The Child's Book of American Biography Part 4

In 1861 the Americans began to quarrel among themselves. Several of the States grew very bitter against each other and were so stubborn that the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said he must have seventy-five thousand men to help him stop such rebellion. Ulysses Grant came forward, and said he would be one of these seventy-five thousand, and enlisted again in the United States Army. He was asked to be the colonel of an Illinois regiment by the governor of that State. Then, you may be sure, what he had learned at West Point came into good play. He soon showed that he knew just how to train men into fine soldiers. He did so well that he was made Brigadier-general.

He stormed right through the enemies' lines and took fort after fort.

Oh, his work was splendid--this man who had been called a failure!

A general who was fighting against him began to get frightened, and by and by he sent Grant a note saying: "What terms will you make with us if we will give in just a little and do partly as you want us to?"

Grant laughed when he read the letter and wrote back: "No terms at all but unconditional surrender!" Finally the other general did surrender, and when the story of the two letters and the victory for Grant was told, the initials of his name were twisted into another phrase; he was called Unconditional Surrender Grant. This saying was quoted for months, every time his name was mentioned. At the end of that time, he had said something else that pleased the people and the President.

You see, the war kept raging harder and harder. It seemed as if it would never end. Grant was always at the front of his troops, watching everything the enemy did and planned, but he grew sadder and sadder. He felt sure there would be fighting until dear, brave Robert E. Lee, the southern general, laid down his sword. The whole country was sad and anxious. They said: "It is time there was a change--what in the world is Grant going to do?" And he answered: "I am going to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer!" No one doubted he would keep his word. It did take all summer and all winter, too. Then, when poor General Lee saw that his men were completely trapped, and that they would starve if he did not give in, he yielded. Grant showed how much of a gentleman he was by his treatment of the general and soldiers he had conquered. There was no lack of courtesy toward them, I can tell you. When the cruel war was ended, Grant was the nation's hero.

Later, Grant was made President of the United States he had saved. When he had finished his term of four years, he was chosen for President again. After that he traveled round the world. I cannot begin to tell you the number of presents he received or describe one half the honors which were paid him--paid to this man who, at one time, could not get a day's work in St. Louis. This farmer from Hardscrabble dined with kings and queens, talked with the Pope of Rome, called on the Czar of Russia, visited the Mikado of j.a.pan in his royal palace, and was given four beautiful homes of his own by rich Americans. One house was in Galena, one in Philadelphia, one in Was.h.i.+ngton, and another in New York. New York was his favorite city, and in a square named for him you can see a statue showing General Grant on his pet horse, in army uniform. On Claremont Heights where it can be seen from the city, the harbor, and the Hudson River, stands a magnificent tomb, the resting-place of the great hero who was born in the tiny house at Point Pleasant.

There was always a good deal of fighting blood in the Grants. The sixth or seventh great-grandfather of Ulysses, Matthew Grant, came to Ma.s.sachusetts in 1630, almost three hundred years ago; over in Scotland, where he was born, he belonged to the clan whose motto was "Stand Fast." I think that old Scotchman and all the other ancestors would agree with us that the boy from Ohio stood fast. And how well the name suited him which his aunt drew from the old silk hat--Ulysses--a brave soldier of the olden time!

CLARA BARTON

It was on the brightest, sunniest kind of a Christmas morning, nearly one hundred years ago, that Clara Barton was born, in the State of Ma.s.sachusetts. Besides the parents, there were two grown-up sisters and two big brothers to pet the new baby. There was plenty of love and plenty of money in the Barton household, so the child knew nothing but happiness.

Clara was a bright little thing. As she grew old enough to walk and talk, she followed the family about, repeating all their words and phrases like a parrot. She was not sure as to the meaning of all these words, but she liked the sound of them. Her father, who had fought in the French and Indian wars, had a fondness for the rules and forms that are used among soldiers. He taught her the names and rank of army officers. Also the name of the United States' president, the vice-president, and members of the president's cabinet.

Clara's eyes looked so big, and her voice was so solemn when she babbled these names that her mother asked her one day what she thought these men looked like. "Oh," gasped Clara, "Papa always says 'the great president'

so I guess he's almost a giant. I guess the president is as big as the meeting-house, and prob'ly the vice-president is the size of the school-house."

The school-teacher sisters were busy with Clara so that she was reading and spelling almost as soon as she could talk. One of these gave her a geography, and Clara was so excited over it that she used to wake this poor sister up long before daylight, and make her hold a candle close to the maps so that she could find rivers, mountains, and cities.

