Chapter VII: Part 7

In the first stage of the war, when the President was commander-in-chief of the forces by virtue of his office, he played the part of the elevated boy in "The King of the Castle." Every one of his colleagues, who ought to have been his loyal supporters, until some firm stand was attained under the batteries of Richmond, civil and military, warred against him, underhandedly and haply openly. All aimed, in Cabinet and on the staff, to be ruler. The understrappers of aged General Scott upheld all that concurred with warfare, set and obsolete, of the European strategists, overthrown by the great Napoleon. The principal practiser of these tactics, the _summum bonum_, or "good thing," of the "West Pointers" was General McClellan, "the Little Mac" of his worshipers and "the Little Napoleon" of the dazzled crowd. He was, like Cassio, "a great arithmetician, who had never set a squadron in the field or the division of a battle knew," etc. Seeming utterly to ignore that the enemy was composed of men trained by their life and "genteel" occupations to shoot true, to ride like Comanches or Revolutionary Harry Lee's Light-horse, used to lying outdoors under skies genial to them, and subsisting on game and corn-cake as Marion on sweet potatoes, he expected to foil such guerrillas as "Jeb" Stuart, Mosby, and Quantrell by earthworks, which they probably would have leaped their horse over if they wanted to reach their spoil in that way. It was in allusion to this adherence to Vauban that the President, who eyed the aspiring Hotspur as Henry V. his heir, the sixth Henry, trying on his crown, observed shrewdly, when the general kept silence:

"He is entrenching."

* * * * *

A "STATIONARY" ENGINE.

Lincoln said of the much-promising General McClellan: "He is an admirable engineer, but he seems to have a special talent for a _stationary_ engine."

He also cited him as a scholar and a gentleman.

Nevertheless, as the education lavished on the Army of the Potomac to make it earn foreign military critics' praise at reviews, was not thrown away, but made sound soldiers which in time were invaluable to General Grant, Lincoln did him justice by quaintly, but earnestly, saying:

"I would like to borrow _his_ arm if he has no further use for it."

(General Franklin heard this.)

But "Little Mac" had no design on the dictatorship, being surely a lover of the Union, too.

* * * * *

SHOVELING FLEAS.

On account of the looseness and corruption attending the raising of soldiers at the first, the President, noting the difference between the number of men forwarded to General McClellan for the Army of the Potomac, and the number reported arrived, said:

"Sending men to that army is like shoveling fleas across a barn-yard--half of them never get there."

* * * * *

THE GEORGIA COLONEL'S COSTUME.

"On account of this sectional warfare," Senator Mason, of Virginia, announced his resolve to wear homespun, and dispense with Yankee manufactures altogether. That made Lincoln laugh, and say: "To carry out his idea, he ought to go barefoot. If that's the plan, they should begin at the foundation, and adopt the well-known Georgian colonel's uniform--a shirt-collar and a pair of spurs!"--(In, speech, New England tour, 1860.)

* * * * *

COARSE FEED FIRST!

Secretary Whitney wrote: "In July, 1861, I was in Washington, where I merely said to President Lincoln: 'Everything is drifting into the war, and I guess you will have to put _me_ in the army.' (He was in the Indian service at the time.)

"The President looked up from his work, and said good-humoredly:

"'I'm making generals _now_! In a few days I will be making quartermasters, and then I'll fix you.'"

* * * * *

"AIN'T I GLAD TO GIT OUT O' DE WILDERNESS!"

In the summer of 1862, just when the North was lulled to repose by the note from General McClellan's newsmongers, that the people would have a great surprise on the Fourth of July, Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, Confederate cavalrist, took about two thousand picked riders and performed a dash within the hostile lines, which achieved a world-wide admiration. It is necessary to premise that the country was inimical to the defenders of Washington, and the farmers kept the secessionists clearly informed on the Federal movements. Besides, the first duty of keeping Washington engrossed all the Union commanders. If, by any unexpected movement, the rebels occupied the capital long enough to set up their government, Europe would have recognized the stars and bars, and raised the blockade on the cotton ports. Washington was stupefied and terror-stricken when the news came in from the _North_ that rebel cavalry were "cavortin" within McClellan's lines. Communication was cut off with him, and the President was heard to say in the general dumbness of consternation:

"There is no news from the Army of the Potomac. I do not even know that we have an army!"

He was himself filled with the universal alarm. His hope was that a bright morning would follow the dark hour, but his faith and belief that God would safely lead them "_out of the wilderness_" was not widely shared.

The allusion was to the popular army song, taken from the negro camp-meeting repertoire: "Ain't I glad to git out o' de Wilderness," which a clergyman had encouragingly chanted awhile before. This wilderness was metaphorically spiritual, but all applied the figure to the Wilderness of Virginia, where the battles were fought.

