Chapter VI: Part 6

On New-year's morning, 1864, President Lincoln entered the War Department building. His sensitive nature, more than ever strained to the utmost tension, was irritated by hearing a woman wailing over a child in her arms at an office door. Major Eckert requested to ascertain the cause of the grief brought back the painful but not unexampled explanation. A soldier's wife had come to Washington with her babe, expecting to have no difficulty in going on under pass to the camp where her husband was under the colors. But she learned, to her dismay, that, while an officer's wife has few obstacles to meet in communing with her husband under like circumstances, the private's is dissimilarly situated. This poor soul, with little money anyway, was perplexed how to wait in the expensive city till her wish was granted.

"Come, Eckert," blurted out the chief in his frank manner, "let's send the woman down there!"

It was recited that the war office had strengthened the orders against women in camp.

"H'm!" coughed the other in his dry way, ominous of an alternative, "let us whip the devil around the stump since he will not step right over! Send the woman's husband leave of absence to report _here_--to see his wife and baby!"

So the officer on duty wrote the order, and the couple were happily reunited.--(By A. B. Chandler, manager of postal telegraphs, attached to the War Department in the war.)

* * * * *

"LIFE TOO PRECIOUS TO BE LOST."

Benjamin Owen, a young Vermont volunteer, was sentenced to the extremity for being asleep on post. Lincoln was especially lenient in these cases, as he held that a farm-boy, used to going to bed early, was apt to maintain the habit in later life. It came out that the youth had taken the place of a comrade the night before, as extra duty, and this overwork had fatigued him so that his succumbing was at least explicable. This clue being in a letter he wrote home, his sister journeyed to the capital with it and showed it to the President.

"Oh, that fatal sleep!" he exclaimed, "thousands of lives might have been lost through that fatal sleep!"

He wrote out the pardon, and said to the girl:

"Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a youth like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life too precious to be lost."

He went in his carriage to deliver the pardon to the proper authorities for its execution--and not the soldier's. Then, making out a furlough for the released volunteer, he saw him and the sister off on the homeward journey, pinning a badge on the former's arm with the words:

"The shoulder which should bear a comrade's burden, and die for it so uncomplainingly, must wear that strap!"

* * * * *

MERCY HAS PRECEDENCE OVER THE RIGID.

On the 9th of April, 1865, Lee accepted Grant's easy conditions, and practically everything was completed but the formal signing of the capitulation. The wide rejoicing covered the earth, the eye-witnesses may say, with one smile of relief and gladness. Washington looked gay with bunting, like New York City on the day of "Show your flag!" Above all, the President, whose words at Springfield, in 1860, to the Illinois school superintendent, Newton Bateman, were justified: "I may not see the end, but it will come, and I shall be vindicated (in condemning slavery)."

It was, therefore, in a receptive mood that he was found by Senator J. B. Henderson, of Missouri. This gentleman came for the third time on an errand of pity.

At the close of the war, one Colonel Green, brother to United States Senator James S. Green, crossed into Mississippi with his friend and brother in arms, George E. Vaughan. He gave Vaughan letters for home and started him to carry news to his family. Captured within the Federal lines, he was held as a spy. Mr. Henderson succeeded in getting a retrial, and even a third hearing, but still the man was under sentence of death. On the afternoon of April 14, he called at the White House, and insisted that the pardon should be granted now if ever, "in the interest of peace and consideration."

The gladsome chief agreed with him, and directed him to go to Secretary Stanton and have the prisoner released. But the inflexible official, on whom the general glee had no softening, refused, and the man had but two days to live. When the intermediary hurried back to the Executive Mansion, the President was dressed to go to Ford's Theater, with his wife, his son, and a young couple of friends.

Nevertheless, he stopped, went into the study, and wrote an unconditional release and pardon for Vaughan, saying:

"I think this will have precedence over Stanton!"

It was his last official act--one of mercy and forgiveness.

* * * * *

TAKEN FROM REBELLION AND GIVEN TO LOYALTY.

A lady out of Tennessee, which was early to join secession, came to Washington in search of her son, a youth enlisted in the Confederate Army. She found him in the Fort Henry hospital, where, allowed to see him, as she was loyal, in spite of regulations about prisoners of war, she learned that he would recover. She induced him to recant and offer his parole if he were allowed freedom. She called on Secretary Stanton, but he was in one of his boorish moods--was he ever out of them?--and repulsed her with rudeness. She finally appealed to the President, who seemed very often balm to Stanton, "a fretful corrosive applied to a deathly wound," and he gave her an order to receive the young man if he swore off his pledge to the wrong side.

"To take the young man from the ranks of the rebellion," he said to her, "and give him to a loyal mother is a better investment to this government than to give him up to its deadly enemies."

The young man was enabled to resume his studies, but in a Northern college!

* * * * *

SUSPENSION IS NOT EXECUTION.

Among those generals--amateurs, like the President, themselves--who disapproved of any leniency in discipline, was Major-general Benjamin F. Butler. He wrote to his commander-in-chief so impudent an epistle as the annexed:

"MR. PRESIDENT: I pray you not to interfere with the court-martial of this army. (_His_, of course--his skill was discoursed upon by General Grant, who said that Butler had "corked himself up.") You will destroy all discipline among the soldiers."