Stephen Barton, the older brother, was a wonder in arithmetic. It was he who taught Clara how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. She made such good figures and so often had the examples right that she enjoyed her little slate next best to riding horseback with her brother David.

David did not care much for study, but did like farm work and horses. He taught Clara to ride, and the two used to gallop across the country at a mad pace. She felt as safe on the back of a horse as in a rocking-chair.

She did not look much larger than a doll when the neighbors first noticed her das.h.i.+ng by on the back of a colt which wore neither saddle nor bridle, clinging to the animal's mane, keeping close to David's horse, and laughing with joy. Sometimes b.u.t.ton, the white dog, tore along after them, trying his best to keep up with them. b.u.t.ton belonged to Clara. He had taken care of her when she was a baby, and very gravely picked her up each time she fell in the days when she was learning to walk.

Stephen and David went to a school that was several miles away. They wanted to take Clara with them. It was one of the old-fas.h.i.+oned, ungraded schools, and the pupils were all ages. The snowdrifts were high, and Stephen carried Clara on his shoulder. Clara sat very quiet with her slate until the primer cla.s.s was called. Then she stepped before the teacher with the other little ones. The serious man pointed to the letters of different words for each child, then he asked them to spell short words like dog and cat. When Clara was asked to do the same, she smiled at the teacher and said: "But I do not spell _there_!"

"Where do you spell?" he inquired.

"I spell in _artichoke_," she answered, looking very dignified.

"In that case," he laughed, "I think you belong with the scholars who spell in three and four syllables." So after that, she spelled in the cla.s.s of her big brothers.

When Clara was twelve, she was very shy of strangers, and her parents thought it might help her to get over it if she went away from home to school in New York. She was a bright pupil and decided she would like to be a teacher like her two sisters.

Clara made an excellent teacher, but was not very well and went to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., to work. While there, the Civil War broke out, and she offered her services as a nurse. n.o.body doubted she would be good at nursing, for when she was only ten years old, she took all the care of her dear brother David, who was sick for nearly two years. She really knew just exactly what sick people needed.

Clara worked in hospitals, camps, and battlefields all the time the four years' war lasted. Sometimes she had to jump on to a horse whose rider had been shot and dash away for bandages or a surgeon, and she was glad enough that David had taught her to be such a fine horsewoman.

Clara helped every sick and wounded man she came across, and some people thought she should only help the northerners. But she did not mind what anybody said or thought. She made all the soldiers as comfortable as she could. And she was delighted when, four years later, while she was in beautiful Switzerland for a rest, she heard of the Red Cross Society.

This society helped every wounded person, no matter what color he was, no matter what cause or country he fought for.

Clara Barton worked with this Swiss society all through the war between France and Prussia. The foreigners called her the Angel.

When Clara Barton came back to America, she tried a long time to have a branch of the Swiss society started in this country, but it was eight years before the Red Cross Society was actually formed in America. Then, because there was often sickness and suffering from fires and floods, as well as from wars, Miss Barton persuaded Congress to say that the society might help wherever there had been any great disaster.

Miss Barton's name is known in Europe as well as in America. She did Red Cross work until she was eighty years old. Almost every country on the globe gave her a present or medal. When we think what a heroine Clara Barton proved herself, it would seem as if the little girl born on the sunny December morning was a Christmas present to the whole world.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The more you find out about Abraham Lincoln, the more you will love him.

Abraham was born in Kentucky and lived in that State with his parents and his one sister until he was eight years old.

The Lincolns were very, very poor. They lived in a small log cabin on the banks of a winding creek. They need not have been quite so poor, but the truth of the matter is that Mr. Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father, was _lazy_. To be sure he fastened a few logs together for shelter, cut a little wood, and dug up some ground for a garden. But after the corn and potatoes were planted, they never received any care, and there is no doubt the family would have gone hungry many a day if Abraham had not hurried home with fish which he caught in a near-by stream, or if Mrs.

Lincoln had not taken her rifle into the woods and shot a deer or a bear. The meat from these would last for weeks, and the skins of animals Mrs. Lincoln always saved to make into clothes for the children.

Thomas Lincoln could not read or spell, and as near as I can find out, was not a bit ashamed of it, either. But his wife, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, was a fair scholar and taught Abraham and his sister, Sarah, to read and spell.

There was no floor to the Lincoln's log cabin and no furnis.h.i.+ngs but a few three-legged stools and a bed made of wooden slats fastened together with pegs. Abraham and Sarah slept on piles of leaves or brush.

