The Lincoln Story Book Part 41

"THE BOTTOM WILL FALL OUT."

General McClellan's delayed advance being, in 1862, not upon Mana.s.sas, but on Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with consternation. To the general eye he seemed to have pitched on the very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in their favor. This direct route to Richmond they had tried to make impregnable. The President, whom McClellan openly thwarted with unconcealed scorn for the "civilian," was in profound distress. He called General Franklin into his counsel and inquired his opinion of the slowness of movements.

"If something is not soon done in this dry rot, the bottom will fall out of the whole affair!" This was his very saying.

The Confederates evacuated Yorktown, but a series of actions ensued, culminating in the ma.s.sacre at Fair Oaks, where both sides claimed the victory. Soon after, Lincoln took matters in hand, relegating McClellan to one army, and, as commander-in-chief, ordering a general advance. The bottom had fallen out with a vengeance!

"MASTER OF THEM BOTH."

"General McClellan's att.i.tude is such that in the very selfishness of his nature he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will!

And the secretary of war (Stanton) is in precisely the same situation.

If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only the secretary of war, but myself, for the time being master of both, cannot but be failures."--(Speech, August 6, 1862, at Was.h.i.+ngton.)

"THE SKEERED VIRGINIAN."

A reviewing-party, of which the President was the center, was stopped at a railroad by Harper's Ferry, to let a locomotive pa.s.s, and look at the old engine-house where John Brown, the raider, was penned in and captured. The little switching-engine ran past with much noise and bustle, the engineer blowing the ludicrous whistle in salute to the distinguished visitors. Lincoln referred to the recollections of the scene, where old "Pottowatomie" thrilled the natives with panic lest he raised the negroes to revolt, and remarked, as the engine flew away:

"You call that 'The Flying Dutchman' do you? They ought to call that thing 'The _Skeered_ Virginian!'"--(By General O. O. Howard, a hearer.)

"HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY--"

Shortly after the scandalous rout of Bull Run, the partic.i.p.ants in the panic began to try to palliate the disgrace. The President, listening with revived sarcasm to the new perversion, remarked:

"So it is your notion _now_ that we _licked_ the rebels and then ran away!"

NO SUNDAY FIGHTING.

As the first Battle of Bull Run, a sanguinary defeat to the Unionists, was fought on the Sabbath day, the President forbade in the future important movements on the day desecrated. But with singular inconsistency in a sage so clear-headed, he did not see that the Southerners chuckled, "The better the day, the better the deed,"

in their victory.

LET A GOOD MAN ALONE!

General Howard, in taking command before Was.h.i.+ngton, incurred the hostility of certain officers of the convivial, plundering, swashbuckling order, who objected to his piety and orderliness. They tramped off to badger the President with their censure. But he who had appreciated the new leader in a glance, reproved them, saying:

"Howard is a _good_ man. Let him alone; in time he will bring things straight."

That was what caused the general to reverence him and love him.

THE "BLONDIN" SIMILE.

One of the universal topics of the early sixties was the feats of the acrobat Blondin. This daring rope-walker crossed the waters by Niagara Falls on a slack wire. On one occasion he carried a man on his back, to whom he imparted the caution, "grappling as with hooks of steel":

"If you upset me with trembling, I shall drop you! I shall catch the rope and be safe! As for you, inexperienced one--_pfitt!_"

The chain of defeats and "flashes in the pan" attending the opening of the campaign beginning as a march upon Richmond, [Footnote: Some Northern newspapers kept a standing head: "On to Richmond!"] but eventuating in a defense of Was.h.i.+ngton, humiliating as was this reverse, promoted all sorts and conditions of men, moneyed, well-grounded, and investing in the new government securities, fluctuating like wildcat stock, to pester the President with Jeremiads and counsel. To one deputation from his home parts he administered this caustic rebuke in such ill.u.s.tration as was habitual to him:

"Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin, to carry across the Niagara River on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him:

"'Blondin, stand up straighter! Blondin, stoop a little more! go a little faster! _lean a little more to the North!_ to the South?'

"No; you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off all, until he was safe over.

"The government [Footnote: Lincoln always used "Government" and "U. S." as nouns carrying a plural verb.] are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Don't pester them! Keep silence, and we will get you safe across."

THE PIONEER'S LAND-t.i.tLE.

Judge Weldon was appointed United States attorney, acting in Illinois.

Being at Was.h.i.+ngton, some speculators, knowing he was an old friend of the President, engaged him for their side. They wanted to get cotton permits from the treasury, which was feasible, but made sure that the military would recognize these pa.s.ses--no doubt, if the President would countersign them. Otherwise the army officers acted often without regard to trade desires. On broaching the subject to the potentate on whose lips so much hung at the epoch, the latter brightened up and, in his branching-off manner, said:

"By the way, what has become of your friend Robert Lewis?"

Lewis was the clerk of the court in Illinois, and at home, well and thrifty.

"Do you remember," continued the President, "his story about his going to Missouri to look up some Mormon lands belonging to his father?"

Whereupon, as Weldon said that he had forgot some details, the story-teller related with unction: