''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 13

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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 c.u.mberland, 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MANAGER LINCOLN: "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to say that the tragedy ent.i.tled 'The Army of the Potomac' has been withdrawn on account of quarrels among the leading performers, and I have subst.i.tuted three new and striking farces, or burlesques, one, ent.i.tled 'The Repulse of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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sisted 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 s.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociated 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 n.o.body 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 ill.u.s.trative.

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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 Ca.s.s 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. Ca.s.s, 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 Ca.s.s's career reminds me of my own.

"I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as near it as Ca.s.s 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 Ca.s.s went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I surpa.s.sed 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.u.t.ternut-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 Ma.n.u.sCRIPT.

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 emanc.i.p.ation, and submitted it to his Cabinet, only to be unanimously rejected.

Lincoln sadly accepted the decision, and filed away the ma.n.u.script message, together with this indors.e.m.e.nt 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 Was.h.i.+ngton when I have got a great deal to do; and what I want to know is, how are you going to pay my bill?'