But in the teeth of this embargo, moved by the entreaties of an old father whose son was under death sentence by this despot, he said:

"Butler or no Butler, here goes!" and, seizing his pen, wrote that the soldier in prison was not to be shot until further orders.

The affected parent eagerly took the precious paper, but his jaw fell on seeing the text: he had looked for a full pardon. But the comforter hastened to explain:

"Well, my old friend, I see that you are not very well acquainted with me. If your son never looks upon death till further orders from me to shoot him, he will live to be a great deal older than Methuselah."

* * * * *

"THE DISCONTENTED ... ABOUT FOUR HUNDRED--"

In 1856, Mr. Lincoln had figured prominently in the Fremont-Dayton presidential campaign, and ever since he had been partial to the "Pathfinder," though he clearly saw that he would be a rival for the chair at Washington--his long-cherished ambition. He gave, at the outset of the war, the most important military command, that of the Mountain, or Western Department, to Fremont. The latter attempted to "steal his thunder" by issuing a forerunner of the Emancipation Act, and was removed; but Lincoln reinstated him till he had to repeat the removal. He was repaid by the incorrigible marplot setting up as candidate for the chief magistracy after it was settled that the retiring officer should be reelected. Nevertheless, the competitor's party was so small that, in allusion to it, Lincoln read from "Samuel," Book I:

"And every one who was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one who was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became captain over them, and there were with him about four hundred men!"

* * * * *

"NOT MUCH OF A HEAD, BUT HIS ONLY ONE!"

Although the life of a soldier sleeping on post was at stake, the pleader wished to forbear on finding that the supreme decider, the President, meant to make a personal matter of it. He suspended the execution while looking into it. But it was objected that this was a burden not intended to impose.

"Never mind," Lincoln answered. "This soldier's life is as valuable to him as any person's in the land. It reminds me of the old Scotch woman's saying about her laird going to be beheaded for participation in a Jacobite rebellion:

"'It waur na mickle of a head, but it is the only head the puir body ha' got.'"--(Assured, in substance, by L. E. Chittenden.)

* * * * *

"GI'E US A GOOD CONCEIT!"

A place-hunter hastened to his old acquaintance, Lincoln, when he was seated, of course, to secure a trough. But he aimed high--in contrast to Lincoln's adage that a novice should aim low! The least he named was the berth of master of the mint.

"Good gracious!" ejaculated the chief. "Why did he not ask to be secretary of the treasury and have done with it?" Reflecting, he observed: "Well, now, I never thought that lank had anything more than average ability when we were youngsters together. But, then, I suppose, he thought the same thing about me, and yet--here I am!"

* * * * *

THEY WENT AWAY SICKER STILL.

A party were pressing the claims of a solicitor for a consulship; his particular plea that his health would be benefited by residence on these Fortunate Islands. The Lord Bountiful terminated the interview by lightly saying:

"Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for the place--and all of them are sicker than your client!"

* * * * *

OF TWENTY APPLICANTS, NINETEEN ARE MADE ENEMIES.

Hampered, harassed, and hounded by office-seekers, the President once opened his confidence on this irritating point to a conscientious public officer. He wished the senators and others would start and stimulate public sentiment toward changes in public offices being made on good and sufficient cause--that is, plainly, never on party considerations. The ideal civil service, in a word. Nine-tenths of his vexations were due to seekers of sinecures.

"It seems to me that such visitors dart at me and, with finger and thumb, carry off a portion of my vitality," was his saying.

His hearer laughed at the image, but the other pursued earnestly:

"I have made up my mind to make very few changes in the offices in my gift for my second term. I think, now, that I shall not move a single man, except for delinquency. To remove a man is very easy, but when I go to fill his place, there are twenty applicants, and of these I must make nineteen enemies."--(Authenticated by Senator Clark, of New Hampshire, to whom the confidence was imparted.) [Footnote: Secretary Blaine, out of his similar experience, reiterated the sentiment thus: "When I choose one out of ten applicants to fill an office, I find that nine have become my enemies and one is an ingrate."]

* * * * *

RID OF AN OFFICE-SEEKER.

"There was an ignorant man," said a senator, "who once applied to Lincoln for the post of doorkeeper to the House. This man had no right to ask Lincoln for anything. It was necessary to repulse him. But Lincoln repulsed him gently and whimsically without hurting his feelings, in this way:

"'So you want to be doorkeeper to the House, eh?'

"'Yes, Mr. President.'

"'Well, have you ever been a doorkeeper? Have you ever had any experience of doorkeeping?'

"'Well, no--no actual experience, sir.'

"'Any theoretical experience? Any instructions in the duties and ethics of doorkeeping?'

"'Umh--no.'

"'Have you ever attended lectures on doorkeeping?'

"'No, sir.'

'"Have you read any text-book on the subject?'

"'No.'

"'Have you conversed with any one who has read such a book?'

"'No, sir. I'm afraid not, sir.'

"'Well, then, my friend, don't you see that you haven't a single qualification for this important post?' said Lincoln, in a reproachful tone.

"'Yes, I do,' said the applicant, and he took leave humbly, almost gratefully."--(Chicago _Record-Herald_.)

* * * * *

NOT GOOD OFFICES, BUT A GOOD STORY.