* * * * *

WITH TWO GUNS, HOLD OFF AN ARMY.

One Irish artilleryman was left behind, with one gun of his battery, on the wrong bank of the Potomac, when the Union Army retreated before Lee. This gunner actually telegraphed direct to the President as his commander-in-chief that:

"I have the whole rebel army in my front. Send me another gun, and I assure your honor that they shall not come over!"

This pleased the President greatly, who answered that the new Horatius was to take counsel with his officer--if he could find him!

* * * * *

BREAKING UP THE LITTLE GAME.

In 1862, Washington was full of talk "and no hard cider." There was the laugh talk of the gossips, who would chatter under fire, the chaff talk of the press men taking things farcically, and the staff talk of the officers envying one another and scheming for places. Too many were still "carrying water on both shoulders," and would have welcomed a speedy reconciliation. The President heard that some of the latter voiced the petulant complaint of those weary of the gainless military movements, that the intention was to shift the two armies about till both were exhausted, and, like the peace-at-any-price men, and the still sympathizing pro-slavery "tail," a compromise could be effected and slavery saved. He summoned the parties in this public unbosoming before him. Major Turner said that Major John J. Key, staff-officer to General McClellan, was asked why the Unionists had not _bagged_ the rebel army soon after the battle of Sharpsburg, whereupon he replied:

"That was not the game! We should tire ourselves and the rebels out; that was the only way that the Union could be preserved; then we would come together fraternally, and slavery will be saved."

Major Key did not deny the words, but stoutly maintained his loyalty. As McClellan's staff-officer, he must have known his leader's policy--no confiscation, and no Emancipation Act--for McClellan hoped, like thousands of conservatives, to bring about reaction in the South.

But the President sharply said with some of his sempiternal humor:

"Gentlemen, if there is a game even among Union men, to have our army not take any advantage of the enemy it can, it is my object to break up that game!"

* * * * *

"THE BOTTOM WILL FALL OUT."

General McClellan's delayed advance being, in 1862, not upon Manassas, 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 massacre 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 attitude 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 Washington.)

* * * * *

"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 pass, 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 participants 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 Washington, 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 Washington, 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 illustration 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-TITLE.

Judge Weldon was appointed United States attorney, acting in Illinois. Being at Washington, 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 passes--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:

"This Robert Lewis, on coming of age, found papers in his father's muniments, entitling him as heir to lands in northeastern Missouri, where the Mormons had attempted settling before their enforced exodus. There was no railroad, so Lewis rode out to that part and thought he had located the land. For the night he stopped at a solitary log house. A gruff voice bade him come in, not very hospitably. The owner was a long, lanky man about eleven feet high, 'Bob' thought. He had a rifle hanging on its hooks over the fireplace, also about eleven feet long, Bob also reckoned. He was interrupted in 'necking' bullets, for they were cast in a mold and left a little protuberance where the run left off.

"This first comer had been there some time and seemed to know the section, but was rather indifferent to the stranger's inquiries about the site of _his_ lands. Teased at this unconcern, so opposite to the usual feeling of settlers who like a neighbor in the lonesomeness, Lewis hastened to lay down the law:

"'He was looking up the paternal purchase. Here were the titles,' spreading out the papers. 'That is _my_ title to this section. You are on it. What is yours?'

"The other had shown some slight interest in the topic by this time. He paused in his occupation and pointed with his long arm to the long rifle, saying:

"'Young man, do you see that gun? That is _my_ title, and if you do not git out o' hyar pretty quick, you will feel the force of it!'

"Lewis crammed his papers into his saddle-bags and rushed out to bestride his pony--but said that the man snapped his gun at him twice before he was out of range.

"Now," resumed Mr. Lincoln, "the military authorities have the same title against the civil ones--the guns! The gentlemen themselves may judge what the result is likely to be!"

Mr. Weldon reported to his employers, at Willard's Hotel, and they laughed heartily at the illustration, but they did not proceed with the cotton _speck_, understanding what would be the Administration's policy as well as if a proclamation were issued.--(By Judge Weldon.)

* * * * *

"CHEERS NOT MILITARY--BUT I LIKE THEM!"

After the disarray of the first Bull Run battle, the President drove out to the camps to rally the "boys _in the blues_." General Sherman was only a colonel, and he had the rudeness of a military man to hint to the visitor that he hoped the orator would not speak so as to encourage cheering and confusion. The President stood up in his carriage and prefaced his speech with this exordium:

"Don't cheer, boys; I confess that I rather like it, myself; but Colonel Sherman, here, says it isn't military, and I guess we had better defer to his opinion." With his inimitable wink, which would have been an independent fortune to a stage comedian.

* * * * *

NUMBERING THE HAIRS OF HIS--TAIL!

