the Union at that period; Secretary of
the Navy Welles--the long-haired, long-bearded man at the head of
the table--is figuring out a naval problem; at the side of the table,
opposite “Uncle Abe,” are seated two Government contractors, shouting
for “more greenbacks,” and at the extreme left is Secretary of the
Treasury Fessenden (who succeeded Chase when the latter was made Chief
Justice of the United States Supreme Court), who complains that he
cannot satisfy the greed of the contractors for “more greenbacks,”
 although he is grinding away at the mill day and night.




WAS “BOSS” WHEN NECESSARY.

Lincoln was the actual head of the administration, and whenever he chose
to do so he controlled Secretary of War Stanton as well as the other
Cabinet ministers.

Secretary Stanton on one occasion said: “Now, Mr. President, those are
the facts and you must see that your order cannot be executed.”

Lincoln replied in a somewhat positive tone: “Mr. Secretary, I reckon
you’ll have to execute the order.”

Stanton replied with vigor: “Mr. President, I cannot do it. This order
is an improper one, and I cannot execute it.”

Lincoln fixed his eyes upon Stanton, and, in a firm voice and accent
that clearly showed his determination, said: “Mr. Secretary, it will
have to be done.”

It was done.




“RATHER STARVE THAN SWINDLE.”

Ward Lamon, once Lincoln’s law partner, relates a story which places
Lincoln’s high sense of honor in a prominent light. In a certain case,
Lincoln and Lamon being retained by a gentleman named Scott, Lamon put
the fee at $250, and Scott agreed to pay it. Says Lamon:

“Scott expected a contest, but, to his surprise, the case was tried
inside of twenty minutes; our success was complete. Scott was satisfied,
and cheerfully paid over the money to me inside the bar, Lincoln looking
on. Scott then went out, and Lincoln asked, ‘What did you charge that
man?’

“I told him $250. Said he: ‘Lamon, that is all wrong. The service was
not worth that sum. Give him back at least half of it.’

“I protested that the fee was fixed in advance; that Scott was perfectly
satisfied, and had so expressed himself. ‘That may be,’ retorted
Lincoln, with a look of distress and of undisguised displeasure, ‘but I
am not satisfied. This is positively wrong. Go, call him back and return
half the money at least, or I will not receive one cent of it for my
share.’

“I did go, and Scott was astonished when I handed back half the fee.

“This conversation had attracted the attention of the lawyers and
the court. Judge David Davis, then on our circuit bench (afterwards
Associate Justice on the United States Supreme bench), called Lincoln to
him. The Judge never could whisper, but in this instance he probably
did his best. At all events, in attempting to whisper to Lincoln he
trumpeted his rebuke in about these words, and in rasping tones that
could be heard all over the court-room: ‘Lincoln, I have been watching
you and Lamon. You are impoverishing this bar by your picayune charges
of fees, and the lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are now
almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don’t make people pay you more for
your services you will die as poor as Job’s turkey!’

“Judge O. L. Davis, the leading lawyer in that part of the State,
promptly applauded this malediction from the bench; but Lincoln was
immovable.

“‘That money,’ said he, ‘comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented
girl, and I would rather starve than swindle her in this manner.’”




DON’T AIM TOO HIGH.

“Billy, don’t shoot too high--aim lower, and the common people will
understand you,” Lincoln once said to a brother lawyer.

“They are the ones you want to reach--at least, they are the ones you
ought to reach.

“The educated and refined people will understand you, anyway. If you aim
too high, your idea will go over the heads of the masses, and only hit
those who need no hitting.”




NOT MUCH AT RAIL-SPLITTING.

One who afterward became one of Lincoln’s most devoted friends and
adherents tells this story regarding the manner in which Lincoln
received him when they met for the first time:

“After a comical survey of my fashionable toggery,--my swallow-tail
coat, white neck-cloth, and ruffled shirt (an astonishing outfit for a
young limb of the law in that settlement), Lincoln said:

“‘Going to try your hand at the law, are you? I should know at a glance
that you were a Virginian; but I don’t think you would succeed at
splitting rails. That was my occupation at your age, and I don’t think I
have taken as much pleasure in anything else from that day to this.’”




GAVE THE SOLDIER THE PREFERENCE.

July 27th, 1863, Lincoln wrote the Postmaster-General:

“Yesterday little indorsements of mine went to you in two cases of
postmasterships, sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in the
battles of this war.

“These cases, occurring on the same day, brought me to reflect more
attentively than what I had before done as to what is fairly due from
us here in dispensing of patronage toward the men who, by fighting our
battles, bear the chief burden of saving our country.

“My conclusion is that, other claims and qualifications being equal,
they have the right, and this is especially applicable to the disabled
soldier and the deceased soldier’s family.”




THE PRESIDENT WAS NOT SCARED.

When told how uneasy all had been at his going to Richmond, Lincoln
replied:

“Why, if any one else had been President and had gone to Richmond, I
would have been alarmed; but I was not scared about myself a bit.”




JEFF. DAVIS’ REPLY TO LINCOLN.

On the 20th of July, 1864, Horace Greeley crossed into Canada to confer
with refugee rebels at Niagara. He bore with him this paper from the
President:

“To Whom It May Concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration
of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of
slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control
the armies now at war with the United States, will be received and
considered by the executive government of the United States, and will
be met by liberal terms and other substantial and collateral points, and
the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.”

To this Jefferson Davis replied: “We are not fighting for slavery; we
are fighting for independence.”




LINCOLN WAS a GENTLEMAN.

Lincoln was compelled to contend with the results of the ill-judged zeal
of politicians, who forced ahead his flatboat and rail-splitting record,
with the homely surroundings of his earlier days, and thus, obscured
for the time, the other fact that, always having the heart, he had long
since acquired the manners of a true gentleman.

So, too, did he suffer from Eastern censors, who did not take those
surroundings into account, and allowed nothing for his originality of
character. One of these critics heard at Washington that Mr. Lincoln, in
speaking at different times of some move or thing, said “it had petered
out;” that some other one’s plan “wouldn’t gibe;” and being asked if the
War and the cause of the Union were not a great care to him, replied:

“Yes, it is a heavy hog to hold.”

The first two phrases are so familiar here in the West that they need no
explanation. Of the last and more pioneer one it may be said that it had
a special force, and was peculiarly Lincoln-like in the way applied by
him.

In the early times in Illinois, those having hogs, did their own
killing, assisted by their neighbors. Stripped of its hair, one held the
carcass nearly perpendicular in the air, head down, while others put
one point of the gambrel-bar through a slit in its hock, then over the
string-pole, and the other point through the other hock, and so swung
the animal clear of the ground. While all this was being done, it took a
good man to “hold the hog,” greasy, warmly moist, and weighing some two
hundred pounds. And often those with the gambrel prolonged the strain,
being provokingly slow, in hopes to make the holder drop his burden.

This latter thought is again expressed where President Lincoln, writing
of the peace which he hoped would “come soon, to stay; and so come as to
be worth the keeping in all future time,” added that while there would
“be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched
teeth and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind
on to this great consummation,” he feared there would “be some white
ones unable to forget that, with malignant heart and deceitful tongue,
they had striven to hinder it.”

He had two seemingly opposite elements little understood by strangers,
and which those in more intimate relations with him find difficult to
explain; an open, boyish tongue when in a happy mood, and with this a
reserve of power, a force of thought that impressed itself without words
on observers in his presence. With the cares of the nation on his mind,
he became more meditative, and lost much of his lively ways remembered
“back in Illinois.”




HIS POOR RELATIONS.

One of the most beautiful traits of Mr. Lincoln’s character was his
considerate regard for the poor and obscure relatives he had left,
plodding along in their humble ways of life. Wherever upon his circuit
he found them, he always went to their dwellings, ate with them, and,
when convenient, made their houses his home. He never assumed in their
presence the slightest superiority to them. He gave them money when
they needed it and he had it. Countless times he was known to leave
his companions at the village hotel, after a hard day’s work in the
court-room, and spend the evening with these old friends and companions
of his humbler days. On one occasion, when urged not to go, he replied,
“Why, Aunt’s heart would be broken if I should leave town without
calling upon her;” yet, he was obliged to walk several miles to make the
call.




DESERTER’S SINS WASHED OUT IN BLOOD.

This was the reply made by Lincoln to an application for the pardon of
a soldier who had shown himself brave in war, had been severely wounded,
but afterward deserted:

“Did you say he was once badly wounded?

“Then, as the Scriptures say that in the shedding of blood is the
remission of sins, I guess we’ll have to let him off this time.”




SURE CURE FOR BOILS.

President Lincoln and Postmaster-General Blair were talking of the war.

“Blair,” said the President, “did you ever know that fright has
sometimes proven a cure for boils?” “No, Mr. President, how is that?”
 “I’ll tell you. Not long ago when a colonel, with his cavalry, was at
the front, and the Rebs were making things rather lively for us, the
colonel was ordered out to a reconnaissance. He was troubled at the time
with a big boil where it made horseback riding decidedly uncomfortable.
He finally dismounted and ordered the troops forward without him. Soon
he was startled by the rapid reports of pistols and the helter-skelter
approach of his troops in full retreat before a yelling rebel force.
He forgot everything but the yells, sprang into his saddle, and made
capital time over the fences and ditches till safe within the lines. The
pain from his boil was gone, and the boil, too, and the colonel swore
that there was no cure for boils so sure as fright from rebel yells.”




PAY FOR EVERYTHING.

When President Lincoln issued a military order, it was usually
expressive, as the following shows:

“War Department, Washington, July 22, ‘62.

“First: Ordered that military commanders within the States of Virginia,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas
and Arkansas, in an orderly manner, seize and use any property, real
or personal, which may be necessary or convenient for their several
commands, for supplies, or for other military purposes; and that while
property may be all stored for proper military objects, none shall be
destroyed in wantonness or malice.

“Second: That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers
within and from said States, so many persons of African descent as
can be advantageously used for military or naval purposes, giving them
reasonable wages for their labor.

“Third: That as to both property and persons of African descent,
accounts shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail to show
quantities and amounts, and from whom both property and such persons
shall have come, as a basis upon which compensation can be made in
proper cases; and the several departments of this Government shall
attend to and perform their appropriate parts towards the execution of
these orders.

“By order of the President.”




BASHFUL WITH LADIES.

Judge David Davis, Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and
United States Senator from Illinois, was one of Lincoln’s most intimate
friends. He told this story on “Abe”:

“Lincoln was very bashful when in the presence of ladies. I remember
once we were invited to take tea at a friend’s house, and while in the
parlor I was called to the front gate to see someone.

“When I returned, Lincoln, who had undertaken to entertain the ladies,
was twisting and squirming in his chair, and as bashful as a schoolboy.”




SAW HUMOR IN EVERYTHING.

There was much that was irritating and uncomfortable in the
circuit-riding of the Illinois court, but there was more which was
amusing to a temperament like Lincoln’s. The freedom, the long days in
the open air, the unexpected if trivial adventures, the meeting with
wayfarers and settlers--all was an entertainment to him. He found humor
and human interest on the route where his companions saw nothing but
commonplaces.

“He saw the ludicrous in an assemblage of fowls,” says H. C. Whitney,
one of his fellow-itinerants, “in a man spading his garden, in a
clothes-line full of clothes, in a group of boys, in a lot of pigs
rooting at a mill door, in a mother duck teaching her brood to swim--in
everything and anything.”




SPECIFIC FOR FOREIGN “RASH.”

It was in the latter part of 1863 that Russia offered its friendship to
the United States, and sent a strong fleet of warships, together with
munitions of war, to this country to be used in any way the President
might see fit. Russia was not friendly to England and France, these
nations having defeated her in the Crimea a few years before. As Great
Britain and the Emperor of the French were continually bothering him,
President Lincoln used Russia’s kindly feeling and action as a means
of keeping the other two powers named in a neutral state of mind.
Underneath the cartoon we here reproduce, which was labeled “Drawing
Things to a Head,” and appeared in the issue of “Harper’s Weekly,” of
November 28, 1863, was this DR. LINCOLN (to smart boy of the shop):
“Mild applications of Russian Salve for our friends over the way, and
heavy doses--and plenty of it for our Southern patient!!”

Secretary of State Seward was the “smart boy” of the shop, and “our
friend over the way” were England and France. The latter bothered
President Lincoln no more, but it is a fact that the Confederate
privateer Alabama was manned almost entirely by British seamen; also,
that when the Alabama was sunk by the Kearsarge, in the summer of 1864,
the Confederate seamen were picked up by an English vessel, taken to
Southhampton, and set at liberty!




FAVORED THE OTHER SIDE.

Lincoln was candor itself when conducting his side of a case in court.
General Mason Brayman tells this story as an illustration:

“It is well understood by the profession that lawyers do not read
authors favoring the opposite side. I once heard Mr. Lincoln, in the
Supreme Court of Illinois, reading from a reported case some strong
points in favor of his argument. Reading a little too far, and before
becoming aware of it, plunged into an authority against himself.

“Pausing a moment, he drew up his shoulders in a comical way, and half
laughing, went on, ‘There, there, may it please the court, I reckon
I’ve scratched up a snake. But, as I’m in for it, I guess I’ll read it
through.’

“Then, in his most ingenious and matchless manner, he went on with his
argument, and won his case, convincing the court that it was not much of
a snake after all.”




LINCOLN AND THE “SHOW”

Lincoln was fond of going all by himself to any little show or concert.
He would often slip away from his fellow-lawyers and spend the entire
evening at a little magic lantern show intended for children.

A traveling concert company was always sure of drawing Lincoln. A Mrs.
Hillis, a member of the “Newhall Family,” and a good singer, was the
only woman who ever seemed to exhibit any liking for him--so Lincoln
said. He attended a negro-minstrel show in Chicago, once, where he heard
Dixie sung. It was entirely new, and pleased him greatly.




“MIXING” AND “MINGLING.”

An Eastern newspaper writer told how Lincoln, after his first
nomination, received callers, the majority of them at his law office:

“While talking to two or three gentlemen and standing up, a very hard
looking customer rolled in and tumbled into the only vacant chair and
the one lately occupied by Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln’s keen eye took in
the fact, but gave no evidence of the notice.

“Turning around at last he spoke to the odd specimen, holding out his
hand at such a distance that our friend had to vacate the chair if he
accepted the proffered shake. Mr. Lincoln quietly resumed his chair.

“It was a small matter, yet one giving proof more positively than a
larger event of that peculiar way the man has of mingling with a mixed
crowd.”




TOOK PART OF THE BLAME.

Among the lawyers who traveled the circuit with Lincoln was Usher F.
Linder, whose daughter, Rose Linder Wilkinson, has left many Lincoln
reminiscences.

“One case in which Mr. Lincoln was interested concerned a member of my
own family,” said Mrs. Wilkinson. “My brother, Dan, in the heat of a
quarrel, shot a young man named Ben Boyle and was arrested. My father
was seriously ill with inflammatory rheumatism at the time, and could
scarcely move hand or foot. He certainly could not defend Dan. I was his
secretary, and I remember it was but a day or so after the shooting till
letters of sympathy began to pour in. In the first bundle which I picked
up there was a big letter, the handwriting on which I recognized as that
of Mr. Lincoln. The letter was very sympathetic.

“‘I know how you feel, Linder,’ it said. ‘I can understand your anger
as a father, added to all the other sentiments. But may we not be in a
measure to blame? We have talked about the defense of criminals before
our children; about our success in defending them; have left the
impression that the greater the crime, the greater the triumph of
securing an acquittal. Dan knows your success as a criminal lawyer,
and he depends on you, little knowing that of all cases you would be of
least value in this.’

“He concluded by offering his services, an offer which touched my father
to tears.

“Mr. Lincoln tried to have Dan released on bail, but Ben Boyle’s family
and friends declared the wounded man would die, and feeling had grown so
bitter that the judge would not grant any bail. So the case was changed
to Marshall county, but as Ben finally recovered it was dismissed.”




THOUGHT OF LEARNING A TRADE.

Lincoln at one time thought seriously of learning the blacksmith’s
trade. He was without means, and felt the immediate necessity of
undertaking some business that would give him bread. While entertaining
this project an event occurred which, in his undetermined state of mind,
seemed to open a way to success in another quarter.

Reuben Radford, keeper of a small store in the village of New Salem, had
incurred the displeasure of the “Clary Grove Boys,” who exercised their
“regulating” prerogatives by irregularly breaking his windows. William
G. Greene, a friend of young Lincoln, riding by Radford’s store soon
afterward, was hailed by him, and told that he intended to sell out.
Mr. Greene went into the store, and offered him at random $400 for his
stock, which offer was immediately accepted.

Lincoln “happened in” the next day, and being familiar with the value of
the goods, Mr. Greene proposed to him to take an inventory of the stock,
to see what sort of a bargain he had made. This he did, and it was found
that the goods were worth $600.

Lincoln then made an offer of $125 for his bargain, with the proposition
that he and a man named Berry, as his partner, take over Greene’s notes
given to Radford. Mr. Greene agreed to the arrangement, but Radford
declined it, except on condition that Greene would be their security.
Greene at last assented.

Lincoln was not afraid of the “Clary Grove Boys”; on the contrary,
they had been his most ardent friends since the time he thrashed “Jack”
 Armstrong, champion bully of “The Grove”--but their custom was not
heavy.

The business soon became a wreck; Greene had to not only assist in
closing it up, but pay Radford’s notes as well. Lincoln afterwards spoke
of these notes, which he finally made good to Greene, as “the National
Debt.”




LINCOLN DEFENDS FIFTEEN MRS. NATIONS.

When Lincoln’s sympathies were enlisted in any cause, he worked like a
giant to win. At one time (about 1855) he was in attendance upon court
at the little town of Clinton, Ill., and one of the cases on the docket
was where fifteen women from a neighboring village were defendants, they
having been indicted for trespass. Their offense, as duly set forth in
the indictment, was that of swooping down upon one Tanner, the keeper
of a saloon in the village, and knocking in the heads of his barrels.
Lincoln was not employed in the case, but sat watching the trial as it
proceeded.

In defending the ladies, their attorney seemed to evince a little want
of tact, and this prompted one of the former to invite Mr. Lincoln to
add a few words to the jury, if he thought he could aid their cause. He
was too gallant to refuse, and their attorney having consented, he made
use of the following argument:

“In this case I would change the order of indictment and have it read
The State vs. Mr. Whiskey, instead of The State vs. The Ladies; and
touching these there are three laws: the law of self-protection; the law
of the land, or statute law; and the moral law, or law of God.

“First the law of self-protection is a law of necessity, as evinced by
our forefathers in casting the tea overboard and asserting their right
to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness: In this case it is the
only defense the Ladies have, for Tanner neither feared God nor regarded
man.

“Second, the law of the land, or statute law, and Tanner is recreant to
both.

“Third, the moral law, or law of God, and this is probably a law for the
violation of which the jury can fix no punishment.”

Lincoln gave some of his own observations on the ruinous effects of
whiskey in society, and demanded its early suppression.

After he had concluded, the Court, without awaiting the return of the
jury, dismissed the ladies, saying:

“Ladies, go home. I will require no bond of you, and if any fine is ever
wanted of you, we will let you know.”




AVOIDED EVEN APPEARANCE OF EVIL

Frank W. Tracy, President of the First National Bank of Springfield,
tells a story illustrative of two traits in Mr. Lincoln’s character.
Shortly after the National banking law went into effect the First
National of Springield was chartered, and Mr. Tracy wrote to Mr.
Lincoln, with whom he was well acquainted in a business way, and
tendered him an opportunity to subscribe for some of the stock.

In reply to the kindly offer Mr. Lincoln wrote, thanking Mr. Tracy,
but at the same time declining to subscribe. He said he recognized that
stock in a good National bank would be a good thing to hold, but he did
not feel that he ought, as President, profit from a law which had been
passed under his administration.

“He seemed to wish to avoid even the appearance of evil,” said Mr.
Tracy, in telling of the incident. “And so the act proved both his
unvarying probity and his unfailing policy.”




WAR DIDN’T ADMIT OF HOLIDAYS.

Lincoln wrote a letter on October 2d, 1862, in which he observed:

“I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is,
but it does not admit of holidays.”




“NEUTRALITY.”

Old John Bull got himself into a precious fine scrape when he went so
far as to “play double” with the North, as well as the South, during the
great American Civil War. In its issue of November 14th, 1863, London
“Punch” printed a rather clever cartoon illustrating the predicament
Bull had created for himself. John is being lectured by Mrs. North and
Mrs. South--both good talkers and eminently able to hold their own
in either social conversation, parliamentary debate or political
argument--but he bears it with the best grace possible. This is the way
the text underneath the picture runs:

MRS. NORTH. “How about the Alabama, you wicked old man?” MRS. SOUTH:
“Where’s my rams? Take back your precious consols--there!!” “Punch” had
a good deal of fun with old John before it was through with him, but,
as the Confederate privateer Alabama was sent beneath the waves of the
ocean at Cherbourg by the Kearsarge, and Mrs. South had no need for any
more rams, John got out of the difficulty without personal injury. It
was a tight squeeze, though, for Mrs. North was in a fighting humor, and
prepared to scratch or pull hair. The fact that the privateer Alabama,
built at an English shipyard and manned almost entirely by English
sailors, had managed to do about $10,000,000 worth of damage to United
States commerce, was enough to make any one angry.




DAYS OF GLADNESS PAST.

After the war was well on, a patriot woman of the West urged President
Lincoln to make hospitals at the North where the sick from the Army of
the Mississippi could revive in a more bracing air. Among other reasons,
she said, feelingly: “If you grant my petition, you will be glad as long
as you live.”

With a look of sadness impossible to describe, the President said:

“I shall never be glad any more.”




WOULDN’T TAKE THE MONEY.

Lincoln always regarded himself as the friend and protector of
unfortunate clients, and such he would never press for pay for his
services. A client named Cogdal was unfortunate in business, and gave a
note in settlement of legal fees. Soon afterward he met with an accident
by which he lost a hand. Meeting Lincoln some time after on the steps of
the State-House, the kind lawyer asked him how he was getting along.

“Badly enough,” replied Cogdal; “I am both broken up in business and
crippled.” Then he added, “I have been thinking about that note of
yours.”

Lincoln, who had probably known all about Cogdal’s troubles, and had
prepared himself for the meeting, took out his pocket-book, and saying,
with a laugh, “Well, you needn’t think any more about it,” handed him
the note.

Cogdal protesting, Lincoln said, “Even if you had the money, I would not
take it,” and hurried away.




GRANT HELD ON ALL THE TIME.

(Dispatch to General Grant, August 17th, 1864.)

“I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your
hold where you are. Neither am I willing.

“Hold on with a bulldog grip.”




CHEWED THE CUD IN SOLITUDE.

As a student (if such a term could be applied to Lincoln), one who did
not know him might have called him indolent. He would pick up a book and
run rapidly over the pages, pausing here and there.

At the end of an hour--never more than two or three hours--he would
close the book, stretch himself out on the office lounge, and then, with
hands under his head and eyes shut, would digest the mental food he had
just taken.




“ABE’S” YANKEE INGENUITY.

War Governor Richard Yates (he was elected Governor of Illinois in
1860, when Lincoln was first elected President) told a good story at
Springfield (Ill.) about Lincoln.

One day the latter was in the Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up
five feet--more or less--trying to pilot a flatboat over a mill-dam. The
boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the
prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored
a hole through the projecting part and let it run out, affording a
forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future President.




LINCOLN PAID HOMAGE TO WASHINGTON.

The Martyr President thus spoke of Washington in the course of an
address:

“Washington is the mightiest name on earth--long since the mightiest in
the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation.

“On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be.

“To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is
alike impossible.

“Let none attempt it.

“In solemn awe pronounce the name, and, in its naked, deathless
splendor, leave it shining on.”




STIRRED EVEN THE REPORTERS.

Lincoln’s influence upon his audiences was wonderful. He could sway
people at will, and nothing better illustrates his extraordinary power
than he manner in which he stirred up the newspaper reporters by his
Bloomingon speech.

Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, told the story:

“It was my journalistic duty, though a delegate to the convention, to
make a ‘longhand’ report of the speeches delivered for the Tribune. I
did make a few paragraphs of what Lincoln said in the first eight or ten
minutes, but I became so absorbed in his magnetic oratory that I forgot
myself and ceased to take notes, and joined with the convention in
cheering and stamping and clapping to the end of his speech.

“I well remember that after Lincoln sat down and calm had succeeded the
tempest, I waked out of a sort of hypnotic trance, and then thought of
my report for the paper. There was nothing written but an abbreviated
introduction.

“It was some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been ‘scooped,’
as all the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the
excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report or
sketch of the speech.”




WHEN “ABE” CAME IN.

When “Abe” was fourteen years of age, John Hanks journeyed from Kentucky
to Indiana and lived with the Lincolns. He described “Abe’s” habits
thus:

“When Lincoln and I returned to the house from work, he would go to the
cupboard, snatch a piece of corn-bread, take down a book, sit down on a
chair, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read.

“He and I worked barefooted, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, cradled
together; plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn. ‘Abe’ read
constantly when he had an opportunity.”




ETERNAL FIDELITY TO THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY.

During the Harrison Presidential campaign of 1840, Lincoln said, in a
speech at Springfield, Illinois:

“Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers;
but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was last to
desert, but that I never deserted her.

“I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed
by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of
political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping
with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land,
bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing.

“I cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken by it, I, too, may be;
bow to it I never will.

“The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a cause which we believe to be just. It shall never
deter me.

“If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those
dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I
contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside,
and I standing up boldly alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious
oppressors.

“Here, without contemplating consequences, before heaven, and in the
face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem
it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love; and who that thinks
with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take?

“Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.

“But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so; we have the proud
consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of
our country’s freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and,
adorned of our hearts in disaster, in chains, in death, we never
faltered in defending.”




“ABE’S” “DEFALCATIONS.”

Lincoln could not rest for as instant under the consciousness that, even
unwittingly, he had defrauded anybody. On one occasion, while clerking
in Offutt’s store, at New Salem, he sold a woman a little bale of goods,
amounting, by the reckoning, to $2.20. He received the money, and the
woman went away.

On adding the items of the bill again to make himself sure of
correctness, he found that he had taken six and a quarter cents too
much.

It was night, and, closing and locking the store, he started out on
foot, a distance of two or three miles, for the house of his defrauded
customer, and, delivering to her the sum whose possession had so much
troubled him, went home satisfied.

On another occasion, just as he was closing the store for the night, a
woman entered and asked for half a pound of tea. The tea was weighed
out and paid for, and the store was left for the night.

The next morning Lincoln, when about to begin the duties of the day,
discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw at once that he
had made a mistake, and, shutting the store, he took a long walk before
breakfast to deliver the remainder of the tea.

These are very humble incidents, but they illustrate the man’s perfect
conscientiousness--his sensitive honesty--better, perhaps, than they
would if they were of greater moment.




HE WASN’T GUILELESS.

Leonard Swett, of Chicago, whose counsels were doubtless among the most
welcome to Lincoln, in summing up Lincoln’s character, said:

“From the commencement of his life to its close I have sometimes doubted
whether he ever asked anybody’s advice about anything. He would listen
to everybody; he would hear everybody; but he rarely, if ever, asked for
opinions.

“As a politician and as President he arrived at all his conclusions from
his own reflections, and when his conclusions were once formed he never
doubted but what they were right.

“One great public mistake of his (Lincoln’s) character, as generally
received and acquiesced in, is that he is considered by the people of
this country as a frank, guileless, and unsophisticated man. There never
was a greater mistake.

“Beneath a smooth surface of candor and apparent declaration of all
his thoughts and feelings he exercised the most exalted tact and wisest
discrimination. He handled and moved men remotely as we do pieces upon a
chess-board.

“He retained through life all the friends he ever had, and he made the
wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was not by cunning or intrigue
in the low acceptation of the term, but by far-seeing reason and
discernment. He always told only enough of his plans and purposes to
induce the belief that he had communicated all; yet he reserved enough
to have communicated nothing.”




SWEET, BUT MILD REVENGE.

When the United States found that a war with Black Hawk could not be
dodged, Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, issued a call for volunteers,
and among the companies that immediately responded was one from Menard
county, Illinois. Many of these volunteers were from New Salem and
Clary’s Grove, and Lincoln, being out of business, was the first to
enlist.

The company being full, the men held a meeting at Richland for the
election of officers. Lincoln had won many hearts, and they told him
that he must be their captain. It was an office to which he did not
aspire, and for which he felt he had no special fitness; but he finally
consented to be a candidate.

There was but one other candidate, a Mr. Kirkpatrick, who was one of the
most influential men of the region. Previously, Kirkpatrick had been
an employer of Lincoln, and was so overbearing in his treatment of the
young man that the latter left him.

The simple mode of electing a captain adopted by the company was by
placing the candidates apart, and telling the men to go and stand with
the one they preferred. Lincoln and his competitor took their positions,
and then the word was given. At least three out of every four went to
Lincoln at once.

When it was seen by those who had arranged themselves with the other
candidate that Lincoln was the choice of the majority of the company,
they left their places, one by one, and came over to the successful
side, until Lincoln’s opponent in the friendly strife was left standing
almost alone.

“I felt badly to see him cut so,” says a witness of the scene.

Here was an opportunity for revenge. The humble laborer was his
employer’s captain, but the opportunity was never improved. Mr. Lincoln
frequently confessed that no subsequent success of his life had given
him half the satisfaction that this election did.




DIDN’T TRUST THE COURT.

In one of his many stories of Lincoln, his law partner, W. H. Herndon,
told this as illustrating Lincoln’s shrewdness as a lawyer:

“I was with Lincoln once and listened to an oral argument by him in
which he rehearsed an extended history of the law. It was a carefully
prepared and masterly discourse, but, as I thought, entirely useless.
After he was through and we were walking home, I asked him why he went
so far back in the history of the law. I presumed the court knew enough
history.

“‘That’s where you’re mistaken,’ was his instant rejoinder. ‘I dared
not just the case on the presumption that the court knows everything--in
fact I argued it on the presumption that the court didn’t know
anything,’ a statement, which, when one reviews the decision of our
appellate courts, is not so extravagant as one would at first suppose.”




HANDSOMEST MAN ON EARTH.

One day Thaddeus Stevens called at the White House with an elderly
woman, whose son had been in the army, but for some offense had been
court-martialed and sentenced to death. There were some extenuating
circumstances, and after a full hearing the President turned to Stevens
and said: “Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant
my interference?”

“With my knowledge of the facts and the parties,” was the reply, “I
should have no hesitation in granting a pardon.”

“Then,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I will pardon him,” and proceeded
forthwith to execute the paper.

The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, save by her
tears, and not a word was said between her and Stevens until they were
half way down the stairs on their passage out, when she suddenly broke
forth in an excited manner with the words:

“I knew it was a copperhead lie!”

“What do you refer to, madam?” asked Stevens.

“Why, they told me he was an ugly-looking man,” she replied, with
vehemence. “He is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life.”




THAT COON CAME DOWN.

“Lincoln’s Last Warning” was the title of a cartoon which appeared in
“Harper’s Weekly,” on October 11, 1862. Under the picture was the text:

“Now if you don’t come down I’ll cut the tree from under you.”

This illustration was peculiarly apt, as, on the 1st of January, 1863,
President Lincoln issued his great Emancipation Proclamation, declaring
all slaves in the United States forever free. “Old Abe” was a handy
man with the axe, he having split many thousands of rails with its keen
edge. As the “Slavery Coon” wouldn’t heed the warning, Lincoln did cut
the tree from under him, and so he came down to the ground with a heavy
thump.

This Act of Emancipation put an end to the notion of the Southern slave
holders that involuntary servitude was one of the “sacred institutions”
 on the Continent of North America. It also demonstrated that Lincoln was
thoroughly in earnest when he declared that he would not only save the
Union, but that he meant what he said in the speech wherein he asserted,
“This Nation cannot exist half slave and half free.”




WROTE “PIECES” WHEN VERY YOUNG.