When Washington and its chief guardians were more sorely besieged by office-seekers than by the Confederates, a politician locally important and generally importunate was sent as a "committee of one" to headquarters to secure the loaves and fishes for his congeries. But in about a fortnight this forager came home, full of emptiness. Asked if he had not seen the President--accounted commonly as only too accessible--and why he did not get the places, he replied glumly, yet with a tinge of brightening:

"Yes, I saw the old man. He heard me state my errand, the President did. He heard me patiently all right enough; and then he said: 'I am sorry not to have any good offices for you, but--I can give you something--a good story!'

"And he went on with--

"'Once there was a certain king who kept an astrologer to forewarn him of coming events, and especially to tell him whether it was going to rain when he wished to go on hunting expeditions. One day he had started for the forest with his train of lords and ladies, when he met a farmer.

"'"Good morning, farmer," said the king.

"'"Good morning, king," said the farmer; "where are you folks going?"

"'"Hunting," said the king.

"'"Hunting! You'll all get wet," said the farmer.

"'The king trusted his astrologer and kept on, but at midday there came up a tremendous rain that drenched the king and all his party.

"'On getting back to the palace the king had the astrologer decapitated, and sent for the farmer to take his place.

"'"Law's sakes!" said the farmer, when he arrived, "it ain't me that knows when it's going to rain, it's my donkey. When it's going to be fair weather, he always carries his ears forward, so. When it's going to rain, he puts 'em backward, so."

"'"Make the donkey the court astrologer!" shouted the king.

"'It was done; but the king always declared that that appointment was the greatest mistake he ever made in his life.'

"Mr. Lincoln stopped there," said the office-seeker.

"'Why did he call it a mistake?" we asked him. 'Didn't the donkey do his duty?'

"'Yes,' said the President, 'but after that every donkey in the country wanted an office.'"

* * * * *

ENCOURAGE LONGING FOR WORK.

In 1861, the badgered President had so novel an application that he wrote the annexed note to facilitate its harvest:

"To Major Ramsey: The lady--bearer of this--says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it, if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged."

* * * * *

"BUT AARON GOT HIS COMMISSION!"

To animadversion on the President appointing to a post one who had zealously opposed his reelection, he replied:

"Well, I allow that Judge E----, having been disappointed before, did behave pretty 'ugly,' but that would not make him any less fit for the place; and I think I have scriptural authority for appointing him. You remember when the Lord was on Mount Sinai getting out a commission for Aaron, said Aaron was at the foot of the mountain, making a false god for the people to worship? Yet Aaron got his commission, you know."

* * * * *

SOMETHING LINCOLNIAN ALL COULD TAKE.

When the President had an attack of spotted fever, and was told he must be immured, as it was catching, he smiled and said:

"It is a pity to shut the public off--as while every act of mine is not taken to, _now_ I have something everybody might take!"

* * * * *

"NOT MANY SUCH BOYS OUTSIDE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS!"

A Boston business house was deceived in an errand boy. Fresh from the country he succumbed to temptation and robbed the mails. His father tried to get him off the penalty as the United States Government took up the case. He went to Washington and prevailed on his representative, Alexander H. Rice, to intercede for him. Rice and the President were on familiar terms. As soon as the pleader presented himself, Mr. Lincoln assumed an easy attitude, legs stretched, leaning back, and read the petition.

"Well," said he, "did you meet a man going out as you came in? His errand was to get a man out of the penitentiary, and now you come to get a boy out of jail. I am bothered to death about these pardon cases; but I am a little encouraged by _your_ visit. They are after me on the men, but appear to be roping _you_ in on the boys. What shall we do? The trouble appears to come from the courts. Let us abolish the courts, and I think that will end the difficulty. And it seems to me that the courts ought to be abolished, anyway, for they appear to pick out the very best men in the community and send them to the penitentiary, and now they are after the same kind of boys. I don't know much about boys in Massachusetts, but according to this petition, there are not many such boys as this one outside the Sunday-schools in other parts!"

It was settled that if a majority of the Massachusetts delegates signed the paper, a pardon would be given.--(Testified to by Honorable Alexander H. Rice, former governor of Massachusetts.)

* * * * *

THE GOOD BOY GETS ON.

According to White House etiquette, as a congressman and a senator, Wilson and Rice, called together on the President, they were admitted in company. As they were readmitted from the anteroom a boy of about twelve, on the lookout, slipped in with them. After the salutations the host became absorbed in the intruder, as he was always interested in the young.

But the two gentlemen were unable to answer the natural question:

"Who is this little boy?"

But the boy could speak for himself, and instantly said that he was "a good boy," come to Washington in the hope of becoming a page in the House of Representatives. The President began to say that Captain Goodenow, head doorkeeper there, was the proper person to make that application to, as he had nothing to do with such appointments. But the good little boy pulled out his credentials, from his folks, the squire, and the parson and schoolmaster, and they stated not only that he was good, but good to his widow mother, and wanted to help the needy family. The President called the boy up to him, studied him, and wrote on his petition:

"If Captain Goodenow can give this good boy a place,
it will oblige A. LINCOLN."

(Vouched for by Alexander H. Rice, member of Congress, and ex-governor of Massachusetts.)

* * * * *

HOW McCULLOCH WAS CONSTRAINED TO SERVE.

For two arduous years Hugh McCulloch, banker of Indianapolis, served in organizing the Currency Control. He was looking forward to release and repose at the second Administration, when the renewed incumbent begged him to become secretary of the treasury. He remonstrated.

