Anecdotal Lincoln SPEECHES, STORIES AND YARNS OF THE "IMMORTAL ABE" INCLUDING stories of Lincoln's early life, stories of Lincoln as a lawyer, presidential incidents, stories of the war, lincoln's letters, and great speeches chronologically arranged, with BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH PAUL SELBY Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Illinois FULLY ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO THOMPSON & THOMAS 267 Wabash Avenue 1900 COPYRIGHT, igOO, BY THOMPSON AND THOMAS. C'- ' • PREFACE. In presenting this volume to the public the aim of its publishers has been to give the reader in a limited space the most interesting, entertaining, and concise work ever published on Lincoln. The biography contained in this work was written by the Hon. Paul Selby, a personal friend of Lincoln, and for many years Editor of the State Journal at Springfield, 111., Lincoln's home. The Stories, Anecdotes, and Yarns of Lincoln have been compiled from the most reliable sources, and are herein presented in an attractive form. The Great Speeches of Lincoln, which cannot fail to arouse the patriotism of the reader, are arranged in chronological order. CONTENTS. r*QB LIFE OF LINCOLN 13-44 CHAPTER I. His Birth and Ancestry — His Autobiography ....13-18 CHAPTER II. Life in Kentucky and Indiana 18-21 CHAPTER III. Removal to Illinois — A second Flat-boat Voyage to New Orleans 21-24 CHAPTER IV. Enters Politics— Begins the Study of Law 24-29 CHAPTER V. As a Lawyer and Political Leader 29-31 CHAPTER VI. Organkation of the Republican Party 3 I_ 34 CHAPTER VII. House Divided against Itself Speech — The Lincoln-Douglas Debate of 1858 34-38 CHAPTER VIII. Election to the Presidency — Administration — Death 38-44 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE 45-83 Abe's Rebuke 46 A Flat-boat Incident Illustrating Lincoln's Ready Ingenuity 63 An Incident from Lincoln's Experience on a Mississippi Flat-boat 59 An Unsuccessful Venture as a Merchant in New Salem 71 A Wrestling Match' 64 Books Read by Lincoln in His Early Life 45 ft 6 CONTENTS. Cool Under Difficulties 79 "Honest Abe" as Village Postmaster 61 How Lincoln Became a Captain in the Black Hawk War 72 How Lincoln Earned His First Dollar 52 How Lincoln Obtained the Name of "Honest Abe" 50 How Lincoln Thrashed a Bully and Made a Life-long Friend 58 Incident in the Black Hawk War 79 Lincoln Applies for a Patent 74 Lincoln Carries a Drunkard Eighty Rods on His Back 51 Lincoln's Entrance into Public Life 75 Lincoln's Name Good for a Bed 68 Lincoln's Lizard Story 47 Lincoln's Prophecy 57 Lincoln the Tallest cf the Long Nine 74 No Vices — Few Virtues 57 "Thank you, I Never Drink" 80 The First Meeting of a Future President and Governor 67 The Lincoln-Shields Duel 80 Young Lincoln Narrowly Escapes Death 54 Young Lincoln Pulls Fodder Two Days for Damaged Books.. 53 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER 83-135 "Adam's Ale," Lincoln's Only Beverage 125 A Distinction with a Difference 88 Advice to a Young Lawyer 90 A Noted Horse Trade in which Lincoln Confessed that He Got the Worst of It 99 A Pathetic Story of Lincoln's Disappointment in Failing to Secure the Support of the Springfield Ministry 100 A Visit to the Five Points of Industry in New York 129 Colonel Baker Defended by Lincoln no Considerations Shown to Relatives 99 Crocodile and Negro 115 Defeated l>y a Still- Hunt ' 107 First Echoes from ChiacgO Convention 123 "Hold On, Breeze" ixo "Honest Old Abe" 133 How Lincoln Invested His First Five Hundred Dollars for the Benefit of His Step-Mother 87 CONTENTS. 7 How Lincoln Won the Nomination for Congress 107 How Mrs. Lincoln Surprised Her Husband 98 "I Am Not Fit for the Presidency"... 128 Incidents of Lincoln's Home Life 104 Lincoln and Finance 93 Lincoln as a Lawyer 91 Lincoln Defends a Widowed Pensioner with Success 97 Lincoln Defends the Son of an Old Friend Indicted for Murder 94 Lincoln's Knowledge of Human Nature 93 Lincoln's Last Interview with Douglas 116 Lincoln Rescues a Pig from a Bad Predicament 84 Lincoln, the Student 83 Mr. Lincoln's Vision 123 "Nothing to Wear" 104 Pen Picture of Lincoln, and His Speech in New York City... 116 Remarks Uttered by Lincoln, 1858 119 Six-Foot-Three Committee Man 128 Slavery 120 Stanton's First Impression of Lincoln 126 That Stage-coach Ride 89 The House Divided Against Itself 120 The Old Sign, "Lincoln and Herndon" 133 The Ugliest Man 130 Trent Affair 119 "Trusted Till Britchen Broke" 115 Two Entertaining Anecdotes Illustrating Lincoln's Good Nature 126 "Well, Speed, I'm Moved" 83 "Whole Hog Jackson Man" 113 INCIDENTS FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL CAREER OF LINCOLN 135-167 An Incident in Lincoln's Second Inauguration 165 A Petitioner's Sudden Change of Mind 151 Cabinet Reconstruction 162 Death of Lincoln's Favorite Son 159 General Fiske's Story of the "Swearing Driver" 142 Hearty Welcome of Dennis Hanks at the White House 147 "He's All Right, but a Chronic Squealer" 163 8 CONTENTS. How Young Daniel Webster Escapes a Flogging, as Related by Lincoln 160 Kindness of Heart 166 Lincoln's Hair 153 Lincoln's Modesty 165 Lincoln's Unconventionality in Receiving Old Friends at the White House 140 "Mother, He's Just the Same Old Abe" 161 Lincoln's Great Love for Little Tad 155 Mr. Lincoln's Tact 152 "Oh, Pa, He Isn't Ugly" 153 Remarkable Memory of Lincoln 141 Secretary Stanton's Uncomplimentary Opinion 164 Simplicity 154 The Hardest Trial of Lincoln's Life 156 The Inauguration, March 4, 1861 135 The Interviews 148 The Presidency Not a Bed of Roses 149 The President's Mind Wandered 144 The President Wields an Ax at the Washington Navy Yard.. 150 The Old Lady and the Pair of Stockings 150 Thorough 152 "Time Lost Don't Count" 162 Unhealthy Group of Office Seekers 150 STORIES OF THE WAR 168-218 A Case Where Lincoln Thought Shooting Would Do No Good 176 Advises an Angry Officer 191 Among the Wounded 175 A Story Illustrating Lincoln's Impatience at McClellan's Slow Movements 190 A Touching .Song Influences Lincoln to Pardon a Rebel Prisoner 169 Hailing Out the Potomac River 182 Brigadier Generals More Plentiful than Horses 202 Bnrnside Safe 199 Dangers Of Assassination 217 Pright a Cure for Roils 202 "(irant's Whilky" the Right Kind 199 CONTENTS. 9 Hardtack Wanted, not Generals 168 "Help Me Let This Hog Go" 196 How Lincoln Pacified Disappointed Office Seekers 207 Incident in Lincoln's Last Speech 218 "Let Jeff Escape. I Don't Want Him" 213 "Let the Elephant Escape" 201 Lincoln and Little Tad 200 Lincoln and Tad 185 Lincoln Fulfills His Vow 212 Lincoln Defends His Use of the Word "Sugar-coated" in a Public Document 181 Lincoln's Glimpse of War 210 Lincoln's High Compliment to the Women of America 172 Lincoln's Influence with the Administration 179 Lincoln's Last Afternoon 218 Lincoln's Love of Soldier Humor 191 Lincoln's Plan of War 172 Lincoln Refuses Pardon to a Slave Stealer 178 Lincoln's Summing Up of McClellan 190 Lincoln's Tenderness 206 "Making a Fizzle, Anyhow" 189 "Massa Linkun" Worshiped by the Negroes 203 Mr. Lincoln as Historian 186 Mr. Lincoln's Military Talent 188 New Instructions to Generals 177 Righteous Indignation 17 1 Tad, the Commissioned Officer 186 That Savage Dog 195 The Biter Bit 205 The Colored People's New Year's Reception 214 The Colored People of Richmond Honor Lincoln 204 The Hon. Frederick Douglass Tells of an Interview with Lincoln 183 The Little Drummer Boy 176 The Millionaires Who Wanted a Gun-boat 173 The President and Fighting Joe 187 The President and the Monitor 192 The President Making Generals 168 The President Obeying Orders 173 io CONTENTS. The President Refuses to Sign Twenty-four Death Warrants 174 The Son of Lincoln Displays a Rebel Flag 211 Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Passes to Richmond 211 Whipped and Then Ran 169 Why Mr. Lincoln Hesitated before Signing the Emancipa- tion Proclamation 188 MISCELLANEOUS STORIES AND INCIDENTS 219-253 Autobiography of Lincoln in a Single Paragraph 220 Concerning Mr. Lincoln's Religious Views 222 Death of Lincoln's Mother 221 Henry J. Raymond's Reminiscences of Lincoln 22S Important Letter from J. Wilkes Booth 232 Indictment of the Conspirators — Charges and Specifications.. 245 Lincoln's Definition of Biography 224 Lincoln's Favorite Poem 225 Lincoln's Religion 224 Lincoln's Religious Belief 221 Reward Offered by Secretary Stanton 244 Song Composed by Abraham Lincoln 219 Walt Whitman's Vivid Description of Lincoln's Assassination 238 LINCOLN'S LETTERS 254-272 Affectionate Son 254 Instructions to Major Robert Anderson 262 Letter to August Belmont 264 Letter to Colfax 261 Letter to Gen. Duff Oreen 259 Letter to Maj.-Oen. IIker 267 r to Mrs. Armstrong 254 Letter to Mrs. Gurney, Wife of Eminent English Preacher, of the Society of Friends 271 Letter to Seward 202 Lincoln's First Letter of Acceptance 258 Lincoln's Idea of the Slavery Conflict, in 1S55 255 Lincoln Writes to His Step-Mother 255 Mr. Lincoln's First Public Lettei after His Election 260 Mr. Lincoln's Reply to the Poet Bryant 259 Partial Reply to Censure OS the Arret of Vall.mdighani, June, [863 267 CONTENTS. ii Presentation of a Gold Medal to Lieut.-Gen. Grant by Presi- dent Lincoln 271 The President's Letter to Hon. Jas. C. Conklin, August 16, 1863 268 The President on the Negro Question 265 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES 273-469 A Great Congressional Speech 281 A Humorous Speech — Lincoln in the Black Hawk War 332 A Proclamation 446 A Proclamation 448 A Proclamation 449 Douglas's Seven Questions — Lincoln's Position Denned on the Questions of the Day 327 Emancipation Proclamation 450 Extracts Upon which Seward Based His "Irrepressible Con- flict Platform" 447 First Speech after His Nomination 415 First Talk after His Nomination 422 Joint Debate Between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln 333 Lincoln's First Political Speech 273 Lincoln's First Inaugural Address 425 Lincoln's First Speech in the Senatorial Campaign — The House Divided Against Itself Speech 315 Lincoln's Speech at Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 13th, 1861 520 Lincoln's Speech at Indianapolis, Feb. 12th, 1861 417 Lincoln's Speech at Washington, Feb. 27th, 1861 421 Lincoln's Temperance Speech 298 Lincoln's Second Inaugural Speech * 458 Mr. Douglas's Reply 374 Mr. Lincoln's Reply 350 National Bank vs. Sub. Treasury 277 President Lincoln's Adieu to Springfield 416 President Lincoln's Last Speech 462 Proclamation by the President 420 Reply to the Committee from the Virginia Convention, April 20, 1861 438 Response to Serenade from Marylanders, Washington, Nov., 1864 458 12 ILLUSTRATIONS. Second Nomination 457 Speech Delivered at Cincinnati, Feb. 12th, 1861 417 The Ballot vs. the Bullet 312 The Emancipation Question in Missouri 445 The Perpetuity of Our Free Institutions 273 The President to Lieutenant-G eneral Grant 456 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE "And Couldn't Ye Put a Little Brandy In All Unbeknown to Myself? 313 Chicago Wigwam Where the Convention of 1S60 Was Held .. 137 Campaign Badge 131 Campaign Badges 121 Colored People's Reception, New Year's, 1865 215 Dinner Given to the President-elect at Harrisburg, Feb. 22, i860 .'. 441 House in which Lincoln Died, Washington, D. C 239 Lincoln and Son Tad 157 Lincoln as a Rail Splitter 55 Lincoln Getting the Worst of a Horse Trade 105 Lincoln's Early Home, Elizabethtown, Ky 65 Lincoln's First Home in Illinois 77 Lincoln's Home in Springfield 77 Lincoln Defending Armstrong 95 Lincoln's Death 242 Lincoln Reading by a Pine Knot 47 Lincoln Rescues a Pig 85 Lincoln Receiving Dennis Hanks 145 Listening, but Not Convinced 383 Parlor in Lincoln's Home, Springfield, 111 in Reception Given by Lincoln 423 Second Inaugural Address of President Lincoln 459 Btatfl House in Springfield, 111. — Now Courthouse 117 The Fretting Questions of Bven a Great War S e e m ed to Perish Until "Tad" Had Completed His Romp 197 Abraham Lincoln. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. I. HIS BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. A perennial charm attaches to the name and memory of Abraham Lincoln. Among those who knew him personally in the intimacy of private life, his simplicity and geniality of character, his intense humanity, and an absolute confidence in his personal integrity won him friends; with the nation — including many who had been his bitterest political foes — his exalted patriotism and the part which he played in the preser- vation of his country and the emancipation of a race commanded respect and admiration ; with the world at large, all these characteristics, and the place which he filled with such unswerving uprightness, ability, and success, during one of the most perilous and dramatic crises in all history, made him the most important and conspicuously historic figure of his time. While the lineage of such a man may be a matter of comparative indifference, in the light of what he accomplished for 13 i 4 LIFE OF LINCOLN. his country and mankind, his life-history becomes of the most absorbing interest not only to his own countrymen, but in all lands where the virtues of per- sonal integrity, unselfish patriotism and far-reaching political sagacity are appreciated and held in proper esteem — a fact attested by the avidity with which each new volume dealing with his public or private career, and every incident, event, or anecdote connected with his life, is caught up and absorbed by those of whom he was accustomed to speak as "the plain common people. " There could be no more appropriate place than this to introduce what Mr. Lincoln himself had to say of his own and his family history, in a letter to his friend, the Hon. Jesse W. Fell, of Bloomington, 111., under date of December 20, 1859 — the year preceding his election to the Presidency, and about the time his friends were beginning to think seriously of his nomi- nation for that office. He then said: HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY. "I was born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families — second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams and others in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Ken- tucky, about 1 78 1 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest, LIFE OF LINCOLN. 