At fifteen years of age “Abe” wrote “pieces,” or compositions, and even
some doggerel rhyme, which he recited, to the great amusement of his
playmates.

One of his first compositions was against cruelty to animals. He was
very much annoyed and pained at the conduct of the boys, who were in the
habit of catching terrapins and putting coals of fire on their backs,
which thoroughly disgusted Abraham.

“He would chide us,” said “Nat” Grigsby, “tell us it was wrong, and
would write against it.”

When eighteen years old, “Abe” wrote a “piece” on “National Politics,”
 and it so pleased a lawyer friend, named Pritchard, that the latter
had it printed in an obscure paper, thereby adding much to the author’s
pride. “Abe” did not conceal his satisfaction. In this “piece” he wrote,
among other things:

“The American government is the best form of government for an
intelligent people. It ought to be kept sound, and preserved forever,
that general education should be fostered and carried all over the
country; that the Constitution should be saved, the Union perpetuated
and the laws revered, respected and enforced.”




“TRY TO STEER HER THROUGH.”

John A. Logan and a friend of Illinois called upon Lincoln at Willard’s
Hotel, Washington, February 23d, the morning of his arrival, and urged a
vigorous, firm policy.

Patiently listening, Lincoln replied seriously but cheerfully:

“As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I’ll try to steer
her through.”




GRAND, GLOOMY AND PECULIAR.

Lincoln was a marked and peculiar young man. People talked about him.
His studious habits, his greed for information, his thorough mastery
of the difficulties of every new position in which he was placed,
his intelligence on all matters of public concern, his unwearying
good-nature, his skill in telling a story, his great athletic power,
his quaint, odd ways, his uncouth appearance--all tended to bring him in
sharp contrast with the dull mediocrity by which he was surrounded.

Denton Offutt, his old employer, said, after having had a conversation
with Lincoln, that the young man “had talent enough in him to make a
President.”




ON THE WAY TO GETTYSBURG.

When Lincoln was on his way to the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, an
old gentleman told him that his only son fell on Little Round Top at
Gettysburg, and he was going to look at the spot. Mr. Lincoln replied:
“You have been called on to make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and
a visit to that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh.

“But, oh, my dear sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices,
and had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands on the graves
of those who have already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our
tears; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered, and
the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate before this dreadful war is
over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel at times like hiding
in deep darkness.” At one of the stopping places of the train, a very
beautiful child, having a bunch of rosebuds in her hand, was lifted up
to an open window of the President’s car. “Floweth for the President.”
 The President stepped to the window, took the rosebuds, bent down and
kissed the child, saying, “You are a sweet little rosebud yourself. I
hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness.”




STOOD UP THE LONGEST.

There was a rough gallantry among the young people; and Lincoln’s old
comrades and friends in Indiana have left many tales of how he “went to
see the girls,” of how he brought in the biggest back-log and made the
brightest fire; of how the young people, sitting around it, watching the
way the sparks flew, told their fortunes.

He helped pare apples, shell corn and crack nuts. He took the girls to
meeting and to spelling school, though he was not often allowed to take
part in the spelling-match, for the one who “chose first” always chose
“Abe” Lincoln, and that was equivalent to winning, as the others knew
that “he would stand up the longest.”




A MORTIFYING EXPERIENCE.

A lady reader or elocutionist came to Springfield in 1857. A large crowd
greeted her. Among other things she recited “Nothing to Wear,” a piece
in which is described the perplexities that beset “Miss Flora McFlimsy”
 in her efforts to appear fashionable.

In the midst of one stanza in which no effort is made to say anything
particularly amusing, and during the reading of which the audience
manifested the most respectful silence and attention, some one in the
rear seats burst out with a loud, coarse laugh, a sudden and explosive
guffaw.

It startled the speaker and audience, and kindled a storm of
unsuppressed laughter and applause. Everybody looked back to ascertain
the cause of the demonstration, and were greatly surprised to find that
it was Mr. Lincoln.

He blushed and squirmed with the awkward diffidence of a schoolboy.
What caused him to laugh, no one was able to explain. He was doubtless
wrapped up in a brown study, and recalling some amusing episode,
indulged in laughter without realizing his surroundings. The experience
mortified him greatly.




NO HALFWAY BUSINESS.

Soon after Mr. Lincoln began to practice law at Springfield, he was
engaged in a criminal case in which it was thought there was little
chance of success. Throwing all his powers into it, he came off
victorious, and promptly received for his services five hundred dollars.
A legal friend, calling upon him the next morning, found him sitting
before a table, upon which his money was spread out, counting it over
and over.

“Look here, Judge,” said he. “See what a heap of money I’ve got from
this case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never had so much
money in my life before, put it all together.” Then, crossing his arms
upon the table, his manner sobering down, he added: “I have got just
five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and fifty, I would
go directly and purchase a quarter section of land, and settle it upon
my old step-mother.”

His friend said that if the deficiency was all he needed, he would loan
him the amount, taking his note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded.

His friend then said:

“Lincoln, I would do just what you have indicated. Your step-mother is
getting old, and will not probably live many years. I would settle the
property upon her for her use during her lifetime, to revert to you upon
her death.”

With much feeling, Mr. Lincoln replied:

“I shall do no such thing. It is a poor return at best for all the good
woman’s devotion and fidelity to me, and there is not going to be any
halfway business about it.” And so saying, he gathered up his money and
proceeded forthwith to carry his long-cherished purpose into execution.




DISCOURAGED LITIGATION.

Lincoln believed in preventing unnecessary litigation, and carried out
this in his practice. “Who was your guardian?” he asked a young man who
came to him to complain that a part of the property left him had been
withheld. “Enoch Kingsbury,” replied the young man.

“I know Mr. Kingsbury,” said Lincoln, “and he is not the man to have
cheated you out of a cent, and I can’t take the case, and advise you to
drop the subject.”

And it was dropped.




GOING HOME TO GET READY.

Edwin M. Stanton was one of the attorneys in the great “reaper patent”
 case heard in Cincinnati in 1855, Lincoln also having been retained.
The latter was rather anxious to deliver the argument on the general
propositions of law applicable to the case, but it being decided to have
Mr. Stanton do this, the Westerner made no complaint.

Speaking of Stanton’s argument and the view Lincoln took of it, Ralph
Emerson, a young lawyer who was present at the trial, said:

“The final summing up on our side was by Mr. Stanton, and though he took
but about three hours in its delivery, he had devoted as many, if not
more, weeks to its preparation. It was very able, and Mr. Lincoln was
throughout the whole of it a rapt listener. Mr. Stanton closed his
speech in a flight of impassioned eloquence.

“Then the court adjourned for the day, and Mr. Lincoln invited me to
take a long walk with him. For block after block he walked rapidly
forward, not saying a word, evidently deeply dejected.

“At last he turned suddenly to me, exclaiming, ‘Emerson, I am going
home.’ A pause. ‘I am going home to study law.’

“‘Why,’ I exclaimed, ‘Mr. Lincoln, you stand at the head of the bar in
Illinois now! What are you talking about?’

“‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘I do occupy a good position there, and I think
that I can get along with the way things are done there now. But these
college-trained men, who have devoted their whole lives to study, are
coming West, don’t you see? And they study their cases as we never do.
They have got as far as Cincinnati now. They will soon be in Illinois.’

“Another long pause; then stopping and turning toward me, his
countenance suddenly assuming that look of strong determination which
those who knew him best sometimes saw upon his face, he exclaimed, ‘I am
going home to study law! I am as good as any, of them, and when they get
out to Illinois, I will be ready for them.’”




“THE ‘RAIL-SPUTTER’ REPAIRING THE UNION.”

The cartoon given here in facsimile was one of the posters which
decorated the picturesque Presidential campaign of 1864, and assisted
in making the period previous to the vote-casting a lively and memorable
one. This poster was a lithograph, and, as the title, “The Rail-Splitter
at Work Repairing the Union,” would indicate, the President is using the
Vice-Presidential candidate on the Republican National ticket (Andrew
Johnson) as an aid in the work. Johnson was, in early life, a tailor,
and he is pictured as busily engaged in sewing up the rents made in the
map of the Union by the secessionists.

Both men are thoroughly in earnest, and, as history relates, the torn
places in the Union map were stitched together so nicely that no one
could have told, by mere observation, that a tear had ever been made.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln upon the assassination of the
latter, was a remarkable man. Born in North Carolina, he removed to
Tennessee when young, was Congressman, Governor, and United States
Senator, being made military Governor of his State in 1862. A strong,
stanch Union man, he was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the
Lincoln ticket to conciliate the War Democrats. After serving out his
term as President, he was again elected United States Senator from
Tennessee, but died shortly after taking his seat. But he was just the
sort of a man to assist “Uncle Abe” in sewing up the torn places in the
Union map, and as military Governor of Tennessee was a powerful factor
in winning friends in the South to the Union cause.




“FIND OUT FOR YOURSELVES.”

“Several of us lawyers,” remarked one of his colleagues, “in the eastern
end of the circuit, annoyed Lincoln once while he was holding court for
Davis by attempting to defend against a note to which there were many
makers. We had no legal, but a good moral defense, but what we wanted
most of all was to stave it off till the next term of court by one
expedient or another.

“We bothered ‘the court’ about it till late on Saturday, the day of
adjournment. He adjourned for supper with nothing left but this case to
dispose of. After supper he heard our twaddle for nearly an hour, and
then made this odd entry.

“‘L. D. Chaddon vs. J. D. Beasley et al. April Term, 1856. Champaign
county Court. Plea in abatement by B. Z. Green, a defendant not served,
filed Saturday at 11 o’clock a. m., April 24, 1856, stricken from the
files by order of court. Demurrer to declaration, if there ever was one,
overruled. Defendants who are served now, at 8 o’clock p. m., of the
last day of the term, ask to plead to the merits, which is denied by the
court on the ground that the offer comes too late, and therefore, as
by nil dicet, judgment is rendered for Pl’ff. Clerk assess damages. A.
Lincoln, Judge pro tem.’

“The lawyer who reads this singular entry will appreciate its oddity
if no one else does. After making it, one of the lawyers, on recovering
from his astonishment, ventured to enquire: ‘Well, Lincoln, how can we
get this case up again?’

“Lincoln eyed him quizzically for a moment, and then answered, ‘You have
all been so mighty smart about this case, you can find out how to take
it up again yourselves.”’




ROUGH ON THE NEGRO.

Mr. Lincoln, one day, was talking with the Rev. Dr. Sunderland about the
Emancipation Proclamation and the future of the negro. Suddenly a ripple
of amusement broke the solemn tone of his voice. “As for the negroes,
Doctor, and what is going to become of them: I told Ben Wade the other
day, that it made me think of a story I read in one of my first books,
‘Aesop’s Fables.’ It was an old edition, and had curious rough wood
cuts, one of which showed three white men scrubbing a negro in a potash
kettle filled with cold water. The text explained that the men thought
that by scrubbing the negro they might make him white. Just about the
time they thought they were succeeding, he took cold and died. Now, I
am afraid that by the time we get through this War the negro will catch
cold and die.”




CHALLENGED ALL COMERS.

Personal encounters were of frequent occurrence in Gentryville in early
days, and the prestige of having thrashed an opponent gave the victor
marked social distinction. Green B. Taylor, with whom “Abe” worked the
greater part of one winter on a farm, furnished an account of the noted
fight between John Johnston, “Abe’s” stepbrother, and William Grigsby,
in which stirring drama “Abe” himself played an important role before
the curtain was rung down.

Taylor’s father was the second for Johnston, and William Whitten
officiated in a similar capacity for Grigsby. “They had a terrible
fight,” related Taylor, “and it soon became apparent that Grigsby was
too much for Lincoln’s man, Johnston. After they had fought a long time
without interference, it having been agreed not to break the ring, ‘Abe’
burst through, caught Grigsby, threw him off and some feet away. There
Grigsby stood, proud as Lucifer, and, swinging a bottle of liquor over
his head, swore he was ‘the big buck of the lick.’

“‘If any one doubts it,’ he shouted, ‘he has only to come on and whet
his horns.’”

A general engagement followed this challenge, but at the end of
hostilities the field was cleared and the wounded retired amid the
exultant shouts of their victors.




“GOVERNMENT RESTS IN PUBLIC OPINION.”

Lincoln delivered a speech at a Republican banquet at Chicago, December
10th, 1856, just after the Presidential campaign of that year, in which
he said:

“Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public
opinion can change the government practically just so much.

“Public opinion, on any subject, always has a ‘central idea,’ from which
all its minor thoughts radiate.

“That ‘central idea’ in our political public opinion at the beginning
was, and until recently has continued to be, ‘the equality of man.’

“And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of
inequality there seemed to be as a matter of actual necessity, its
constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical
equality of all men.

“Let everyone who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is
not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that
in the past contest he has done only what he thought best--let every
such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much.

“Thus, let bygones be bygones; let party differences as nothing be,
and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old
‘central ideas’ of the Republic.

“We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us.

“We shall never be able to declare that ‘all States as States are
equal,’ nor yet that ‘all citizens are equal,’ but to renew the broader,
better declaration, including both these and much more, that ‘all men
are created equal.’”




HURRY MIGHT MAKE TROUBLE.

Up to the very last moment of the life of the Confederacy, the London
“Punch” had its fling at the United States. In a cartoon, printed
February 18th, 1865, labeled “The Threatening Notice,” “Punch” intimates
that Uncle Sam is in somewhat of a hurry to serve notice on John Bull
regarding the contentions in connection with the northern border of the
United States.

Lincoln, however, as attorney for his revered Uncle, advises caution.
Accordingly, he tells his Uncle, according to the text under the picture:

ATTORNEY LINCOLN: “Now, Uncle Sam, you’re in a darned hurry to serve
this here notice on John Bull. Now, it’s my duty, as your attorney, to
tell you that you may drive him to go over to that cuss, Davis.” (Uncle
Sam considers.) In this instance, President Lincoln is given credit for
judgment and common sense, his advice to his Uncle Sam to be prudent
being sound. There was trouble all along the Canadian border during the
War, while Canada was the refuge of Northern conspirators and Southern
spies, who, at times, crossed the line and inflicted great damage
upon the States bordering on it. The plot to seize the great lake
cities--Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and others--was
figured out in Canada by the Southerners and Northern allies. President
Lincoln, in his message to Congress in December, 1864, said the United
States had given notice to England that, at the end of six months, this
country would, if necessary, increase its naval armament upon the lakes.
What Great Britain feared was the abrogation by the United States of all
treaties regarding Canada. By previous stipulation, the United States
and England were each to have but one war vessel on the Great Lakes.




SAW HIMSELF DEAD.

This story cannot be repeated in Lincoln’s own language, although he
told it often enough to intimate friends; but, as it was never taken
down by a stenographer in the martyred President’s exact words, the
reader must accept a simple narration of the strange occurrence.

It was not long after the first nomination of Lincoln for the
Presidency, when he saw, or imagined he saw, the startling apparition.
One day, feeling weary, he threw himself upon a lounge in one of the
rooms of his house at Springfield to rest. Opposite the lounge upon
which he was lying was a large, long mirror, and he could easily see the
reflection of his form, full length.

Suddenly he saw, or imagined he saw, two Lincolns in the mirror, each
lying full length upon the lounge, but they differed strangely in
appearance. One was the natural Lincoln, full of life, vigor, energy and
strength; the other was a dead Lincoln, the face white as marble, the
limbs nerveless and lifeless, the body inert and still.

Lincoln was so impressed with this vision, which he considered merely
an optical illusion, that he arose, put on his hat, and went out for
a walk. Returning to the house, he determined to test the matter
again--and the result was the same as before. He distinctly saw the two
Lincolns--one living and the other dead.

He said nothing to his wife about this, she being, at that time, in
a nervous condition, and apprehensive that some accident would surely
befall her husband. She was particularly fearful that he might be the
victim of an assassin. Lincoln always made light of her fears, but yet
he was never easy in his mind afterwards.

To more thoroughly test the so-called “optical illusion,” and prove,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, whether it was a mere fanciful creation of
the brain or a reflection upon the broad face of the mirror which might
be seen at any time, Lincoln made frequent experiments. Each and
every time the result was the same. He could not get away from the two
Lincolns--one living and the other dead.

Lincoln never saw this forbidding reflection while in the White House.
Time after time he placed a couch in front of a mirror at a distance
from the glass where he could view his entire length while lying down,
but the looking-glass in the Executive Mansion was faithful to its
trust, and only the living Lincoln was observable.

The late Ward Lamon, once a law partner of Lincoln, and Marshal of the
District of Columbia during his first administration, tells, in his
“Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” of the dreams the President had--all
foretelling death.

Lamon was Lincoln’s most intimate friend, being, practically, his
bodyguard, and slept in the White House. In reference to Lincoln’s
“death dreams,” he says:

“How, it may be asked, could he make life tolerable, burdened as he was
with that portentous horror, which, though visionary, and of trifling
import in our eyes, was by his interpretation a premonition of impending
doom? I answer in a word: His sense of duty to his country; his belief
that ‘the inevitable’ is right; and his innate and irrepressible humor.

“But the most startling incident in the life of Mr. Lincoln was a dream
he had only a few days before his assassination. To him it was a thing
of deadly import, and certainly no vision was ever fashioned more
exactly like a dread reality. Coupled with other dreams, with the
mirror-scene and with other incidents, there was something about it so
amazingly real, so true to the actual tragedy which occurred soon after,
that more than mortal strength and wisdom would have been required to
let it pass without a shudder or a pang.

“After worrying over it for some days, Mr. Lincoln seemed no longer able
to keep the secret. I give it as nearly in his own words as I can, from
notes which I made immediately after its recital. There were only two or
three persons present.

“The President was in a melancholy, meditative mood, and had been silent
for some time. Mrs. Lincoln, who was present, rallied him on his solemn
visage and want of spirit. This seemed to arouse him, and, without
seeming to notice her sally, he said, in slow and measured tones:

“‘It seems strange how much there is in the Bible about dreams. There
are, I think, some sixteen chapters in the Old Testament and four or
five in the New, in which dreams are mentioned; and there are many other
passages scattered throughout the book which refer to visions. In
the old days, God and His angels came to men in their sleep and made
themselves known in dreams.’

“Mrs. Lincoln here remarked, ‘Why, you look dreadfully solemn; do you
believe in dreams?’

“‘I can’t say that I do,’ returned Mr. Lincoln; ‘but I had one the other
night which has haunted me ever since. After it occurred the first
time, I opened the Bible, and, strange as it may appear, it was at the
twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis, which relates the wonderful dream
Jacob had. I turned to other passages, and seemed to encounter a dream
or a vision wherever I looked. I kept on turning the leaves of the
old book, and everywhere my eyes fell upon passages recording matters
strangely in keeping with my own thoughts--supernatural visitations,
dreams, visions, etc.’

“He now looked so serious and disturbed that Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed ‘You
frighten me! What is the matter?’

“‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Lincoln, observing the effect his words had
upon his wife, ‘that I have done wrong to mention the subject at all;
but somehow the thing has got possession of me, and, like Banquo’s
ghost, it will not down.’

“This only inflamed Mrs. Lincoln’s curiosity the more, and while bravely
disclaiming any belief in dreams, she strongly urged him to tell the
dream which seemed to have such a hold upon him, being seconded in this
by another listener. Mr. Lincoln hesitated, but at length commenced very
deliberately, his brow overcast with a shade of melancholy.

“‘About ten days ago,’ said he, ‘I retired very late. I had been up
waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been
long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to
dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard
subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping.

“‘I thought I left my bed and wandered down-stairs. There the silence
was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible.
I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same
mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in
all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the
people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled
and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this?

“‘Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so
shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered.
There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque,
on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were
stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of
people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered,
others weeping pitifully.

“‘“Who is dead in the White House?” I demanded of one of the soldiers.

“‘“The President,” was his answer; “he was killed by an assassin.”

“‘Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my
dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I
have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.’

“‘That is horrid!’ said Mrs. Lincoln. ‘I wish you had not told it. I am
glad I don’t believe in dreams, or I should be in terror from this time
forth.’

“‘Well,’ responded Mr. Lincoln, thoughtfully, ‘it is only a dream, Mary.
Let us say no more about it, and try to forget it.’

“This dream was so horrible, so real, and so in keeping with other
dreams and threatening presentiments of his, that Mr. Lincoln was
profoundly disturbed by it. During its recital he was grave, gloomy,
and at times visibly pale, but perfectly calm. He spoke slowly, with
measured accents and deep feeling.

“In conversations with me, he referred to it afterwards, closing one
with this quotation from ‘Hamlet’: ‘To sleep; perchance to dream! ay,
there’s the rub!’ with a strong accent upon the last three words.

“Once the President alluded to this terrible dream with some show of
playful humor. ‘Hill,’ said he, ‘your apprehension of harm to me from
some hidden enemy is downright foolishness. For a long time you have
been trying to keep somebody-the Lord knows who--from killing me.

“‘Don’t you see how it will turn out? In this dream it was not me, but
some other fellow, that was killed. It seems that this ghostly assassin
tried his hand on some one else. And this reminds me of an old farmer in
Illinois whose family were made sick by eating greens.

“‘Some poisonous herb had got into the mess, and members of the family
were in danger of dying. There was a half-witted boy in the family
called Jake; and always afterward when they had greens the old man would
say, “Now, afore we risk these greens, let’s try ‘em on Jake. If he
stands ‘em we’re all right.” Just so with me. As long as this imaginary
assassin continues to exercise himself on others, I can stand it.’

“He then became serious and said: ‘Well, let it go. I think the Lord in
His own good time and way will work this out all right. God knows what
is best.’

“These words he spoke with a sigh, and rather in a tone of soliloquy, as
if hardly noting my presence.

“Mr. Lincoln had another remarkable dream, which was repeated so
frequently during his occupancy of the White House that he came to
regard it is a welcome visitor. It was of a pleasing and promising
character, having nothing in it of the horrible.

“It was always an omen of a Union victory, and came with unerring
certainty just before every military or naval engagement where our arms
were crowned with success. In this dream he saw a ship sailing away
rapidly, badly damaged, and our victorious vessels in close pursuit.

“He saw, also, the close of a battle on land, the enemy routed, and our
forces in possession of vantage ground of inestimable importance. Mr.
Lincoln stated it as a fact that he had this dream just before the
battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, and other signal engagements throughout
the War.

“The last time Mr. Lincoln had this dream was the night before his
assassination. On the morning of that lamentable day there was a Cabinet
meeting, at which General Grant was present. During an interval of
general discussion, the President asked General Grant if he had any news
from General Sherman, who was then confronting Johnston. The reply was
in the negative, but the general added that he was in hourly expectation
of a dispatch announcing Johnston’s surrender.

“Mr. Lincoln then, with great impressiveness, said, ‘We shall hear very
soon, and the news will be important.’

“General Grant asked him why he thought so.

“‘Because,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘I had a dream last night; and ever since
this War began I have had the same dream just before every event of
great national importance. It portends some important event which will
happen very soon.’

“On the night of the fateful 14th of April, 1865, Mrs. Lincoln’s
first exclamation, after the President was shot, was, ‘His dream was
prophetic!’

“Lincoln was a believer in certain phases of the supernatural. Assured
as he undoubtedly was by omens which, to his mind, were conclusive, that
he would rise to greatness and power, he was as firmly convinced by
the same tokens that he would be suddenly cut off at the height of his
career and the fullness of his fame. He always believed that he would
fall by the hand of an assassin.

“Mr. Lincoln had this further idea: Dreams, being natural occurrences,
in the strictest sense, he held that their best interpreters are the
common people; and this accounts, in great measure, for the profound
respect he always had for the collective wisdom of plain people--‘the
children of Nature,’ he called them--touching matters belonging to
the domain of psychical mysteries. There was some basis of truth, he
believed, for whatever obtained general credence among these ‘children
of Nature.’

“Concerning presentiments and dreams, Mr. Lincoln had a philosophy of
his own, which, strange as it may appear, was in perfect harmony
with his character in all other respects. He was no dabbler in
divination--astrology, horoscopy, prophecy, ghostly lore, or witcheries
of any sort.”




EVERY LITTLE HELPED.

As the time drew near at which Mr. Lincoln said he would issue the
Emancipation Proclamation, some clergymen, who feared the President
might change his mind, called on him to urge him to keep his promise.

“We were ushered into the Cabinet room,” says Dr. Sunderland. “It
was very dim, but one gas jet burning. As we entered, Mr. Lincoln was
standing at the farther end of the long table, which filled the center
of the room. As I stood by the door, I am so very short, that I was
obliged to look up to see the President. Mr. Robbins introduced me, and
I began at once by saying: ‘I have come, Mr. President, to anticipate
the new year with my respects, and if I may, to say to you a word about
the serious condition of this country.’

“‘Go ahead, Doctor,’ replied the President; ‘every little helps.’ But I
was too much in earnest to laugh at his sally at my smallness.”




ABOUT TO LAY DOWN THE BURDEN.

President Lincoln (at times) said he felt sure his life would end with
the War. A correspondent of a Boston paper had an interview with him in
July, 1864, and wrote regarding it:

“The President told me he was certain he should not outlast the
rebellion. As will be remembered, there was dissension then among the
Republican leaders. Many of his best friends had deserted him, and were
talking of an opposition convention to nominate another candidate, and
universal gloom was among the people.

“The North was tired of the War, and supposed an honorable peace
attainable. Mr. Lincoln knew it was not--that any peace at that time
would be only disunion. Speaking of it, he said: ‘I have faith in the
people. They will not consent to disunion. The danger is, they are
misled. Let them know the truth, and the country is safe.’

“He looked haggard and careworn; and further on in the interview I
remarked on his appearance, ‘You are wearing yourself out with work.’

“‘I can’t work less,’ he answered; ‘but it isn’t that--work never
troubled me. Things look badly, and I can’t avoid anxiety. Personally, I
care nothing about a re-election, but if our divisions defeat us, I fear
for the country.’

“When I suggested that right must eventually triumph, he replied, ‘I
grant that, but I may never live to see it. I feel a presentiment that I
shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over, my work will be done.’

“He never intimated, however, that he expected to be assassinated.”




LINCOLN WOULD HAVE PREFERRED DEATH.

Horace Greeley said, some time after the death of President Lincoln:

“After the Civil War began, Lincoln’s tenacity of purpose paralleled his
former immobility; I believe he would have been nearly the last, if not
the very last, man in America to recognize the Southern Confederacy had
its armies been triumphant. He would have preferred death.”




“PUNCH” AND HIS LITTLE PICTURE.

London “Punch” was not satisfied with anything President Lincoln did. On
December 3rd, 1864, after Mr. Lincoln’s re-election to the Presidency,
a cartoon appeared in one of the pages of that genial publication,
the reproduction being printed here, labeled “The Federal Phoenix.” It
attracted great attention at the time, and was particularly pleasing to
the enemies of the United States, as it showed Lincoln as the Phoenix
arising from the ashes of the Federal Constitution, the Public Credit,
the Freedom of the Press, State Rights and the Commerce of the North
American Republic.

President Lincoln’s endorsement by the people of the United States meant
that the Confederacy was to be crushed, no matter what the cost; that
the Union of States was to be preserved, and that State Rights was
a thing of the past. “Punch” wished to create the impression that
President Lincoln’s re-election was a personal victory; that he would
set up a despotism, with himself at its head, and trample upon the
Constitution of the United States and all the rights the citizens of the
Republic ever possessed.

The result showed that “Punch” was suffering from an acute attack of
needless alarm.




FASCINATED By THE WONDERFUL

Lincoln was particularly fascinated by the wonderful happenings recorded
in history. He loved to read of those mighty events which had been
foretold, and often brooded upon these subjects. His early convictions
upon occult matters led him to read all books tending’ to strengthen
these convictions.

The following lines, in Byron’s “Dream,” were frequently quoted by him:

         “Sleep hath its own world,
     A boundary between the things misnamed
     Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world
     And a wide realm of wild reality.
     And dreams in their development have breath,
     And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy;
     They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
     They take a weight from off our waking toils,
     They do divide our being.”

Those with whom he was associated in his early youth and young manhood,
and with whom he was always in cordial sympathy, were thorough believers
in presentiments and dreams; and so Lincoln drifted on through years
of toil and exceptional hardship--meditative, aspiring, certain of his
star, but appalled at times by its malignant aspect. Many times prior to
his first election to the Presidency he was both elated and alarmed by
what seemed to him a rent in the veil which hides from mortal view what
the future holds.

He saw, or thought he saw, a vision of glory and of blood, himself
the central figure in a scene which his fancy transformed from giddy
enchantment to the most appalling tragedy.




“WHY DON’T THEY COME!”

The suspense of the days when the capital was isolated, the expected
troops not arriving, and an hourly attack feared, wore on Mr. Lincoln
greatly.

“I begin to believe,” he said bitterly, one day, to some Massachusetts
soldiers, “that there is no North. The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode
Island is another. You are the only real thing.”

And again, after pacing the floor of his deserted office for a
half-hour, he was heard to exclaim to himself, in an anguished tone:
“Why don’t they come! Why don’t they come!”




GRANT’S BRAND OF WHISKEY.

Lincoln was not a man of impulse, and did nothing upon the spur of the
moment; action with him was the result of deliberation and study. He
took nothing for granted; he judged men by their performances and not
their speech.

If a general lost battles, Lincoln lost confidence in him; if a
commander was successful, Lincoln put him where he would be of the most
service to the country.

“Grant is a drunkard,” asserted powerful and influential politicians
to the President at the White House time after time; “he is not himself
half the time; he can’t be relied upon, and it is a shame to have such a
man in command of an army.”

“So Grant gets drunk, does he?” queried Lincoln, addressing himself to
one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier, who, at that
period, was inflicting heavy damage upon the Confederates.

“Yes, he does, and I can prove it,” was the reply.

“Well,” returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in
his eye, “you needn’t waste your time getting proof; you just find out,
to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send
a barrel of it to each one of my generals.”

That ended the crusade against Grant, so far as the question of drinking
was concerned.




HIS FINANCIAL STANDING.

A New York firm applied to Abraham Lincoln, some years before he became
President, for information as to the financial standing of one of his
neighbors. Mr. Lincoln replied:

“I am well acquainted with Mr.---- and know his circumstances. First of
all, he has a wife and baby; together they ought to be worth $50,000
to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth
$1.50 and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all, there is in one
corner a large rat hole, which will bear looking into. Respectfully,
A. Lincoln.”




THE DANDY AND THE BOYS.

President Lincoln appointed as consul to a South American country a
young man from Ohio who was a dandy. A wag met the new appointee on his
way to the White House to thank the President. He was dressed in the
most extravagant style. The wag horrified him by telling him that the
country to which he was assigned was noted chiefly for the bugs that
abounded there and made life unbearable.

“They’ll bore a hole clean through you before a week has passed,” was
the comforting assurance of the wag as they parted at the White House
steps. The new consul approached Lincoln with disappointment clearly
written all over his face. Instead of joyously thanking the President,
he told him the wag’s story of the bugs. “I am informed, Mr. President,”
 he said, “that the place is full of vermin and that they could eat me up
in a week’s time.” “Well, young man,” replied Lincoln, “if that’s true,
all I’ve got to say is that if such a thing happened they would leave a
mighty good suit of clothes behind.”




“SOME UGLY OLD LAWYER.”

A. W. Swan, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, told this story on Lincoln,
being an eyewitness of the scene:

“One day President Lincoln was met in the park between the White House
and the War Department by an irate private soldier, who was swearing in
a high key, cursing the Government from the President down. Mr. Lincoln
paused and asked him what was the matter. ‘Matter enough,’ was the
reply. ‘I want my money. I have been discharged here, and can’t get my
pay.’ Mr. Lincoln asked if he had his papers, saying that he used to
practice law in a small way, and possibly could help him.