"But I could not help myself," he confessed to Janet Jennings. "Mr. Lincoln looked at me with his sad, weary eyes, and throwing his arm over my shoulder, said:

"'You must; the country needs you!'"

That was a gesture worth all the elegant tones in the elocution-books.

* * * * *

ALL MOUTH AND NO HANDS' CLASS.

"I hold if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating, and none of the work, He would have made them with mouths only and no hands, and if He had ever made another class that He had intended should do all the work and none of the eating, He would have made them without mouths and with all hands."--(A. Lincoln.)

* * * * *

HOT AND COLD THE SAME BREATH.

Underlaying the innate frankness, there was a deep shrewdness in President Lincoln, which fitted him to cope with the most expert politicians, albeit their vanity would not let them always or promptly acknowledge it. When Chief Justice Taney died, the President had already planned to fill up the vacancy and at the same time shelve that thorn in his side, Salmon P. Chase. But always keeping his own counsel, he was mute on that head, when an important deputation attended to recommend Chase. After hearing the address, the President asked for the engrossed memorial to be left with him.

"I want it, in order, if I appoint Mr. Chase, I may show the friends of the other persons for whom the office is solicited, by how powerful an influence and what strong recommendations I was obliged to disregard in appointing him."

This was heard with great satisfaction, and the committee were about to depart, thinking their man sure of the mark, when they perceived that the chief had not finished all he had to say.

"And," he continued, "I want the paper, also, in order that, if I should appoint any other person, I may show _his_ friends how powerful an influence and what strong recommendations I was obliged to disregard in appointing _him_."

The committee departed mystified.

* * * * *

WANTED THE JAIL EARNINGS.

A Western senator bothered the President about a client of his for back pay of a dubious nature. Lincoln responded with one of his evasive answers--that is, "a little story":

"Years ago, when imprisonment for debt was legal, a poor fellow was sent to jail by his creditor, and compelled to serve out his debt at the rate of a dollar and a half a day.

"When the sentence had expired, he informed the jailer of the fact and asked to be released. The jailer insisted on keeping him four days longer. Upon making up his statement, however, he found that the man was right. The prisoner then demanded not only a receipt in full for his debt, but also payment for four days' extra service, amounting to six dollars, which he declared the county owed him. Now," concluded Lincoln, "I think that county would be about as likely to pay this man's claim as this government will be to pay your friend's claim for back pay."--(Told before Colonel Noteware, of Colorado, a Western senator, and a congressman.)

* * * * *

A TITLE NO HINDRANCE.

A German noble and military officer wished to serve as volunteer under our colors. After being welcome, he thought it expedient to unfold his family roll, so to say, but the ultra-democratic ruler gently interpolated as if he saw an apology in the recital, and soothingly observed:

"Oh, never mind that! You will find _that_ no hindrance to your advance. You will be treated as fairly in spite of that!"

* * * * *

A TALKER WITH NOTHING TO SAY.

A reverend gentleman of prominence, M. F., of ----, was presented to the President, who resignedly had a chair placed for him, and with patient awaiting said:

"My dear sir, I am now ready to hear what you have to say."

"Why, bless you, Mr. President," stammered the other, with more apprehension than his host, "I have nothing to say. I only came to pay my respects."

"Is that all?" exclaimed the escaped victim, springing up to take the minister's two hands with gladness. "It is a relief to find a clergyman--or any other man, [Footnote: Any other man. From this frequent expression of Mr. Lincoln's, a true comedian, the "negro entertainer," Unsworth, conceived a burlesque lecture, "Or Any Other Man," with which he went around the world. The editor, passing through London, remembers his attention being called to Mr. Gladstone and other cabinet ministers, who came to the Oxford Music-hall nightly between Parliament business, to hear Unsworth, who, on such chances, introduced personal and pat allusions to the subjects debated that night.] for that matter--who has nothing to say. I thought you had come to preach to me."

* * * * *

STICK TO YOUR BUSINESS.

Among the bores who assailed the President was a Western stranger who had another plan to end the war. Lincoln listened to him all the way, and then obliged him and the crowd with a story:

"You may have heard of Mr. Bounce, of Chicago? No; well, he was a gentleman of so much leisure that he had no time to do anything! This superb loafer went to a capitalist at the time of a wheat flurry, when speculators reckoned to make fortunes, and he informed Mr. Blank Check how his project would make them both terribly rich. The reply came sharp as a bear-trap: 'My advice is that you stick to your business!'

"'But I have no business--I am a gentleman.'

"'Whatever that is, I advise you to stick to that!'

"And now, my friend," proceeded the President, "I mean nothing offensive, for I know you mean well--but I think you had better stick to your business and leave the war-threshing to those who have the responsibility."

* * * * *

MARRYING A MAN WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.

Major Hoxsey, Excelsior (N. Y.) Brigade, wounded in the Fighting Joe Hooker division, could not accept a commission in the army, but wished to be put upon the staff of the volunteers, as he could not walk. He was upheld in his desire by Adjutant-general Hamlin, who accompanied him to the President. They were both asked to sit while the authority consulted the Congressional laws. Staff appointments could not be heard by the President unless the general commanding the desired rank was approving.

"I have no more power to appoint you without that request," said the President, "than I would have to marry a woman to any man she might desire for a husband without his consent!"--(By General Charles Hamlin.)