15 His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more than a simi- larity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like. "My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without educa- tion. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union (1816). It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' ' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age, I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. "I was raised to farm-work, which I continued until I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois and passed the first year in Macon County. Then I got tQ New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk ia a store. Then came the Black Hawk War, 16 LIFE OF LINCOLN. and I was elected a captain of volunteers — a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went through the campaign, was elated, ran for the Legislature in the same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I have ever been beaten by the people. The next, and three succeeding biennial elec- tions, I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. During this legislative period, I had studied law and removed to Springfield to prac- tice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress, but was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in pol- itics, and generally on the Whig electoral ticket mak- ing active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well •known. "If any personal description of me is thought desir- able, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected. "Yours truly, "A. Lincoln." Soon after his nomination for the Presidency in i860, Mr. Lincoln wrote out a somewhat more elaborate sketch of his life for the use of his friends in preparing a campaign biography for the canvass of that year, but it contained little or nothing in reference to his early LIFE OF LINCOLN. 17 life in addition to what is supplied, with such char- acteristic modesty and frankness, mingled with quaint humor in its closing paragraph, in the sketch just quoted. It would be difficult to comprise within smaller space what was then known of his genealogy and early life. As he himself said, "My early life is characterized in a single line of Gray's Elegy: 'The short and simple annals of the poor.' " Yet subse- quent research seems to have settled the fact beyond a doubt, that Abraham Lincoln belonged to a historic family of which Samuel Lincoln, who came from Eng- land about 1637, settling first at Salem and afterwards at Hingham, Mass., was the American progenitor. To the same source has been traced the ancestry of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, of Revolutionary fame, who received the sword of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781; two early Governors of Massachusetts (both named Levi Lincoln) ; Gov. Enoch Lincoln of Maine, besides others of national reputation. Mordecai Lin- coln, the son of Samuel, lived and died in Scituate, near Hingham, Mass.; Mordecai II., his son, emi- grated first to New Jersey and then to what after- wards became Berks County, Pennsylvania, as early as 1720 to 1725. John, his son, removed to Rockingham County, Virginia, in 1758; his son Abraham, the father of Thomas (who was the father of the subject of this sketch), settled in Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where he was killed by Indians in 1784, leaving Thomas, the father of the future President, a child of the age of six years. This will account for the hard- ships which the family of Thomas Lincoln endured in that frontier region, in the latter part of the last and the beginning of the present century, and the modesty 18 LIFE OF LINCOLN. of the surroundings amid which Abraham Lincoln was born. II. LIFE IN KENTUCKY AND INDIANA. Miss Tarbell, in her "Early Life of Abraham Lin- coln," has presented conclusive documentary proofs of the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks in Washington County, Kentucky, June 