A Congressional committee selected to examine and report upon a new cannon, produced so voluminous a tome that Lincoln, reviewing it, dropped it in disgust and commented:

"I should want a new lease of life to read this through! Why can't a committee of this kind occasionally exhibit a grain of common sense? If I send a man to buy a horse for me, I expect him to tell me his points, not how many hairs there are in his tail!"--(Authenticated by Mr. Hubbard, member of Congress of Connecticut, to whom the remark was addressed.)

* * * * *

AN UNCONVENTIONAL ORDER.

On going over the minor orders, riders, and corrections of the President, it will be seen that he never succumbed to conforming with the stale and set phrases of the civil-service documents. For an instance of his unquenchable humor read the following discharge:

Two brothers, Smiths, of Boston, had been arrested, held, and persecuted for a long period by a military tribunal. The charge was defrauding the government. The hue and cry about the cheating contractors called for a victim. But the Chief Executive on perusing the testimony concluded that the defendants were guiltless. He wrote the subsequent release:

"Whereas, Franklin W. and J. C. Smith had transactions with the Navy Department to the amount of one and a quarter millions of dollars; and, whereas, they had the chance to steal a million, and were charged with stealing twenty-two hundred dollars--and the question now is stealing a hundred--I don't believe they stole anything at all! Therefore, the record and findings are disapproved--declared null and void--and the defendants are fully discharged."

* * * * *

"IT OCCURS TO ME THAT I AM COMMANDER!"

To the prairie man the climate of Washington would be almost tropical. Nevertheless, it participates of American meteorological variability, as "Old Probability" would admit.

One night, Lincoln, coming out of his rooms at the Executive Mansion to make his nocturnal round, finishing with the call for the latest despatches at garrison headquarters, noticed as the fierce gale shook him and scourged him with sleet, that a soldier was contending with the storm just outside the outer door.

"Young man," said he, turning sharply to him, "you have got a cold job to-night. Step inside and guard there."

The soldier stoutly contended--for the colloquy became an argument by Lincoln's delight in debate. He persisted that he was posted there by orders and must not budge save by a superior countermand.

"Hold on, there!" cried Lincoln, pleased at the arguer supplying him with a decisive weapon; "it occurs to me that I am commander-in-chief! and so, I order you to go inside!"

* * * * *

COMPLIMENTS IS ALL THEY DO PAY!

A paymaster introduced to the President by the United States district marshal, remarked with independence noticeable in the sect: "I have no official business with you, sir--I only called to pay my compliments!"

"I understand," was the retort; "and from the soldiers' complaints, I think that is all you gentlemen do pay!"

* * * * *

BAIL THE POTOMAC WITH A SPOON.

There is as pathetic a picture as the old sated Marquis of Queensberry (Thackeray's Steyne and history's "Old Q.") murmuring as he gazed from his castle window on the unsurpassed view of the Thames Valley, "Oh, this cursed river running on all the day!" in President Lincoln watching the broad Potomac where all was so quiet, and yet the hidden and watchful enemy lined the other bank. A petitioner hemmed him in a corner of the room with this sight, and poured on him the bucket of his woes. The at last irritated worm turned on him, and cried:

"My poor man! go away! do go away! I cannot meddle in your case. I could as easily bail the Potomac with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army!"

* * * * *

"WE SHALL BEAT THEM, MY SON!"

George W. Curtis, New York editor, called on the President in the first winter of the war, with the Illinoisian's friend, Judge Arnold. He said that the official wore a sad, weary, and anxious look, and spoke with a softened, touching voice. But he added to his good-by at the door in shaking hands, with paternal kindness and profound conviction:

"We shall beat them, my son! we shall beat them!"

* * * * *

"LITTLE FOR SO BIG A BUSINESS."

Before the war the museums of the Eastern States were regaled by an "Infant Drummer." This lad, Harry W. Stowman, at the age of seven or eight, was a proficient on the drum. He was seen by this editor, executing solos of great difficulty, and accompanying the orchestra with variations on his unpromising instrument, which musicians praised and in which he avoided monotony with precocious talent. Grown up, still a rare drummer, he was attached to the Germantown Hospital as post drummer. At the first inauguration he was with the band and noticed by the President. With his habit of applauding the young, the latter spoke to him, commended his playing, and remarked:

"You are a very little man to be in this big business!" He took him up, kissed him, and paternally set him down, drum and all.

Mr. Stowman lived to the age of forty with this pretty memory.

* * * * *

NOT "SHOULDER-STRAPS," BUT HARDTACK.

At a military function when Lincoln presented a new commander to a legion, one of the soldiers burst out with that irreverence distinguishing the American volunteer:

"It is not shoulder-straps (the officers' insignia), but hardtack that we want!"

Hardtack was the nickname for the disused ship bread turned over to the army by remorseless contractors.

* * * * *

"MARYLAND A GOOD STATE TO MOVE FROM!"

Thurlow Weed, prominent "wire-puller," presented as a preferable puppet to Montgomery Blair his choice, Henry Winter Davis, upon which the President said:

"Davis? Judge David Davis put you up to this. He has Davis on the brain. A Maryland man who wants to get out! Maryland must be a good State to move from. Weed, did you ever hear, in this connection, of the witness in court asked to state his age? He said sixty. As he was on the face of it much older, but persisted, the court admonished him, saying:

"'The court knows you to be older than sixty!'

"'Oh, I understand now,' owned up the old fellow. 'You are thinking of the ten years I spent in Maryland; that was so much time lost and did not count!'"

* * * * *

DON'T SWAP HORSES CROSSING A STREAM.

The setting up and the bowling over of the generals commanding the army defending Washington from McDowell at Bull Run to Meade at Gettysburg, resembles a grim game at tenpins. The President, who tried to find a professional captain to relieve him of his responsibility as nominally war-chief of the national forces, therefore smiled sarcastically when the ninety-ninth deputation came to suggest still another aspirant to be the new Napoleon, and said to it:

"Gentlemen, your request and proposition remind me of two gentlemen in Kentucky.

"The flat lands there bordering on the rivers are subject to inundations, so the fordable creek becomes in an instant a broad lake, deep and rapidly running. These two riders were talking the common topic--in that famous Blue Grass region where fillies and _fill-es_, as the _voyageur_ from Canada said in his broken English, are unsurpassable for grace and beauty. Each fell to expatiating upon the good qualities of his steed, and this dialogue was so animated and engrossing they approached a ford without being conscious of outer matters. There was heavy rain in the highlands and an ominous sound in the dampening air. They entered the water still arguing. Then, at midway, while they came to the agreement to exchange horses, with no 'boot,' since each conceded the value of the animals, the river rose. In a twinkling the two horses were floundering, and the riders, taken for once off their balance, lost stirrup and seat, and the four creatures, separated, were struggling for a footing in the boiling stream. Away streaked the horses, buried in foam, three or four miles down, while the men scrambled out upon the new edge.

"Gentlemen," concluded the President, drawing his moral with his provoking imperturbability, "those men looked at each other, as they dripped, and said with the one voice: 'Ain't this a lesson? Don't swap horses crossing a stream!'"--(Heard by Superintendent Tinker, war telegrapher.)

* * * * *

"NO PLACING THORNS IN THE SIDE OF MY WORST ENEMY!"

The Free Constitution of Maryland was the work of Lincoln. His and its supporters made a party to go to Washington and congratulate the President on the victory. They had a band and serenaded him in the White House until he came forth. But he said, to the dampening of their ardor, when the cheering had subsided:

"My friends, I appreciate this honor very highly, but I am very sorry to see you rejoice over the defeat of those opposed to us. It is furthest from my desire to place a thorn in any one's side, though he be my worst enemy."--(Recited by Mr. Hy. G. Willis, Baltimore, in the _Sun_ of that city.)

* * * * *

THE LINCOLN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

This historical document promised at one time to be a problem like the Sibilline Leaves or Czar Peter's will. But Secretary H. C. Whitney declares that it existed as he had it laid before him by the strategist.

"Running his long forefinger down the map of Virginia, he said: 'We must drive them away from here (Manassas Gap, where indeed were fights over the keystone), and clear them out of this part of the State, so that they cannot threaten them here (Washington) and get into Maryland.' (Unfortunately, the rebels did threaten Washington right on and entered Maryland and Pennsylvania, as late as July, 1863, and by a cavalry raid, a year later.)

"'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. (This was not finally done till the end of 1864.)

"'Finally, we must rely on the (Southern) people growing tired, and saying to their leaders: "We have had enough of this thing, and will bear it no longer."'"

In 1862, a year after, Lincoln says to McClellan: "We have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac: yours to be down the Chesapeake, etc.; mine, to move directly to the point on the railroads southwest of Manassas. (He hugs his original idea.)... In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine?" You see the prudence in him esteemed ignorant and consequently blindly rash. All this amounted to nothing when the President trusted fully to Grant as his lieutenant.

* * * * *

THE COMMANDER SHOULD OBEY ORDERS.

The President at Fort Stevens was the mark for a rebel battery. A colonel in command was diffident about ordering the superior about, but he was averse to letting the "dare" bring on a fatality, as the sharpshooters had an easy butt in the Lincoln exceptional figure. So he took the advice of Mr. Registrar Chittenden, on the staff, and bade the President retire, or he would move him by a file of men.

"And you would do quite right, my boy!" acquiesced the chief. "I should be the last man to set an example of disobedience."

* * * * *

THE IDLERS EQUALED THE EFFECTIVES.

During a review of General Howard's corps on the Rappahannock, in April, 1863, President Lincoln noticed, whether his eyes were "unmilitary or not," that a very numerous mass of men were spectators, though wearing a semisoldierly look and clothes. They were, in fact, the inevitable hangers-on of an army, the more in number, as the escaped slaves were welcomed by the soldiers, as they made them do their dirty work. The commanding general explained that they were "the cooks, the bottle-washers, and the nigger waiters." They had come out to see the President.

"That review yonder," returned Lincoln gently, as he smiled, "is about as big as ours!"--(By General O. O. Howard.)

* * * * *

REST!

Sitting before his desk in his office, at the White House, Lincoln quaintly uttered: "I wish George Washington or some of those old patriots were here in my place so that I could have a little rest."--(Heard by General Viele.)

* * * * *

"I CAN BEAR CENSURE, BUT NOT INSULT!"

An army officer appeared before the President with a statement of his defense against a sentence of cashiering. He was told that his own paper did not warrant the superior interference. But he showed up twice more, repeating the plea and the version of his own preparation.

At the continued repulse he blurted out:

"I see, Mr. President, that you are not disposed to do me justice!"

If Lincoln was the embodiment of any one virtue it was justice to all. At this slur he sprang up and put the fellow out of the door by a lift of his collar, saying:

"Never show yourself in this room again! I can bear censure, but not insult!"

* * * * *

A BATTLE OF ROSES.

At every reverse to the Unionists, the more or less secret sympathizers with the seceders reiterated the cry that gentler measures should be used against "our erring brothers." To one such pleader, the President severely, but humorously, responded, in writing:

"Would you have me drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water?"

Mr. Lincoln may or may not have said this and thus--but he certainly _wrote_ it, for which see his letter to C. Bullitt, July 28, 1862. Guns of elder squirts are mentioned by his dear Shakespeare.

* * * * *

"HELP ME LET GO!"

The year 1862 had its gold in the victories of Murfreesboro and Perryville in the West, but in the neighborhood of the capital General Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg, while his supporters counted on his justifying his superseding McClellan, clouded all Washington. The staff-officer [Footnote: An account says it was Governor Curtin in person.] who brought the painful news saw that the President was so saddened that he faltered an apology for the nature of his mission.

"I wish, Mr. President, that I might be the bearer of good instead of bad news--I wish I brought the intelligence by which you could conquer or get rid of these rebellious States!"

His hearer smiled at the essay to cheer him, who believed he would "never sleep again," and related, with a view to enliven him also, the story of "Help me let go."

The version, circulating viva voce, ran as follows:

"That reminds me of the camp where a bear suddenly made his appearance and scattered the party. All save one shinned up trees, or got behind rocks, and that one meeting the animal head on, before he could turn, seized bruin by the ears and held on 'like grim death to a dead nigger.'

"Recovering from their fright the hunters came out of ambush and were unable to do anything but laugh at the fix their friend was in.

"'You ain't mastered, are you?' asked they.

"'Not licked, but I want you to help me let go!'"

Mr. Lincoln expressed himself when he said he was slow to learn and slow to forget; the two qualities are redeemed by his wonderful ease and quickness in remembering. To quote well is good, but to quote fitly is better. His intimates noticed that he would reecho a story--a simile or a tag--and so neatly apply it that it seemed fresh on the second use. He was an admirable actor, though not appreciated in that light; for he could reappear in the same part without palling. Hence one often meets his stories, as, for instance, this one. His life law partner, Herndon, tells it as used toward a petty judge, in Illinois, of inferior ability to Lincoln's. It was a murder case, and this bully on the bench kept ruling against Herndon and Lincoln. A material point was ruled adversely just at the refreshment recess. Lincoln withdrew sore, as he believed that the judge was personally controverting his positions. He avowed his own feelings, and announced:

"I have determined to _crowd_ the court to the wall and regain my position before night."

As Judge Herndon was a bystander, his account of the further proceedings must be as faithful as veracious:

"At the reassembling of court, Mr. Lincoln rose to read a few authorities in support of his position, keeping within the bounds of propriety just far enough to avoid a reprimand. He characterized the continuous rulings against him as not only unjust but foolish, and, figuratively speaking, peeled the court from head to foot.... Lincoln was alternately furious and eloquent, and after pursuing the court with broad facts and pointed inquiries in rapid succession, he made use of this homely incident to clinch his argument."

(The tale is given as about a wild boar. In either phrase, the point is that the judge was attached to his Tartar and wanted to be let go!)

"The prosecution tried in vain to break Lincoln down," concludes Mr. Herndon, "and the judge, badgered effectually by Lincoln's masterly arraignment of law and fact, pretended to see the error of his former position, and finally reversed his decision in his tormentor's favor. Lincoln saw his triumph and surveyed a situation of which he was master."

* * * * *

SPLITTING THE DIFFERENCE.

Upon the Western Virginia Stateship Bill passing in Congress, an opponent, Mr. Carlisle, ran to the President. He urged him to veto the bill.

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll split the difference and say nothing about it!"--(Frank Moore.)

* * * * *

IN THE INCA'S POSITION.

Long after the President reconsidered his hasty surmise that the impending war was "artificial crisis," Congress continued to waver, and no one put forward a definite and working policy for the head who avowed that he never had one. In his despondency and lonesomeness, he welcomed an old friend from his State, who, however, like the rest, had his frets and rubs to seek solace for.

"You know better than any man living that, from my boyhood up, my ambition was to be President. I am, at least, President of one part of the divided country; but look at me! With a fire in my front and one in my rear to contend with, and not receiving that cordial cooperative support from Congress, reasonably expected, with an active and formidable enemy in the field threatening the very life-blood of the government, my position is anything but on a bed of roses."

* * * * *

"BLIND" FORTUNE.

A soldier shot in the head so as to be deprived of sight in both eyes left the Carver Hospital, Washington, and blundered in crossing the avenue. At that very moment the President's carriage was coming along to the Soldiers' Home from the mansion. The coach alone would probably have not brought any casualty upon the unfortunate young invalid, but it was again surrounded by one of the cavalry detachments, which Lincoln insisted on being withdrawn, but it was replaced, for the time.

The soldier hearing this double clatter of hoofs became bewildered, and stood still in the midroad, or, if anything, inclined toward the thundering danger. The cavalry chargers, trained to avoid hurting men--for a rider might be thrown--eluded contact, and the coachman neatly pulled aside. In the next moment, in a cloud of dust, the President, leaning out of the window, to ascertain the cause of the abrupt stop, saw the poor young soldier by his side. Lincoln threw out a hand to seize him by the arm, and reassure him of safety by the vibrating clutch. Then, perceiving the nature of the affair, he asked in a voice trembling with emotion about the man's regiment and disablement. The man was from the Northwest--Michigan. Lumbermen--and they are of the woods woody out there--and Lincoln believed in "the ax as the enlarger of our borders"--are brotherly. The next day the soldier was commissioned lieutenant with perpetual leave, but full pay.--(By the veteran reservist, H. W. Knight, of the escort.)

* * * * *

LITTLE DAVID AND THE STONE FOR GOLIATH.

In the spring, 1862, spies and foreign officers who had seen the rebel ram _Merrimac_ being built at Norfolk, reported her as formidable. The United States _Galena_, our first ironclad, was a failure. There was no vessel of the kind to deal with the monster save Ericsson's floating battery, ready for sea in March, called the _Monitor_, as a warning to Great Britain, expected to interfere on behalf of the South and raise the blockade over the cotton ports. This craft with a revolving turret was just as much of a new idea as its prototype.

On March 8, the _Merrimac_ came out of Norfolk and ran down the _Cumberland_ sloop of war; blew the _Congress_ to splinters, and compelled her being blown up to save her from the enemy; the _Minnesota_ was run aground to prevent being rammed. The victor returned to her dock to make ready for a fresh onslaught. The effect was profound; it seemed no exaggeration to suppose that the irresistible conqueror would pass through the United States fleet at Hampton Roads and, speeding along the coast, reduce New York to the most onerous terms or to ashes.

On Sunday, the ninth, the _Monitor_ arrived after a sea passage, showing she rode too low for ocean navigation. Though in no fit state for battle, no time was allowed her, as the _Merrimac_ ran out to exult over the ruins of the encounter. The _Monitor_ threw herself in her way, bore her broadside without injury, and her shock with impunity, but on the other hand hurled her extremely heavy ball in, under her water-line. The ram backed out, and, wheeling and putting on full steam, returned to her haven. She was, it appears, too low to cross the bar to go up to Richmond, and was not ocean-going; she was blown up when Yorktown was evacuated by the Confederates in May, 1862.

The President had said of her defeater, to some naval officers: "I think she will be the veritable sling with the stone to smite the Philistine _Merrimac_."

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S CHEESE-BOX ON A RAFT.

There is a chapter yet to be published upon iron-clad war-ships, as introduced practically in the Civil War. To the Southerners is due the innovation on a fair scale, though the experiments were not at all profitably demonstrative. Upon rumors that the enemy were building the novelties of iron-cased vessels, the Federal government responded by voting money--and throwing it away upon a fiasco. Meanwhile, the others had razeed a frigate, the _Merrimac_, and upon an angular roof laid railroad-iron to make her shot-proof. Stories of her likelihood to be a terror, especially as she was stated by spies to be seaworthy, inspired the Americanized Swedish naval engineer, Ericsson, to build a turret-ship. The Naval Construction Board unanimously rebuffed the innovator. Luckily, President Lincoln became interested as a flat-boat builder, in his youth. He took up the inventor and the design. He scoffed at the idea that the man had not planned thoroughly, saying, as to the weight of the armor sinking the hull:

"Out West, in boat-building, we figured out the carrying power to a nicety."