Slates and pencils were scarce, and Abraham used to lie before the fire when he was seven or eight years old, with a flat slab of wood and a stick which he burned at one end till it was charred; then he formed letters with it on the wood. In that way he taught himself to write. His mother had three books, a Bible, a catechism, and a spelling-book. He had never had any boy playmate and was greatly excited when an aunt and uncle of his mother's, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow, with a nephew, named Dennis Hanks, arrived at the creek and lived in a half-faced camp near by.

Dennis and Abraham became fast friends.

A fever swept the country, and Abraham's mother died. Three years later his father married a new wife. The second Mrs. Lincoln had been married before and had three children, a boy and two girls. So there were five children to play together. Mr. Lincoln had built a better cabin, and she brought such furniture as the Lincoln children had never seen. Their eyes opened wide at the sight of real chairs and tables. She made Abraham and Sarah pretty new clothes. They had neat, comfortable beds, and the two sets of children were very happy. Mrs. Lincoln loved Abraham and saw that there was the making of a smart man in him. She helped him study, and when there was school for a short time in a distant log hut, she sent Abraham every day. When the school ended, there were four years when there was no school anywhere near their settlement, so she read with Abraham and kept him at his lessons in reading and arithmetic all that time.

Hunters and traders rode that way sometimes, and if a traveler had a book about him, Abraham was sure to get a look at it.

A new settler had a _Life of Was.h.i.+ngton_. Abraham looked at the book hungrily for weeks and finally worked up courage to ask the loan of it.

He promised to take good care of it. He was then earning money to give his parents by chopping down trees in the forests, and he had no time to read but in the evenings. One night the rain soaked through the cracks of the cabin, and the precious book that he had promised to take good care of was stained on every page. What was he to do? He had no money to pay for the book, but he hurried to the settler's cabin and told him what had happened. He offered to work in the cornfield for three days to pay Mr. Crawford for the loss of the book. It was heavy work, but he did it and, in the end, owned the stained _Life of Was.h.i.+ngton_, himself.

Abraham had a fine memory. He could repeat almost the whole of a sermon, a speech, or a story that he had happened to hear. He had a funny way of telling stories, too, so when the farmers or woodchoppers were taking their noon rest, they always asked him to amuse them.

When Abraham was sixteen years old, he was six feet tall and so strong that all the neighbors hired him whenever he was not working for his father. He joked and laughed at his work, and every one liked him. He did any kind of work to earn an honest penny. Once he had a fine time working for a man that ran a ferry-boat, because this man owned a history of the United States and took a newspaper, and Abraham had more to read than ever before in his life. But he had to take the time he should have slept to read, because when the boat wasn't running there was farm work, housework (for he helped this man's wife, even to tending the baby), and rail splitting. Then he kept store for a man. It was here that he won a nickname that he kept all his life--"Honest Abe." A woman's bill came to two dollars and six cents. Later in the day Abraham found he had charged her six cents too much. After he closed the store that night, he walked three miles to pay her back those six cents. Another time when he weighed tea for a woman, there was a weight on the scales so that she did not get as much tea as she paid for. That meant another long tramp. But he was liked for his honesty and good nature.

When there was trouble with the Indians, Abraham proved that he could fight and also manage troops, so he was a captain for three months.

Abraham was so well informed that the people sent him to legislature.

They made him postmaster. They hired him to lay out roads and towns. It became the fas.h.i.+on, if there was need of some honest, skilful work, for people to say: "Why not get Abraham Lincoln to do it? Then you'll know it's done right."

He studied law, went to legislature again, and became a circuit judge.

This meant that he had to ride all round the country to attend different courts. He would start off on horseback to be away three months, with saddle-bags holding clean linen, an old green umbrella, and a few books to read as he rode along. When he came to woodchoppers, as he rode through forests, he liked to dismount, ask for an axe, and chop a log so quickly that the men would stare.

Abraham Lincoln settled, with his wife and children, in Springfield, Illinois. He was a lawyer but would not take a case if he thought his client was guilty. He was still "Honest Abe." He loved children and usually when he went to his office in the morning, the baby was perched on his shoulder, while the others held on to his coat tails and followed behind. All the children in Springfield felt he was their friend. No wonder, for he was never too busy to help them. One morning as he was hurrying to his law office, he saw a little girl, very much dressed up, crying as if her heart would break. Her sobs almost shook her off the doorstep where she sat. Mr. Lincoln unlatched the gate and went up the walk, singing out: "Well, well, now what does all this mean?"

"Oh, Mr. Lincoln, I was going to Chicago to visit my aunt. I have my ticket in my purse and," here the sobs came faster than ever, "the expressman can't get here in time for my trunk."