12, 1806. Born the second child of this marriage ( a younger brother died in infancy), his early life was, undoubtedly, sim- ilar to that of other children of that region and period. There is reason to believe that there has been a dispo- sition on the part of two classes of writers to exag- gerate the picture of the squalor and wretchedness about the early Lincoln home — on the one hand, by those who had an object in seeking to magnify the popular impression regarding the meanness of his origin ; on the other hand, by those who sought to elevate him in public estimation by contrasting the modesty of his early beginnings with the exalted posi- tion to which he finally attained. While the former is unjust to his memory, the latter is unnecessary to a true estimate of his character. As a rule, the pioneers of Kentucky, as in other portions of the West, at that time, and even at a later date, usually lived in a Log- cabin of one room but scantily furnished. Those who had two or more rooms were considered fortunate, if not absolutely wealthy. At that time Abraham's father lived in what is now La Rue (then a part of LIFE OF LINCOLN. 19 Hardin) County. Here Abraham spent his childhood until he had passed his seventh year. He went to school a little, but the total could not have been over a few months. Few stories are told of his life in Ken- tucky, because, by the time he had achieved a national reputation, there were few associates of his early childhood to tell them. When Abraham was in his eighth year (181 6), his father removed with his family to what is now Spencer County, Indiana. Here there is reason to believe their mode of life was ruder even than it was in Kentucky, as the country was newer and they settled in an unbroken forest. Mr. Lincoln himself says, in the paper already referred to as having been prepared as the basis for a campaign biography in i860, that "this removal was partly on account of slavery, but chiefly on account of the difficulty in land-titles in Kentucky." For a time, the family are said to have lived in a sort of camp or cabin built of logs on three sides and open at one end, which served as both door and windows. A story told by Lincoln himself about his life here gives his first, if not his only, experience as a hunter. "A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log-cabin, and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger game." Another story connected with his life in Indiana is that told by Austin Gollaher, a school- and play-mate of Abraham's — though somewhat older — who claims to have rescued the future President from drowning in consequence of his falling into a stream which they 20 LIFE OF LINCOLN. were crossing on a log, while hunting partridges near Gollaher's home. The same claim of having saved Lincoln's life has been set up by Dennis Hanks, both presumably referring to the same event. In his own sketches, Mr. Lincoln makes no reference to this inci- dent, though there is believed to have been some basis of truth in the story, as told so graphically and circum- stantially by Gollaher. Here Abraham again went to school for a short time, but, according to his own statement, "the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year." Accord- ing to the statement of his friend Gollaher, he "was an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster than any one of his schoolmates. Though so young, he studied very hard. He would get spice-wood brushes, hack them up on a log, and burn them two or three together, for the purpose of giving light by which he might pursue his studies." An ax was early put into his hands, and he soon became an important factor in clearing away the forest about the Lincoln home. Two years after the arrival in Indiana, Abra- ham's mother died, and a little over a year later his father married Mrs. Sarah Johnston, whom he had known in Kentucky. Her advent brought many improvements into the Lincoln home, as she possessed Bome property and was a woman of strong character. Between her and her step-son sprang up a warm friendship which lasted through life. His devotion to her illustrated one of the Btrong points in Mr. Lin- coln's character. In [8a6, at the age of seventeen years, Mr. Lincoln spent several months as a ferryman at the mouth of LIFE OF LINCOLN. 