“My friend and I stepped behind some convenient shrubbery where we could
watch the result. Mr. Lincoln took the papers from the hands of the
crippled soldier, and sat down with him at the foot of a convenient
tree, where he examined them carefully, and writing a line on the back,
told the soldier to take them to Mr. Potts, Chief Clerk of the War
Department, who would doubtless attend to the matter at once.

“After Mr. Lincoln had left the soldier, we stepped out and asked him
if he knew whom he had been talking with. ‘Some ugly old fellow who
pretends to be a lawyer,’ was the reply. My companion asked to see the
papers, and on their being handed to him, pointed to the indorsement
they had received: This indorsement read:

“‘Mr. Potts, attend to this man’s case at once and see that he gets his
pay. A. L.’”




GOOD MEMORY OF NAMES.

The following story illustrates the power of Mr. Lincoln’s memory of
names and faces. When he was a comparatively young man, and a candidate
for the Illinois Legislature, he made a personal canvass of the
district. While “swinging around the circle” he stopped one day and took
dinner with a farmer in Sangamon county.

Years afterward, when Mr. Lincoln had become President, a soldier
came to call on him at the White House. At the first glance the Chief
Executive said: “Yes, I remember; you used to live on the Danville
road. I took dinner with you when I was running for the Legislature.
I recollect that we stood talking out at the barnyard gate while I
sharpened my jackknife.”

“Y-a-a-s,” drawled the soldier, “you did. But say, wherever did you put
that whetstone? I looked for it a dozen times, but I never could find
it after the day you used it. We allowed as how mabby you took it ‘long
with you.”

“No,” said Lincoln, looking serious and pushing away a lot of documents
of state from the desk in front of him. “No, I put it on top of that
gatepost--that high one.”

“Well!” exclaimed the visitor, “mabby you did. Couldn’t anybody else
have put it there, and none of us ever thought of looking there for it.”

The soldier was then on his way home, and when he got there the first
thing he did was to look for the whetstone. And sure enough, there it
was, just where Lincoln had laid it fifteen years before. The honest
fellow wrote a letter to the Chief Magistrate, telling him that the
whetstone had been found, and would never be lost again.




SETTLED OUT OF COURT.

When Abe Lincoln used to be drifting around the country, practicing law
in Fulton and Menard counties, Illinois, an old fellow met him going
to Lewiston, riding a horse which, while it was a serviceable enough
animal, was not of the kind to be truthfully called a fine saddler. It
was a weatherbeaten nag, patient and plodding, and it toiled along
with Abe--and Abe’s books, tucked away in saddle-bags, lay heavy on the
horse’s flank.

“Hello, Uncle Tommy,” said Abe.

“Hello, Abe,” responded Uncle Tommy. “I’m powerful glad to see ye, Abe,
fer I’m gwyne to have sumthin’ fer ye at Lewiston co’t, I reckon.”

“How’s that, Uncle Tommy?” said Abe.

“Well, Jim Adams, his land runs ‘long o’ mine, he’s pesterin’ me a heap
an’ I got to get the law on Jim, I reckon.”

“Uncle Tommy, you haven’t had any fights with Jim, have you?”

“No.”

“He’s a fair to middling neighbor, isn’t he?”

“Only tollable, Abe.”

“He’s been a neighbor of yours for a long time, hasn’t he?”

“Nigh on to fifteen year.”

“Part of the time you get along all right, don’t you?”

“I reckon we do, Abe.”

“Well, now, Uncle Tommy, you see this horse of mine? He isn’t as good a
horse as I could straddle, and I sometimes get out of patience with him,
but I know his faults. He does fairly well as horses go, and it might
take me a long time to get used to some other horse’s faults. For all
horses have faults. You and Uncle Jimmy must put up with each other as I
and my horse do with one another.”

“I reckon, Abe,” said Uncle Tommy, as he bit off about four ounces of
Missouri plug. “I reckon you’re about right.”

And Abe Lincoln, with a smile on his gaunt face, rode on toward
Lewiston.




THE FIVE POINTS SUNDAY SCHOOL.

When Mr. Lincoln visited New York in 1860, he felt a great interest in
many of the institutions for reforming criminals and saving the young
from a life of crime. Among others, he visited, unattended, the Five
Points House of Industry, and the superintendent of the Sabbath school
there gave the following account of the event:

“One Sunday morning I saw a tall, remarkable-looking man enter the
room and take a seat among us. He listened with fixed attention to our
exercises, and his countenance expressed such genuine interest that I
approached him and suggested that he might be willing to say something
to the children. He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and
coming forward began a simple address, which at once fascinated every
little hearer and hushed the room into silence. His language was
strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical with intense feeling. The
little faces would droop into sad conviction when he uttered sentences
of warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words
of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the
imperative shout of, ‘Go on! Oh, do go on!’ would compel him to resume.

“As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of the stranger, and marked
his powerful head and determined features, now touched into softness
by the impressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity to
learn something more about him, and while he was quietly leaving the
room, I begged to know his name. He courteously replied: ‘It is Abraham
Lincoln, from Illinois.’”




SENTINEL OBEYED ORDERS.

A slight variation of the traditional sentry story is related by C. C.
Buel. It was a cold, blusterous winter night. Says Mr. Buel:

“Mr. Lincoln emerged from the front door, his lank figure bent over as
he drew tightly about his shoulders the shawl which he employed for such
protection; for he was on his way to the War Department, at the west
corner of the grounds, where in times of battle he was wont to get the
midnight dispatches from the field. As the blast struck him he thought
of the numbness of the pacing sentry, and, turning to him, said: ‘Young
man, you’ve got a cold job to-night; step inside, and stand guard
there.’

“‘My orders keep me out here,’ the soldier replied.

“‘Yes,’ said the President, in his argumentative tone; ‘but your duty
can be performed just as well inside as out here, and you’ll oblige me
by going in.’

“‘I have been stationed outside,’ the soldier answered, and resumed his
beat.

“‘Hold on there!’ said Mr. Lincoln, as he turned back again; ‘it occurs
to me that I am Commander-in-Chief of the army, and I order you to go
inside.’”




WHY LINCOLN GROWED WHISKERS.

Perhaps the majority of people in the United States don’t know why
Lincoln “growed” whiskers after his first nomination for the Presidency.
Before that time his face was clean shaven.

In the beautiful village of Westfield, Chautauqua county, New York,
there lived, in 1860, little Grace Bedell. During the campaign of that
year she saw a portrait of Lincoln, for whom she felt the love and
reverence that was common in Republican families, and his smooth, homely
face rather disappointed her. She said to her mother: “I think, mother,
that Mr. Lincoln would look better if he wore whiskers, and I mean to
write and tell him so.”

The mother gave her permission.

Grace’s father was a Republican; her two brothers were Democrats.
Grace wrote at once to the “Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., Springfield,
Illinois,” in which she told him how old she was, and where she lived;
that she was a Republican; that she thought he would make a good
President, but would look better if he would let his whiskers grow. If
he would do so, she would try to coax her brothers to vote for him. She
thought the rail fence around the picture of his cabin was very pretty.
“If you have not time to answer my letter, will you allow your little
girl to reply for you?”

Lincoln was much pleased with the letter, and decided to answer it,
which he did at once, as follows:

“Springfield, Illinois, October 19, 1860.

“Miss Grace Bedell.

“My Dear Little Miss: Your very agreeable letter of the fifteenth is
received. I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have
three sons; one seventeen, one nine and one seven years of age. They,
with their mother, constitute my whole family. As to the whiskers,
having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece
of silly affectation if I should begin it now? Your very sincere
well-wisher, A. LINCOLN.”

When on the journey to Washington to be inaugurated, Lincoln’s train
stopped at Westfield. He recollected his little correspondent and spoke
of her to ex-Lieutenant Governor George W. Patterson, who called out and
asked if Grace Bedell was present.

There was a large surging mass of people gathered about the train, but
Grace was discovered at a distance; the crowd opened a pathway to the
coach, and she came, timidly but gladly, to the President-elect, who
told her that she might see that he had allowed his whiskers to grow at
her request. Then, reaching out his long arms, he drew her up to him and
kissed her. The act drew an enthusiastic demonstration of approval from
the multitude.

Grace married a Kansas banker, and became Grace Bedell Billings.




LINCOLN AS A DANCER.

Lincoln made his first appearance in society when he was first sent to
Springfield, Ill., as a member of the State Legislature. It was not
an imposing figure which he cut in a ballroom, but still he was
occasionally to be found there. Miss Mary Todd, who afterward became
his wife, was the magnet which drew the tall, awkward young man from his
den. One evening Lincoln approached Miss Todd, and said, in his peculiar
idiom:

“Miss Todd, I should like to dance with you the worst way.” The young
woman accepted the inevitable, and hobbled around the room with him.
When she returned to her seat, one of her companions asked mischievously:

“Well, Mary, did he dance with you the worst way.”

“Yes,” she answered, “the very worst.”




SIMPLY PRACTICAL HUMANITY.

An instance of young Lincoln’s practical humanity at an early period of
his life is recorded in this way:

One evening, while returning from a “raising” in his wide neighborhood,
with a number of companions, he discovered a stray horse, with saddle
and bridle upon him. The horse was recognized as belonging to a man who
was accustomed to get drunk, and it was suspected at once that he was
not far off. A short search only was necessary to confirm the belief.

The poor drunkard was found in a perfectly helpless condition, upon the
chilly ground. Abraham’s companions urged the cowardly policy of leaving
him to his fate, but young Lincoln would not hear to the proposition.

At his request, the miserable sot was lifted on his shoulders, and he
actually carried him eighty rods to the nearest house.

Sending word to his father that he should not be back that night, with
the reason for his absence, he attended and nursed the man until the
morning, and had the pleasure of believing that he had saved his life.




HAPPY FIGURES OF SPEECH.

On one occasion, exasperated at the discrepancy between the aggregate of
troops forwarded to McClellan and the number that same general reported
as having received, Lincoln exclaimed: “Sending men to that army is like
shoveling fleas across a barnyard--half of them never get there.”

To a politician who had criticised his course, he wrote: “Would you have
me drop the War where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with
elder stalk squirts charged with rosewater?”

When, on his first arrival in Washington as President, he found himself
besieged by office-seekers, while the War was breaking out, he said: “I
feel like a man letting lodgings at one end of his house while the other
end is on fire.”




A FEW “RHYTHMIC SHOTS.”

Ward Lamon, Marshal of the District of Columbia during Lincoln’s time in
Washington, accompanied the President everywhere. He was a good singer,
and, when Lincoln was in one of his melancholy moods, would “fire a few
rhythmic shots” at the President to cheer the latter. Lincoln keenly
relished nonsense in the shape of witty or comic ditties. A parody of “A
Life on the Ocean Wave” was always pleasing to him:

     “Oh, a life on the ocean wave,
       And a home on the rolling deep!
     With ratlins fried three times a day
       And a leaky old berth for to sleep;
     Where the gray-beard cockroach roams,
       On thoughts of kind intent,
     And the raving bedbug comes
       The road the cockroach went.”

Lincoln could not control his laughter when he heard songs of this sort.

He was fond of negro melodies, too, and “The Blue-Tailed Fly” was a
great favorite with him. He often called for that buzzing ballad when
he and Lamon were alone, and he wanted to throw off the weight of public
and private cares. The ballad of “The Blue-Tailed Fly” contained two
verses, which ran:

     “When I was young I used to wait
     At massa’s table, ‘n’ hand de plate,
     An’ pass de bottle when he was dry,
     An’ brush away de blue-tailed fly.

     “Ol’ Massa’s dead; oh, let him rest!
     Dey say all things am for de best;
     But I can’t forget until I die
     Ol’ massa an’ de blue-tailed fly.”

While humorous songs delighted the President, he also loved to listen to
patriotic airs and ballads containing sentiment. He was fond of hearing
“The Sword of Bunker Hill,” “Ben Bolt,” and “The Lament of the Irish
Emigrant.” His preference of the verses in the latter was this:

     “I’m lonely now, Mary,
       For the poor make no new friends;
     But, oh, they love the better still
       The few our Father sends!
     And you were all I had, Mary,
       My blessing and my pride;
     There’s nothing left to care for now,
       Since my poor Mary died.”

Those who knew Lincoln were well aware he was incapable of so monstrous
an act as that of wantonly insulting the dead, as was charged in the
infamous libel which asserted that he listened to a comic song on the
field of Antietam, before the dead were buried.




OLD MAN GLENN’S RELIGION.

Mr. Lincoln once remarked to a friend that his religion was like that
of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a church
meeting, and who said: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I
feel bad; and that’s my religion.”

Mrs. Lincoln herself has said that Mr. Lincoln had no faith--no faith,
in the usual acceptance of those words. “He never joined a church; but
still, as I believe, he was a religious man by nature. He first seemed
to think about the subject when our boy Willie died, and then more than
ever about the time he went to Gettysburg; but it was a kind of poetry
in his nature, and he never was a technical Christian.”




LAST ACTS OF MERCY.

During the afternoon preceding his assassination the President signed a
pardon for a soldier sentenced to be shot for desertion, remarking as
he did so, “Well, I think the boy can do us more good above ground than
under ground.”

He also approved an application for the discharge, on taking the oath of
allegiance, of a rebel prisoner, in whose petition he wrote, “Let it be
done.”

This act of mercy was his last official order.




JUST LIKE SEWARD.

The first corps of the army commanded by General Reynolds was once
reviewed by the President on a beautiful plain at the north of Potomac
Creek, about eight miles from Hooker’s headquarters. The party rode
thither in an ambulance over a rough corduroy road, and as they
passed over some of the more difficult portions of the jolting way the
ambulance driver, who sat well in front, occasionally let fly a volley
of suppressed oaths at his wild team of six mules.

Finally, Mr. Lincoln, leaning forward, touched the man on the shoulder
and said,

“Excuse me, my friend, are you an Episcopalian?”

The man, greatly startled, looked around and replied:

“No, Mr. President; I am a Methodist.”

“Well,” said Lincoln, “I thought you must be an Episcopalian, because
you swear just like Governor Seward, who is a church warder.”




A CHEERFUL PROSPECT.

The first night after the departure of President-elect Lincoln from
Springfield, on his way to Washington, was spent in Indianapolis.
Governor Yates, O. H. Browning, Jesse K. Dubois, O. M. Hatch, Josiah
Allen, of Indiana, and others, after taking leave of Mr. Lincoln to
return to their respective homes, took Ward Lamon into a room, locked
the door, and proceeded in the most solemn and impressive manner to
instruct him as to his duties as the special guardian of Mr. Lincoln’s
person during the rest of his journey to Washington. Lamon tells the
story as follows:

“The lesson was concluded by Uncle Jesse, as Mr. Dubois was commonly,
called, who said:

“‘Now, Lamon, we have regarded you as the Tom Hyer of Illinois, with
Morrissey attachment. We intrust the sacred life of Mr. Lincoln to your
keeping; and if you don’t protect it, never return to Illinois, for we
will murder you on sight.”’




THOUGHT GOD WOULD HAVE TOLD HIM.

Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner was one of the few men to whom
Mr. Lincoln confided his intention to issue the Proclamation of
Emancipation.

Mr. Lincoln told his Illinois friend of the visit of a delegation to
him who claimed to have a message from God that the War would not be
successful without the freeing of the negroes, to whom Mr. Lincoln
replied: “Is it not a little strange that He should tell this to you,
who have so little to do with it, and should not have told me, who has a
great deal to do with it?”

At the same time he informed Professor Turner he had his Proclamation in
his pocket.




LINCOLN AND A BIBLE HERO.

A writer who heard Mr. Lincoln’s famous speech delivered in New York
after his nomination for President has left this record of the event:

“When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall,
tall, oh, so tall, and so angular and awkward that I had for an instant
a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man. He began in a low tone of
voice, as if he were used to speaking out of doors and was afraid of
speaking too loud.

“He said ‘Mr. Cheerman,’ instead of ‘Mr. Chairman,’ and employed many
other words with an old-fashioned pronunciation. I said to myself, ‘Old
fellow, you won’t do; it is all very well for the Wild West, but this
will never go down in New York.’ But pretty soon he began to get into
the subject; he straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures; his
face lighted as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured.

“I forgot the clothing, his personal appearance, and his individual
peculiarities. Presently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the
rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering the wonderful man. In the
close parts of his argument you could hear the gentle sizzling of the
gas burners.

“When he reached a climax the thunders of applause were terrific. It
was a great speech. When I came out of the hall my face was glowing with
excitement and my frame all a-quiver. A friend, with his eyes aglow,
asked me what I thought of ‘Abe’ Lincoln, the rail-splitter. I said,
‘He’s the greatest man since St. Paul.’ And I think so yet.”




BOY WAS CARED FOR.

President Lincoln one day noticed a small, pale, delicate-looking
boy, about thirteen years old, among the number in the White House
antechamber.

The President saw him standing there, looking so feeble and faint, and
said: “Come here, my boy, and tell me what you want.”

The boy advanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President’s chair,
and, with a bowed head and timid accents, said: “Mr. President, I have
been a drummer boy in a regiment for two years, and my colonel got angry
with me and turned me off. I was taken sick and have been a long time in
the hospital.”

The President discovered that the boy had no home, no father--he had
died in the army--no mother.

“I have no father, no mother, no brothers, no sisters, and,” bursting
into tears, “no friends--nobody cares for me.”

Lincoln’s eyes filled with tears, and the boy’s heart was soon made glad
by a request to certain officials “to care for this poor boy.”




THE JURY ACQUITTED HIM

One of the most noted murder cases in which Lincoln defended the accused
was tried in August, 1859. The victim, Crafton, was a student in his
own law office, the defendant, “Peachy” Harrison, was a grandson of
Rev. Peter Cartwright; both were connected with the best families in the
county; they were brothers-in-law, and had always been friends.

Senator John M. Palmer and General John A. McClelland were on the side
of the prosecution. Among those who represented the defendant were
Lincoln and Senator Shelby M. Cullom. The two young men had engaged in
a political quarrel, and Crafton was stabbed to death by Harrison. The
tragic pathos of a case which involved the deepest affections of almost
an entire community reached its climax in the appearance in court of the
venerable Peter Cartwright. Lincoln had beaten him for Congress in 1846.

Eccentric and aggressive as he was, he was honored far and wide; and
when he arose to take the witness stand, his white hair crowned
with this cruel sorrow, the most indifferent spectator felt that his
examination would be unbearable.

It fell to Lincoln to question Cartwright. With the rarest gentleness he
began to put his questions.

“How long have you known the prisoner?”

Cartwright’s head dropped on his breast for a moment; then straightening
himself, he passed his hand across his eyes and answered in a deep,
quavering voice:

“I have known him since a babe, he laughed and cried on my knee.”

The examination ended by Lincoln drawing from the witness the story of
how Crafton had said to him, just before his death: “I am dying; I will
soon part with all I love on earth, and I want you to say to my slayer
that I forgive him. I want to leave this earth with a forgiveness of all
who have in any way injured me.”

This examination made a profound impression on the jury. Lincoln closed
his argument by picturing the scene anew, appealing to the jury to
practice the same forgiving spirit that the murdered man had shown on
his death-bed. It was undoubtedly to his handling of the grandfather’s
evidence that Harrison’s acquittal was due.




TOOK NOTHING BUT MONEY.

During the War Congress appropriated $10,000 to be expended by the
President in defending United States Marshals in cases of arrests and
seizures where the legality of their actions was tested in the courts.
Previously the Marshals sought the assistance of the Attorney-General
in defending them, but when they found that the President had a fund for
that purpose they sought to control the money.

In speaking of these Marshals one day, Mr. Lincoln said:

“They are like a man in Illinois, whose cabin was burned down, and,
according to the kindly custom of early days in the West, his neighbors
all contributed something to start him again. In his case they had been
so liberal that he soon found himself better off than before the fire,
and he got proud. One day a neighbor brought him a bag of oats, but the
fellow refused it with scorn.

“‘No,’ said he, ‘I’m not taking oats now. I take nothing but money.’”




NAUGHTY BOY HAD TO TAKE HIS MEDICINE.

The resistance to the military draft of 1863 by the City of New York,
the result of which was the killing of several thousand persons,
was illustrated on August 29th, 1863, by “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper,” over the title of “The Naughty Boy, Gotham, Who Would Not
Take the Draft.” Beneath was also the text:

MAMMY LINCOLN: “There now, you bad boy, acting that way, when your
little sister Penn (State of Pennsylvania) takes hers like a lady!”

Horatio Seymour was then Governor of New York, and a prominent “the War
is a failure” advocate. He was in Albany, the State capital, when the
riots broke out in the City of New York, July 13th, and after the mob
had burned the Colored Orphan Asylum and killed several hundred negroes,
came to the city. He had only soft words for the rioters, promising them
that the draft should be suspended. Then the Government sent several
regiments of veterans, fresh from the field of Gettysburg, where they
had assisted in defeating Lee. These troops made short work of the
brutal ruffians, shooting down three thousand or so of them, and the
rioting was subdued. The “Naughty Boy Gotham” had to take his medicine,
after all, but as the spirit of opposition to the War was still rampant,
the President issued a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus
in all the States of the Union where the Government had control. This
had a quieting effect upon those who were doing what they could in
obstructing the Government.




WOULD BLOW THEM TO H---.

Mr. Lincoln had advised Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, commanding
the United States Army, of the threats of violence on inauguration day,
1861. General Scott was sick in bed at Washington when Adjutant-General
Thomas Mather, of Illinois, called upon him in President-elect Lincoln’s
behalf, and the veteran commander was much wrought up. Said he to
General Mather:

“Present my compliments to Mr. Lincoln when you return to Springfield,
and tell him I expect him to come on to Washington as soon as he is
ready; say to him that I will look after those Maryland and Virginia
rangers myself. I will plant cannon at both ends of Pennsylvania avenue,
and if any of them show their heads or raise a finger, I’ll blow them to
h---.”




“YANKEE” GOODNESS OF HEART.

One day, when the President was with the troops who were fighting at the
front, the wounded, both Union and Confederate, began to pour in.

As one stretcher was passing Lincoln, he heard the voice of a lad
calling to his mother in agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He
forgot the crisis of the hour. Stopping the carriers, he knelt, and
bending over him, asked: “What can I do for you, my poor child?”

“Oh, you will do nothing for me,” he replied. “You are a Yankee. I
cannot hope that my message to my mother will ever reach her.”

Lincoln, in tears, his voice full of tenderest love, convinced the boy
of his sincerity, and he gave his good-bye words without reserve.

The President directed them copied, and ordered that they be sent that
night, with a flag of truce, into the enemy’s lines.




WALKED AS HE TALKED.

When Mr. Lincoln made his famous humorous speech in Congress ridiculing
General Cass, he began to speak from notes, but, as he warmed up,
he left his desk and his notes, to stride down the alley toward the
Speaker’s chair.

Occasionally, as he would complete a sentence amid shouts of laughter,
he would return up the alley to his desk, consult his notes, take a sip
of water and start off again.

Mr. Lincoln received many congratulations at the close, Democrats
joining the Whigs in their complimentary comments.

One Democrat, however (who had been nicknamed “Sausage” Sawyer), didn’t
enthuse at all.

“Sawyer,” asked an Eastern Representative, “how did you like the lanky
Illinoisan’s speech? Very able, wasn’t it?”

“Well,” replied Sawyer, “the speech was pretty good, but I hope he won’t
charge mileage on his travels while delivering it.”




THE SONG DID THE BUSINESS.

The Virginia (Ill.) Enquirer, of March 1, 1879, tells this story:

“John McNamer was buried last Sunday, near Petersburg, Menard county. A
long while ago he was Assessor and Treasurer of the County for several
successive terms. Mr. McNamer was an early settler in that section, and,
before the town of Petersburg was laid out, in business in Old Salem, a
village that existed many years ago two miles south of the present site
of Petersburg.

“‘Abe’ Lincoln was then postmaster of the place and sold whisky to its
inhabitants. There are old-timers yet living in Menard who bought many
a jug of corn-juice from ‘Old Abe’ when he lived at Salem. It was here
that Anne Rutledge dwelt, and in whose grave Lincoln wrote that his
heart was buried.

“As the story runs, the fair and gentle Anne was originally John
McNamer’s sweetheart, but ‘Abe’ took a ‘shine’ to the young lady,
and succeeded in heading off McNamer and won her affections. But Anne
Rutledge died, and Lincoln went to Springfield, where he some time
afterwards married.

“It is related that during the War a lady belonging to a prominent
Kentucky family visited Washington to beg for her son’s pardon, who
was then in prison under sentence of death for belonging to a band of
guerrillas who had committed many murders and outrages.

“With the mother was her daughter, a beautiful young lady, who was an
accomplished musician. Mr. Lincoln received the visitors in his
usual kind manner, and the mother made known the object of her visit,
accompanying her plea with tears and sobs and all the customary romantic
incidents.

“There were probably extenuating circumstances in favor of the young
rebel prisoner, and while the President seemed to be deeply pondering
the young lady moved to a piano near by and taking a seat commenced to
sing ‘Gentle Annie,’ a very sweet and pathetic ballad which, before the
War, was a familiar song in almost every household in the Union, and is
not yet entirely forgotten, for that matter.

“It is to be presumed that the young lady sang the song with
more plaintiveness and effect than ‘Old Abe’ had ever heard it in
Springfield. During its rendition, he arose from his seat, crossed the
room to a window in the westward, through which he gazed for several
minutes with a ‘sad, far-away look,’ which has so often been noted as
one of his peculiarities.

“His memory, no doubt, went back to the days of his humble life on the
Sangamon, and with visions of Old Salem and its rustic people, who once
gathered in his primitive store, came a picture of the ‘Gentle Annie’
of his youth, whose ashes had rested for many long years under the wild
flowers and brambles of the old rural burying-ground, but whose spirit
then, perhaps, guided him to the side of mercy.

“Be that as it may, President Lincoln drew a large red silk handkerchief
from his coatpocket, with which he wiped his face vigorously. Then
he turned, advanced quickly to his desk, wrote a brief note, which he
handed to the lady, and informed her that it was the pardon she sought.

“The scene was no doubt touching in a great degree and proves that a
nice song, well sung, has often a powerful influence in recalling tender
recollections. It proves, also, that Abraham Lincoln was a man of fine
feelings, and that, if the occurrence was a put-up job on the lady’s
part, it accomplished the purpose all the same.”




A “FREE FOR ALL.”

Lincoln made a political speech at Pappsville, Illinois, when a
candidate for the Legislature the first time. A free-for-all fight began
soon after the opening of the meeting, and Lincoln, noticing one of
his friends about to succumb to the energetic attack of an infuriated
ruffian, edged his way through the crowd, and, seizing the bully by the
neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him, by means of his strength
and long arms, as one witness stoutly insists, “twelve feet away.”
 Returning to the stand, and throwing aside his hat, he inaugurated his
campaign with the following brief but pertinent declaration:

“Fellow-citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham
Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for
the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s
dance. I am in favor of the national bank; I am in favor of the
internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my
sentiments; if elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the
same.”




THREE INFERNAL BORES.

One day, when President Lincoln was alone and busily engaged on an
important subject, involving vexation and anxiety, he was disturbed by
the unwarranted intrusion of three men, who, without apology, proceeded
to lay their claim before him.

The spokesman of the three reminded the President that they were
the owners of some torpedo or other warlike invention which, if the
government would only adopt it, would soon crush the rebellion.

“Now,” said the spokesman, “we have been here to see you time and again;
you have referred us to the Secretary of War, the Chief of Ordnance, and
the General of the Army, and they give us no satisfaction. We have been
kept here waiting, till money and patience are exhausted, and we now
come to demand of you a final reply to our application.”

Mr. Lincoln listened to this insolent tirade, and at its close the old
twinkle came into his eye.

“You three gentlemen remind me of a story I once heard,” said he, “of a
poor little boy out West who had lost his mother. His father wanted to
give him a religious education, and so placed him in the family of a
clergyman, whom he directed to instruct the little fellow carefully in
the Scriptures. Every day the boy had to commit to memory and recite one
chapter of the Bible. Things proceeded smoothly until they reached that
chapter which details the story of the trial of Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego in the fiery furnace. When asked to repeat these three names
the boy said he had forgotten them.

“His teacher told him that he must learn them, and gave him another day
to do so. The next day the boy again forgot them.

“‘Now,’ said the teacher, ‘you have again failed to remember those names
and you can go no farther until you have learned them. I will give you
another day on this lesson, and if you don’t repeat the names I will
punish you.’

“A third time the boy came to recite, and got down to the stumbling
block, when the clergyman said: ‘Now tell me the names of the men in the
fiery furnace.’

“‘Oh,’ said the boy, ‘here come those three infernal bores! I wish the
devil had them!’”

Having received their “final answer,” the three patriots retired, and at
the Cabinet meeting which followed, the President, in high good humor,
related how he had dismissed his unwelcome visitors.




LINCOLN’S MEN WERE “HUSTLERS.”

In the Chicago Convention of 1860 the fight for Seward was maintained
with desperate resolve until the final ballot was taken. Thurlow Weed
was the Seward leader, and he was simply incomparable as a master in
handling a convention. With him were Governor Morgan, Henry J. Raymond,
of the New York Times, with William M. Evarts as chairman of the New
York delegation, whose speech nominating Seward was the most impressive
utterance of his life. The Bates men (Bates was afterwards Lincoln’s
Attorney-General) were led by Frank Blair, the only Republican
Congressman from a slave State, who was nothing if not heroic, aided by
his brother Montgomery (afterwards Lincoln’s Postmaster General), who
was a politician of uncommon cunning. With them was Horace Greeley, who
was chairman of the delegation from the then almost inaccessible State
of Oregon.

It was Lincoln’s friends, however, who were the “hustlers” of that
battle. They had men for sober counsel like David Davis; men of supreme
sagacity like Leonard Swett; men of tireless effort like Norman B. Judd;
and they had what was more important than all--a seething multitude wild
with enthusiasm for “Old Abe.”




A SLOW HORSE.

On one occasion when Mr. Lincoln was going to attend a political
convention one of his rivals, a liveryman, provided him with a slow
horse, hoping that he would not reach his destination in time. Mr.
Lincoln got there, however, and when he returned with the horse he said:
“You keep this horse for funerals, don’t you?” “Oh, no,” replied the
liveryman. “Well, I’m glad of that, for if you did you’d never get a
corpse to the grave in time for the resurrection.”




DODGING “BROWSING PRESIDENTS.”

General McClellan, after being put in command of the Army, resented any
“interference” by the President. Lincoln, in his anxiety to know
the details of the work in the army, went frequently to McClellan’s
headquarters. That the President had a serious purpose in these visits
McClellan did not see.

“I enclose a card just received from ‘A. Lincoln,’” he wrote to his wife
one day; “it shows too much deference to be seen outside.”

In another letter to Mrs. McClellan he spoke of being “interrupted” by
the President and Secretary Seward, “who had nothing in particular to
say,” and again of concealing himself “to dodge all enemies in shape of
‘browsing’ Presidents,” etc.

“I am becoming daily more disgusted with this Administration--perfectly
sick of it,” he wrote early in October; and a few days later, “I was
obliged to attend a meeting of the Cabinet at 8 P. M., and was bored and
annoyed. There are some of the greatest geese in the Cabinet I have ever
seen--enough to tax the patience of Job.”




A GREENBACK LEGEND.

At a Cabinet meeting once, the advisability of putting a legend on
greenbacks similar to the In God We Trust legend on the silver coins was
discussed, and the President was asked what his view was. He replied:
“If you are going to put a legend on the greenback, I would suggest that
of Peter and Paul: ‘Silver and gold we have not, but what we have we’ll
give you.’”




GOD’S BEST GIFT TO MAN.

One of Mr. Lincoln’s notable religious utterances was his reply to a
deputation of colored people at Baltimore who presented him a Bible. He
said:

“In regard to the great book, I have only to say it is the best gift
which God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world
is communicated to us through this book. But for this book we could not
know right from wrong. All those things desirable to man are contained
in it.”