* * * * *

"A LUXURY TO SEE ONE WHO WANTS NOTHING."

Senator Depew was secretary of New York State in 1864, under Governor Seymour. He had to wait upon President Lincoln, reelected, to harmonize the calls for men, as his State was split on the accusation that the draft favored one party above the other. His official business finished, Secretary Depew called to bid farewell. Lincoln was not holding a reception, but sitting in that study accessible to the public, that never was a public man's sanctum before--or after. He was intruded upon all the time, as he let the door remain wide open. (Old New Yorkers may recall P. T. Barnum, the showman's, similar habit.) Every now and then some petitioners would make a desperate rush in and, on seeing they were not repelled by order or by the ushers' own initiative, others would be emboldened to do the same. The New Yorker no sooner took this cue than the besieged man perceived him.

"Hello, Depew! what do you want?" was his hail.

"Nothing, Mr. President, save to pay my respects to you, as I am going home."

"Stay! it is such a luxury to see any one who does not want anything!"

He had the room cleared and discussed the war, interspersing the dialogue with apposite stories.--(Told by Senator C. M. Depew.)

* * * * *

"ACCUSE NOT A SERVANT----"

As the possibilities of rapid advancement were redoubled during the war, the President, in his first term of office, was stormed by the office-seekers, who thought it the best plan to have occupiers of posts ousted to give them an opening; so they maligned and even accused chief officials with a freedom unknown in other countries where the bureaucracy is a sacred institution--as within a generation it has become here. Lincoln rebuked one of these covetous vexers by saying gravely to him:

"Friend, go home and attentively read 'Proverbs,' chapter thirteen, verse ten."

The rebuffed applicant found at that page in the book: "Accuse not a servant to his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty!"--(Attested by Schuyler Colfax.)

* * * * *

A WOLF IN A TRAP MUST SACRIFICE HIS "TAIL" TO BE FREE.

The presidential private secretary, Stoddard, maintains that his chief sorely astonished and baffled the tribe of acquaintances who flocked in upon him as soon as he was elevated and went back home, with empty haversacks, wondering that he ignored them with heartless ingratitude. "He did not make even his own father a brigadier nor invite cousin Dennis Hanks to a seat in his Cabinet!"

* * * * *

SOMEWHAT OF A NEWSMAN.

Innately attached to letters, and precocious, Abraham Lincoln soon learned his letters and drank in all the learning that his few books could supply. Hence at an early age he became the oracle on the rude frontier, where even a smattering made him handy and valuable to the illiterate backwoodsmen. Besides, as working at any place and at any work, he rarely abided long in any one spot, and had not what might be called a home in his teens.

Dennis Hanks, his cousin, said of Abraham, at fourteen to eighteen: "Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and a kind of newsboy." Hence he was a sort of volunteer colporteur distributing gossip, as a notion pedler, before he was a store clerk where centered all the local news. It was on this experience that he would mingle with the newspaper reporters and telegraph men fraternally, saying with his winning smile and undeniable "push":

"Let me in, boys, for I am somewhat of a news-gatherer myself."

And then he would fix his footing by one of his stories, always--well, often--uttered with a view to publication.

* * * * *

"A LITTLE MORE LIGHT AND A LITTLE LESS NOISE."

As the President was a diligent devourer of the newspaper in the vexatious times (as at all others), he met many a torrent of criticism, incitement, and counsels which left him stunned rather than alleviated. To a special correspondent who hampered him, he said:

"Your papers remind me of a little story. There was a gentleman traveling on horseback in the West where the roads were few and bad and no settlements. He lost his way. To make matters worse, as night came on, a terrible thunder-storm arose; lightning dazzled the eye or thunder shook the earth. Frightened, he got off and led his horse, seeking to guide himself by the spasmodic and flickering electric light. All of a sudden, a tremendous crash brought the man in terror to his knees, when he stammered:

"'Oh, Lord! if it be the same to Thee, give us a little more light and a little less noise!'"

* * * * *

"MY PART OF THE SHIP IS ANCHORED."

Among the first men called out was a young Massachusetts man, Burrage, who went as a private. Grievously wounded, he was sent into the hospital and then to his home. Recuperated, he joined his old regiment at the front. He was unaware that strict orders were out against the soldiers exchanging newspapers, and so performed the daily courtesy of giving a paper to the rebels; they had two, and he promised to give them the one due next time. This was held as keeping up correspondence with the Johnnies, and the authorities reduced him to the ranks, as he was then a captain. Worse and worse, the enemy seized him when he went out to redeem his promise about the news, and he was imprisoned on their side. This regalled his wounds and he was a great sufferer. The Massachusetts member of Congress, Alexander Rice, pleaded with the President for his native citizen. The complication was that Burrage was a captain when captured, but a private again soon after, and the rebels would probably hold him at the higher rate if an exchange was allowed, while the Union War Department stood for his being but a common soldier.

"If General Wadsworth raises that point," replied the President, who had allowed this pathetic case to break his rule to deal with classes and not individual offenses, "tell him if he could take care of the exchange part, I guess I can take care of the rank part!"

It is clear that the President saw in this punctilio about a humane act, whose "offense was _ranker_."

