Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 36

"'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" (Mana.s.sas Gap), he said, "and clear them out of this part of the State so that they cannot threaten us here (Was.h.i.+ngton) 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.sed 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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.