SCALPING IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

When Lincoln was President he told this story of the Black Hawk War:

The only time he ever saw blood in this campaign, was one morning when,
marching up a little valley that makes into the Rock River bottom, to
reinforce a squad of outposts that were thought to be in danger, they
came upon the tent occupied by the other party just at sunrise. The men
had neglected to place any guard at night, and had been slaughtered in
their sleep.

As the reinforcing party came up the slope on which the camp had been
made, Lincoln saw them all lying with their heads towards the rising
sun, and the round red spot that marked where they had been scalped
gleamed more redly yet in the ruddy light of the sun. This scene years
afterwards he recalled with a shudder.




MATRIMONIAL ADVICE.

For a while during the Civil War, General Fremont was without a command.
One day in discussing Fremont’s case with George W. Julian, President
Lincoln said he did not know where to place him, and that it reminds him
of the old man who advised his son to take a wife, to which the young
man responded: “All right; whose wife shall I take?”




OWED LOTS OF MONEY.

On April 14, 1865, a few hours previous to his assassination, President
Lincoln sent a message by Congressman Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President
during General Grant’s first term, to the miners in the Rocky Mountains
and the regions bounded by the Pacific ocean, in which he said:

“Now that the Rebellion is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the
amount of our National debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make
the payment of that debt so much easier.

“Now I am going to encourage that in every possible way. We shall have
hundreds of thousands of disbanded soldiers, and many have feared that
their return home in such great numbers might paralyze industry by
furnishing, suddenly, a greater supply of labor than there will be
demand for. I am going to try to attract them to the hidden wealth of
our mountain ranges, where there is room enough for all. Immigration,
which even the War has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundreds
of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point
them to the gold and silver that wait for them in the West.

“Tell the miners for me that I shall promote their interests to the
utmost of my ability; because their prosperity as the prosperity of
the nation; and,” said he, his eye kindling with enthusiasm, “we shall
prove, in a very few years, that we are indeed the treasury of the
world.”




“ON THE LORD’S SIDE.”

President Lincoln made a significant remark to a clergyman in the early
days of the War.

“Let us have faith, Mr. President,” said the minister, “that the Lord is
on our side in this great struggle.”

Mr. Lincoln quietly answered: “I am not at all concerned about that, for
I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but it is my
constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation may be on the Lord’s
side.”




WANTED TO BE NEAR “ABE.”

It was Lincoln’s custom to hold an informal reception once a week, each
caller taking his turn.

Upon one of these eventful days an old friend from Illinois stood in
line for almost an hour. At last he was so near the President his voice
could reach him, and, calling out to his old associate, he startled
every one by exclaiming, “Hallo, ‘Abe’; how are ye? I’m in line and hev
come for an orfice, too.”

Lincoln singled out the man with the stentorian voice, and recognizing
a particularly old friend, one whose wife had befriended him at a
peculiarly trying time, the President responded to his greeting in a
cordial manner, and told him “to hang onto himself and not kick the
traces. Keep in line and you’ll soon get here.”

They met and shook hands with the old fervor and renewed their
friendship.

The informal reception over, Lincoln sent for his old friend, and the
latter began to urge his claims.

After having given him some good advice, Lincoln kindly told him he
was incapable of holding any such position as he asked for. The
disappointment of the Illinois friend was plainly shown, and with a
perceptible tremor in his voice he said, “Martha’s dead, the gal is
married, and I’ve guv Jim the forty.”

Then looking at Lincoln he came a little nearer and almost whispered, “I
knowed I wasn’t eddicated enough to git the place, but I kinder want to
stay where I ken see ‘Abe’ Lincoln.”

He was given employment in the White House grounds.

Afterwards the President said, “These brief interviews, stripped of
even the semblance of ceremony, give me a better insight into the real
character of the person and his true reason for seeking one.”




GOT HIS FOOT IN IT.

William H. Seward, idol of the Republicans of the East, six months after
Lincoln had made his “Divided House” speech, delivered an address at
Rochester, New York, containing this famous sentence:

“It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,
and it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later,
become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor
nation.”

Seward, who had simply followed in Lincoln’s steps, was defeated for the
Presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention of 1860,
because he was “too radical,” and Lincoln, who was still “radicaler,”
 was named.




SAVED BY A LETTER.

The chief interest of the Illinois campaign of 1843 lay in the race
for Congress in the Capital district, which was between Hardin--fiery,
eloquent, and impetuous Democrat--and Lincoln--plain, practical, and
ennobled Whig. The world knows the result. Lincoln was elected.

It is not so much his election as the manner in which he secured his
nomination with which we have to deal. Before that ever-memorable spring
Lincoln vacillated between the courts of Springfield, rated as a plain,
honest, logical Whig, with no ambition higher politically than to occupy
some good home office.

Late in the fall of 1842 his name began to be mentioned in connection
with Congressional aspirations, which fact greatly annoyed the leaders
of his political party, who had already selected as the Whig candidate
E. D. Baker, afterward the gallant Colonel who fell so bravely and died
such an honorable death on the battlefield of Ball’s Bluff.

Despite all efforts of his opponents within his party, the name of the
“gaunt rail-splitter” was hailed with acclaim by the masses, to whom
he had endeared himself by his witticisms, honest tongue, and quaint
philosophy when on the stump, or mingling with them in their homes.

The convention, which met in early spring, in the city of Springfield,
was to be composed of the usual number of delegates. The contest for the
nomination was spirited and exciting.

A few weeks before the meeting of the convention the fact was found by
the leaders that the advantage lay with Lincoln, and that unless they
pulled some very fine wires nothing could save Baker.

They attempted to play the game that has so often won, by “convincing”
 delegates under instructions for Lincoln to violate them, and vote for
Baker. They had apparently succeeded.

“The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.” So it was in this
case. Two days before the convention Lincoln received an intimation of
this, and, late at night, wrote the following letter.

The letter was addressed to Martin Morris, who resided at Petersburg,
an intimate friend of his, and by him circulated among those who were
instructed for him at the county convention.

It had the desired effect. The convention met, the scheme of the
conspirators miscarried, Lincoln was nominated, made a vigorous canvass,
and was triumphantly elected, thus paving the way for his more extended
and brilliant conquests.

This letter, Lincoln had often told his friends, gave him ultimately
the Chief Magistracy of the nation. He has also said, that, had he been
beaten before the convention, he would have been forever obscured. The
following is a verbatim copy of the epistle:

“April 14, 1843.

“Friend Morris: I have heard it intimated that Baker is trying to get
you or Miles, or both of you, to violate the instructions of the meeting
that appointed you, and to go for him. I have insisted, and still
insist, that this cannot be true.

“Sure Baker would not do the like. As well might Hardin ask me to vote
for him in the convention.

“Again, it is said there will be an attempt to get instructions in your
county requiring you to go for Baker. This is all wrong. Upon the same
rule, why might I not fly from the decision against me at Sangamon and
get up instructions to their delegates to go for me. There are at least
1,200 Whigs in the county that took no part, and yet I would as soon
stick my head in the fire as attempt it.

“Besides, if any one should get the nomination by such extraordinary
means, all harmony in the district would inevitably be lost. Honest
Whigs (and very nearly all of them are honest) would not quietly abide
such enormities.

“I repeat, such an attempt on Baker’s part cannot be true. Write me at
Springfield how the matter is. Don’t show or speak of this letter.

“A. LINCOLN.”




Mr. Morris did show the letter, and Mr. Lincoln always thanked his stars
that he did.




HIS FAVORITE POEM.

Mr. Lincoln’s favorite poem was “Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be
Proud?” written by William Knox, a Scotchman, although Mr. Lincoln never
knew the author’s name. He once said to a friend:

“This poem has been a great favorite with me for years. It was first
shown to me, when a young man, by a friend. I afterward saw it and cut
it from a newspaper and learned it by heart. I would give a great deal
to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.”

    “Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?--
    Like a swift-fleeing meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
    A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
    He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

    “The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
    Be scattered around, and together be laid;
    And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
    Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

    “The infant a mother attended and loved;
    The mother, that infant’s affection who proved,
    The husband, that mother and infant who blessed
    --Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

    “The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
    Shone beauty and pleasure--her triumphs are by;
    And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
    Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

    “The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne,
    The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn,
    The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
    Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

    “The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap,
    The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
    The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
    Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

    “The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
    The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven;
    The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
    Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

    “So the multitude goes--like the flower or the weed
    That withers away to let others succeed;
    So the multitude comes--even those we behold,
    To repeat every tale that has often been told:

    “For we are the same our fathers have been;
    We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
    We drink the same stream, we view the same sun,
    And run the same course our fathers have run.

    “The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;
    From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink;
    To the life we are clinging, they also would cling
    --But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

    “They loved--but the story we cannot unfold;
    They scorned--but the heart of the haughty is cold;
    They grieved--but no wail from their slumber will come;
    They joyed--but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

    “They died--aye, they died--and we things that are now,
    That walk on the turf that lies o’er their brow,
    And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
    Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

    “Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
    Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
    And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
    Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

    “‘Tis the wink of an eye,--‘tis the draught of a breath;
    --From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
    From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud:
    --Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”




FIVE-LEGGED CALF.

President Lincoln had great doubt as to his right to emancipate the
slaves under the War power. In discussing the question, he used to like
the case to that of the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf would
have if he called its tail a leg, replied, “five,” to which the prompt
response was made that calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg.




A STAGE-COACH STORY.

The following is told by Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Indiana, who
was appointed minister to Chili by Lincoln:

Judge Abram Hammond, afterwards Governor of Indiana, and myself arranged
to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in a stage-coach.

As we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied
by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of
the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was
sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and
asked him if he had chartered the coach that day.

“Certainly not,” and he at once took the front seat, politely giving
us the place of honor and comfort. An odd-looking fellow he was, with
a twenty-five cent hat, without vest or cravat. Regarding him as a good
subject for merriment, we perpetrated several jokes.

He took them all with utmost innocence and good nature, and joined in
the laugh, although at his own expense.

After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics, the dazed and
bewildered stranger asked, “What will be the upshot of this comet
business?”

Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning’s
hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether.

We retired to our room to brush our clothes. In a few minutes I
descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow
traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were
Judges McLean and Huntington, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson,
who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I
inquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. “Abraham Lincoln, of
Illinois, a member of Congress,” was his response.

I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs and told
Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by
a back door, and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding
further contact with our distinguished fellow traveler.

Years afterward, when the President-elect was on his way to Washington,
I was in the same hotel looking over the distinguished party, when a
long arm reached to my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaimed, “Hello,
Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow the
darned thing off?” The words were my own in answer to his question in
the stage-coach. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln.




THE “400” GATHERED THERE.

Lincoln had periods while “clerking” in the New Salem grocery store
during which there was nothing for him to do, and was therefore in
circumstances that made laziness almost inevitable. Had people come to
him for goods, they would have found him willing to sell them. He sold
all that he could, doubtless.

The store soon became the social center of the village. If the people
did not care (or were unable) to buy goods, they liked to go where they
could talk with their neighbors and listen to stories. These Lincoln
gave them in abundance, and of a rare sort.

It was in these gatherings of the “Four Hundred” at the village store
that Lincoln got his training as a debater. Public questions were
discussed there daily and nightly, and Lincoln always took a prominent
part in the discussions. Many of the debaters came to consider “Abe
Linkin” as about the smartest man in the village.




ONLY LEVEL-HEADED MEN WANTED.

Lincoln wanted men of level heads for important commands. Not
infrequently he gave his generals advice.

He appreciated Hooker’s bravery, dash and activity, but was fearful of
the results of what he denominated “swashing around.”

This was one of his telegrams to Hooker:

“And now, beware of rashness; beware of rashness, but, with energy and
sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories.”




HIS FAITH IN THE MONITOR.

When the Confederate iron-clad Merrimac was sent against the Union
vessels in Hampton Roads President Lincoln expressed his belief in the
Monitor to Captain Fox, the adviser of Captain Ericsson, who constructed
the Monitor. “We have three of the most effective vessels in Hampton
Roads, and any number of small craft that will hang on the stern of the
Merrimac like small dogs on the haunches of a bear. They may not be
able to tear her down, but they will interfere with the comfort of her
voyage. Her trial trip will not be a pleasure trip, I am certain.

“We have had a big share of bad luck already, but I do not believe the
future has any such misfortunes in store for us as you anticipate.” Said
Captain Fox: “If the Merrimac does not sink our ships, who is to prevent
her from dropping her anchor in the Potomac, where that steamer lies,”
 pointing to a steamer at anchor below the long bridge, “and throwing her
hundred-pound shells into this room, or battering down the walls of the
Capitol?”

“The Almighty, Captain,” answered the President, excitedly, but without
the least affectation. “I expect set-backs, defeats; we have had them
and shall have them. They are common to all wars. But I have not the
slightest fear of any result which shall fatally impair our military
and naval strength, or give other powers any right to interfere in our
quarrel. The destruction of the Capitol would do both.

“I do not fear it, for this is God’s fight, and He will win it in His
own good time. He will take care that our enemies will not push us too
far.

“Speaking of iron-clads,” said the President, “you do not seem to
take the little Monitor into account. I believe in the Monitor and her
commander. If Captain Worden does not give a good account of the Monitor
and of himself, I shall have made a mistake in following my judgment for
the first time since I have been here, Captain.

“I have not made a mistake in following my clear judgment of men since
this War began. I followed that judgment when I gave Worden the command
of the Monitor. I would make the appointment over again to-day. The
Monitor should be in Hampton Roads now. She left New York eight days
ago.”

After the captain had again presented what he considered the
possibilities of failure the President replied, “No, no, Captain, I
respect your judgments as you have reason to know, but this time you are
all wrong.

“The Monitor was one of my inspirations; I believed in her firmly when
that energetic contractor first showed me Ericsson’s plans. Captain
Ericsson’s plain but rather enthusiastic demonstration made my
conversion permanent. It was called a floating battery then; I called
it a raft. I caught some of the inventor’s enthusiasm and it has been
growing upon me. I thought then, and I am confident now, it is just what
we want. I am sure that the Monitor is still afloat, and that she will
yet give a good account of herself. Sometimes I think she may be the
veritable sling with a stone that will yet smite the Merrimac Philistine
in the forehead.”

Soon was the President’s judgment verified, for the “Fight of the
Monitor and Merrimac” changed all the conditions of naval warfare.

After the victory was gained, the presiding Captain Fox and others went
on board the Monitor, and Captain Worden was requested by the President
to narrate the history of the encounter.

Captain Worden did so in a modest manner, and apologized for not being
able better to provide for his guests. The President smilingly responded
“Some charitable people say that old Bourbon is an indispensable element
in the fighting qualities of some of our generals in the field, but,
Captain, after the account that we have heard to-day, no one will say
that any Dutch courage is needed on board the Monitor.”

“It never has been, sir,” modestly observed the captain.

Captain Fox then gave a description of what he saw of the engagement and
described it as indescribably grand. Then, turning to the President, he
continued, “Now standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred
vessel, the first genuine iron-clad--the victor in the first fight
of iron-clads--let me make a confession, and perform an act of simple
justice.

“I never fully believed in armored vessels until I saw this battle.

“I know all the facts which united to give us the Monitor. I withhold no
credit from Captain Ericsson, her inventor, but I know that the country
is principally indebted for the construction of the vessel to President
Lincoln, and for the success of her trial to Captain Worden, her
commander.”




HER ONLY IMPERFECTION.

At one time a certain Major Hill charged Lincoln with making defamatory
remarks regarding Mrs. Hill.

Hill was insulting in his language to Lincoln who never lost his temper.

When he saw his chance to edge a word in, Lincoln denied emphatically
using the language or anything like that attributed to him.

He entertained, he insisted, a high regard for Mrs. Hill, and the only
thing he knew to her discredit was the fact that she was Major Hill’s
wife.




THE OLD LADY’S PROPHECY.

Among those who called to congratulate Mr. Lincoln upon his nomination
for President was an old lady, very plainly dressed. She knew Mr.
Lincoln, but Mr. Lincoln did not at first recognize her. Then she
undertook to recall to his memory certain incidents connected with his
ride upon the circuit--especially his dining at her house upon the road
at different times. Then he remembered her and her home.

Having fixed her own place in his recollection, she tried to recall to
him a certain scanty dinner of bread and milk that he once ate at her
house. He could not remember it--on the contrary, he only remembered
that he had always fared well at her house.

“Well,” she said, “one day you came along after we had got through
dinner, and we had eaten up everything, and I could give you nothing but
a bowl of bread and milk, and you ate it; and when you got up you said
it was good enough for the President of the United States!”

The good woman had come in from the country, making a journey of eight
or ten miles, to relate to Mr. Lincoln this incident, which, in her
mind, had doubtless taken the form of a prophecy. Mr. Lincoln placed
the honest creature at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and
dismissed her in the most happy frame of mind.




HOW THE TOWN OF LINCOLN, ILL., WAS NAMED.

The story of naming the town of Lincoln, the county seat of Logan
county, Illinois, is thus given on good authority:

The first railroad had been built through the county, and a station
was about to be located there. Lincoln, Virgil Hitchcock, Colonel R.
B. Latham and several others were sitting on a pile of ties and talking
about moving a county seat from Mount Pulaski. Mr. Lincoln rose and
started to walk away, when Colonel Latham said: “Lincoln, if you will
help us to get the county seat here, we will call the place Lincoln.”

“All right, Latham,” he replied.

Colonel Latham then deeded him a lot on the west side of the courthouse,
and he owned it at the time he was elected President.




“OLD JEFF’S” BIG NIGHTMARE.

“Jeff” Davis had a large and threatening nightmare in November, 1864,
and what he saw in his troubled dreams was the long and lanky figure of
Abraham Lincoln, who had just been endorsed by the people of the United
States for another term in the White House at Washington. The cartoon
reproduced here is from the issue of “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper” of December 3rd, 1864, it being entitled “Jeff Davis’
November Nightmare.”

Davis had been told that McClellan, “the War is a failure” candidate for
the Presidency, would have no difficulty whatever in defeating Lincoln;
that negotiations with the Confederate officials for the cessation of
hostilities would be entered into as soon as McClellan was seated in the
Chief Executive’s chair; that the Confederacy would, in all probability,
be recognized as an independent government by the Washington
Administration; that the “sacred institution” of slavery would continue
to do business at the old stand; that the Confederacy would be one of
the great nations of the world, and have all the “State Rights” and
other things it wanted, with absolutely no interference whatever upon
the part of the North.

Therefore, Lincoln’s re-election was a rough, rude shock to Davis, who
had not prepared himself for such an event. Six months from the date of
that nightmare-dream he was a prisoner in the hands of the Union forces,
and the Confederacy was a thing of the past.




LINCOLN’S LAST OFFICIAL ACT.

Probably the last official act of President Lincoln’s life was the
signing of the commission reappointing Alvin Saunders Governor of
Nebraska.

“I saw Mr. Lincoln regarding the matter,” said Governor Saunders, “and
he told me to go home; that he would attend to it all right. I left
Washington on the morning of the 14th, and while en route the news
of the assassination on the evening of the same day reached me. I
immediately wired back to find out what had become of my commission,
and was told that the room had not been opened. When it was opened, the
document was found lying on the desk.

“Mr. Lincoln signed it just before leaving for the theater that fatal
evening, and left it lying there, unfolded.

“A note was found below the document as follows: ‘Rather a lengthy
commission, bestowing upon Mr. Alvin Saunders the official authority of
Governor of the Territory of Nebraska.’ Then came Lincoln’s signature,
which, with one exception, that of a penciled message on the back of a
card sent up by a friend as Mr. Lincoln was dressing for the theater,
was the very last signature of the martyred President.”

THE LAD NEEDED THE SLEEP.

A personal friend of President Lincoln is authority for this:

“I called on him one day in the early part of the War. He had just
written a pardon for a young man who had been sentenced to be shot for
sleeping at his post. He remarked as he read it to me:

“‘I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor
young man on my skirts.’ Then he added:

“‘It is not to be wondered at that a boy, raised on a farm, probably in
the habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall
asleep; and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act.’”




“MASSA LINKUM LIKE DE LORD!”

By the Act of Emancipation President Lincoln built for himself forever
the first place in the affections of the African race in this country.
The love and reverence manifested for him by many of these people has,
on some occasions, almost reached adoration. One day Colonel McKaye, of
New York, who had been one of a committee to investigate the condition
of the freedmen, upon his return from Hilton Head and Beaufort called
upon the President, and in the course of the interview said that up to
the time of the arrival among them in the South of the Union forces
they had no knowledge of any other power. Their masters fled upon the
approach of our soldiers, and this gave the slaves the conception of
a power greater than their masters exercised. This power they called
“Massa Linkum.”

Colonel McKaye said their place of worship was a large building they
called “the praise house,” and the leader of the “meeting,” a venerable
black man, was known as “the praise man.”

On a certain day, when there was quite a large gathering of the people,
considerable confusion was created by different persons attempting to
tell who and what “Massa Linkum” was. In the midst of the excitement the
white-headed leader commanded silence. “Brederen,” said he, “you don’t
know nosen’ what you’se talkin’ ‘bout. Now, you just listen to me. Massa
Linkum, he ebery whar. He know ebery ting.”

Then, solemnly looking up, he added: “He walk de earf like de Lord!”




HOW LINCOLN TOOK THE NEWS.

One of Lincoln’s most dearly loved friends, United States Senator Edward
D. Baker, of Oregon, Colonel of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania, a former
townsman of Mr. Lincoln, was killed at the battle of Ball’s Bluff, in
October, 1861. The President went to General McClellan’s headquarters to
hear the news, and a friend thus described the effect it had upon him:

“We could hear the click of the telegraph in the adjoining room and low
conversation between the President and General McClellan, succeeded by
silence, excepting the click, click of the instrument, which went on
with its tale of disaster.

“Five minutes passed, and then Mr. Lincoln, unattended, with bowed head
and tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks, his face pale and wan, his
breast heaving with emotion, passed through the room. He almost fell as
he stepped into the street. We sprang involuntarily from our seats to
render assistance, but he did not fall.

“With both hands pressed upon his heart, he walked down the street, not
returning the salute of the sentinel pacing his beat before the door.”




PROFANITY AS A SAFETY-VALVE.

Lincoln never indulged in profanity, but confessed that when Lee was
beaten at Malvern Hill, after seven days of fighting, and Richmond,
but twelve miles away, was at McClellan’s mercy, he felt very much
like swearing when he learned that the Union general had retired to
Harrison’s Landing.

Lee was so confident his opponent would not go to Richmond that he took
his army into Maryland--a move he would not have made had an energetic
fighting man been in McClellan’s place.

It is true McClellan followed and defeated Lee in the bloodiest battle
of the War--Antietam--afterwards following him into Virginia; but
Lincoln could not bring himself to forgive the general’s inaction before
Richmond.




WHY WE WON AT GETTYSBURG.

President Lincoln said to General Sickles, just after the victory
of Gettysburg: “The fact is, General, in the stress and pinch of the
campaign there, I went to my room, and got down on my knees and prayed
God Almighty for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this was His
country, and the war was His war, but that we really couldn’t stand
another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And then and there I made
a solemn vow with my Maker that if He would stand by you boys at
Gettysburg I would stand by Him. And He did, and I will! And after this
I felt that God Almighty had taken the whole thing into His hands.”




HAD TO WAIT FOR HIM.

President Lincoln, having arranged to go to New York, was late for his
train, much to the disgust of those who were to accompany him, and all
were compelled to wait several hours until the next train steamed out
of the station. President Lincoln was much amused at the dissatisfaction
displayed, and then ventured the remark that the situation reminded him
of “a little story.” Said he:

“Out in Illinois, a convict who had murdered his cellmate was sentenced
to be hanged. On the day set for the execution, crowds lined the roads
leading to the spot where the scaffold had been erected, and there was
much jostling and excitement. The condemned man took matters coolly, and
as one batch of perspiring, anxious men rushed past the cart in which he
was riding, he called out, ‘Don’t be in a hurry, boys. You’ve got plenty
of time. There won’t be any fun until I get there.’

“That’s the condition of things now,” concluded the President; “there
won’t be any fun at New York until I get there.”




PRESIDENT AND CABINET JOINED IN PRAYER.

On the day the news of General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court-House
was received, so an intimate friend of President Lincoln relates,
the Cabinet meeting was held an hour earlier than usual. Neither the
President nor any member of the Cabinet was able, for a time, to give
utterance to his feelings. At the suggestion of Mr. Lincoln all dropped
on their knees, and offered, in silence and in tears, their humble and
heartfelt acknowledgments to the Almighty for the triumph He had granted
to the National cause.




BELIEVED HE WAS A CHRISTIAN.

Mr. Lincoln was much impressed with the devotion and earnestness of
purpose manifested by a certain lady of the “Christian Commission”
 during the War, and on one occasion, after she had discharged the object
of her visit, said to her:

“Madam, I have formed a high opinion of your Christian character, and
now, as we are alone, I have a mind to ask you to give me in brief your
idea of what constitutes a true religious experience.”

The lady replied at some length, stating that, in her judgment, it
consisted of a conviction of one’s own sinfulness and weakness, and a
personal need of the Saviour for strength and support; that views of
mere doctrine might and would differ, but when one was really brought to
feel his need of divine help, and to seek the aid of the Holy Spirit for
strength and guidance, it was satisfactory evidence of his having been
born again. This was the substance of her reply.

When she had, concluded Mr. Lincoln was very thoughtful for a few
moments. He at length said, very earnestly: “If what you have told me
is really a correct view of this great subject I think I can say with
sincerity that I hope I am a Christian. I had lived,” he continued,
“until my boy Willie died without fully realizing these things. That
blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never felt it
before, and if I can take what you have stated as a test I think I can
safely say that I know something of that change of which you speak; and
I will further add that it has been my intention for some time, at a
suitable opportunity, to make a public religious profession.”




WITH THE HELP OF GOD.

Mr. Lincoln once remarked to Mr. Noah Brooks, one of his most intimate
personal friends: “I should be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this
footstool if I for one day thought that I could discharge the duties
which have come upon me, since I came to this place, without the aid and
enlightenment of One who is stronger and wiser than all others.”

He said on another occasion: “I am very sure that if I do not go away
from here a wiser man, I shall go away a better man, from having learned
here what a very poor sort of a man I am.”




TURNED TEARS TO SMILES.

One night Schuyler Colfax left all other business to go to the White
House to ask the President to respite the son of a constituent, who was
sentenced to be shot, at Davenport, for desertion. Mr. Lincoln heard the
story with his usual patience, though he was wearied out with incessant
calls, and anxious for rest, and then replied:

“Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and
subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes me
rested, after a hard day’s work, if I can find some good excuse for
saving a man’s life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the
signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.”

And with a happy smile beaming over that care-furrowed face, he signed
that name that saved that life.




LINCOLN’S LAST WRITTEN WORDS.

As the President and Mrs. Lincoln were leaving the White House, a
few minutes before eight o’clock, on the evening of April 14th, 1865,
Lincoln wrote this note:

“Allow Mr. Ashmun and friend to come to see me at 9 o’clock a. m.,
to-morrow, April 15th, 1865.”




WOMEN PLEAD FOR PARDONS.

One day during the War an attractively and handsomely dressed woman
called on President Lincoln to procure the release from prison of a
relation in whom she professed the deepest interest.

She was a good talker, and her winning ways seemed to make a deep
impression on the President. After listening to her story, he wrote a
few words on a card: “This woman, dear Stanton, is a little smarter than
she looks to be,” enclosed it in an envelope and directed her to take it
to the Secretary of War.

On the same day another woman called, more humble in appearance, more
plainly clad. It was the old story.

Father and son both in the army, the former in prison. Could not the
latter be discharged from the army and sent home to help his mother?

A few strokes of the pen, a gentle nod of the head, and the little
woman, her eyes filling with tears and expressing a grateful
acknowledgment her tongue, could not utter, passed out.

A lady so thankful for the release of her husband was in the act of
kneeling in thankfulness. “Get up,” he said, “don’t kneel to me, but
thank God and go.”

An old lady for the same reason came forward with tears in her eyes
to express her gratitude. “Good-bye, Mr. Lincoln,” said she; “I shall
probably never see you again till we meet in heaven.” She had the
President’s hand in hers, and he was deeply moved. He instantly took her
right hand in both of his, and, following her to the door, said, “I am
afraid with all my troubles I shall never get to the resting-place you
speak of; but if I do, I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to
get there is, I believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-bye.”

Then the President remarked to a friend, “It is more than many can
often say, that in doing right one has made two people happy in one day.
Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best,
that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought
a flower would grow.”




LINCOLN WISHED TO SEE RICHMOND.

The President remarked to Admiral David D. Porter, while on board the
flagship Malvern, on the James River, in front of Richmond, the day the
city surrendered:

“Thank God that I have lived to see this!

“It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years,
and now the nightmare is gone.

“I wish to see Richmond.”




SPOKEN LIKE A CHRISTIAN.

Frederick Douglass told, in these words, of his first interview with
President Lincoln:

“I approached him with trepidation as to how this great man might
receive me; but one word and look from him banished all my fears and set
me perfectly at ease. I have often said since that meeting that it was
much easier to see and converse with a great man than it was with a
small man.

“On that occasion he said:

“‘Douglass, you need not tell me who you are. Mr. Seward has told me all
about you.’

“I then saw that there was no reason to tell him my personal story,
however interesting it might be to myself or others, so I told him at
once the object of my visit. It was to get some expression from him upon
three points:

“1. Equal pay to colored soldiers.

“2. Their promotion when they had earned it on the battle-field.

“3. Should they be taken prisoners and enslaved or hanged, as Jefferson
Davis had threatened, an equal number of Confederate prisoners should be
executed within our lines.

“A declaration to that effect I thought would prevent the execution of
the rebel threat. To all but the last, President Lincoln assented. He
argued, however, that neither equal pay nor promotion could be granted
at once. He said that in view of existing prejudices it was a great step
forward to employ colored troops at all; that it was necessary to avoid
everything that would offend this prejudice and increase opposition to
the measure.

“He detailed the steps by which white soldiers were reconciled to the
employment of colored troops; how these were first employed as laborers;
how it was thought they should not be armed or uniformed like white
soldiers; how they should only be made to wear a peculiar uniform; how
they should be employed to hold forts and arsenals in sickly locations,
and not enter the field like other soldiers.

“With all these restrictions and limitations he easily made me see that
much would be gained when the colored man loomed before the country as a
full-fledged United States soldier to fight, flourish or fall in defense
of the united republic. The great soul of Lincoln halted only when he
came to the point of retaliation.

“The thought of hanging men in cold blood, even though the rebels
should murder a few of the colored prisoners, was a horror from which he
shrank.

“‘Oh, Douglass! I cannot do that. If I could get hold of the actual
murderers of colored prisoners I would retaliate; but to hang those who
have no hand in such murders, I cannot.’

“The contemplation of such an act brought to his countenance such an
expression of sadness and pity that it made it hard for me to press my
point, though I told him it would tend to save rather than destroy life.
He, however, insisted that this work of blood, once begun, would be hard
to stop--that such violence would beget violence. He argued more like a
disciple of Christ than a commander-in-chief of the army and navy of a
warlike nation already involved in a terrible war.

“How sad and strange the fate of this great and good man, the saviour
of his country, the embodiment of human charity, whose heart, though
strong, was as tender as a heart of childhood; who always tempered
justice with mercy; who sought to supplant the sword with counsel of
reason, to suppress passion by kindness and moderation; who had a sigh
for every human grief and a tear for every human woe, should at last
perish by the hand of a desperate assassin, against whom no thought of
malice had ever entered his heart!”




“LINCOLN GOES IN WHEN THE QUAKERS ARE OUT”

One of the campaign songs of 1860 which will never be forgotten was
Whittier’s “The Quakers Are Out:--”

     “Give the flags to the winds!
       Set the hills all aflame!
     Make way for the man with
       The Patriarch’s name!
     Away with misgivings--away
       With all doubt,
     For Lincoln goes in when the
       Quakers are out!”

