The Lincoln Story Book Part 50

"THE MAN DOWN SOUTH."

In August, 1864, a painful absorption was noticed in the President's manner, growing more and more strained and depressed. The ancient smile was fainter when it flitted over the long-drawn features, and the eyes seemed to bury themselves out of sight in the cavernous sockets, too dry for tears. These withdrawing fits were not uncommon, but they had become frequent this summer, and at the reception he had mechanically pa.s.sed the welcome and given the hand-shake. But then the abstraction became so dense that he let an old friend stand before him without a glance, much less the usual hearty greeting expected. The newcomer, alarmed, ventured to arouse him. He shook off his absence of mind, seized the hand proffered him, and, while grasping it, exclaimed as though no others were by, also staring and pained:

"Excuse me! I was thinking--thinking of a man--down South!"

He was thinking of Sherman--that military genius who "burned his s.h.i.+ps and penetrated a hostile country," like Cortez, and from whom no reliable news had been received while he was investing Savannah.

Lincoln had in his mind been accompanying his captain on that forlorn march--"smas.h.i.+ng things"--to the sea.

THE DISMEMBERED "YALLER" DOG.

Toward the end of December, 1864, the news trickled in of the utter discomfiture of Confederate General Hood's army at Nashville, by General Thomas. An enthusiastic friend of the President said to him:

"There is not enough left of _Hood_ to make a dish-rag, is there?"

"Well, no, Medill; I think Hood's army is in about the identical fix of Bill Sykes' dog (the application from d.i.c.kens is noticeable as showing Lincoln's eclectic reading) down in Sangamon County. Did you never hear it?"

As a Chicago man Mr. Medill might be allowed to be ignorant of Sangamon Valley incidents.

"Well, this Bill Sykes had a long, hungry _yaller_ dog, forever getting into the neighbors' meat smokehouses, and chicken-coops, and the like. They had tried to kill it a hundred-odd times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a c.o.o.n's _innards,_ and filled it up with gunpowder, and tied a piece of punk in the nozle. When he see this dog a-coming 'round, he fired this punk, split open a corn-cake and _squoze_ the intestine inside, all nice and slab, and threw out the lot. The dog was always ravenous, and swallered the heap--kerchunk!

"Pretty soon along come an explosion--so the man said. The head of the animal lit on the stoop; the fore legs caught a-straddle of the fence; the hind legs kicked in the ditch, and the rest of the critter lay around loose. Pretty soon who should come along but Bill, and he was looking for his dog when he heard the supposed gun go off. The neighbor said, innocentlike: 'William, I guess that there is not much of that dog left to catch anybody's fowls?'

"'Well, no,' admitted Sykes; 'I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog _as a dog_, ain't of much account.'

"Just so, Medill, there may be fragments of Hood's army around, but I guess that army, _as an army_, ain't of much more account!"

(Joseph Medill was editor of the Chicago _Tribune;_ he was one of the coterie who claimed to have "discovered" Abraham Lincoln, and surely added propulsion to the wave carrying him to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Another version of this anecdote is applied to the breaking up of General Early's rashly advanced army in July; but it would seem, by Mr. Medill's name, that this is the genuine; the other is not told in the Western vernacular of Mr. William Sykes.)

THE METEOROLOGICAL OMEN.

The second inauguration day was amid the usual March weather in the District of Columbia, like the fickle April in unkinder lat.i.tudes: smile and scowl. But as the President kissed the book there was a sudden parting of the clouds, and a sunburst broke in all its splendor. This is testified to by the newspaper correspondents, Frank Moore, Noah Brooks, and others. The President said next day:

"Did you notice the sun burst? It made me jump!"

DID SHE TAKE THE WINK TO HERSELF?

Miss Anna d.i.c.kinson, lecturing by invitation in the House of Representatives' Hall, alluded to the sunburst which came upon the President on inauguration day, just as he took the oath of office. The ill.u.s.trious auditor sat directly in front of the lady, so that he also faced the reporters' gallery behind her. Lincoln amiably glanced over her head, caught sight of an acquaintance among the newspaper men, and winked to him as she made the reference to the so-esteemed omen. Next day he said to this gentleman--Noah Brooks:

"I wonder if Miss d.i.c.kinson saw me wink at _you?"_

GOING DOWN WITH COLORS FLYING.

All the wire-pulling of the many contestants for the presidential chair failed to get a prize upon it. It was held that there must be _in excelsis_ no "swapping of horses in crossing the stream,"

still turbid and dangerous. So the National Convention, held at Baltimore, purged by this time of its former treasonable activity, at the Soldiers' Fair, held there, the President had alluded to the time when he had to be whisked through as past a bed of vipers, and said:

"Blessings on the men who have wrought these changes!"

All the States voted for the inc.u.mbent save Missouri, which stood for General Grant, but the votes transferred to Lincoln, the opinion was unanimous. Within two months he was driven by circ.u.mstances to call out five hundred thousand men. His partizans regretted the necessity, and on the old story that the people were tired of the war declared it would prove injurious to his re-election. But it is undisputed that about half the levies never reached their mustering-point. The arts and wiles of the marplots were equaled only by the prodigality and persistency of the parents to save their sons from "the evils of camp life." It is but fair to the Puritans to accept their plea that the loss of them fighting the country's battles did not so distress them.

Lincoln replied to the political argument n.o.bly:

"Gentlemen, it is not necessary that I should be re-elected, but it is necessary that our brave boys in the front should be supported, and the country saved." (The hackneyed phrase had led to his party being nicknamed "the Union-savers.") "I shall call out the five hundred thousand more men, and if I go down under the measure I will go down like the _c.u.mberland_, with my colors flying!"

(On the 8th of March, 1862, the Confederate iron-clad ram, _Merrimac_, ran into and sank the Union sloop of war, _c.u.mberland_, nearly all of the latter's company peris.h.i.+ng.

Acting-captain Morris refused to strike his flag.)

THERE MUST BE THE BELL-MULE.

President Lincoln formally disavowed the desire erroneously attributed to him by military critics that he wished to die "with soldiers'

harness on his back." To quote General Grant, to whom he said in their first interview when the victor of the West was summoned to Was.h.i.+ngton to be made lieutenant-general, and given full command over all the national forces:

"Mr. Lincoln stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man, or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere with them; but that procrastination on the part of his commanders, and the pressure of people at the North, and of Congress, had forced him into issuing the 'executive orders.' He did not know but that they were all wrong, and did not know that some of them were."

"ROOT, HOG, OR DIE!"

In February, 1865, permission was requested from the National Government for three appointees on a peace commission to confer with the Executive. It was granted, but the parties were not allowed to enter Was.h.i.+ngton, as they wanted to do, to give more l.u.s.ter to the course. The interview of the President, Mr. Seward the "bottle- holder"--as it was facetiously said about this sparring-match for breath--was with Alexander Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, of Alabama, on board of the _River Queen_, off Fort Monroe.

The discussion lasted four hours, but, though on friendly terms, as "between gentlemen," resulted in nothing. For the President held that the first step which must be taken was the recognition of the Union. As was his habit, he rounded off the parley with one of his stories apropos.

Mr. Hunter, a Virginian, had a.s.sumed that, if the South consented to peace on the basis of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, the slaves would precipitate ruin on not only themselves, but the entire Southern society.

Mr. Lincoln said to Henry J. Raymond, of the _Times_, New York, that:

"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 that 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 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 upon a plan of planting a great field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, 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.