His championship earned the _Monitor_ the name of Lincoln's "cheese-box on a raft."

The assistant secretary of the navy, knowing all the facts, observes:

"I withhold no credit from Captain John Ericsson, her inventor, but _I know_ the country is principally indebted to President Lincoln for the construction of this vessel, and for the success of the trial to Captain Worden."--(Captain Fox, Ericsson's adviser, confirms this credit.)

* * * * *

NO "DUTCH COURAGE."

After the miraculous intervention of the Ericsson _Monitor_, the President took a party aboard to inspect the little champion which had saved the fleet and, perhaps, the capital, where the captain received them. He apologized for the limited accommodation, and for the lack of the traditional lemon and necessary attributes for a presidential visit. But the teetotaler chief merrily replied:

"Some uncharitable persons say that old Bourbon valor inspires our generals in the field, but it is plain that _Dutch courage_ was not needed on board of the _Monitor!_"

* * * * *

"IF I HAD AS MUCH MONEY AND WAS AS BADLY SKEERED----"

In March, 1862, after her terrifying exploits, the _Merrimac_ ram was reported to have escaped to sea and was seeking fresh prey to devour. The Eastern seaports were in a panic. A deputation of New York's merchant princes, bullion barons, and plutocrats generally, representing "a hundred millions," was the rumor heralding their "rush" visit to the capital, arrived at the White House.

The spokesman faltered that the great metropolis was in peril, that treasures were involved by the apprehension, and that, in brief, the government ought to take measures to defend the Empire City from the spite of this irresistible ocean-terror.

At the conclusion, the patient hearer responded:

"Well, gentlemen, the government has at present no vessel which can sink this _Merrimac_. (They were not, for state reasons, to know what the sly fox had up his sleeve.) The government is pretty poor; its credit is not good; its legal-tender notes are worth only forty cents on your Wall Street; and we have to pay you a high rate of interest on our loans. Now, if I were in your place, and had as much money as you represent, and was as badly _skeered_ as you say you are--I'd go right back to New York and build some war-vessels and present them to the government."--(Authenticated by Schuyler Colfax, afterward vice-president under General Grant; and by Judge Davis, who presented the delegation.)

* * * * *

"IT PLEASES HER, AND IT DON'T HURT ME."

April, 1862, closed brilliantly for the Union, as New Orleans was captured. General Porter Phelps issued a proclamation which freed the slaves. As on previous occasions, when this bomb was brought out, the President had directed its being stifled and reserved for _his_ occasion, there was wonder that he took no official notice of the premature flash. Taken to task by a friendly critic for his odd omission, he deigned to reply:

"Well, I feel about it a good deal like that big, burly, good-natured canal laborer who had a little waspy bit of a wife, in the habit of beating him. One day she put him out of the house and switched him up and down the street. A friend met him a day or two after, and rebuked him with the words:

"'Tom, as you know, I have always stood up for you, but I am not going to do so any longer. Any man may stand for a bullyragging by his wife, but when he takes a switching from her right out on the public highway, he deserves to be horsewhipped.'

"Tom looked up with a wink on his broad face, and, slapping the interferer on the back with a leg-of-mutton fist, rejoined:

"'Why, drop it! It pleases her and it don't hurt me!'"

* * * * *

"LET HIM SQUEAL IF HE WORKS."

One of the Northern war governors was admirably loyal and devoted to the reunion, but he was set on doing things his own way, and protested every time he was called on for men or material. Lincoln saw that he was willing, and was only like the lady who "methinks protests too much." So he told Secretary Stanton, who laid before him the objections:

"Never mind! These despatches do not mean anything. Go right ahead. The governor reminds me of a boy I knew at a launching. He was a small boy, chosen to fit the hollow in the midst of the ways where he should lie down, after knocking out the king-dog, which holds the ship on the stocks, when all other checks are removed. The boy did everything right, but yelled as if he was being murdered every time the keel rushed over him in the channel. I thought the hide was being peeled from his back, but he wasn't hurt a mite.

"The shipyard-master told me that the boy was always chosen for the job, doing his work well and never being hurt, but that he _always_ squealed in that way.

"Now, that's the way with our governor; make up your mind that he is not hurt and that he is doing the work all right, and pay no attention to his squealing."

To his confidant, General Viele, the President said:

"We cannot afford to quarrel with the governors of the loyal States about collateral issues. We want their soldiers."

* * * * *

BRIGADIERS CHEAP--CHARGERS COSTLY.

The news was transmitted to the Executive that a brigadier-general and his escort of cavalry had been "gobbled up," the current and expressive term, by rebel raiders, near Fairfax Court-house, close enough to resound the echoes of the affray.

"I am sorry of the loss of the horses," deplored the President. "I mean that I can make a brigadier-general any day--but those horses cost the government a hundred and twenty-five to fifty dollars a head!"

* * * * *

TO CURE SINGING IN THE HEAD.

The key to the trammels which bore upon the several generals of the Army of the Potomac is found in the fears of the inhabitants of the capital that at the least weakness in its defenders, there would be a shifting of the two governments, and the Richmond one would replace that at Washington. [Footnote: This seems unlikely now, but General Lee and many competent judges clung to the belief that, had his General Early held his position at Gettysburg, Jefferson Davis, and not Abraham Lincoln, would have occupied Washington's seat--for a time, anyway! But IF--the story of the Civil War is studded with "Ifs."] But the navy was not considered in this relation. Hence, there was a proposition to draw the rebel forces from the North, by threatening the Southern seaports with naval attacks, and descents of the tars and marines. A deputation visited the President with this project. He listened to its unfolding with his proverbial patient attention, and rejoined:

"This reminds me of the case of a girl out our way, troubled with a singing in the head. All the remedies having been uselessly tried, a plain, common horse-sense sort of a fellow (he bowed to the deputation) was called in.

"'The cure is simple,' he said; 'what is called by sympathy--make a plaster of psalm tunes and apply to the feet; it will draw the singing down and out!'"--(Repeated by Frank Carpenter's "Recollections.")

* * * * *

BOWING TO THE BOY OF BATTLES.

Congressman W. D. Kelley wished to procure the admittance of a youth into the Naval School. Though a lad he had "shown the mettle of a man" on two serious occasions, while belonging to the gunboat _Ottawa_. The President has the right to send three candidates to the school yearly, who have served a year in the naval service. Thrilled by the recital of the youth's heroic conduct, the President wrote to the secretary of the navy to have the boy put on the list of his appointees. But the subject was found short of the age required. He would not be fourteen until September of that year, and it was but July.

Lincoln had the hero appear before him. He admired him frankly and altered the order so as to suit the later date. He bade the boy go home and have "a good time" during the two months, as about the last holiday he would get. The President had reconsidered his first impression that the "disturbance" was but "an artificial excitement."

"And that's the boy who did so gallantly in those two great battles!" he mused; "why, I feel that I should bow to him, and not he to me."--(Authority: Congressman W. D. Kelley; the person was Willie Bladen, U. S. N.)

* * * * *

WHEN WASHINGTON WAS ALL ONE TAVERN.

As men wining with Mars expect to sup with Pluto, the drinking at the capital during the war was horrifying. The bars were overflowing with officers, and while, as "Orpheus C. Kerr" was saying of the civil-service corps, that spilling red ink was very different from spilling red blood, the novices in uniform were staining their new coats with port. Coming out of the West with the unique recommendation, "This gentleman from Kentucky never drinks," President Lincoln had only the American standby, the ice-water pitcher, on his sideboard. And up to the last, even when the jubilation upon the war's close made many a stopper fly out of the tabooed bottle, he could say: "My example never belied the position I took when I was a young man." So he could reply to a New England women's temperance deputation, probably believing the caricaturists who pictured "Old Abe" mint-juleping with the eagle.

"They would be rejoiced if they only knew how much I have tried to remedy this great evil." Indeed, he was still "meddling" when he wrote and spoke against drunken habits in the army, especially among the officers.

* * * * *

"BREAK THE CRITTER WHERE SLIM!"

Lincoln's letters to his generals would be a revelation of character if it were not already famed. He warns "Fighting Joe" Hooker, in June, 1863, "not to get entangled on the Rappahannock, like an ox jumped half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to give one way or kick the other." Later: "Fight Lee, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him--and fret him!" Finally: "If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the critter must be slim _somewhere_; could you not break him there?"

* * * * *

HOW GET HIM OUT?

During the avalanche of plans to conduct the suppression of the rebellion, a genius proposed what afterward seemed a forecast for Sherman's march to the sea. But at the time, Lincoln saw in it merely a desperate venture which would detail a rescue-party much more important.

"That reminds me," he said, with his whimsical smile, "of a cooper out my way, new at the trade and much annoyed by the head falling in as he was hooping in the staves around it. But the bright idea occurred to him to put his boy in to hold up the cover. Only when the job was completed by this inner support, the new problem rose: how to get the boy out?

"Your plan is feasible, sir; but how are you to get the boy out?"

(The story was originally credited to a Chinese cooper, to whom modern caskmaking was a mystery.)

* * * * *

"A PLEASURE TO PRESIDE, AT LAST!"