It reminded one of the story of the New England skipper who, with his mate--and crew of a small fisher--owned the vessel. They having quarreled and the captain bidding the other mind his part of the ship, the latter did so, and presently came to the stern to report:

"Captain, I have anchored my part of the ship! Take care of your own."

* * * * *

ANGELS SWEARING MAKE NO DIFFERENCE.

On the President being urged to answer some virulent newspaper assault, his reply was:

"Oh, no; if I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business, I do the very best I know how--the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so, until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything; if the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

* * * * *

WASHINGTON'S DIFFICULT TASK.

Shortly after Lincoln's inauguration, a senator said to him:

"You have as difficult a task as Washington's, when he took command of the American Army, and as little to do it with."

"That is true, but I have larger resources."

(The three thousand millions spent on the war vividly contrasts with the Colonies fighting rich England with an empty treasury and barefoot, ragged soldiers.)

* * * * *

STEEL AND STEAL.

President Lincoln asked a friend, a senator, immediately on his taking office, upon an embarrassed condition of affairs:

"Have you seen that prophecy about my administration in the papers? A prophet foretells that my rule will be one of steel! To which the wags retort: 'Well, Buchanan's was one of _steal_.'"

The Georgian slave-holder, late secretary of the treasury, was accused of "diverting" some millions to the South, as that for the war office similarly "diverted" ordnance and munitions to the same quarter; the head of the navy, with what "looked" like collusion, had scattered the war-vessels so as to be long delayed in concentrating.

* * * * *

"THAT'S WHAT'S THE MATTER."

In a Spiritualist performance at the White House, which seemed to have been "edited" by the President himself--as often royalty revises plays--for his special entertainment, the Cabinet being invited, after a rigmarole of stilted phrases purporting to be by Washington, Franklin, Napoleon, and other past celebrities, Mr. Welles, secretary of the navy, remarked: "I will think this matter over, and see what conclusion to arrive at!" (His set phrase.)

There was a smile at this, as the aged minister's prolonged meditations were the laughing-stock of the country, he being the clog on the wheels of the car of state. Instantly raps were heard in the spirit-cabinet, and, the alphabet being consulted, the result was spelled out as:

"That's what's the matter!"

This hit at Mr. Welles' stereotyped fault aroused more mirth, and the crowd at the back of the room, domestics, petty officials, and sub-officers, laughed prodigiously, while the secretary stroked his long white beard musingly.

To this cant term hangs a tale apropos of the President. Its origin was low, but humorous. A benevolent gentleman pierced a crowd to its center to see there, on the pavement under a lamp-post, a poor woman, curled in a heap, with a satisfied grin on her flushed face, breathing brokenly. "What's the matter?" eagerly inquired the compassionate man. A bystander removed his pipe from his mouth, and with it pointed to a flattened pocket-flask sticking out of her smashed reticule, half-under her, and sententiously explained:

"That's what's the matter with Hannah!" The sentence took growth and spread all over the Union. It has settled down, as we know, to a fixed form at political meetings, where the audience beguile the waiting time with demanding "What is the matter?" with this or that favorite demagogue. In the sixties, it patly answered any problem. At the presidential election-time of Lincoln's success, a negro minstrel, Unsworth, was a "star" at "444" Broadway, dressing up the daily news drolly under this title--that is, ending each paragraph with that line.

On the 22d of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, scheduled to pass on from Harrisburg, where he made a speech as arranged, instead of waiting to depart by the morning train, sped to Philadelphia and thence by a special train detained for "a military messenger with a parcel," to Washington, by the regular midnight train. The news of his arrival at the capital by this unexpected and clandestine route, and in disguise--this was denied--of a Scotch cap and plaid shawl, startled everybody. Rumors of an attempt to make mischief, as he called it, were rife. But the public still took things as quake-proof, and Mr. Lincoln assured his audiences, as he spoke at every city on his way, that "the crisis was artificial." On the evening of the twenty-third, the writer dropped into the Broadway negro minstrel hall. Newspaper men knew that Unsworth introduced the latest skimming of the press into his burlesque lecture and liked to hear his funny versions and perversions. The comic sheet of the metropolis, _Vanity Fair_, enframing the witty scintillations of "Artemus Ward," George Arnold, and a brilliant band, complained that this "nigger comedian" used or anticipated their best effusions. On the whole the public saw in the surreptitious flight of the ruler into his due seat only a farce, in keeping with his jesting humor--he was regarded as a Don Quixote in figure, but a Sancho Panza, for his philosophic proverbs, widely retailed and considered opportune. So the indignation proper toward the forced escapade was absent; everybody still mocked at the "terrible plots," as so much stale quail, and when the blackened-face orator, coming to a pause after enunciation of his "That's what's the matter" looked around wistfully, the audience were agog. Suddenly out of the wing an attendant darted with alarmed manner and face. He carried on his arm a shawl, gray and travel-stained, and in one shaking hand a Scotch bonnet. Unsworth snatched them in hot haste and fright, clapped on the cap, and, draping himself in the plaid, rushed off at the side, forgetting his own high silk hat. This, with the black suit, the orthodox lecturer's, now gave him a resemblance to Mr. Lincoln, not previously perceived, for they were men of opposite shapes. The eclipse brought home to the spectators the ludicrousness of the President entering his capital in secret, but, I repeat, no one felt any shame, and the audience went forth to relate the excellent finish to the parody, at home or in the saloons, to hearers as obtuse as themselves, to the seriousness of the episode. Somehow, so far, the elect from Illinois was ever the Western buffoon. But when, in his inaugural address, Lincoln thundered the new keynote, the veil fell:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, is the momentous issue of the Civil War."

War! The crisis was no longer "artificial"--he admitted that! What impended, what had fallen? Jest and earnest were still coupled, but earnest took the lead from that hour. Said the Chief Magistrate, in his first official speech: "Physically speaking, we cannot separate--that's what's the matter."

* * * * *

"THE SHIP OF STATE" SIMILE.

On the morning of Lincoln's arrival in Washington, General Logan and Mr. Lovejoy called on him at Willard's Hotel, to urge a firm and vigorous policy. He replied:

"As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I'll try to steer her through." The Sangamon River pilot spoke there.

"I understand the ship to be made for the carrying and the preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved with the cargo, it should never be abandoned, unless it fails in the probability of its preservation, and shall cease to exist, except at the risk of throwing overboard both freight and passengers."--(Speech, New York reception, 1861.)

"I trust that I may have the assistance of the members of this legislature in piloting the ship of state through this voyage, surrounded by perils as it is; for, if it should suffer shipwreck now, there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage."--(Speech, Trenton, New Jersey, 1861.)

* * * * *

A PILL FOR THE PUBLIC PRINTER.

In Lincoln's first message to Congress, special session, July 4, 1861, is seen this passage:

"With rebellion thus _sugar-coated_, they have been drugging the public mind," etc.

Mr. Defrees, public printer, with the proofreader's sublime spurning of plain speech, objected to this sweet word, and said: "Mr. President, you are using an undignified expression! I would alter the construction if I were you!"

"Defrees," was the crushing reply, "that word expresses precisely _my_ idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when the people won't know exactly what 'sugar-coated' means!"

"'I JINKS! I CAN BEAT YOU BOTH!"

One day the public printer wanted to correct a Lincolnism in one of the presidential documents.

"Go home, Defrees, and see if you can better it." The next day, Defrees took him his amendment. It happened that Secretary Seward had spied the same fault as the printer, and Lincoln confronted the two improvements.

"'I jinks! (by Jingo!) Seward has been rewriting the same paragraph. I believe you have beat Seward, but I think I can beat you both!"

And he wrote with his firm hand "_Stet!_ so let it stand!" on the proof-sheet.

* * * * *

"LET THE GRASS GROW WHERE IT MAY!"

Up to the dread day when the news of the flag of our Union being fired upon, in Charleston harbor, the country resembled the sea in one of those calms preceding a storm. When the placidity betrays hidden and mighty currents, and overhead, in the clear sky, one divines the coursers of the tempest gathering to race in strife like that beneath. Up to Lincoln's arrival in Washington, the nest of sedition, the pro-slavery, peace-at-any-price party slackened in no efforts to retain the _statu quo_, or worse, a new State of the Southern States branching off as suckers strike from the main stem. William E. Dodge had the courage to face the wrought-up Chief Magistrate, chafed with his narrow escape from the assassins of the railroad journey from Baltimore. Said Mr. Dodge:

"It is for you, Mr. President, to say whether the whole nation shall be plunged into bankruptcy (the slaves were valued as property at two thousand million dollars!); whether the grass shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities." (The balance of trade against the South to the manufacturing and supplying North was stupendous.)

"Then, I say, it shall not," replied Lincoln; "if it depends upon me, the grass will not grow anywhere, save in the fields and meadows."

Mr. Dodge persisted in his sordid and businesslike errand.

"Then you will not go to war on account of slavery?"

"I do not know what my acts may be in the future, beyond this: The Constitution will not be preserved and defended until it is enforced and obeyed in every part of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, obeyed, enforced, and defended--let the grass grow where it will!"

* * * * *

THE PEACE-AT-ANY-PRICE PARTY.

"If there were a class of men who, having no choice of sides in the contest, were anxious to have only quiet and comfort for themselves while it rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end of it, without loss to themselves, their advice as to the mode of conducting the contest would be precisely such as his."--(_His_--Mr. Thomas Durant, who, in 1862, wrote a letter on behalf of the conservatives, asking to be let alone.)

"He speaks of no duty--apparently thinks of none--resting upon Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump--live merely as passengers (deadheads, at that!)--to be carried snug and dry through the storm, and safely landed right side up! Nay, more--even a mutineer is to go untouched lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound."--(Letter to C. Bullitt, July 28, 1862.)

* * * * *

THINGS WERE TOPSY-TURVY ALOFT, TOO.

One evening, when Mr. Hall, astronomer, was working in the Naval Observatory, Washington, on the great equatorial telescope, he was startled to have his sanctum invaded by the gaunt, extenuated figure of the President. He was made welcome, of course, and the varied mechanism explained to him. As the crowning "treat," he was given a peer through the celebrated instrument. It was leveled at the moon, or, rather, arranged to have that orb in its focus at the time. The visitor was appalled, as well as wondering at the view, and slowly withdrew by the trap-door. But when the astronomer resumed his observations and calculations he was interrupted by the same sedate and absorbed caller. He returned, perplexed, as, on glancing up at the moon with unhindered vision, he saw it in another position to that presented in the spy-glass.