Speaking of this song (with which he was greatly pleased) one day at
the White House, the President said: “It reminds me of a little story
I heard years ago out in Illinois. A political campaign was on, and the
atmosphere was kept at a high temperature. Several fights had already
occurred, many men having been seriously hurt, and the prospects were
that the result would be close. One of the candidates was a professional
politician with a huge wart on his nose, this disfigurement having
earned for him the nickname of ‘Warty.’ His opponent was a young lawyer
who wore ‘biled’ shirts, ‘was shaved by a barber, and had his clothes
made to fit him.

“Now, ‘Warty’ was of Quaker stock, and around election time made a great
parade of the fact. When there were no campaigns in progress he was
anything but Quakerish in his language or actions. The young lawyer
didn’t know what the inside of a meeting house looked like.

“Well, the night before election-day the two candidates came together at
a joint debate, both being on the speakers’ platform. The young lawyer
had to speak after ‘Warty,’ and his reputation suffered at the hands of
the Quaker, who told the many Friends present what a wicked fellow the
young man was--never went to church, swore, drank, smoked and gambled.

“After ‘Warty’ had finished the other arose and faced the audience. ‘I’m
not a good man,’ said he, ‘and what my opponent has said about me is
true enough, but I’m always the same. I don’t profess religion when I
run for office, and then turn around and associate with bad people when
the campaign’s over. I’m no hypocrite. I don’t sing many psalms. Neither
does my opponent; and, talking about singing, I’d just like to hear my
friend who is running against me sing the song--for the benefit of this
audience--I heard him sing the night after he was nominated. I yield the
floor to him:

“Of course ‘Warty’ refused, his Quaker supporters grew suspicious, and
when they turned out at the polls the following day they voted for the
wicked young lawyer.

“So, it’s true that when ‘the Quakers are out’ the man they support is
apt to go in.”




HAD CONFIDENCE IN HIM--“BUT--.”

“General Blank asks for more men,” said Secretary of War Stanton to
the President one day, showing the latter a telegram from the commander
named appealing for re-enforcements.

“I guess he’s killed off enough men, hasn’t he?” queried the President.

“I don’t mean Confederates--our own men. What’s the use in sending
volunteers down to him if they’re only used to fill graves?”

“His dispatch seems to imply that, in his opinion, you have not the
confidence in him he thinks he deserves,” the War Secretary went on to
say, as he looked over the telegram again.

“Oh,” was the President’s reply, “he needn’t lose any of his sleep on
that account. Just telegraph him to that effect; also, that I don’t
propose to send him any more men.”




HOW HOMINY WAS ORIGINATED.

During the progress of a Cabinet meeting the subject of food for the men
in the Army happened to come up. From that the conversation changed to
the study of the Latin language.

“I studied Latin once,” said Mr. Lincoln, in a casual way.

“Were you interested in it?” asked Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State.

“Well, yes. I saw some very curious things,” was the President’s
rejoinder.

“What?” asked Secretary Seward.

“Well, there’s the word hominy, for instance. We have just ordered a lot
of that stuff for the troops. I see how the word originated. I notice it
came from the Latin word homo--a man.

“When we decline homo, it is:

“‘Homo--a man.

“‘Hominis--of man.

“‘Homini--for man.’

“So you see, hominy, being ‘for man,’ comes from the Latin. I guess
those soldiers who don’t know Latin will get along with it all
right--though I won’t rest real easy until I hear from the Commissary
Department on it.”




HIS IDEA’S OLD, AFTER ALL.

One day, while listening to one of the wise men who had called at the
White House to unload a large cargo of advice, the President interjected
a remark to the effect that he had a great reverence for learning.

“This is not,” President Lincoln explained, “because I am not an
educated man. I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to
have grown up among books.”

“Men of force,” the visitor answered, “can get on pretty well without
books. They do their own thinking instead of adopting what other men
think.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Lincoln, “but books serve to show a man that those
original thoughts of his aren’t very new, after all.”

This was a point the caller was not willing to debate, and so he cut his
call short.




LINCOLN’S FIRST SPEECH.

Lincoln made his first speech when he was a mere boy, going barefoot,
his trousers held up by one suspender, and his shock of hair sticking
through a hole in the crown of his cheap straw hat.

“Abe,” in company with Dennis Hanks, attended a political meeting,
which was addressed by a typical stump speaker--one of those loud-voiced
fellows who shouted at the top of his voice and waved his arms wildly.

At the conclusion of the speech, which did not meet the views either
of “Abe” or Dennis, the latter declared that “Abe” could make a better
speech than that. Whereupon he got a dry-goods box and called on “Abe”
 to reply to the campaign orator.

Lincoln threw his old straw hat on the ground, and, mounting the
dry-goods box, delivered a speech which held the attention of the crowd
and won him considerable applause. Even the campaign orator admitted
that it was a fine speech and answered every point in his own “oration.”

Dennis Hanks, who thought “Abe” was about the greatest man that ever
lived, was delighted, and he often told how young “Abe” got the better
of the trained campaign speaker.




“ABE WANTED NO SNEAKIN’ ‘ROUND.”

It was in 1830, when “Abe” was just twenty-one years of age, that
the Lincoln family moved from Gentryville, Indiana, to near Decatur,
Illinois, their household goods being packed in a wagon drawn by four
oxen driven by “Abe.”

The winter previous the latter had “worked” in a country store in
Gentryville and before undertaking the journey he invested all the money
he had--some thirty dollars--in notions, such as needles, pins, thread,
buttons and other domestic necessities. These he sold to families along
the route and made a profit of about one hundred per cent.

This mercantile adventure of his youth “reminded” the President of a
very clever story while the members of the Cabinet were one day solemnly
debating a rather serious international problem. The President was in
the minority, as was frequently the case, and he was “in a hole,” as
he afterwards expressed it. He didn’t want to argue the points raised,
preferring to settle the matter in a hurry, and an apt story was his
only salvation.

Suddenly the President’s fact brightened. “Gentlemen,” said he,
addressing those seated at the Cabinet table, “the situation just now
reminds me of a fix I got into some thirty years or so ago when I was
peddling ‘notions’ on the way from Indiana to Illinois. I didn’t have a
large stock, but I charged large prices, and I made money. Perhaps you
don’t see what I am driving at?”

Secretary of State Seward was wearing a most gloomy expression of
countenance; Secretary of War Stanton was savage and inclined to be
morose; Secretary of the Treasury Chase was indifferent and cynical,
while the others of the Presidential advisers resigned themselves to the
hearing of the inevitable “story.”

“I don’t propose to argue this matter,” the President went on to say,
“because arguments have no effect upon men whose opinions are fixed and
whose minds are made up. But this little story of mine will make some
things which now are in the dark show up more clearly.”

There was another pause, and the Cabinet officers, maintaining their
previous silence, began wondering if the President himself really knew
what he was “driving at.”

“Just before we left Indiana and crossed into Illinois,” continued Mr.
Lincoln solemnly, speaking in a grave tone of voice, “we came across a
small farmhouse full of nothing but children. These ranged in years from
seventeen years to seventeen months, and all were in tears. The mother
of the family was red-headed and red-faced, and the whip she held in her
right hand led to the inference that she had been chastising her brood.
The father of the family, a meek-looking, mild-mannered, tow-headed
chap, was standing in the front door-way, awaiting--to all
appearances--his turn to feel the thong.

“I thought there wasn’t much use in asking the head of that house if she
wanted any ‘notions.’ She was too busy. It was evident an insurrection
had been in progress, but it was pretty well quelled when I got there.
The mother had about suppressed it with an iron hand, but she was not
running any risks. She kept a keen and wary eye upon all the children,
not forgetting an occasional glance at the ‘old man’ in the doorway.

“She saw me as I came up, and from her look I thought she was of the
opinion that I intended to interfere. Advancing to the doorway, and
roughly pushing her husband aside, she demanded my business.

“‘Nothing, madame,’ I answered as gently as possible; ‘I merely dropped
in as I came along to see how things were going.’

“‘Well, you needn’t wait,’ was the reply in an irritated way; ‘there’s
trouble here, an’ lots of it, too, but I kin manage my own affairs
without the help of outsiders. This is jest a family row, but I’ll teach
these brats their places ef I hev to lick the hide off ev’ry one of
them. I don’t do much talkin’, but I run this house, an’ I don’t want no
one sneakin’ round tryin’ to find out how I do it, either.’

“That’s the case here with us,” the President said in conclusion. “We
must let the other nations know that we propose to settle our family
row in our own way, and ‘teach these brats their places’ (the seceding
States) if we have to ‘lick the hide off’ of each and every one of them.
And, like the old woman, we don’t want any ‘sneakin’ ‘round’ by other
countries who would like to find out how we are to do it, either.

“Now, Seward, you write some diplomatic notes to that effect.”

And the Cabinet session closed.




DIDN’T EVEN NEED STILTS.

As the President considered it his duty to keep in touch with all the
improvements in the armament of the vessels belonging to the United
States Navy, he was necessarily interested in the various types of these
floating fortresses. Not only was it required of the Navy Department to
furnish seagoing warships, deep-draught vessels for the great rivers and
the lakes, but this Department also found use for little gunboats which
could creep along in the shallowest of water and attack the Confederates
in by-places and swamps.

The consequence of the interest taken by Mr. Lincoln in the Navy was
that he was besieged, day and night, by steamboat contractors, each one
eager to sell his product to the Washington Government. All sorts of
experiments were tried, some being dire failures, while others were more
than fairly successful. More than once had these tiny war vessels proved
themselves of great service, and the United States Government had a
large number of them built.

There was one particular contractor who bothered the President more
than all the others put together. He was constantly impressing upon Mr.
Lincoln the great superiority of his boats, because they would run in
such shallow water.

“Oh, yes,” replied the President, “I’ve no doubt they’ll run anywhere
where the ground is a little moist!”




“HOW DO YOU GET OUT OF THIS PLACE?”

“It seems to me,” remarked the President one day while reading, over
some of the appealing telegrams sent to the War Department by General
McClellan, “that McClellan has been wandering around and has sort of
got lost. He’s been hollering for help ever since he went South--wants
somebody to come to his deliverance and get him out of the place he’s
got into.

“He reminds me of the story of a man out in Illinois who, in company
with a number of friends, visited the State penitentiary. They wandered
all through the institution and saw everything, but just about the time
to depart this particular man became separated from his friends and
couldn’t find his way out.

“He roamed up and down one corridor after another, becoming more
desperate all the time, when, at last, he came across a convict who was
looking out from between the bars of his cell-door. Here was salvation
at last. Hurrying up to the prisoner he hastily asked,

“‘Say! How do you get out of this place?”




“TAD” INTRODUCES “OUR FRIENDS.”

President Lincoln often avoided interviews with delegations representing
various States, especially when he knew the objects of their errands,
and was aware he could not grant their requests. This was the case with
several commissioners from Kentucky, who were put off from day to day.

They were about to give up in despair, and were leaving the White House
lobby, their speech being interspersed with vehement and uncomplimentary
terms concerning “Old Abe,” when “Tad” happened along. He caught at
these words, and asked one of them if they wanted to see “Old Abe,”
 laughing at the same time.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Wait a minute,” said “Tad,” and rushed into his father’s office. Said
he, “Papa, may I introduce some friends to you?”

His father, always indulgent and ready to make him happy, kindly said,
“Yes, my son, I will see your friends.”

“Tad” went to the Kentuckians again, and asked a very dignified looking
gentleman of the party his name. He was told his name. He then said,
“Come, gentlemen,” and they followed him.

Leading them up to the President, “Tad,” with much dignity, said, “Papa,
let me introduce to you Judge ----, of Kentucky;” and quickly added,
“Now Judge, you introduce the other gentlemen.”

The introductions were gone through with, and they turned out to be the
gentlemen Mr. Lincoln had been avoiding for a week. Mr. Lincoln reached
for the boy, took him in his lap, kissed him, and told him it was all
right, and that he had introduced his friend like a little gentleman as
he was. Tad was eleven years old at this time.

The President was pleased with Tad’s diplomacy, and often laughed at the
incident as he told others of it. One day while caressing the boy, he
asked him why he called those gentlemen “his friends.” “Well,” said Tad,
“I had seen them so often, and they looked so good and sorry, and said
they were from Kentucky, that I thought they must be our friends.” “That
is right, my son,” said Mr. Lincoln; “I would have the whole human race
your friends and mine, if it were possible.”




MIXED UP WORSE THAN BEFORE.

The President told a story which most beautifully illustrated the
muddled situation of affairs at the time McClellan’s fate was hanging in
the balance. McClellan’s work was not satisfactory, but the President
hesitated to remove him; the general was so slow that the Confederates
marched all around him; and, to add to the dilemma, the President could
not find a suitable man to take McClellan’s place.

The latter was a political, as well as a military, factor; his friends
threatened that, if he was removed, many war Democrats would cast their
influence with the South, etc. It was, altogether, a sad mix-up, and
the President, for a time, was at his wits’ end. He was assailed on all
sides with advice, but none of it was worth acting upon.

“This situation reminds me,” said the President at a Cabinet meeting one
day not long before the appointment of General Halleck as McClellan’s
successor in command of the Union forces, “of a Union man in Kentucky
whose two sons enlisted in the Federal Army. His wife was of Confederate
sympathies. His nearest neighbor was a Confederate in feeling, and his
two sons were fighting under Lee. This neighbor’s wife was a Union woman
and it nearly broke her heart to know that her sons were arrayed against
the Union.

“Finally, the two men, after each had talked the matter over with his
wife, agreed to obtain divorces; this they, did, and the Union man and
Union woman were wedded, as were the Confederate man and the Confederate
woman--the men swapped wives, in short. But this didn’t seem to help
matters any, for the sons of the Union woman were still fighting for the
South, and the sons of the Confederate woman continued in the Federal
Army; the Union husband couldn’t get along with his Union wife, and
the Confederate husband and his Confederate wife couldn’t agree upon
anything, being forever fussing and quarreling.

“It’s the same thing with the Army. It doesn’t seem worth while to
secure divorces and then marry the Army and McClellan to others, for
they won’t get along any better than they do now, and there’ll only be a
new set of heartaches started. I think we’d better wait; perhaps a real
fighting general will come along some of these days, and then we’ll
all be happy. If you go to mixing in a mix-up, you only make the muddle
worse.”




“LONG ABE’S” FEET “PROTRUDED OVER.”

George M. Pullman, the great sleeping-car builder, once told a joke in
which Lincoln was the prominent figure. In fact, there wouldn’t have
been any joke had it not been for “Long Abe.” At the time of the
occurrence, which was the foundation for the joke--and Pullman admitted
that the latter was on him--Pullman was the conductor of his only
sleeping-car. The latter was an experiment, and Pullman was doing
everything possible to get the railroads to take hold of it.

“One night,” said Pullman in telling the story, “as we were about going
out of Chicago--this was long before Lincoln was what you might call
a renowned man--a long, lean, ugly man, with a wart on his cheek, came
into the depot. He paid me fifty cents, and half a berth was assigned
him. Then he took off his coat and vest and hung them up, and they
fitted the peg about as well as they fitted him. Then he kicked off
his boots, which were of surprising length, turned into the berth, and,
undoubtedly having an easy conscience, was sleeping like a healthy baby
before the car left the depot.

“Pretty soon along came another passenger and paid his fifty cents. In
two minutes he was back at me, angry as a wet hen.

“‘There’s a man in that berth of mine,’ said he, hotly, ‘and he’s about
ten feet high. How am I going to sleep there, I’d like to know? Go and
look at him.’

“In I went--mad, too. The tall, lank man’s knees were under his
chin, his arms were stretched across the bed and his feet were stored
comfortably--for him. I shook him until he awoke, and then told him if
he wanted the whole berth he would have to pay $1.

“‘My dear sir,’ said the tall man, ‘a contract is a contract. I have
paid you fifty cents for half this berth, and, as you see, I’m occupying
it. There’s the other half,’ pointing to a strip about six inches wide.
‘Sell that and don’t disturb me again.’

“And so saying, the man with a wart on his face went to sleep again. He
was Abraham Lincoln, and he never grew any shorter afterward. We became
great friends, and often laughed over the incident.”




COULD LICK ANY MAN IN THE CROWD.

When the enemies of General Grant were bothering the President with
emphatic and repeated demands that the “Silent Man” be removed from
command, Mr. Lincoln remained firm. He would not consent to lose the
services of so valuable a soldier. “Grant fights,” said he in response
to the charges made that Grant was a butcher, a drunkard, an incompetent
and a general who did not know his business.

“That reminds me of a story,” President Lincoln said one day to a
delegation of the “Grant-is-no-good” style.

“Out in my State of Illinois there was a man nominated for sheriff of
the county. He was a good man for the office, brave, determined and
honest, but not much of an orator. In fact, he couldn’t talk at all; he
couldn’t make a speech to save his life.

“His friends knew he was a man who would preserve the peace of the
county and perform the duties devolving upon him all right, but the
people of the county didn’t know it. They wanted him to come out boldly
on the platform at political meetings and state his convictions and
principles; they had been used to speeches from candidates, and were
somewhat suspicious of a man who was afraid to open his mouth.

“At last the candidate consented to make a speech, and his friends were
delighted. The candidate was on hand, and, when he was called upon,
advanced to the front and faced the crowd. There was a glitter in his
eye that wasn’t pleasing, and the way he walked out to the front of the
stand showed that he knew just what he wanted to say.

“‘Feller Citizens,’ was his beginning, the words spoken quietly, ‘I’m
not a speakin’ man; I ain’t no orator, an’ I never stood up before a lot
of people in my life before; I’m not goin’ to make no speech, ‘xcept to
say that I can lick any man in the crowd!’”




HIS WAY TO A CHILD’S HEART.

Charles E. Anthony’s one meeting with Mr. Lincoln presents an
interesting contrast to those of the men who shared the emancipator’s
interest in public affairs. It was in the latter part of the winter
of 1861, a short time before Mr. Lincoln left for his inauguration
at Washington. Judge Anthony went to the Sherman House, where the
President-elect was stopping, and took with him his son, Charles, then
but a little boy. Charles played about the room as a child will, looking
at whatever interested him for the time, and when the interview with his
father was over he was ready to go.

But Mr. Lincoln, ever interested in little children, called the lad to
him and took him upon his great knee.

“My impression of him all the time I had been playing about the room,”
 said Mr. Anthony, “was that he was a terribly homely man. I was rather
repelled. But no sooner did he speak to me than the expression of his
face changed completely, or, rather, my view of it changed. It at
once became kindly and attractive. He asked me some questions, seeming
instantly to find in the turmoil of all the great questions that must
have been heavy upon him, the very ones that would go to the thought of
a child. I answered him without hesitation, and after a moment he patted
my shoulder and said:

“‘Well, you’ll be a man before your mother yet,’ and put me down.

“I had never before heard the homely old expression, and it puzzled me
for a time. After a moment I understood it, but he looked at me while I
was puzzling over it, and seemed to be amused, as no doubt he was.”

The incident simply illustrates the ease and readiness with which
Lincoln could turn from the mighty questions before the nation, give a
moment’s interested attention to a child, and return at once to matters
of state.




“LEFT IT THE WOMEN TO HOWL ABOUT ME.”

Donn Piatt, one of the brightest newspaper writers in the country, told
a good story on the President in regard to the refusal of the latter to
sanction the death penalty in cases of desertion from the Union Army.

“There was far more policy in this course,” said Piatt, “than kind
feeling. To assert the contrary is to detract from Lincoln’s force of
character, as well as intellect. Our War President was not lost in his
high admiration of brigadiers and major-generals, and had a positive
dislike for their methods and the despotism upon which an army is based.
He knew that he was dependent upon volunteers for soldiers, and to force
upon such men as those the stern discipline of the Regular Army was to
render the service unpopular. And it pleased him to be the source of
mercy, as well as the fountain of honor, in this direction.

“I was sitting with General Dan Tyler, of Connecticut, in the
antechamber of the War Department, shortly after the adjournment of the
Buell Court of Inquiry, of which we had been members, when President
Lincoln came in from the room of Secretary Stanton. Seeing us, he said:
‘Well, gentlemen, have you any matter worth reporting?’

“‘I think so, Mr. President,’ replied General Tyler. ‘We had it proven
that Bragg, with less than ten thousand men, drove your eighty-three
thousand men under Buell back from before Chattanooga, down to the
Ohio at Louisville, marched around us twice, then doubled us up at
Perryville, and finally got out of the State of Kentucky with all his
plunder.’

“‘Now, Tyler,’ returned the President, ‘what is the meaning of all this;
what is the lesson? Don’t our men march as well, and fight as well, as
these rebels? If not, there is a fault somewhere. We are all of the same
family--same sort.’

“‘Yes, there is a lesson,’ replied General Tyler; ‘we are of the same
sort, but subject to different handling. Bragg’s little force was
superior to our larger number because he had it under control. If a man
left his ranks, he was punished; if he deserted, he was shot. We had
nothing of that sort. If we attempt to shoot a deserter you pardon him,
and our army is without discipline.’

“The President looked perplexed. ‘Why do you interfere?’ continued
General Tyler. ‘Congress has taken from you all responsibility.’

“‘Yes,’ answered the President impatiently, ‘Congress has taken the
responsibility and left the women to howl all about me,’ and so he
strode away.”




HE’D RUIN ALL THE OTHER CONVICTS.

One of the droll stories brought into play by the President as an ally
in support of his contention, proved most effective. Politics was rife
among the generals of the Union Army, and there was more “wire-pulling”
 to prevent the advancement of fellow commanders than the laying of plans
to defeat the Confederates in battle.

However, when it so happened that the name of a particularly unpopular
general was sent to the Senate for confirmation, the protest against
his promotion was almost unanimous. The nomination didn’t seem to please
anyone. Generals who were enemies before conferred together for the
purpose of bringing every possible influence to bear upon the Senate
and securing the rejection of the hated leader’s name. The President was
surprised. He had never known such unanimity before.

“You remind me,” said the President to a delegation of officers which
called upon him one day to present a fresh protest to him regarding the
nomination, “of a visit a certain Governor paid to the Penitentiary of
his State. It had been announced that the Governor would hear the story
of every inmate of the institution, and was prepared to rectify, either
by commutation or pardon, any wrongs that had been done to any prisoner.

“One by one the convicts appeared before His Excellency, and each one
maintained that he was an innocent man, who had been sent to prison
because the police didn’t like him, or his friends and relatives wanted
his property, or he was too popular, etc., etc. The last prisoner to
appear was an individual who was not all prepossessing. His face was
against him; his eyes were shifty; he didn’t have the appearance of an
honest man, and he didn’t act like one.

“‘Well,’ asked the Governor, impatiently, ‘I suppose you’re innocent
like the rest of these fellows?’

“‘No, Governor,’ was the unexpected answer; ‘I was guilty of the crime
they charged against me, and I got just what I deserved.’

“When he had recovered from his astonishment, the Governor, looking
the fellow squarely in the face, remarked with emphasis: ‘I’ll have to
pardon you, because I don’t want to leave so bad a man as you are in
the company of such innocent sufferers as I have discovered your
fellow-convicts to be. You might corrupt them and teach them wicked
tricks. As soon as I get back to the capital, I’ll have the papers made
out.’

“You gentlemen,” continued the President, “ought to be glad that so bad
a man, as you represent this officer to be, is to get his promotion,
for then you won’t be forced to associate with him and suffer the
contamination of his presence and influence. I will do all I can to have
the Senate confirm him.”

And he was confirmed.




IN A HOPELESS MINORITY.

The President was often in opposition to the general public sentiment of
the North upon certain questions of policy, but he bided his time, and
things usually came out as he wanted them. It was Lincoln’s opinion,
from the first, that apology and reparation to England must be made
by the United States because of the arrest, upon the high seas, of the
Confederate Commissioners, Mason and Slidell. The country, however (the
Northern States), was wild for a conflict with England.

“One war at a time,” quietly remarked the President at a Cabinet
meeting, where he found the majority of his advisers unfavorably
disposed to “backing down.” But one member of the Cabinet was a really
strong supporter of the President in his attitude.

“I am reminded,” the President said after the various arguments had been
put forward by the members of the Cabinet, “of a fellow out in my State
of Illinois who happened to stray into a church while a revival meeting
was in progress. To be truthful, this individual was not entirely sober,
and with that instinct which seems to impel all men in his condition to
assume a prominent part in proceedings, he walked up the aisle to the
very front pew.

“All noticed him, but he did not care; for awhile he joined audibly in
the singing, said ‘Amen’ at the close of the prayers, but, drowsiness
overcoming him, he went to sleep. Before the meeting closed, the
pastor asked the usual question--‘Who are on the Lord’s side?’--and the
congregation arose en masse. When he asked, ‘Who are on the side of
the Devil?’ the sleeper was about waking up. He heard a portion of the
interrogatory, and, seeing the minister on his feet, arose.

“‘I don’t exactly understand the question,’ he said, ‘but I’ll stand by
you, parson, to the last. But it seems to me,’ he added, ‘that we’re in
a hopeless minority.’

“I’m in a hopeless minority now,” said the President, “and I’ll have to
admit it.”




“DID YE ASK MORRISSEY YET?”

John Morrissey, the noted prize fighter, was the “Boss” of Tammany Hall
during the Civil War period. It pleased his fancy to go to Congress, and
his obedient constituents sent him there. Morrissey was such an absolute
despot that the New York City democracy could not make a move without
his consent, and many of the Tammanyites were so afraid of him that
they would not even enter into business ventures without consulting the
autocrat.

President Lincoln had been seriously annoyed by some of his generals,
who were afraid to make the slightest move before asking advice from
Washington. One commander, in particular, was so cautious that he
telegraphed the War Department upon the slightest pretext, the result
being that his troops were lying in camp doing nothing, when they should
have been in the field.

“This general reminds me,” the President said one day while talking to
Secretary Stanton, at the War Department, “of a story I once heard about
a Tammany man. He happened to meet a friend, also a member of Tammany,
on the street, and in the course of the talk the friend, who was beaming
with smiles and good nature, told the other Tammanyite that he was going
to be married.

“This first Tammany man looked more serious than men usually do upon
hearing of the impending happiness of a friend. In fact, his face seemed
to take on a look of anxiety and worry.

“‘Ain’t you glad to know that I’m to get married?’ demanded the second
Tammanyite, somewhat in a huff.

“‘Of course I am,’ was the reply; ‘but,’ putting his mouth close to the
ear of the other, ‘have ye asked Morrissey yet?’

“Now, this general of whom we are speaking, wouldn’t dare order out the
guard without asking Morrissey,” concluded the President.




GOT THE LAUGH ON DOUGLAS.

At one time, when Lincoln and Douglas were “stumping” Illinois, they
met at a certain town, and it was agreed that they would have a joint
debate. Douglas was the first speaker, and in the course of his talk
remarked that in early life, his father, who, he said, was an excellent
cooper by trade, apprenticed him out to learn the cabinet business.

This was too good for Lincoln to let pass, so when his turn came to
reply, he said:

“I had understood before that Mr. Douglas had been bound out to learn
the cabinet-making business, which is all well enough, but I was not
aware until now that his father was a cooper. I have no doubt, however,
that he was one, and I am certain, also, that he was a very good one,
for (here Lincoln gently bowed toward Douglas) he has made one of the
best whiskey casks I have ever seen.”

As Douglas was a short heavy-set man, and occasionally imbibed, the pith
of the joke was at once apparent, and most heartily enjoyed by all.

On another occasion, Douglas made a point against Lincoln by telling
the crowd that when he first knew Lincoln he was a “grocery-keeper,” and
sold whiskey, cigars, etc.

“Mr. L.,” he said, “was a very good bar-tender!” This brought the laugh
on Lincoln, whose reply, however, soon came, and then the laugh was on
the other side.

“What Mr. Douglas has said, gentlemen,” replied Lincoln, “is true
enough; I did keep a grocery and I did sell cotton, candles and cigars,
and sometimes whiskey; but I remember in those days that Mr. Douglas was
one of my best customers.”




“I can also say this; that I have since left my side of the counter,
while Mr. Douglas still sticks to his!”

This brought such a storm of cheers and laughter that Douglas was unable
to reply.




“FIXED UP” A BIT FOR THE “CITY FOLKS.”

Mrs. Lincoln knew her husband was not “pretty,” but she liked to have
him presentable when he appeared before the public. Stephen Fiske, in
“When Lincoln Was First Inaugurated,” tells of Mrs. Lincoln’s anxiety
to have the President-elect “smoothed down” a little when receiving a
delegation that was to greet them upon reaching New York City.

“The train stopped,” writes Mr. Fiske, “and through the windows immense
crowds could be seen; the cheering drowning the blowing off of steam of
the locomotive. Then Mrs. Lincoln opened her handbag and said:

“‘Abraham, I must fix you up a bit for these city folks.’

“Mr. Lincoln gently lifted her upon the seat before him; she parted,
combed and brushed his hair and arranged his black necktie.

“‘Do I look nice now, mother?’ he affectionately asked.

“‘Well, you’ll do, Abraham,’ replied Mrs. Lincoln critically. So he
kissed her and lifted her down from the seat, and turned to meet Mayor
Wood, courtly and suave, and to have his hand shaken by the other New
York officials.”




EVEN REBELS OUGHT TO BE SAVED.

The Rev. Mr. Shrigley, of Philadelphia, a Universalist, had been
nominated for hospital chaplain, and a protesting delegation went to
Washington to see President Lincoln on the subject.

“We have called, Mr. President, to confer with you in regard to the
appointment of Mr. Shrigley, of Philadelphia, as hospital chaplain.”

The President responded: “Oh, yes, gentlemen. I have sent his name to
the Senate, and he will no doubt be confirmed at an early date.” One of
the young men replied: “We have not come to ask for the appointment, but
to solicit you to withdraw the nomination.”

“Ah!” said Lincoln, “that alters the case; but on what grounds do you
wish the nomination withdrawn?”

The answer was: “Mr. Shrigley is not sound in his theological opinions.”

The President inquired: “On what question is the gentleman unsound?”

Response: “He does not believe in endless punishment; not only so, sir,
but he believes that even the rebels themselves will be finally saved.”

“Is that so?” inquired the President.

The members of the committee responded, “Yes, yes.’

“Well, gentlemen, if that be so, and there is any way under Heaven
whereby the rebels can be saved, then, for God’s sake and their sakes,
let the man be appointed.”

The Rev. Mr. Shrigley was appointed, and served until the close of the
war.




TRIED TO DO WHAT SEEMED BEST.

John M. Palmer, Major-General in the Volunteer Army, Governor of the
State of Illinois, and United States Senator from the Sucker State,
became acquainted with Lincoln in 1839, and the last time he saw the
President was at the White House in February, 1865. Senator Palmer told
the story of his interview as follows:

“I had come to Washington at the request of the Governor, to complain
that Illinois had been credited with 18,000 too few troops. I saw Mr.
Lincoln one afternoon, and he asked me to come again in the morning.

“Next morning I sat in the ante-room while several officers were
relieved. At length I was told to enter the President’s room. Mr.
Lincoln was in the hands of the barber.

“‘Come in, Palmer,’ he called out, ‘come in. You’re home folks. I can
shave before you. I couldn’t before those others, and I have to do it
some time.’

“We chatted about various matters, and at length I said:

“‘Well, Mr. Lincoln, if anybody had told me that in a great crisis like
this the people were going out to a little one-horse town and pick out a
one-horse lawyer for President I wouldn’t have believed it.’

“Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his chair, his face white with lather,
a towel under his chin. At first I thought he was angry. Sweeping the
barber away he leaned forward, and, placing one hand on my knee, said:

“‘Neither would I. But it was time when a man with a policy would have
been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy. I have simply
tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day came.’”




“HOLDING A CANDLE TO THE CZAR.”

England was anything but pleased when the Czar Alexander, of Russia,
showed his friendship for the United States by sending a strong fleet
to this country with the accompanying suggestion that Uncle Sam, through
his representative, President Lincoln, could do whatever he saw fit with
the ironclads and the munitions of war they had stowed away in their
holds.

London “Punch,” on November 7th, 1863, printed the cartoon shown on this
page, the text under the picture reading in this way: “Holding a candle
to the * * * * *.” (Much the same thing.)

Of course, this was a covert sneer, intended to convey the impression
that President Lincoln, in order to secure the support and friendship
of the Emperor of Russia as long as the War of the Rebellion lasted, was
willing to do all sorts of menial offices, even to the extent of holding
the candle and lighting His Most Gracious Majesty, the White Czar, to
his imperial bed-chamber.

It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the Emperor Alexander, who
tendered inestimable aid to the President of the United States, was
the Lincoln of Russia, having given freedom to millions of serfs in
his empire; and, further than that, he was, like Lincoln, the victim of
assassination. He was literally blown to pieces by a bomb thrown under
his carriage while riding through the streets near the Winter Palace at
St. Petersburg.




NASHVILLE WAS NOT SURRENDERED.

“I was told a mighty good story,” said the President one day at a
Cabinet meeting, “by Colonel Granville Moody, ‘the fighting Methodist
parson,’ as they used to call him in Tennessee. I happened to meet Moody
in Philadelphia, where he was attending a conference.

“The story was about ‘Andy’ Johnson and General Buell. Colonel Moody
happened to be in Nashville the day it was reported that Buell had
decided to evacuate the city. The rebels, strongly re-inforced, were
said to be within two days’ march of the capital. Of course, the city
was greatly excited. Moody said he went in search of Johnson at the edge
of the evening and found him at his office closeted with two gentlemen,
who were walking the floor with him, one on each side. As he entered
they retired, leaving him alone with Johnson, who came up to him,
manifesting intense feeling, and said:

“‘Moody, we are sold out. Buell is a traitor. He is going to evacuate
the city, and in forty-eight hours we will all be in the hands of the
rebels!’

“Then he commenced pacing the floor again, twisting his hands and
chafing like a caged tiger, utterly insensible to his friend’s
entreaties to become calm. Suddenly he turned and said:

“‘Moody, can you pray?’

“‘That is my business, sir, as a minister of the gospel,’ returned the
colonel.

“‘Well, Moody, I wish you would pray,’ said Johnson, and instantly both
went down upon their knees at opposite sides of the room.

“As the prayer waxed fervent, Johnson began to respond in true Methodist
style. Presently he crawled over on his hands and knees to Moody’s side
and put his arms over him, manifesting the deepest emotion.

“Closing the prayer with a hearty ‘amen’ from each, they arose.

“Johnson took a long breath, and said, with emphasis:

“‘Moody, I feel better.’

“Shortly afterward he asked:

“‘Will you stand by me?’

“‘Certainly I will,’ was the answer.

“‘Well, Moody, I can depend upon you; you are one in a hundred
thousand.’

“He then commenced pacing the floor again. Suddenly he wheeled, the
current of his thought having changed, and said:

“‘Oh, Moody, I don’t want you to think I have become a religious man
because I asked you to pray. I am sorry to say it, I am not, and never
pretended to be religious. No one knows this better than you, but,
Moody, there is one thing about it, I do believe in Almighty God, and
I believe also in the Bible, and I say, d--n me if Nashville shall be
surrendered!’

“And Nashville was not surrendered!”




HE COULDN’T WAIT FOR THE COLONEL.

General Fisk, attending a reception at the White House, saw waiting in
the ante-room a poor old man from Tennessee, and learned that he had
been waiting three or four days to get an audience, on which probably
depended the life of his son, under sentence of death for some military
offense.

General Fisk wrote his case in outline on a card and sent it in, with a
special request that the President would see the man. In a moment the
order came; and past impatient senators, governors and generals, the old
man went.

He showed his papers to Mr. Lincoln, who said he would look into the
case and give him the result next day.

The old man, in an agony of apprehension, looked up into the President’s
sympathetic face and actually cried out:

“To-morrow may be too late! My son is under sentence of death! It ought
to be decided now!”

His streaming tears told how much he was moved.

“Come,” said Mr. Lincoln, “wait a bit and I’ll tell you a story;” and
then he told the old man General Fisk’s story about the swearing driver,
as follows:

“The general had begun his military life as a colonel, and when he
raised his regiment in Missouri he proposed to his men that he should
do all the swearing of the regiment. They assented; and for months no
instance was known of the violation of the promise.

“The colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as roads were not
always the best, had some difficulty in commanding his temper and his
tongue.

“John happened to be driving a mule team through a series of mudholes a
little worse than usual, when, unable to restrain himself any longer, he
burst forth into a volley of energetic oaths.

“The colonel took notice of the offense and brought John to account.

“‘John,’ said he, ‘didn’t you promise to let me do all the swearing of
the regiment?’

“‘Yes, I did, colonel,’ he replied, ‘but the fact was, the swearing had
to be done then or not at all, and you weren’t there to do it.’”

As he told the story the old man forgot his boy, and both the President
and his listener had a hearty laugh together at its conclusion.

Then he wrote a few words which the old man read, and in which he found
new occasion for tears; but the tears were tears of joy, for the words
saved the life of his son.




LINCOLN PRONOUNCED THIS STORY FUNNY.

The President was heard to declare one day that the story given below
was one of the funniest he ever heard.

One of General Fremont’s batteries of eight Parrott guns, supported by
a squadron of horse commanded by Major Richards, was in sharp conflict
with a battery of the enemy near at hand. Shells and shot were flying
thick and fast, when the commander of the battery, a German, one of
Fremont’s staff, rode suddenly up to the cavalry, exclaiming, in loud
and excited terms, “Pring up de shackasses! Pring up de shackasses! For
Cot’s sake, hurry up de shackasses, im-me-di-ate-ly!”

The necessity of this order, though not quite apparent, will be more
obvious when it is remembered that “shackasses” are mules, carry
mountain howitzers, which are fired from the backs of that much-abused
but valuable animal; and the immediate occasion for the “shackasses”
 was that two regiments of rebel infantry were at that moment discovered
ascending a hill immediately behind our batteries.

The “shackasses,” with the howitzers loaded with grape and canister,
were soon on the ground.

The mules squared themselves, as they well knew how, for the shock.

A terrific volley was poured into the advancing column, which
immediately broke and retreated.

Two hundred and seventy-eight dead bodies were found in the ravine next
day, piled closely together as they fell, the effects of that volley
from the backs of the “shackasses.”




JOKE WAS ON LINCOLN.

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed a joke at his own expense. Said he: “In the days
when I used to be in the circuit, I was accosted in the cars by a
stranger, who said, ‘Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my
possession which belongs to you.’ ‘How is that?’ I asked, considerably
astonished.

“The stranger took a jackknife from his pocket. ‘This knife,’ said he,
‘was placed in my hands some years ago, with the injunction that I was
to keep it until I had found a man uglier than myself. I have carried
it from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I think you are
fairly entitled to the property.’”




THE OTHER ONE WAS WORSE.

It so happened that an official of the War Department had escaped
serious punishment for a rather flagrant offense, by showing where
grosser irregularities existed in the management of a certain bureau
of the Department. So valuable was the information furnished that the
culprit who “gave the snap away” was not even discharged.

“That reminds me,” the President said, when the case was laid before
him, “of a story about Daniel Webster, when the latter was a boy.

“When quite young, at school, Daniel was one day guilty of a gross
violation of the rules. He was detected in the act, and called up by the
teacher for punishment.

“This was to be the old-fashioned ‘feruling’ of the hand. His hands
happened to be very dirty.

“Knowing this, on the way to the teacher’s desk, he spit upon the palm
of his right hand, wiping it off upon the side of his pantaloons.

“‘Give me your hand, sir,’ said the teacher, very sternly.

“Out went the right hand, partly cleansed. The teacher looked at it a
moment, and said:

“‘Daniel, if you will find another hand in this school-room as filthy as
that, I will let you off this time!’

“Instantly from behind the back came the left hand.

“‘Here it is, sir,’ was the ready reply.

“‘That will do,’ said the teacher, ‘for this time; you can take your
seat, sir.’”




“I’D A BEEN MISSED BY MYSE’F.”

The President did not consider that every soldier who ran away in
battle, or did not stand firmly to receive a bayonet charge, was a
coward. He was of opinion that self-preservation was the first law of
Nature, but he didn’t want this statute construed too liberally by the
troops.

At the same time he took occasion to illustrate a point he wished to
make by a story in connection with a darky who was a member of the Ninth
Illinois Infantry Regiment. This regiment was one of those engaged at
the capture of Fort Donelson. It behaved gallantly, and lost as heavily
as any.

“Upon the hurricane-deck of one of our gunboats,” said the President in
telling the story, “I saw an elderly darky, with a very philosophical
and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted upon his bundle,
toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently plunged into a
state of profound meditation.

“As the negro rather interested me, I made some inquiries, and found
that he had really been with the Ninth Illinois Infantry at Donelson.
and began to ask him some questions about the capture of the place.

“‘Were you in the fight?’

“‘Had a little taste of it, sa.’

“‘Stood your ground, did you?’

“‘No, sa, I runs.’

“‘Run at the first fire, did you?

“‘Yes, sa, and would hab run soona, had I knowd it war comin’.”

“‘Why, that wasn’t very creditable to your courage.’

“‘Dat isn’t my line, sa--cookin’s my profeshun.’

“‘Well, but have you no regard for your reputation?’

“‘Reputation’s nuffin to me by de side ob life.’

“‘Do you consider your life worth more than other people’s?’

“‘It’s worth more to me, sa.’

“‘Then you must value it very highly?’

“‘Yes, sa, I does, more dan all dis wuld, more dan a million ob
dollars, sa, for what would dat be wuth to a man wid de bref out ob him?
Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me.’

“‘But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?’

“‘Different men set different values on their lives; mine is not in de
market.’

“‘But if you lost it you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you
died for your country.’

“‘Dat no satisfaction when feelin’s gone.’

“‘Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?’

“‘Nufin whatever, sat--I regard them as among the vanities.’

“‘If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the
government without resistance.’

“‘Yes, sa, dar would hab been no help for it. I wouldn’t put my life
in de scale ‘g’inst any gobernment dat eber existed, for no gobernment
could replace de loss to me.’

“‘Do you think any of your company would have missed you if you had been
killed?’

“‘Maybe not, sa--a dead white man ain’t much to dese sogers, let alone a
dead nigga--but I’d a missed myse’f, and dat was de p’int wid me.’

“I only tell this story,” concluded the President, “in order to
illustrate the result of the tactics of some of the Union generals who
would be sadly ‘missed’ by themselves, if no one else, if they ever got
out of the Army.”




IT ALL “DEPENDED” UPON THE EFFECT.

President Lincoln and some members of his Cabinet were with a part of
the Army some distance south of the National Capital at one time, when
Secretary of War Stanton remarked that just before he left Washington
he had received a telegram from General Mitchell, in Alabama. General
Mitchell asked instructions in regard to a certain emergency that had
arisen.

The Secretary said he did not precisely understand the emergency as
explained by General Mitchell, but had answered back, “All right; go
ahead.”

“Now,” he said, as he turned to Mr. Lincoln, “Mr. President, if I have
made an error in not understanding him correctly, I will have to get you
to countermand the order.”

“Well,” exclaimed President Lincoln, “that is very much like the
happening on the occasion of a certain horse sale I remember that took
place at the cross-roads down in Kentucky, when I was a boy.

“A particularly fine horse was to be sold, and the people in large
numbers had gathered together. They had a small boy to ride the horse up
and down while the spectators examined the horse’s points.

“At last one man whispered to the boy as he went by: ‘Look here, boy,
hain’t that horse got the splints?’

“The boy replied: ‘Mister, I don’t know what the splints is, but if it’s
good for him, he has got it; if it ain’t good for him, he ain’t got it.’

“Now,” said President Lincoln, “if this was good for Mitchell, it was
all right; but if it was not, I have got to countermand it.”




TOO SWIFT TO STAY IN THE ARMY.

There were strange, queer, odd things and happenings in the Army at
times, but, as a rule, the President did not allow them to worry him. He
had enough to bother about.

A quartermaster having neglected to present his accounts in proper
shape, and the matter being deemed of sufficient importance to bring it
to the attention of the President, the latter remarked:

“Now this instance reminds me of a little story I heard only a short
time ago. A certain general’s purse was getting low, and he said it was
probable he might be obliged to draw on his banker for some money.

“‘How much do you want, father?’ asked his son, who had been with him a
few days.

“‘I think I shall send for a couple of hundred,’ replied the general.

“Why, father,’ said his son, very quietly, ‘I can let you have it.’

“‘You can let me have it! Where did you get so much money?

“‘I won it playing draw-poker with your staff, sir!’ replied the youth.

“The earliest morning train bore the young man toward his home, and I’ve
been wondering if that boy and that quartermaster had happened to meet
at the same table.”




ADMIRED THE STRONG MAN.

Governor Hoyt of Wisconsin tells a story of Mr. Lincoln’s great
admiration for physical strength. Mr. Lincoln, in 1859, made a speech at
the Wisconsin State Agricultural Fair. After the speech, in company with
the Governor, he strolled about the grounds, looking at the exhibits.
They came to a place where a professional “strong man” was tossing
cannon balls in the air and catching them on his arms and juggling
with them as though they were light as baseballs. Mr. Lincoln had
never before seen such an exhibition, and he was greatly surprised and
interested.

When the performance was over, Governor Hoyt, seeing Mr. Lincoln’s
interest, asked him to go up and be introduced to the athlete. He did
so, and, as he stood looking down musingly on the man, who was very
short, and evidently wondering that one so much smaller than he could be
so much stronger, he suddenly broke out with one of his quaint speeches.
“Why,” he said, “why, I could lick salt off the top of your hat.”




WISHED THE ARMY CHARGED LIKE THAT.

A prominent volunteer officer who, early in the War, was on duty in
Washington and often carried reports to Secretary Stanton at the War
Department, told a characteristic story on President Lincoln. Said he:

“I was with several other young officers, also carrying reports to the
War Department, and one morning we were late. In this instance we were
in a desperate hurry to deliver the papers, in order to be able to catch
the train returning to camp.

“On the winding, dark staircase of the old War Department, which many
will remember, it was our misfortune, while taking about three stairs
at a time, to run a certain head like a catapult into the body of the
President, striking him in the region of the right lower vest pocket.

“The usual surprised and relaxed grunt of a man thus assailed came
promptly.

“We quickly sent an apology in the direction of the dimly seen form,
feeling that the ungracious shock was expensive, even to the humblest
clerk in the department.

“A second glance revealed to us the President as the victim of the
collision. Then followed a special tender of ‘ten thousand pardons,’ and
the President’s reply:

“‘One’s enough; I wish the whole army would charge like that.’”




“UNCLE ABRAHAM” HAD EVERYTHING READY.

“You can’t do anything with them Southern fellows,” the old man at the
table was saying.

“If they get whipped, they’ll retreat to them Southern swamps and bayous
along with the fishes and crocodiles. You haven’t got the fish-nets made
that’ll catch ‘em.”

“Look here, old gentleman,” remarked President Lincoln, who was sitting
alongside, “we’ve got just the nets for traitors, in the bayous or
anywhere.”

“Hey? What nets?”

“Bayou-nets!” and “Uncle Abraham” pointed his joke with his fork,
spearing a fishball savagely.




NOT AS SMOOTH AS HE LOOKED.

Mr. Lincoln’s skill in parrying troublesome questions was wonderful.
Once he received a call from Congressman John Ganson, of Buffalo, one of
the ablest lawyers in New York, who, although a Democrat, supported
all of Mr. Lincoln’s war measures. Mr. Ganson wanted explanations. Mr.
Ganson was very bald with a perfectly smooth face. He had a most direct
and aggressive way of stating his views or of demanding what he thought
he was entitled to. He said: “Mr. Lincoln, I have supported all of your
measures and think I am entitled to your confidence. We are voting and
acting in the dark in Congress, and I demand to know--think I have the
right to ask and to know--what is the present situation, and what are
the prospects and conditions of the several campaigns and armies.”

Mr. Lincoln looked at him critically for a moment and then said:
“Ganson, how clean you shave!”

Most men would have been offended, but Ganson was too broad and
intelligent a man not to see the point and retire at once, satisfied,
from the field.




A SMALL CROP.

Chauncey M. Depew says that Mr. Lincoln told him the following story,
which he claimed was one of the best two things he ever originated: He
was trying a case in Illinois where he appeared for a prisoner charged
with aggravated assault and battery. The complainant had told a horrible
story of the attack, which his appearance fully justified, when
the District Attorney handed the witness over to Mr. Lincoln, for
cross-examination. Mr. Lincoln said he had no testimony, and unless he
could break down the complainant’s story he saw no way out. He had
come to the conclusion that the witness was a bumptious man, who rather
prided himself upon his smartness in repartee and, so, after looking at
him for some minutes, he said:

“Well, my friend, how much ground did you and my client here fight
over?”

The fellow answered: “About six acres.”

“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “don’t you think that this is an almighty
small crop of fight to gather from such a big piece of ground?”

The jury laughed. The Court and District-Attorney and complainant all
joined in, and the case was laughed out of court.




“NEVER REGRET WHAT YOU DON’T WRITE.”

A simple remark one of the party might make would remind Mr. Lincoln of
an apropos story.

Secretary of the Treasury Chase happened to remark, “Oh, I am so sorry
that I did not write a letter to Mr. So-and-so before I left home!”

President Lincoln promptly responded:

“Chase, never regret what you don’t write; it is what you do write that
you are often called upon to feel sorry for.”




A VAIN GENERAL.

In an interview between President Lincoln and Petroleum V. Nasby, the
name came up of a recently deceased politician of Illinois whose merit
was blemished by great vanity. His funeral was very largely attended.

“If General ---- had known how big a funeral he would have had,” said
Mr. Lincoln, “he would have died years ago.”




DEATH BED REPENTANCE.

A Senator, who was calling upon Mr. Lincoln, mentioned the name of a
most virulent and dishonest official; one, who, though very brilliant,
was very bad.

“It’s a good thing for B----” said Mr. Lincoln, “that there is such a
thing as a deathbed repentance.”




NO CAUSE FOR PRIDE.

A member of Congress from Ohio came into Mr. Lincoln’s presence in a
state of unutterable intoxication, and sinking into a chair, exclaimed
in tones that welled up fuzzy through the gallon or more of whiskey that
he contained, “Oh, ‘why should (hic) the spirit of mortal be proud?’”

“My dear sir,” said the President, regarding him closely, “I see no
reason whatever.”





THE STORY OF LINCOLN’S LIFE

When Abraham Lincoln once was asked to tell the story of his life, he
replied:

“It is contained in one line of Gray’s ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’:

“‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’”

That was true at the time he said it, as everything else he said was
Truth, but he was then only at the beginning of a career that was
to glorify him as one of the heroes of the world, and place his name
forever beside the immortal name of the mighty Washington.

Many great men, particularly those of America, began life in humbleness
and poverty, but none ever came from such depths or rose to such a
height as Abraham Lincoln.

His birthplace, in Hardin county, Kentucky, was but a wilderness,
and Spencer county, Indiana, to which the Lincoln family removed when
Abraham was in his eighth year, was a wilder and still more uncivilized
region.

The little red schoolhouse which now so thickly adorns the country
hillside had not yet been built. There were scattered log schoolhouses,
but they were few and far between. In several of these Mr. Lincoln got
the rudiments of an education--an education that was never finished, for
to the day of his death he was a student and a seeker after knowledge.

Some records of his schoolboy days are still left us. One is a book
made and bound by Lincoln himself, in which he had written the table of
weights and measures, and the sums to be worked out therefrom. This was
his arithmetic, for he was too poor to own a printed copy.




A YOUTHFUL POET.

On one of the pages of this quaint book he had written these four lines
of schoolboy doggerel:

     “Abraham Lincoln,
       His Hand and Pen,
     He Will be Good,
       But God knows when.”

The poetic spirit was strong in the young scholar just then for on
another page of the same book he had written these two verses, which are
supposed to have been original with him:

     “Time, what an empty vapor ‘tis,
       And days, how swift they are;
     Swift as an Indian arrow
       Fly on like a shooting star.

     The present moment just is here,
       Then slides away in haste,
     That we can never say they’re ours,
       But only say they’re past.”

Another specimen of the poetical, or rhyming ability, is found in the
following couplet, written by him for his friend, Joseph C. Richardson:

     “Good boys who to their books apply,
      Will all be great men by and by.”

In all, Lincoln’s “schooling” did not amount to a year’s time, but he
was a constant student outside of the schoolhouse. He read all the books
he could borrow, and it was his chief delight during the day to lie
under the shade of some tree, or at night in front of an open fireplace,
reading and studying. His favorite books were the Bible and Aesop’s
fables, which he kept always within reach and read time and again.

The first law book he ever read was “The Statutes of Indiana,” and it
was from this work that he derived his ambition to be a lawyer.




MADE SPEECHES WHEN A BOY.

When he was but a barefoot boy he would often make political speeches to
the boys in the neighborhood, and when he had reached young manhood
and was engaged in the labor of chopping wood or splitting rails
he continued this practice of speech-making with only the stumps and
surrounding trees for hearers.

At the age of seventeen he had attained his full height of six feet four
inches and it was at this time he engaged as a ferry boatman on the Ohio
river, at thirty-seven cents a day.

That he was seriously beginning to think of public affairs even at
this early age is shown by the fact that about this time he wrote
a composition on the American Government, urging the necessity for
preserving the Constitution and perpetuating the Union. A Rockport
lawyer, by the name of Pickert, who read this composition, declared that
“the world couldn’t beat it.”

When the dreaded disease, known as the “milk-sick” created such havoc
in Indiana in 1829, the father of Abraham Lincoln, who was of a roving
disposition, sought and found a new home in Illinois, locating near the
town of Decatur, in Macon county, on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon
river. A short time thereafter Abraham Lincoln came of age, and having
done his duty to his father, began life on his own account.

His first employer was a man named Denton Offut, who engaged Lincoln,
together with his step-brother and John Hanks, to take a boat-load of
stock and provisions to New Orleans. Offut was so well pleased with the
energy and skill that Lincoln displayed on this trip that he engaged him
as clerk in a store which Offut opened a few months later at New Salem.

It was while clerking for Offut that Lincoln performed many of those
marvelous feats of strength for which he was noted in his youth, and
displayed his wonderful skill as a wrestler. In addition to being six
feet four inches high he now weighed two hundred and fourteen pounds.
And his strength and skill were so great combined that he could
out-wrestle and out-lift any man in that section of the country.

During his clerkship in Offut’s store Lincoln continued to read and
study and made considerable progress in grammar and mathematics. Offut
failed in business and disappeared from the village. In the language of
Lincoln he “petered out,” and his tall, muscular clerk had to seek other
employment.




ASSISTANT PILOT ON A STEAMBOAT.

In his first public speech, which had already been delivered, Lincoln
had contended that the Sangamon river was navigable, and it now fell to
his lot to assist in giving practical proof of his argument. A steamboat
had arrived at New Salem from Cincinnati, and Lincoln was hired as an
assistant in piloting the vessel through the uncertain channel of
the Sangamon river to the Illinois river. The way was obstructed by
a milldam. Lincoln insisted to the owners of the dam that under the
Federal Constitution and laws no one had a right to dam up or obstruct
a navigable stream and as he had already proved that the Sangamon was
navigable a portion of the dam was torn away and the boat passed safely
through.




“CAPTAIN LINCOLN” PLEASED HIM.

At this period in his career the Blackhawk War broke out, and Lincoln
was one of the first to respond to Governor Reynold’s call for a
thousand mounted volunteers to assist the United States troops in
driving Blackhawk back across the Mississippi. Lincoln enlisted in the
company from Sangamon county and was elected captain. He often remarked
that this gave him greater pleasure than anything that had happened in
his life up to this time. He had, however, no opportunities in this war
to perform any distinguished service.

Upon his return from the Blackhawk War, in which, as he said afterward,
in a humorous speech, when in Congress, that he “fought, bled and came
away,” he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Legislature. This was
the only time in his life, as he himself has said, that he was ever
beaten by the people. Although defeated, in his own town of New Salem he
received all of the two hundred and eight votes cast except three.




FAILURE AS A BUSINESS MAN.

Lincoln’s next business venture was with William Berry in a general
store, under the firm name of Lincoln & Berry, but did not take long
to show that he was not adapted for a business career. The firm failed,
Berry died and the debts of the firm fell entirely upon Lincoln. Many of
these debts he might have escaped legally, but he assumed them all
and it was not until fifteen years later that the last indebtedness of
Lincoln & Berry was discharged. During his membership in this firm he
had applied himself to the study of law, beginning at the beginning,
that is with Blackstone. Now that he had nothing to do he spent much of
his time lying under the shade of a tree poring over law books, borrowed
from a comrade in the Blackhawk War, who was then a practicing lawyer at
Springfield.




GAINS FAME AS A STORY TELLER.

It was about this time, too, that Lincoln’s fame as a story-teller
began to spread far and wide. His sayings and his jokes were repeated
throughout that section of the country, and he was famous as a
story-teller before anyone ever heard of him as a lawyer or a
politician.

It required no little moral courage to resist the temptation that beset
an idle young man on every hand at that time, for drinking and carousing
were of daily and nightly occurrence. Lincoln never drank intoxicating
liquors, nor did he at that time use tobacco, but in any sports that
called for skill or muscle he took a lively interest, even in horse
races and cock fights.




SURVEYOR WITH NO STRINGS ON HIM.

John Calhoun was at that time surveyor of Sangamon county. He had been
a lawyer and had noticed the studious Lincoln. Needing an assistant he
offered the place to Lincoln. The average young man without any regular
employment and hard-pressed for means to pay his board as Lincoln was,
would have jumped at the opportunity, but a question of principle was
involved which had to be settled before Lincoln would accept. Calhoun
was a Democrat and Lincoln was a Whig, therefore Lincoln said, “I will
take the office if I can be perfectly free in my political actions, but
if my sentiments or even expression of them are to be abridged in any
way, I would not have it or any other office.”

With this understanding he accepted the office and began to study
books on surveying, furnished him by his employer. He was not a natural
mathematician, and in working out his most difficult problems he sought
the assistance of Mentor Graham, a famous schoolmaster in those days,
who had previously assisted Lincoln in his studies. He soon became a
competent surveyor, however, and was noted for the accurate way in which
he ran his lines and located his corners.

Surveying was not as profitable then as it has since become, and the
young surveyor often had to take his pay in some article other than
money. One old settler relates that for a survey made for him by Lincoln
he paid two buckskins, which Hannah Armstrong “foxed” on his pants so
that the briars would not wear them out.

About this time, 1833, he was made postmaster at New Salem, the first
Federal office he ever held. Although the postoffice was located in
a store, Lincoln usually carried the mail around in his hat and
distributed it to people when he met them.




A MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATURE.

The following year Lincoln again ran for the Legislature, this time as
an avowed Whig. Of the four successful candidates, Lincoln received the
second highest number of votes.

When Lincoln went to take his seat in the Legislature at Vandalia he was
so poor that he was obliged to borrow $200 to buy suitable clothes
and uphold the dignity of his new position. He took little part in
the proceedings, keeping in the background, but forming many lasting
acquaintances and friendships.

Two years later, when he was again a candidate for the same office,
there were more political issues to be met, and Lincoln met them with
characteristic honesty and boldness. During the campaign he issued the
following letter:

“New Salem, June 13, 1836.

“To the Editor of The Journal:

“In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the signature
of ‘Many Voters’ in which the candidates who are announced in the
journal are called upon to ‘show their hands.’ Agreed. Here’s mine:

“I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in
bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to
the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding
females).

“If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my
constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me.

“While acting as their Representative, I shall be governed by their will
on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will
is; and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me
will best advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for
distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several
States to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and
construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the interest on
it.

“If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L.
White, for President.

“Very respectfully,

“A. LINCOLN.”

This was just the sort of letter to win the support of the plain-spoken
voters of Sangamon county. Lincoln not only received more votes than
any other candidate on the Legislative ticket, but the county which had
always been Democratic was turned Whig.




THE FAMOUS “LONG NINE.”

The other candidates elected with Lincoln were Ninian W. Edwards, John
Dawson, Andrew McCormick, “Dan” Stone, William F. Elkin, Robert L.
Wilson, “Joe” Fletcher, and Archer G. Herndon. These were known as the
“Long Nine.” Their average height was six feet, and average weight two
hundred pounds.

This Legislature was one of the most famous that ever convened in
Illinois. Bonds to the amount of $12,000,000 were voted to assist in
building thirteen hundred miles of railroad, to widen and deepen all the
streams in the State and to dig a canal from the Illinois river to Lake
Michigan. Lincoln favored all these plans, but in justice to him it must
be said that the people he represented were also in favor of them.

It was at this session that the State capital was changed from Vandalia
to Springfield. Lincoln, as the leader of the “Long Nine,” had charge of
the bill and after a long and bitter struggle succeeded in passing it.




BEGINS TO OPPOSE SLAVERY.

At this early stage in his career Abraham Lincoln began his opposition
to slavery which eventually resulted in his giving liberty to four
million human beings. This Legislature passed the following resolutions
on slavery:

“Resolved by the General Assembly, of the State of Illinois: That we
highly disapprove of the formation of Abolition societies and of the
doctrines promulgated by them.

“That the right of property in slaves is sacred to the slave-holding
States by the Federal Constitution, and that they cannot be deprived of
that right without their consent,

“That the General Government cannot abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia against the consent of the citizens of said district without a
manifest breach of good faith.”

Against this resolution Lincoln entered a protest, but only succeeded in
getting one man in the Legislature to sign the protest with him.

The protest was as follows:

“Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both
branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned
hereby protest against the passage of the same.

“They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

“They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power under
the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the
different States.

“They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power under
the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but
that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the
people of the District.

“The difference between these opinions and those contained in the above
resolutions is their reason for entering this protest.

“DAN STONE,

“A. LINCOLN,

“Representatives from the county of Sangamon.”




BEGINS TO PRACTICE LAW.

At the end of this session of the Legislature, Mr. Lincoln decided to
remove to Springfield and practice law. He entered the office of John T.
Stuart, a former comrade in the Blackhawk War, and in March, 1837, was
licensed to practice.

Stephen T. Logan was judge of the Circuit Court, and Stephen A. Douglas,
who was destined to become Lincoln’s greatest political opponent,
was prosecuting attorney. When Lincoln was not in his law office his
headquarters were in the store of his friend Joshua F. Speed, in which
gathered all the youthful orators and statesmen of that day, and where
many exciting arguments and discussions were held. Lincoln and Douglas
both took part in the discussion held in Speed’s store. Douglas was
the acknowledged leader of the Democratic side and Lincoln was rapidly
coming to the front as a leader among the Whig debaters. One evening in
the midst of a heated argument Douglas, or “the Little Giant,” as he was
called, exclaimed:

“This store is no place to talk politics.”




HIS FIRST JOINT DEBATE.

Arrangements were at once made for a joint debate between the leading
Democrats and Whigs to take place in a local church. The Democrats were
represented by Douglas, Calhoun, Lamborn and Thomas. The Whig speakers
were Judge Logan, Colonel E. D. Baker, Mr. Browning and Lincoln. This
discussion was the forerunner of the famous joint-debate between
Lincoln and Douglas, which took place some years later and attracted
the attention of the people throughout the United States. Although Mr.
Lincoln was the last speaker in the first discussion held, his speech
attracted more attention than any of the others and added much to his
reputation as a public debater.

Mr. Lincoln’s last campaign for the Legislature was in 1840. In the same
year he was made an elector on the Harrison presidential ticket, and
in his canvass of the State frequently met the Democratic champion,
Douglas, in debate. After 1840 Mr. Lincoln declined re-election to the
Legislature, but he was a presidential elector on the Whig tickets of
1844 and 1852, and on the Republican ticket for the State at large in
1856.




MARRIES A SPRINGFIELD BELLE.