Mr. Hall made it clear to him that, as the telescope was pointed, not at the satellite but at its image in a mirror, he saw its reflection and consequently the reverse of the face we observe. The President went away with the satisfaction of a man wanting every novelty demonstrated.

* * * * *

HITCHING TO THE MOON.

Lincoln came to Washington,
To view the situation;
And found the world all upside down,
A rumpus in the nation.
(_Topical song,_ 1860.)

* * * * *

A RED FLAG TO HIM.

A most remarkable prelude to the war was the performance through the Northern States of the Chicago Zouaves. The name came from the irregular regiment in the French Algerian service, composed of men worthy of being drummed out of the regular corps; they dressed like the Arabs in the small bolero jacket and baggy red, trousers familiar since. They drilled gymnastically, not to say theatrically. Ellsworth, a clerk in the Lincoln & Herndon law office, had a martial turn, and hearing daily in that quasi-political vortex of the impending crisis, determined to be forearmed in case of the differences coming to blows. He raised, uniformed _à la Zou-zou_, a score of young men like himself and proceeded to give exhibitions at home and then in the East. The writer retains a vivid memory of the odd and fantastic show, which, however, was regarded as "not war, though magnificent." But Captain Ellsworth was in earnest. Mustered in with his company, he started the Zouave movement which led to two or more regiments being formed. His being the first volunteers at the fore, he claimed the right of the reconnoitering force sent out in May, against Alexandria, to break up railroads held by the rebels. Seeing a rebel flag on a hotel top, he entered the building, and was shot by the landlord in coming down from cutting it away. He was slain instantly, and the like fate befell the murderer, the host, from Ellsworth's guard. Apart from four men killed at Sumter and two in the Baltimore riots, the Chicago Zouave was the first victim of the rebellion. But the position was regained by the secessionists, and the rebel flag replaced the removed one, to the grief of President Lincoln. He could see it from his residence, and Murat Halstead, without knowing the melancholy association of the young officer, being a familiar in his office, reports seeing him dwell with spyglass bent on the flag, for hours.

Elmer Ellsworth, in his last speech, made to the men he was leading out to the front, proves that he imbibed Lincoln's humanity with legal precepts in the office: "Show the enemy that I want to kill them with kindness."

* * * * *

"FLY AWAY, JACK!"

At the end of 1860, South Carolina took the lead in seceding, and in the opening of the next year six other Southern States allied themselves with her. The timid feared hasty acting would precipitate the marshaling of the waverers under the same flag. To a committee urging a pause to see "how the cats would jump," the President observed:

"If there be three pigeons on the fence, and you fire and kill one, how many will there be left?"

The voices said: "Two."

"Oh, no," he corrected; "there would be none left; for the other two, frightened by the shot, would have flown away."

As a truth, the firing on Fort Sumter welded the seceders into their Union; at the same time as it likewise fused the Northerners into consistency.

The President said to General Viele: "We want to keep all that we have of the Border States--those that have not seceded and the portions we have occupied."

* * * * *

HIS _PEN_ WANTED TO KEEP THEIR HOGS SAFE.

Just after the call for seventy-five thousand ninety-day men to subdue the outbreak after Sumter was cannonaded, a deputation of loyal Virginians waited upon the President. They expounded on this levy that the fair fields of the South would be overrun by the ragamuffins of the Northern cities, and the hen-roosts and pig-houses ravished, etc.

"But what would you have me do?" asked Lincoln, who did not then foresee his having to conduct the military movements.

"Mr. President, if you would only lend us your pen a moment--" meaning, of course, that he should write a line to calm the rising storm.

But the other pretended to misunderstand him, saying: "Lend my pen! my _pen_? What would you do with that?--keep your hogs safe with that?"

* * * * *

"HURRAH FOR YOU!"

At the Chicago reception, a little boy came into the room, with his father. No doubt he had been instructed to behave with decorum in the august presence; but he no sooner saw the tall, prominent figure than he shouted: "Hurrah for Mist' Lincoln!"

The crowd laughed, and still the more as the object of the ovation caught up the little fellow, gave him a toss to the ceiling, and, while he was in the air, shouted out lustily:

"Hurrah for Mister You!" and, catching him, lowered him, red and panting, to the floor.

* * * * *

"PUT YOUR FEET RIGHT AND STAND FIRM!"

Giving a lift in his carriage to two ladies, to the Soldiers' Home, the horses were splashing and sliding after a shower in the mire, when Mr. Lincoln assisted the frightened women to alight. He set three stones for stepping-stones in the mud, and assisted them to firm ground. He had cautioned them in making the passage:

"All through life be sure you put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm!"

Looking down on his muddy boots (Lincoln as a Westerner always stuck to leg-boots, and was never seen in the effeminate "Congress gaiters," by the bye), he added: "I have always heard of 'Washington mud,' and now I shall take home some as a sample!"

* * * * *

GET THEIR GRAVES READY!

In April, 1861, a deputation of sympathizers with secession had the boldness to call on President Lincoln and demand a cessation of hostilities until convening of Congress, threatening that seventy-five thousand Marylanders would contest the passage of troops over their soil.

"I presume," quietly replied Mr. Lincoln, "that there is room enough in her soil for seventy-five thousand graves?"--(Peterson's "Life of Lincoln.")

* * * * *

MR. LINCOLN'S OPINION OF GENERAL McCLELLAN.