Among the social belles of Springfield was Mary Todd, a handsome and
cultivated girl of the illustrious descent which could be traced back to
the sixth century, to whom Mr. Lincoln was married in 1842. Stephen A.
Douglas was his competitor in love as well as in politics. He courted
Mary Todd until it became evident that she preferred Mr. Lincoln.

Previous to his marriage Mr. Lincoln had two love affairs, one of them
so serious that it left an impression upon his whole future life. One
of the objects of his affection was Miss Mary Owen, of Green county,
Kentucky, who decided that Mr. Lincoln “was deficient in those little
links which make up the chain of woman’s happiness.” The affair ended
without any damage to Mr. Lincoln’s heart or the heart of the lady.




STORY OF ANNE RUTLEDGE.

Lincoln’s first love, however, had a sad termination. The object of his
affections at that time was Anne Rutledge, whose father was one of the
founders of New Salem. Like Miss Owen, Miss Rutledge was also born in
Kentucky, and was gifted with the beauty and graces that distinguish
many Southern women. At the time that Mr. Lincoln and Anne Rutledge were
engaged to be married, he thought himself too poor to properly support
a wife, and they decided to wait until such time as he could better his
financial condition. A short time thereafter Miss Rutledge was attacked
with a fatal illness, and her death was such a blow to her intended
husband that for a long time his friends feared that he would lose his
mind.




HIS DUEL WITH SHIELDS.

Just previous to his marriage with Mary Todd, Mr. Lincoln was challenged
to fight a duel by James Shields, then Auditor of State. The challenge
grew out of some humorous letters concerning Shields, published in a
local paper. The first of these letters was written by Mr. Lincoln.
The others by Mary Todd and her sister. Mr. Lincoln acknowledged the
authorship of the letters without naming the ladies, and agreed to meet
Shields on the field of honor. As he had the choice of weapons he named
broadswords, and actually went to the place selected for the duel.

The duel was never fought. Mutual friends got together and patched up an
understanding between Mr. Lincoln and the hot-headed Irishman.




FORMS NEW PARTNERSHIP.

Before this time Mr. Lincoln had dissolved partnership with Stuart and
entered into a law partnership with Judge Logan. In 1843 both Lincoln
and Logan were candidates for nomination for Congress and the personal
ill-will caused by their rivalry resulted in the dissolution of the
firm and the formation of a new law firm of Lincoln & Herndon, which
continued, nominally at least, until Mr. Lincoln’s death.

The congressional nomination, however, went to Edward D. Baker, who
was elected. Two years later the principal candidates for the Whig
nomination for Congress were Mr. Lincoln and his former law partner,
Judge Logan. Party sentiment was so strongly in favor of Lincoln that
Judge Logan withdrew and Lincoln was nominated unanimously. The campaign
that followed was one of the most memorable and interesting ever held in
Illinois.




DEFEATS PETER CARTWRIGHT FOR CONGRESS.

Mr. Lincoln’s opponent on the Democratic ticket was no less a person
than old Peter Cartwright, the famous Methodist preacher and circuit
rider. Cartwright had preached to almost every congregation in the
district and had a strong following in all the churches. Mr. Lincoln did
not underestimate the strength of his great rival. He abandoned his law
business entirely and gave his whole attention to the canvass. This time
Mr. Lincoln was victorious and was elected by a large majority.

When Lincoln took his seat in Congress, in 1847, he was the only Whig
member from Illinois. His great political rival, Douglas, was in the
Senate. The Mexican War had already broken out, which, in common with
his party, he had opposed. Later in life he was charged with having
opposed the voting of supplies to the American troops in Mexico, but
this was a falsehood which he easily disproved. He was strongly
opposed to the War, but after it was once begun he urged its vigorous
prosecution and voted with the Democrats on all measures concerning the
care and pay of the soldiers. His opposition to the War, however, cost
him a re-election; it cost his party the congressional district, which
was carried by the Democrats in 1848. Lincoln’s former law partner,
Judge Logan, secured the Whig nomination that year and was defeated.




MAKES SPEECHES FOR “OLD ZACH.”

In the national convention at Philadelphia, in 1848, Mr. Lincoln was a
delegate and advocated the nomination of General Taylor.

After the nomination of General Taylor, or “Old Zach,” or “rough and
Ready,” as he was called, Mr. Lincoln made a tour of New York and
several New England States, making speeches for his candidate.

Mr. Lincoln went to New England in this campaign on account of the
great defection in the Whig party. General Taylor’s nomination was
unsatisfactory to the free-soil element, and such leaders as Henry
Wilson, Charles Francis Adams, Charles Allen, Charles Sumner, Stephen
C. Phillips, Richard H. Dana, Jr., and Anson Burlingame, were in open
revolt. Mr. Lincoln’s speeches were confined largely to a defense of
General Taylor, but at the same time he denounced the free-soilers for
helping to elect Cass. Among other things he said that the free-soilers
had but one principle and that they reminded him of the Yankee peddler
going to sell a pair of pantaloons and describing them as “large enough
for any man, and small enough for any boy.”

It is an odd fact in history that the prominent Whigs of Massachusetts
at that time became the opponents of Mr. Lincoln’s election to the
presidency and the policy of his administration, while the free-soilers,
whom he denounced, were among his strongest supporters, advisers and
followers.

At the second session of Congress Mr. Lincoln’s one act of consequence
was the introduction of a bill providing for the gradual emancipation
of the slaves in the District of Columbia. Joshua R. Giddings, the great
antislavery agitator, and one or two lesser lights supported it, but the
bill was laid on the table.

After General Taylor’s election Mr. Lincoln had the distribution of
Federal patronage in his own Congressional district, and this added much
to his political importance, although it was a ceaseless source of worry
to him.




DECLINES A HIGH OFFICE.

Just before the close of his term in Congress Mr. Lincoln was an
applicant for the office of Commissioner of the General Land Office, but
was unsuccessful. He had been such a factor in General Taylor’s election
that the administration thought something was due him, and after
his return to Illinois he was called to Washington and offered the
Governorship of the Territory of Oregon. It is likely he would have
accepted this had not Mrs. Lincoln put her foot down with an emphatic
no.

He declined a partnership with a well-known Chicago lawyer and returning
to his Springfield home resumed the practice of law.

From this time until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which
opened the way for the admission of slavery into the territories, Mr.
Lincoln devoted himself more industriously than ever to the practice of
law, and during those five years he was probably a greater student than
he had ever been before. His partner, W. H. Herndon, has told of the
changes that took place in the courts and in the methods of practice
while Mr. Lincoln was away.




LINCOLN AS A LAWYER.

When he returned to active practice he saw at once that the courts
had grown more learned and dignified and that the bar relied more upon
method and system and a knowledge of the statute law than upon the stump
speech method of early days.

Mr. Herndon tells us that Lincoln would lie in bed and read by candle
light, sometimes until two o’clock in the morning, while his famous
colleagues, Davis, Logan, Swett, Edwards and Herndon, were soundly and
sometimes loudly sleeping. He read and reread the statutes and books of
practice, devoured Shakespeare, who was always a favorite of his, and
studied Euclid so diligently that he could easily demonstrate all the
propositions contained in the six books.

Mr. Lincoln detested office work. He left all that to his partner. He
disliked to draw up legal papers or to write letters. The firm of which
he was a member kept no books. When either Lincoln or Herndon received
a fee they divided the money then and there. If his partner were not in
the office at the time Mr. Lincoln would wrap up half of the fee in a
sheet of paper, on which he would write, “Herndon’s half,” giving the
name of the case, and place it in his partner’s desk.

But in court, arguing a case, pleading to the jury and laying down the
law, Lincoln was in his element. Even when he had a weak case he was a
strong antagonist, and when he had right and justice on his side, as he
nearly always had, no one could beat him.

He liked an outdoor life, hence he was fond of riding the circuit. He
enjoyed the company of other men, liked discussion and argument, loved
to tell stories and to hear them, laughing as heartily at his own
stories as he did at those that were told to him.




TELLING STORIES ON THE CIRCUIT.

The court circuit in those days was the scene of many a story-telling
joust, in which Lincoln was always the chief. Frequently he would sit up
until after midnight reeling off story after story, each one followed
by roars of laughter that could be heard all over the country tavern,
in which the story-telling group was gathered. Every type of character
would be represented in these groups, from the learned judge on the
bench down to the village loafer.

Lincoln’s favorite attitude was to sit with his long legs propped up on
the rail of the stove, or with his feet against the wall, and thus he
would sit for hours entertaining a crowd, or being entertained.

One circuit judge was so fond of Lincoln’s stories that he often would
sit up until midnight listening to them, and then declare that he had
laughed so much he believed his ribs were shaken loose.

The great success of Abraham Lincoln as a trial lawyer was due to a
number of facts. He would not take a case if he believed that the law
and justice were on the other side. When he addressed a jury he made
them feel that he only wanted fair play and justice. He did not talk
over their heads, but got right down to a friendly tone such as we use
in ordinary conversation, and talked at them, appealing to their honesty
and common sense.

And making his argument plain by telling a story or two that brought the
matter clearly within their understanding.

When he did not know the law in a particular case he never pretended to
know it. If there were no precedents to cover a case he would state his
side plainly and fairly; he would tell the jury what he believed was
right for them to do, and then conclude with his favorite expression,
“it seems to me that this ought to be the law.”

Some time before the repeal of the Missouri Compromise a lawyer friend
said to him: “Lincoln, the time is near at hand when we shall have to be
all Abolitionists or all Democrats.”

“When that time comes my mind is made up,” he replied, “for I believe
the slavery question never can be compromised.”




THE LION IS AROUSED TO ACTION.

While Lincoln took a mild interest in politics, he was not a candidate
for office, except as a presidential elector, from the time of leaving
Congress until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This repeal
Legislation was the work of Lincoln’s political antagonist, Stephen A.
Douglas, and aroused Mr. Lincoln to action as the lion is roused by some
foe worthy of his great strength and courage.

Mr. Douglas argued that the true intent and meaning of the act was not
to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it
therefrom, but to leave the people perfectly free to form and regulate
their domestic institutions in their own way.

“Douglas’ argument amounts to this,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that if any one
man chooses to enslave another no third man shall be allowed to object.”

After the adjournment of Congress Mr. Douglas returned to Illinois and
began to defend his action in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
His most important speech was made at Springfield, and Mr. Lincoln was
selected to answer it. That speech alone was sufficient to make Mr.
Lincoln the leader of anti-Slavery sentiment in the West, and some of
the men who heard it declared that it was the greatest speech he ever
made.

With the repeal of the Missouri Compromise the Whig party began to break
up, the majority of its members who were pronounced Abolitionists began
to form the nucleus of the Republican party. Before this party was
formed, however, Mr. Lincoln was induced to follow Douglas around the
State and reply to him, but after one meeting at Peoria, where they both
spoke, they entered into an agreement to return to their homes and make
no more speeches during the campaign.




SEEKS A SEAT IN THE SENATE.

Mr. Lincoln made no secret at this time of his ambition to represent
Illinois in the United States Senate. Against his protest he was
nominated and elected to the Legislature, but resigned his seat. His
old rival, James Shields, with whom he was once near to a duel, was then
senator, and his term was to expire the following year.

A letter, written by Mr. Lincoln to a friend in Paris, Illinois, at this
time is interesting and significant. He wrote:

“I have a suspicion that a Whig has been elected to the Legislature from
Eagar. If this is not so, why, then, ‘nix cum arous;’ but if it is
so, then could you not make a mark with him for me for United States
senator? I really have some chance.”

Another candidate besides Mr. Lincoln was seeking the seat in the
United States Senate, soon to be vacated by Mr. Shields. This was Lyman
Trumbull, an anti-slavery Democrat. When the Legislature met it was
found that Mr. Lincoln lacked five votes of an election, while Mr.
Trumbull had but five supporters. After several ballots Mr. Lincoln
feared that Trumbull’s votes would be given to a Democratic candidate
and he determined to sacrifice himself for the principle at stake.
Accordingly he instructed his friends in the Legislature to vote for
Judge Trumbull, which they did, resulting in Trumbull’s election.

The Abolitionists in the West had become very radical in their views,
and did not hesitate to talk of opposing the extension of slavery by
the use of force if necessary. Mr. Lincoln, on the other hand, was
conservative and counseled moderation. In the meantime many outrages,
growing out of the extension of slavery, were being perpetrated on the
borders of Kansas and Missouri, and they no doubt influenced Mr. Lincoln
to take a more radical stand against the slavery question.

An incident occurred at this time which had great effect in this
direction. The negro son of a colored woman in Springfield had gone
South to work. He was born free, but did not have his free papers with
him. He was arrested and would have been sold into slavery to pay his
prison expenses, had not Mr. Lincoln and some friends purchased his
liberty. Previous to this Mr. Lincoln had tried to secure the boy’s
release through the Governor of Illinois, but the Governor informed him
that nothing could be done.

Then it was that Mr. Lincoln rose to his full height and exclaimed:

“Governor, I’ll make the ground in this country too hot for the foot of
a slave, whether you have the legal power to secure the release of this
boy or not.”




HELPS TO ORGANIZE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

The year after Mr. Trumbull’s election to the Senate the Republican
party was formally organized. A state convention of that party was
called to meet at Bloomington May 29, 1856. The call for this convention
was signed by many Springfield Whigs, and among the names was that of
Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln’s name had been signed to the call by his
law partner, but when he was informed of this action he endorsed it
fully. Among the famous men who took part in this convention were
Abraham Lincoln, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, Leonard Swett, Richard
Yates, Norman, B. Judd and Owen Lovejoy, the Alton editor, whose life,
like Lincoln’s, finally paid the penalty for his Abolition views. The
party nominated for Governor, Wm. H. Bissell, a veteran of the Mexican
War, and adopted a platform ringing with anti-slavery sentiment.

Mr. Lincoln was the greatest power in the campaign that followed. He was
one of the Fremont Presidential electors, and he went to work with all
his might to spread the new party gospel and make votes for the old
“Path-Finder of the Rocky Mountains.”

An amusing incident followed close after the Bloomington convention. A
meeting was called at Springfield to ratify the action at Bloomington.
Only three persons attended--Mr. Lincoln, his law partner and a man
named John Paine. Mr. Lincoln made a speech to his colleagues, in which,
among other things, he said: “While all seems dead, the age itself is
not. It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth.”

In this campaign Mr. Lincoln was in general demand not only in his own
state, but in Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin as well.

The result of that Presidential campaign was the election of Buchanan
as President, Bissell as Governor, leaving Mr. Lincoln the undisputed
leader of the new party. Hence it was that two years later he was the
inevitable man to oppose Judge Douglas in the campaign for United States
Senator.




THE RAIL-SPLITTER vs. THE LITTLE GIANT.

No record of Abraham Lincoln’s career would be complete without the
story of the memorable joint debates between the “Rail-Splitter of
the Sangamon Valley” and the “Little Giant.” The opening lines in Mr.
Lincoln’s speech to the Republican Convention were not only prophetic
of the coming rebellion, but they clearly made the issue between the
Republican and Democratic parties for two Presidential campaigns to
follow. The memorable sentences were as follows:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect
the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing
or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will
push it forward till it becomes alike lawful in all the states, old as
well as new, North as well as South.”

It is universally conceded that this speech contained the most important
utterances of Mr. Lincoln’s life.

Previous to its delivery, the Democratic convention had endorsed Mr.
Douglas for re-election to the Senate, and the Republican convention had
resolved that “Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for
United States Senator, to fill the vacancy about to be created by the
expiration of Mr. Douglas’ term of office.”

Before Judge Douglas had made many speeches in this Senatorial campaign,
Mr. Lincoln challenged him to a joint debate, which was accepted, and
seven memorable meetings between these two great leaders followed.
The places and dates were: Ottawa, August 21st; Freeport, August 27th;
Jonesboro, September 15th; Charleston, September 18th; Galesburg,
October 7th; Quincy, October 13th; and Alton, October 15th.

The debates not only attracted the attention of the people in the state
of Illinois, but aroused an interest throughout the whole country equal
to that of a Presidential election.




WERE LIKE CROWDS AT A CIRCUS.

All the meetings of the joint debate were attended by immense crowds
of people. They came in all sorts of vehicles, on horseback, and many
walked weary miles on foot to hear these two great leaders discuss the
issues of the campaign. There had never been political meetings held
under such unusual conditions as these, and there probably never will
be again. At every place the speakers were met by great crowds of their
friends and escorted to the platforms in the open air where the debates
were held. The processions that escorted the speakers were most unique.
They carried flags and banners and were preceded by bands of music. The
people discharged cannons when they had them, and, when they did not,
blacksmiths’ anvils were made to take their places.

Oftentimes a part of the escort would be mounted, and in most of the
processions were chariots containing young ladies representing the
different states of the Union designated by banners they carried.
Besides the bands, there was usually vocal music. Patriotic songs were
the order of the day, the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hail Columbia”
 being great favorites.

So far as the crowds were concerned, these joint debates took on the
appearance of a circus day, and this comparison was strengthened by the
sale of lemonade, fruit, melons and confectionery on the outskirts of
the gatherings.

At Ottawa, after his speech, Mr. Lincoln was carried around on the
shoulders of his enthusiastic supporters, who did not put him down until
they reached the place where he was to spend the night.

In the joint debates, each of the candidates asked the other a series
of questions. Judge Douglas’ replies to Mr. Lincoln’s shrewd questions
helped Douglas to win the Senatorial election, but they lost him the
support of the South in the campaign for President two years thereafter.
Mr. Lincoln was told when he framed his questions that if Douglas
answered them in the way it was believed he would that the answers would
make him Senator.

“That may be,” said Mr. Lincoln, “but if he takes that shoot he never
can be President.”

The prophecy was correct. Mr. Douglas was elected Senator, but two years
later only carried one state--Missouri--for President.




HIS BUCKEYE CAMPAIGN.

After the close of this canvass, Mr. Lincoln again devoted himself to
the practice of his profession, but he was destined to remain but a
short time in retirement. In the fall of 1859 Mr. Douglas went to Ohio
to stump the state for his friend, Mr. Pugh, the Democratic candidate
for Governor. The Ohio Republicans at once asked Mr. Lincoln to come to
the state and reply to the “Little Giant.” He accepted the invitation
and made two masterly speeches in the campaign. In one of them,
delivered at Cincinnati, he prophesied the outcome of the rebellion if
the Southern people attempted to divide the Union by force.

Addressing himself particularly to the Kentuckians in the audience, he
said:

“I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that
thing takes place, what do you mean to do? I often hear it intimated
that you mean to divide the Union whenever a Republican, or anything
like it, is elected President of the United States. [A Voice--“That is
so.”] ‘That is so,’ one of them says; I wonder if he is a Kentuckian? [A
Voice--“He is a Douglas man.”] Well, then, I want to know what you are
going to do with your half of it?

“Are you going to split the Ohio down through, and push your half off
a piece? Or are you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous
fellows? Or are you going to build up a wall some way between your
country, and ours, by which that movable property of yours can’t come
over here any more, to the danger of your losing it? Do you think
you can better yourselves on that subject by leaving us here under no
obligation whatever to return those specimens of your movable property
that come hither?

“You have divided the Union because we would not do right with you, as
you think, upon that subject; when we cease to be under obligations to
do anything for you, how much better off do you think you will be? Will
you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are
as gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a
good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown
yourselves capable of this upon various occasions; but, man for man, you
are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there
are of us.

“You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in
numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal, it
would likely be a drawn battle; but, being inferior in numbers, you will
make nothing by attempting to master us.

“But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the
Kentuckians than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have said that,
whatever course you take, we intend in the end to beat you.”




FIRST VISIT TO NEW YORK.

Later in the year Mr. Lincoln also spoke in Kansas, where he was
received with great enthusiasm, and in February of the following year
he made his great speech in Cooper Union, New York, to an immense
gathering, presided over by William Cullen Bryant, the poet, who was
then editor of the New York Evening Post. There was great curiosity to
see the Western rail-splitter who had so lately met the famous “Little
Giant” of the West in debate, and Mr. Lincoln’s speech was listened to
by many of the ablest men in the East.

This speech won for him many supporters in the Presidential campaign
that followed, for his hearers at once recognized his wonderful ability
to deal with the questions then uppermost in the public mind.




FIRST NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT.

The Republican National Convention of 1860 met in Chicago, May 16, in
an immense building called the “Wigwam.” The leading candidates for
President were William H. Seward of New York and Abraham Lincoln of
Illinois. Among others spoken of were Salmon P. Chase of Ohio and Simon
Cameron of Pennsylvania.

On the first ballot for President, Mr. Seward received one hundred
and seventy-three and one-half votes; Mr. Lincoln, one hundred and two
votes, the others scattering. On the first ballot, Vermont had divided
her vote, but on the second the chairman of the Vermont delegation
announced: “Vermont casts her ten votes for the young giant of the
West--Abraham Lincoln.”

This was the turning point in the convention toward Mr. Lincoln’s
nomination. The second ballot resulted: Seward, one hundred and
eighty-four and one-half; Lincoln, one hundred and eighty-one. On the
third ballot, Mr. Lincoln received two hundred and thirty votes. One and
one-half votes more would nominate him. Before the ballot was announced,
Ohio made a change of four votes in favor of Mr. Lincoln, making him the
nominee for President.

Other states tried to follow Ohio’s example, but it was a long time
before any of the delegates could make themselves heard. Cannons planted
on top of the wigwam were roaring and booming; the large crowd in the
wigwam and the immense throng outside were cheering at the top of their
lungs, while bands were playing victorious airs.

When order had been restored, it was announced that on the third ballot
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois had received three hundred and fifty-four
votes and was nominated by the Republican party to the office of
President of the United States.

Mr. Lincoln heard the news of his nomination while sitting in a
newspaper office in Springfield, and hurried home to tell his wife.

As Mr. Lincoln had predicted, Judge Douglas’ position on slavery in the
territories lost him the support of the South, and when the Democratic
convention met at Charleston, the slave-holding states forced the
nomination of John C. Breckinridge. A considerable number of people who
did not agree with either party nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

In the election which followed, Mr. Lincoln carried all of the free
states, except New Jersey, which was divided between himself and
Douglas; Breckinridge carried all the slave states, except Kentucky,
Tennessee and Virginia, which went for Bell, and Missouri gave its vote
to Douglas.




FORMATION OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

The election was scarcely over before it was evident that the Southern
States did not intend to abide by the result, and that a conspiracy was
on foot to divide the Union. Before the Presidential election even, the
Secretary of War in President Buchanan’s Cabinet had removed one hundred
and fifty thousand muskets from Government armories in the North and
sent them to Government armories in the South.

Before Mr. Lincoln had prepared his inaugural address, South Carolina,
which took the lead in the secession movement, had declared through her
Legislature her separation from the Union. Before Mr. Lincoln took his
seat, other Southern States had followed the example of South Carolina,
and a convention had been held at Montgomery, Alabama, which had elected
Jefferson Davis President of the new Confederacy, and Alexander H.
Stevens, of Georgia, Vice-President.

Southern men in the Cabinet, Senate and House had resigned their seats
and gone home, and Southern States were demanding that Southern forts
and Government property in their section should be turned over to them.

Between his election and inauguration, Mr. Lincoln remained silent,
reserving his opinions and a declaration of his policy for his inaugural
address.

Before Mr. Lincoln’s departure from Springfield for Washington, threats
had been freely made that he would never reach the capital alive, and,
in fact, a conspiracy was then on foot to take his life in the city of
Baltimore.

Mr. Lincoln left Springfield on February 11th, in company with his wife
and three sons, his brother-in-law, Dr. W. S. Wallace; David Davis,
Norman B. Judd, Elmer E. Elsworth, Ward H. Lamon, Colonel E. V. Sunder
of the United States Army, and the President’s two secretaries.




GOOD-BYE TO THE OLD FOLK.

Early in February, before leaving for Washington, Mr. Lincoln slipped
away from Springfield and paid a visit to his aged step-mother in Coles
county. He also paid a visit to the unmarked grave of his father and
ordered a suitable stone to mark the spot.

Before leaving Springfield, he made an address to his fellow-townsmen,
in which he displayed sincere sorrow at parting from them.

“Friends,” he said, “no one who has never been placed in a like position
can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I
feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived
among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness
at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old
man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed. Here all my
children were born, and here one of them lies buried.

“To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the
strange, checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To-day I leave
you. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon
Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid
me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that
directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not
fail--I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may
not forsake us now.

“To Him I commend you all. Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity
and faith you will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these
words I must leave you, for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I
must now bid you an affectionate farewell.”

The journey from Springfield to Philadelphia was a continuous ovation
for Mr. Lincoln. Crowds assembled to meet him at the various places
along the way, and he made them short speeches, full of humor and good
feeling. At Harrisburg, Pa., the party was met by Allan Pinkerton, who
knew of the plot in Baltimore to take the life of Mr. Lincoln.




THE “SECRET PASSAGE” TO WASHINGTON.

Throughout his entire life, Abraham Lincoln’s physical courage was as
great and superb as his moral courage. When Mr. Pinkerton and Mr.
Judd urged the President-elect to leave for Washington that night, he
positively refused to do it. He said he had made an engagement to assist
at a flag raising in the forenoon of the next day and to show himself to
the people of Harrisburg in the afternoon, and that he intended to keep
both engagements.

At Philadelphia the Presidential party was met by Mr. Seward’s son,
Frederick, who had been sent to warn Mr. Lincoln of the plot against his
life. Mr. Judd, Mr. Pinkerton and Mr. Lamon figured out a plan to take
Mr. Lincoln through Baltimore between midnight and daybreak, when the
would-be assassins would not be expecting him, and this plan was carried
out so thoroughly that even the conductor on the train did not know the
President-elect was on board.

Mr. Lincoln was put into his berth and the curtains drawn. He was
supposed to be a sick man. When the conductor came around, Mr. Pinkerton
handed him the “sick man’s” ticket and he passed on without question.

When the train reached Baltimore, at half-past three o’clock in the
morning, it was met by one of Mr. Pinkerton’s detectives, who reported
that everything was “all right,” and in a short time the party was
speeding on to the national capital, where rooms had been engaged for
Mr. Lincoln and his guard at Willard’s Hotel.

Mr. Lincoln always regretted this “secret passage” to Washington, for
it was repugnant to a man of his high courage. He had agreed to the plan
simply because all of his friends urged it as the best thing to do.

Now that all the facts are known, it is assured that his friends were
right, and that there never was a moment from the day he crossed the
Maryland line until his assassination that his life was not in danger,
and was only saved as long as it was by the constant vigilance of those
who were guarding him.




HIS ELOQUENT INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

The wonderful eloquence of Abraham Lincoln--clear, sincere,
natural--found grand expression in his first inaugural address, in which
he not only outlined his policy toward the States in rebellion, but made
that beautiful and eloquent plea for conciliation. The closing sentences
of Mr. Lincoln’s first inaugural address deservedly take rank with his
Gettysburg speech:

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen,” he said, “and not
in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not
assail you.

“You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I
shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ it.

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection.

“The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”




FOLLOWS PRECEDENT OF WASHINGTON.

In selecting his Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln, consciously or unconsciously,
followed a precedent established by Washington, of selecting men of
almost opposite opinions. His Cabinet was composed of William H. Seward
of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Secretary of
the Treasury; Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon E.
Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith of
Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair of Maryland,
Postmaster-General; Edward Bates of Missouri, Attorney-General.

Mr. Chase, although an anti-slavery leader, was a States-Rights Federal
Republican, while Mr. Seward was a Whig, without having connected
himself with the anti-slavery movement.

Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward, the leading men of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet, were
as widely apart and antagonistic in their views as were Jefferson, the
Democrat, and Hamilton, the Federalist, the two leaders in Washington’s
Cabinet. But in bringing together these two strong men as his chief
advisers, both of whom had been rival candidates for the Presidency, Mr.
Lincoln gave another example of his own greatness and self-reliance, and
put them both in a position to render greater service to the Government
than they could have done, probably, as President.

Mr. Lincoln had been in office little more than five weeks when the War
of the Rebellion began by the firing on Fort Sumter.




GREATER DIPLOMAT THAN SEWARD.

The War of the Rebellion revealed to the people--in fact, to the whole
world--the many sides of Abraham Lincoln’s character. It showed him as
a real ruler of men--not a ruler by the mere power of might, but by
the power of a great brain. In his Cabinet were the ablest men in the
country, yet they all knew that Lincoln was abler than any of them.

Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, was a man famed in statesmanship
and diplomacy. During the early stages of the Civil War, when France
and England were seeking an excuse to interfere and help the Southern
Confederacy, Mr. Seward wrote a letter to our minister in London,
Charles Francis Adams, instructing him concerning the attitude of
the Federal government on the question of interference, which would
undoubtedly have brought about a war with England if Abraham Lincoln had
not corrected and amended the letter. He did this, too, without yielding
a point or sacrificing in any way his own dignity or that of the
country.




LINCOLN A GREAT GENERAL.

Throughout the four years of war, Mr. Lincoln spent a great deal of time
in the War Department, receiving news from the front and conferring with
Secretary of War Stanton concerning military affairs.

Mr. Lincoln’s War Secretary, Edwin M. Stanton, who had succeeded
Simon Cameron, was a man of wonderful personality and iron will. It is
generally conceded that no other man could have managed the great War
Secretary so well as Lincoln. Stanton had his way in most matters,
but when there was an important difference of opinion he always found
Lincoln was the master.

Although Mr. Lincoln’s communications to the generals in the field
were oftener in the nature of suggestions than positive orders, every
military leader recognized Mr. Lincoln’s ability in military operations.
In the early stages of the war, Mr. Lincoln followed closely every plan
and movement of McClellan, and the correspondence between them proves
Mr. Lincoln to have been far the abler general of the two. He kept close
watch of Burnside, too, and when he gave the command of the Army of the
Potomac to “Fighting Joe” Hooker he also gave that general some fatherly
counsel and advice which was of great benefit to him as a commander.




ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE IN GRANT.

It was not until General Grant had been made Commander-in-Chief that
President Lincoln felt he had at last found a general who did not
need much advice. He was the first to recognize that Grant was a great
military leader, and when he once felt sure of this fact nothing could
shake his confidence in that general. Delegation after delegation called
at the White House and asked for Grant’s removal from the head of the
army. They accused him of being a butcher, a drunkard, a man without
sense or feeling.

President Lincoln listened to all of these attacks, but he always had
an apt answer to silence Grant’s enemies. Grant was doing what Lincoln
wanted done from the first--he was fighting and winning victories, and
victories are the only things that count in war.




REASONS FOR FREEING THE SLAVES.

The crowning act of Lincoln’s career as President was the emancipation
of the slaves. All of his life he had believed in gradual emancipation,
but all of his plans contemplated payment to the slaveholders. While he
had always been opposed to slavery, he did not take any steps to use it
as a war measure until about the middle of 1862. His chief object was to
preserve the Union.

He wrote to Horace Greeley that if he could save the Union without
freeing any of the slaves he would do it; that if he could save it by
freeing some and leaving the others in slavery he would do that; that if
it became necessary to free all the slaves in order to save the Union he
would take that course.

The anti-slavery men were continually urging Mr. Lincoln to set the
slaves free, but he paid no attention to their petitions and demands
until he felt that emancipation would help him to preserve the Union of
the States.

The outlook for the Union cause grew darker and darker in 1862, and Mr.
Lincoln began to think, as he expressed it, that he must “change
his tactics or lose the game.” Accordingly he decided to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation as soon as the Union army won a substantial
victory. The battle of Antietam, on September 17, gave him the
opportunity he sought. He told Secretary Chase that he had made a
solemn vow before God that if General Lee should be driven back from
Pennsylvania he would crown the result by a declaration of freedom to
the slaves.

On the twenty-second of that month he issued a proclamation stating
that at the end of one hundred days he would issue another proclamation
declaring all slaves within any State or Territory to be forever free,
which was done in the form of the famous Emancipation Proclamation.




HARD TO REFUSE PARDONS.

In the conduct of the war and in his purpose to maintain the Union,
Abraham Lincoln exhibited a will of iron and determination that could
not be shaken, but in his daily contact with the mothers, wives and
daughters begging for the life of some soldier who had been condemned to
death for desertion or sleeping on duty he was as gentle and weak as a
woman.

It was a difficult matter for him to refuse a pardon if the slightest
excuse could be found for granting it.

Secretary Stanton and the commanding generals were loud in declaring
that Mr. Lincoln would destroy the discipline of the army by his
wholesale pardoning of condemned soldiers, but when we come to examine
the individual cases we find that Lincoln was nearly always right, and
when he erred it was always on the side of humanity.

During the four years of the long struggle for the preservation of
the Union, Mr. Lincoln kept “open shop,” as he expressed it, where
the general public could always see him and make known their wants and
complaints. Even the private soldier was not denied admittance to the
President’s private office, and no request or complaint was too small or
trivial to enlist his sympathy and interest.




A FUN-LOVING AND HUMOR-LOVING MAN.

It was once said of Shakespeare that the great mind that conceived the
tragedies of “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” etc., would have lost its reason if it
had not found vent in the sparkling humor of such comedies as “The Merry
Wives of Windsor” and “The Comedy of Errors.”

The great strain on the mind of Abraham Lincoln produced by four years
of civil war might likewise have overcome his reason had it not found
vent in the yarns and stories he constantly told. No more fun-loving or
humor-loving man than Abraham Lincoln ever lived. He enjoyed a joke
even when it was on himself, and probably, while he got his greatest
enjoyment from telling stories, he had a keen appreciation of the humor
in those that were told him.

His favorite humorous writer was David R. Locke, better known as
“Petroleum V. Nasby,” whose political satires were quite famous in their
day. Nearly every prominent man who has written his recollections of
Lincoln has told how the President, in the middle of a conversation on
some serious subject, would suddenly stop and ask his hearer if he ever
read the Nasby letters.

Then he would take from his desk a pamphlet containing the letters and
proceed to read them, laughing heartily at all the good points they
contained. There is probably no better evidence of Mr. Lincoln’s love of
humor and appreciation of it than his letter to Nasby, in which he said:
“For the ability to write these things I would gladly trade places with
you.”

Mr. Lincoln was re-elected President in 1864. His opponent on the
Democratic ticket was General George B. McClellan, whose command of the
Army of the Potomac had been so unsatisfactory at the beginning of the
war. Mr. Lincoln’s election was almost unanimous, as McClellan carried
but three States--Delaware, Kentucky and New Jersey.

General Grant, in a telegram of congratulation, said that it was “a
victory worth more to the country than a battle won.”

The war was fast drawing to a close. The black war clouds were breaking
and rolling away. Sherman had made his famous march to the sea.
Through swamp and ravine, Grant was rapidly tightening the lines
around Richmond. Thomas had won his title of the “Rock of Chickamauga.”
 Sheridan had won his spurs as the great modern cavalry commander, and
had cleaned out the Shenandoah Valley. Sherman was coming back from his
famous march to join Grant at Richmond.

The Confederacy was without a navy. The Kearsarge had sunk the Alabama,
and Farragut had fought and won the famous victory in Mobile Bay. It was
certain that Lee would soon have to evacuate Richmond only to fall into
the hands of Grant.

Lincoln saw the dawn of peace. When he came to deliver his second
inaugural address, it contained no note of victory, no exultation over
a fallen foe. On the contrary, it breathed the spirit of brotherly love
and of prayer for an early peace: “With malice toward none, with charity
for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to
care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Not long thereafter, General Lee evacuated Richmond with about half of
his original army, closely pursued by Grant. The boys in blue overtook
their brothers in gray at Appomattox Court House, and there, beneath the
warm rays of an April sun, the great Confederate general made his final
surrender. The war was over, the American flag was floated over all the
territory of the United States, and peace was now a reality. Mr. Lincoln
visited Richmond and the final scenes of the war and then returned to
Washington to carry out his announced plan of “binding up the nation’s
wounds.”

He had now reached the climax of his career and touched the highest
point of his greatness. His great task was over, and the heavy burden
that had so long worn upon his heart was lifted.

While the whole nation was rejoicing over the return of peace, the
Saviour of the Union was stricken down by the hand of an assassin.




WARNINGS OF HIS TRAGIC DEATH.

From early youth, Mr. Lincoln had presentiments that he would die a
violent death, or, rather, that his final days would be marked by
some great tragic event. From the time of his first election to the
Presidency, his closest friends had tried to make him understand that
he was in constant danger of assassination, but, notwithstanding his
presentiments, he had such splendid courage that he only laughed at
their fears.

During the summer months he lived at the Soldiers’ Home, some miles from
Washington, and frequently made the trip between the White House and the
Home without a guard or escort. Secretary of War Stanton and Ward
Lamon, Marshal of the District, were almost constantly alarmed over
Mr. Lincoln’s carelessness in exposing himself to the danger of
assassination.

They warned him time and again, and provided suitable body-guards to
attend him. But Mr. Lincoln would often give the guards the slip, and,
mounting his favorite riding horse, “Old Abe,” would set out alone after
dark from the White House for the Soldiers’ Home.

While riding to the Home one night, he was fired upon by some one in
ambush, the bullet passing through his high hat. Mr. Lincoln would not
admit that the man who fired the shot had tried to kill him. He always
attributed it to an accident, and begged his friends to say nothing
about it.

Now that all the circumstances of the assassination are known, it is
plain that there was a deep-laid and well-conceived plot to kill Mr.
Lincoln long before the crime was actually committed. When Mr. Lincoln
was delivering his second inaugural address on the steps of the Capitol,
an excited individual tried to force his way through the guards in the
building to get on the platform with Mr. Lincoln.

It was afterward learned that this man was John Wilkes Booth, who
afterwards assassinated Mr. Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre, on the night of
the 14th of April.




LINCOLN AT THE THEATRE.

The manager of the theatre had invited the President to witness a
performance of a new play known as “Our American Cousin,” in which the
famous actress, Laura Keane, was playing. Mr. Lincoln was particularly
fond of the theatre. He loved Shakespeare’s plays above all others and
never missed a chance to see the leading Shakespearean actors.

As “Our American Cousin” was a new play, the President did not care
particularly to see it, but as Mrs. Lincoln was anxious to go, he
consented and accepted the invitation.

General Grant was in Washington at the time, and as he was extremely
anxious about the personal safety of the President, he reported every
day regularly at the White House. Mr. Lincoln invited General Grant and
his wife to accompany him and Mrs. Lincoln to the theatre on the night
of the assassination, and the general accepted, but while they were
talking he received a note from Mrs. Grant saying that she wished to
leave Washington that evening to visit her daughter in Burlington.
General Grant made his excuses to the President and left to accompany
Mrs. Grant to the railway station. It afterwards became known that it
was also a part of the plot to assassinate General Grant, and only Mrs.
Grant’s departure from Washington that evening prevented the attempt
from being made.

General Grant afterwards said that as he and Mrs. Grant were riding
along Pennsylvania avenue to the railway station a horseman rode rapidly
by at a gallop, and, wheeling his horse, rode back, peering into their
carriage as he passed.

Mrs. Grant remarked to the general: “That is the very man who sat near
us at luncheon to-day and tried to overhear our conversation. He was so
rude, you remember, as to cause us to leave the dining-room. Here he is
again, riding after us.”

General Grant attributed the action of the man to idle curiosity, but
learned afterward that the horseman was John Wilkes Booth.




LAMON’S REMARKABLE REQUEST.

Probably one reason why Mr. Lincoln did not particularly care to go to
the theatre that night was a sort of half promise he had made to his
friend and bodyguard, Marshal Lamon. Two days previous he had sent
Lamon to Richmond on business connected with a call of a convention for
reconstruction. Before leaving, Mr. Lamon saw Mr. Usher, the Secretary
of the Interior, and asked him to persuade Mr. Lincoln to use more
caution about his personal safety, and to go out as little as possible
while Lamon was absent. Together they went to see Mr. Lincoln, and Lamon
asked the President if he would make him a promise.

“I think I can venture to say I will,” said Mr. Lincoln. “What is it?”

“Promise me that you will not go out after night while I am gone,” said
Mr. Lamon, “particularly to the theatre.”

Mr. Lincoln turned to Mr. Usher and said: “Usher, this boy is a
monomaniac on the subject of my safety. I can hear him or hear of
his being around at all times in the night, to prevent somebody from
murdering me. He thinks I shall be killed, and we think he is going
crazy. What does any one want to assassinate me for? If any one wants to
do so, he can do it any day or night if he is ready to give his life for
mine. It is nonsense.”

Mr. Usher said to Mr. Lincoln that it was well to heed Lamon’s warning,
as he was thrown among people from whom he had better opportunities to
know about such matters than almost any one.

“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln to Lamon, “I promise to do the best I can
toward it.”




HOW LINCOLN WAS MURDERED.

The assassination of President Lincoln was most carefully planned, even
to the smallest detail. The box set apart for the President’s party was
a double one in the second tier at the left of the stage. The box had
two doors with spring locks, but Booth had loosened the screws with
which they were fastened so that it was impossible to secure them from
the inside. In one door he had bored a hole with a gimlet, so that he
could see what was going on inside the box.

An employee of the theatre by the name of Spangler, who was an
accomplice of the assassin, had even arranged the seats in the box to
suit the purposes of Booth.

On the fateful night the theatre was packed. The Presidential party
arrived a few minutes after nine o’clock, and consisted of the President
and Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris and Major Rathbone, daughter and stepson
of Senator Harris of New York. The immense audience rose to its feet and
cheered the President as he passed to his box.

Booth came into the theatre about ten o’clock. He had not only, planned
to kill the President, but he had also planned to escape into Maryland,
and a swift horse, saddled and ready for the journey, was tied in the
rear of the theatre. For a few minutes he pretended to be interested in
the performance, and then gradually made his way back to the door of the
President’s box.

Before reaching there, however, he was confronted by one of the
President’s messengers, who had been stationed at the end of the passage
leading to the boxes to prevent any one from intruding. To this man
Booth handed a card saying that the President had sent for him, and was
permitted to enter.

Once inside the hallway leading to the boxes, he closed the hall door
and fastened it by a bar prepared for the occasion, so that it was
impossible to open it from without. Then he quickly entered the box
through the right-hand door. The President was sitting in an easy
armchair in the left-hand corner of the box nearest the audience. He
was leaning on one hand and with the other had hold of a portion of the
drapery. There was a smile on his face. The other members of the party
were intently watching the performance on the stage.

The assassin carried in his right hand a small silver-mounted derringer
pistol and in his left a long double-edged dagger. He placed the pistol
just behind the President’s left ear and fired.

Mr. Lincoln bent slightly forward and his eyes closed, but in every
other respect his attitude remained unchanged.

The report of the pistol startled Major Rathbone, who sprang to his
feet. The murderer was then about six feet from the President, and
Rathbone grappled with him, but was shaken off. Dropping his pistol,
Booth struck at Rathbone with the dagger and inflicted a severe wound.
The assassin then placed his left hand lightly on the railing of the box
and jumped to the stage, eight or nine feet below.




BOOTH BRANDISHES HIS DAGGER AND ESCAPES.

The box was draped with the American flag, and, in jumping, Booth’s
spurs caught in the folds, tearing down the flag, the assassin falling
heavily to the stage and spraining his ankle. He arose, however, and
walked theatrically across the stage, brandished his knife and shouted,
“Sic semper tyrannis!” and then added, “The South is avenged.”

For the moment the audience was horrified and incapable of action. One
man only, a lawyer named Stuart, had sufficient presence of mind to leap
upon the stage and attempt to capture the assassin. Booth went to the
rear door of the stage, where his horse was held in readiness for
him, and, leaping into the saddle, dashed through the streets toward
Virginia. Miss Keane rushed to the President’s box with water and
stimulants, and medical aid was summoned.

By this time the audience realized the tragedy that had been enacted,
and then followed a scene such as has never been witnessed in any public
gathering in this country. Women wept, shrieked and fainted; men raved
and swore, and horror was depicted on every face. Before the audience
could be gotten out of the theatre, horsemen were dashing through the
streets and the telegraph was carrying the terrible details of the
tragedy throughout the nation.




WALT WHITMAN’S DESCRIPTION.

Walt Whitman, the poet, has sketched in graphic language the scenes of
that most eventful fourteenth of April. His account of the assassination
has become historic, and is herewith given:

“The day (April 14, 1865) seems to have been a pleasant one throughout
the whole land--the moral atmosphere pleasant, too--the long storm, so
dark, so fratricidal, full of blood and doubt and gloom, over and ended
at last by the sunrise of such an absolute national victory, and utter
breaking down of secessionism--we almost doubted our senses! Lee had
capitulated, beneath the apple tree at Appomattox. The other armies, the
flanges of the revolt, swiftly followed.

“And could it really be, then? Out of all the affairs of this world of
woe and passion, of failure and disorder and dismay, was there really
come the confirmed, unerring sign of peace, like a shaft of pure
light--of rightful rule--of God?

“But I must not dwell on accessories. The deed hastens. The popular
afternoon paper, the little Evening Star, had scattered all over its
third page, divided among the advertisements in a sensational manner in
a hundred different places:

“‘The President and his lady will be at the theatre this evening.’

“Lincoln was fond of the theatre. I have myself seen him there several
times. I remember thinking how funny it was that he, the leading actor
in the greatest and stormiest drama known to real history’s stage,
through centuries, should sit there and be so completely interested in
those human jackstraws, moving about with their silly little gestures,
foreign spirit, and flatulent text.

“So the day, as I say, was propitious. Early herbage, early flowers,
were out. I remember where I was stopping at the time, the season being
advanced, there were many lilacs in full bloom.

“By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without
being a part of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy
of this day by the sight and odor of these blossoms. It never fails.

“On this occasion the theatre was crowded, many ladies in rich and gay
costumes, officers in their uniforms, many well-known citizens, young
folks, the usual cluster of gas lights, the usual magnetism of so many
people, cheerful with perfumes, music of violins and flutes--and over
all, that saturating, that vast, vague wonder, Victory, the nation’s
victory, the triumph of the Union, filling the air, the thought, the
sense, with exhilaration more than all the perfumes.

“The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witnessed the play
from the large stage boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one,
and profusely draped with the national flag. The acts and scenes of the
piece--one of those singularly witless compositions which have at the
least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental
action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it makes not
the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, esthetic or
spiritual nature--a piece in which among other characters, so called, a
Yankee--certainly such a one as was never seen, or at least like it
ever seen in North America, is introduced in England, with a varied
fol-de-rol of talk, plot, scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to
make up a modern popular drama--had progressed perhaps through a couple
of its acts, when, in the midst of this comedy, or tragedy, or non-such,
or whatever it is to be called, and to offset it, or finish it out, as
if in Nature’s and the Great Muse’s mockery of these poor mimics, comes
interpolated that scene, not really or exactly to be described at all
(for on the many hundreds who were there it seems to this hour to have
left little but a passing blur, a dream, a blotch)--and yet partially
described as I now proceed to give it:

“There is a scene in the play, representing the modern parlor, in
which two unprecedented ladies are informed by the unprecedented
and impossible Yankee that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore
undesirable for marriage-catching purposes; after which, the comments
being finished, the dramatic trio make exit, leaving the stage clear for
a moment.

“There was a pause, a hush, as it were. At this period came the death of
Abraham Lincoln.

“Great as that was, with all its manifold train circling around it, and
stretching into the future for many a century, in the politics, history,
art, etc., of the New World, in point of fact, the main thing, the
actual murder, transpired with the quiet and simplicity of any commonest
occurrence--the bursting of a bud or pod in the growth of vegetation,
for instance.

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change
of positions, etc., came the muffled sound of a pistol shot, which not
one-hundredth part of the audience heard at the time--and yet a moment’s
hush--somehow, surely a vague, startled thrill--and then, through the
ornamented, draperied, starred and striped space-way of the President’s
box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet,
stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the stage, falls out of
position, catching his boot heel in the copious drapery (the American
flag), falls on one knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing
had happened (he really sprains his ankle, unfelt then)--and the figure,
Booth, the murderer, dressed in plain black broadcloth, bareheaded, with
a full head of glossy, raven hair, and his eyes, like some mad animal’s,
flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness
holds aloft in one hand a large knife--walks along not much back of the
footlights--turns fully towards the audience, his face of statuesque
beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps
insanity--launches out in a firm and steady voice the words, ‘Sic
semper tyrannis’--and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace
diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears.

“(Had not all this terrible scene--making the mimic ones
preposterous--had it not all been rehearsed, in blank, by Booth,
beforehand?)

“A moment’s hush, incredulous--a scream--a cry of murder--Mrs. Lincoln
leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry,
pointing to the retreating figure, ‘He has killed the President!’

“And still a moment’s strange, incredulous suspense--and then the
deluge!--then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty--the sound,
somewhere back, of a horse’s hoofs clattering with speed--the people
burst through chairs and railings, and break them up--that noise adds
to the queerness of the scene--there is inextricable confusion and
terror--women faint--quite feeble persons fall, and are trampled
on--many cries of agony are heard--the broad stage suddenly fills
to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some horrible
carnival--the audience rush generally upon it--at least the strong
men do--the actors and actresses are there in their play costumes
and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the
rouge--some trembling, some in tears--the screams and calls, confused
talk--redoubled, trebled--two or three manage to pass up water from the
stage to the President’s box, others try to clamber up, etc., etc.

“In the midst of all this the soldiers of the President’s Guard,
with others, suddenly drawn to the scene, burst in--some two hundred
altogether--they storm the house, through all the tiers, especially the
upper ones--inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience with
fixed bayonets, muskets and pistols, shouting, ‘Clear out! clear out!’

“Such a wild scene, or a suggestion of it, rather, inside the playhouse
that night!

“Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, crowds of people
filled with frenzy, ready to seize any outlet for it, came near
committing murder several times on innocent individuals.

“One such case was particularly exciting. The infuriated crowd, through
some chance, got started against one man, either for words he uttered,
or perhaps without any cause at all, and were proceeding to hang him
at once to a neighboring lamp-post, when he was rescued by a few heroic
policemen, who placed him in their midst and fought their way slowly and
amid great peril toward the station-house.

“It was a fitting episode of the whole affair. The crowd rushing
and eddying to and fro, the night, the yells, the pale faces, many
frightened people trying in vain to extricate themselves, the attacked
man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse; the
silent, resolute half-dozen policemen, with no weapons but their little
clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying swarms, made,
indeed, a fitting side scene to the grand tragedy of the murder. They
gained the station-house with the protected man, whom they placed in
security for the night, and discharged in the morning.

“And in the midst of that night pandemonium of senseless hate,
infuriated soldiers, the audience and the crowd--the stage, and all
its actors and actresses, its paint pots, spangles, gas-light--the
life-blood from those veins, the best and sweetest of the land, drips
slowly down, and death’s ooze already begins its little bubbles on the
lips.

“Such, hurriedly sketched, were the accompaniments of the death of
President Lincoln. So suddenly, and in murder and horror unsurpassed, he
was taken from us. But his death was painless.”

The assassin’s bullet did not produce instant death, but the President
never again became conscious. He was carried to a house opposite the
theatre, where he died the next morning. In the meantime the authorities
had become aware of the wide-reaching conspiracy, and the capital was in
a state of terror.

On the night of the President’s assassination, Mr. Seward, Secretary
of State, was attacked while in bed with a broken arm, by Booth’s
fellow-conspirators, and badly wounded.

The conspirators had also planned to take the lives of Vice-President
Johnson and Secretary Stanton. Booth had called on Vice-President
Johnson the day before, and, not finding him in, left a card.

Secretary Stanton acted with his usual promptness and courage. During
the period of excitement he acted as President, and directed the plans
for the capture of Booth.

Among other things, he issued the following reward:

REWARD OFFERED BY SECRETARY STANTON. War Department, Washington, April
20, 1865. Major-General John A. Dix, New York:

The murderer of our late beloved President, Abraham Lincoln, is still at
large. Fifty thousand dollars reward will be paid by this Department
for his apprehension, in addition to any reward offered by municipal
authorities or State Executives.

Twenty-five thousand dollars reward will be paid for the apprehension
of G. W. Atzerodt, sometimes called “Port Tobacco,” one of Booth’s
accomplices. Twenty-five thousand dollars reward will be paid for the
apprehension of David C. Herold, another of Booth’s accomplices.

A liberal reward will be paid for any information that shall conduce to
the arrest of either the above-named criminals or their accomplices.

All persons harboring or secreting the said persons, or either of them,
or aiding or assisting their concealment or escape, will be treated
as accomplices in the murder of the President and the attempted
assassination of the Secretary of State, and shall be subject to trial
before a military commission, and the punishment of death.

Let the stain of innocent blood be removed from the land by the arrest
and punishment of the murderers.

All good citizens are exhorted to aid public justice on this occasion.
Every man should consider his own conscience charged with this solemn
duty, and rest neither night nor day until it be accomplished.

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.




BOOTH FOUND IN A BARN.

Booth, accompanied by David C. Herold, a fellow-conspirator, finally
made his way into Maryland, where eleven days after the assassination
the two were discovered in a barn on Garrett’s farm near Port Royal on
the Rappahannock. The barn was surrounded by a squad of cavalrymen, who
called upon the assassins to surrender. Herold gave himself up and was
roundly cursed and abused by Booth, who declared that he would never be
taken alive.

The cavalrymen then set fire to the barn and as the flames leaped up the
figure of the assassin could be plainly seen, although the wall of fire
prevented him from seeing the soldiers. Colonel Conger saw him standing
upright upon a crutch with a carbine in his hands.

When the fire first blazed up Booth crept on his hands and knees to the
spot, evidently for the purpose of shooting the man who had applied the
torch, but the blaze prevented him from seeing anyone. Then it seemed
as if he were preparing to extinguish the flames, but seeing the
impossibility of this he started toward the door with his carbine held
ready for action.

His eyes shone with the light of fever, but he was pale as death and
his general appearance was haggard and unkempt. He had shaved off his
mustache and his hair was closely cropped. Both he and Herold wore the
uniforms of Confederate soldiers.




BOOTH SHOT BY “BOSTON” CORBETT.

The last orders given to the squad pursuing Booth were: “Don’t shoot
Booth, but take him alive.” Just as Booth started to the door of the
barn this order was disobeyed by a sergeant named Boston Corbett, who
fired through a crevice and shot Booth in the neck. The wounded man was
carried out of the barn and died four hours afterward on the grass where
they had laid him. Before he died he whispered to Lieutenant Baker,
“Tell mother I died for my country; I thought I did for the best.” What
became of Booth’s body has always been and probably always will be a
mystery. Many different stories have been told concerning his final
resting place, but all that is known positively is that the body was
first taken to Washington and a post-mortem examination of it held on
the Monitor Montauk. On the night of April 27th it was turned over to
two men who took it in a rowboat and disposed of it secretly. How they
disposed of it none but themselves know and they have never told.




FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS.

The conspiracy to assassinate the President involved altogether
twenty-five people. Among the number captured and tried were David
C. Herold, G. W. Atzerodt, Louis Payne, Edward Spangler, Michael
O’Loughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mrs. Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, a
physician, who set Booth’s leg, which was sprained by his fall from
the stage box. Of these Herold, Atzerodt, Payne and Mrs. Surratt were
hanged. Dr. Mudd was deported to the Dry Tortugas. While there an
epidemic of yellow fever broke out and he rendered such good service
that he was granted a pardon and died a number of years ago in Maryland.

John Surratt, the son of the woman who was hanged, made his escape to
Italy, where he became one of the Papal guards in the Vatican at Rome.
His presence there was discovered by Archbishop Hughes, and, although
there were no extradition laws to cover his case, the Italian Government
gave him up to the United States authorities.

He had two trials. At the first the jury disagreed; the long delay
before his second trial allowed him to escape by pleading the statute
of limitation. Spangler and O’Loughlin were sent to the Dry Tortugas and
served their time.

Ford, the owner of the theatre in which the President was assassinated,
was a Southern sympathizer, and when he attempted to re-open his theatre
after the great national tragedy, Secretary Stanton refused to allow
it. The Government afterward bought the theatre and turned it into a
National museum.

President Lincoln was buried at Springfield, and on the day of his
funeral there was universal grief.




HENRY WARD BEECHER’S EULOGY.

No final words of that great life can be more fitly spoken than the
eulogy pronounced by Henry Ward Beecher:

“And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when
alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and
States are his pall-bearers, and the cannon speaks the hours with solemn
progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh.

“Is Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is any man that was ever fit to
live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the unobstructed sphere
where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is
now grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life
can be.

“Pass on, thou that hast overcome. Ye people, behold the martyr whose
blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for
liberty.”




ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S FAMILY.

Abraham Lincoln was married on November 4, 1842, to Miss Mary Todd, four
sons being the issue of the union.

Robert Todd, born August 1, 1843, removed to Chicago after his father’s
death, practiced law, and became wealthy; in 1881 he was appointed
Secretary of War by President Garfield, and served through President
Arthur’s term; was made Minister to England in 1889, and served four
years; became counsel for the Pullman Palace Car Company, and succeeded
to the presidency of that corporation upon the death of George M.
Pullman.

Edward Baker, born March 10, 1846, died in infancy.

William Wallace, born December 21, 1850, died in the White House in
February, 1862.

Thomas (known as “Tad”), born April 4, 1853, died in 1871.

Mrs. Lincoln died in her sixty-fourth year at the home of her sister,
Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards, at Springfield, Illinois, in 1882. She was the
daughter of Robert S. Todd, of Kentucky. Her great-uncle, John Todd, and
her grandfather, Levi Todd, accompanied General George Rogers Clark to
Illinois, and were present at the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes.
In December, 1778, John Todd was appointed by Patrick Henry, Governor
of Virginia, to be lieutenant of the County of Illinois, then a part of
Virginia. Colonel John Todd was one of the original proprietors of the
town of Lexington, Kentucky. While encamped on the site of the present
city, he heard of the opening battle of the Revolution, and named his
infant settlement in its honor.

Mrs. Lincoln was a proud, ambitious woman, well-educated, speaking
French fluently, and familiar with the ways of the best society in
Lexington, Kentucky, where she was born December 13, 1818. She was a
pupil of Madame Mantelli, whose celebrated seminary in Lexington was
directly opposite the residence of Henry Clay. The conversation at the
seminary was carried on entirely in French.

She visited Springfield, Illinois, in 1837, remained three months and
then returned to her native State. In 1839 she made Springfield her
permanent home. She lived with her eldest sister, Elizabeth, wife of
Ninian W. Edwards, Lincoln’s colleague in the Legislature, and it was
not strange she and Lincoln should meet. Stephen A. Douglas was also
a friend of the Edwards family, and a suitor for her hand, but she
rejected him to accept the future President. She was one of the belles
of the town.

She is thus described at the time she made her home in
Springfield--1839:

“She was of the average height, weighing about a hundred and thirty
pounds. She was rather compactly built, had a well rounded face, rich
dark-brown hair, and bluish-gray eyes. In her bearing she was proud,
but handsome and vivacious; she was a good conversationalist, using with
equal fluency the French and English languages.

“When she used a pen, its point was sure to be sharp, and she wrote with
wit and ability. She not only had a quick intellect but an intuitive
judgment of men and their motives. Ordinarily she was affable and even
charming in her manners; but when offended or antagonized she could be
very bitter and sarcastic.

“In her figure and physical proportions, in education, bearing,
temperament, history--in everything she was the exact reverse of
Lincoln.”

That Mrs. Lincoln was very proud of her husband there is no doubt; and
it is probable that she married him largely from motives of ambition.
She knew Lincoln better than he knew himself; she instinctively felt
that he would occupy a proud position some day, and it is a matter of
record that she told Ward Lamon, her husband’s law partner, that “Mr.
Lincoln will yet be President of the United States.”

Mrs. Lincoln was decidedly pro-slavery in her views, but this never
disturbed Lincoln. In various ways they were unlike. Her fearless,
witty, and austere nature had nothing in common with the calm,
imperturbable, and simple ways of her thoughtful and absent-minded
husband. She was bright and sparkling in conversation, and fit to grace
any drawing-room. She well knew that to marry Lincoln meant not a life
of luxury and ease, for Lincoln was not a man to accumulate wealth; but
in him she saw position in society, prominence in the world, and the
grandest social distinction. By that means her ambition was certainly
satisfied, for nineteen years after her marriage she was “the first lady
of the land,” and the mistress of the White House.

After his marriage, by dint of untiring efforts and the recognition of
influential friends, the couple managed through rare frugality to move
along.

In Lincoln’s struggles, both in the law and for political advancement,
his wife shared his sacrifices. She was a plucky little woman, and in
fact endowed with a more restless ambition than he. She was gifted with
a rare insight into the motives that actuate mankind, and there is no
doubt that much of Lincoln’s success was in a measure attributable to
her acuteness and the stimulus of her influence.

His election to Congress within four years after their marriage afforded
her extreme gratification. She loved power and prominence, and was
inordinately proud of her tall and ungainly husband. She saw in him
bright prospects ahead, and his every move was watched by her with the
closest interest. If to other persons he seemed homely, to her he was
the embodiment of noble manhood, and each succeeding day impressed upon
her the wisdom of her choice of Lincoln over Douglas--if in reality she
ever seriously accepted the latter’s attentions.

“Mr. Lincoln may not be as handsome a figure,” she said one day in
Lincoln’s law office during her husband’s absence, when the conversation
turned on Douglas, “but the people are perhaps not aware that his heart
is as large as his arms are long.”




LINCOLN MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD.

The remains of Abraham Lincoln rest beneath a magnificent monument in
Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Ill. Before they were deposited in
their final resting place they were moved many times.

On May 4, 1865, all that was mortal of Abraham Lincoln was deposited
in the receiving vault at the cemetery, until a tomb could be built. In
1876 thieves made an unsuccessful attempt to steal the remains. From
the tomb the body of the martyred President was removed later to the
monument.

A flight of iron steps, commencing about fifty yards east of the vault,
ascends in a curved line to the monument, an elevation of more than
fifty feet.

Excavation for this monument commenced September 9, 1869. It is built
of granite, from quarries at Biddeford, Maine. The rough ashlers were
shipped to Quincy, Massachusetts, where they were dressed and numbered,
thence shipped to Springfield. It is 721 feet from east to west, 119
1/2 feet from north to south, and 100 feet high. The total cost is about
$230,000 to May 1, 1885. All the statuary is orange-colored bronze. The
whole monument was designed by Larkin G. Mead; the statuary was modeled
in plaster by him in Florence, Italy, and cast by the Ames Manufacturing
Company, of Chicopee, Massachusetts. A statue of Lincoln and Coat of
Arms were first placed on the monument; the statue was unveiled and the
monument dedicated October 15, 1874. Infantry and Naval Groups were put
on in September, 1877, an Artillery Group, April 13, 1882, and a Cavalry
Group, March 13, 1883.

The principal front of the monument is on the south side, the statue of
Lincoln being on that side of the obelisk, over Memorial Hall. On the
east side are three tablets, upon which are the letters U. S. A. To the
right of that, and beginning with Virginia, we find the abbreviations of
the original thirteen States. Next comes Vermont, the first state
admitted after the Union was perfected, the States following in the
order they were admitted, ending with Nebraska on the east, thus forming
the cordon of thirty-seven States composing the United States of America
when the monument was erected. The new States admitted since the
monument was built have been added.

The statue of Lincoln is just above the Coat of Arms of the United
States. The grand climax is indicated by President Lincoln, with his
left hand holding out as a golden scepter the emancipation Proclamation,
while in his right he holds the pen with which he has just written it.
The right hand is resting on another badge of authority, the American
flag, thrown over the fasces. At the foot of the fasces lies a wreath of
laurel, with which to crown the President as the victor over slavery and
rebellion.

On March 10, 1900, President Lincoln’s body was removed to a temporary
vault to permit of alterations to the monument. The shaft was made
twenty feet higher, and other changes were made costing $100,000.

April 24, 1901. the body was again transferred to the monument without
public ceremony.





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