21 Anderson Creek, where it enters the Ohio. According to a story told by him to Mr. Seward in Washington, after he became President, it was here he earned his first dollar by taking two travelers, with their bag- gage, to a passing steamer in the Ohio. It was here, too, probably, that he acquired that taste for river life which led, at the age of nineteen, to his taking his first trip to New Orleans as a hired hand on board a flat- boat loaded with produce, belonging to a Mr. Gentry, a business man of Gentryville, Ind., for which he received eight dollars per month and his passage home again. An almost tragic incident connected with this trip, told by Mr. Lincoln himself, was an attack made upon the boat and its crew by seven negroes for the purpose of robbery, and possibly murder, one night while the boat was tied to the shore along "the coast" on the lower Mississippi. The intended robbers were beaten off, but not until some of the crew had been wounded in the assault. III. REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS— A SECOND FLATBOAT VOYAGE TO NEW ORLEANS. In March, 1830, Abraham Lincoln — having just reached his majority — removed with his father's family to Illinois, thus becoming identified with the State to which his name has given such luster. This removal was brought about largely through the influence of John Hanks, who had married one of Abraham's step- sisters, and had preceded the family to Illinois by two years. The first location was made on the banks of 22 LIFE OF LINCOLN. the Sangamon River, near the present village of Harristown, in the western part of Macon County. Here he set to work assisting his father to build their first home in Illinois and open a farm, splitting some of the rails which aroused so much enthusiasm when exhibited in the State Convention at Decatur, which preceded his nomination for the Presidency in 1S60. A year later we find him engaging himself, in con- junction with John Hanks and one or two others, to build a flatboat, on the Sangamon River near Spring- field, for Daniel Offutt, which he accompanied to New Orleans with a load of produce. During a stay of one month in the "Crescent City," he had his first oppor- tunity of seeing the horrible side of the institution of slavery, and there is reason to believe that he then became imbued with those sentiments which bore such vast results for the country and a race a generation later. According to the testimony of his friend Hern- don, "he saw 'negroes in chains — whipped and scourged.' Against this inhumanity his sense of right and justice rebelled, and his mind and conscience were awakened to a realization of what he had often heard and read. No doubt, as one of his companions has said, 'Slavery ran the iron into him then and there.' One morning, in their rambles over the city, they passed a slave auction. A vigorous and comely mulatto girl was being sold. She underwent a thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; they pinched her flesh and made her trot up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, as the auctioneer said, that 'bidders might satisfy themselves' whether the article they were offering to buy was sound or not. The whole thing was so revolting that LIFE OF LINCOLN. 23 Lincoln moved away from the scene with a deep feel- ing of 'unconquerable hate.' Bidding his companions follow him, he said: ' Boys, let's get away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing' (mean- ing slavery), 'I'll hit it hard.'" Mr. Herndon says this incident was not only furnished to him by John Hanks, but that he heard Mr. Lincoln refer to it him- self. After his return from New Orleans, he entered the service of Offutt as clerk in a store at New Salem, then in Sangamon County, but now in the county of Menard, a few miles from Petersburg. While thus employed, he began in earnest the work of trying to educate himself, using a borrowed "Kirkham's Gram- mar" and other books, under the guidance of Mentor Graham, the village school-teacher. Later, with Graham's assistance, he studied surveying in order to fit himself for the position of a deputy to the County Surveyor. ' How well he applied himself to the study of the English language is evidenced by the clearness and accuracy with which he was accustomed to express himself, in after years, on great national and inter- national questions — as he had no opportunity of study in the schools after coming to Illinois. The year after locating at New Salem came the Black Hawk War, when he enlisted and was elected captain of his company — a result of which, previous to his election to the Presidency, he said, he had not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. His company having been disbanded, he again enlisted as a private under Captain Elijah lies. He remained in the service three months, but participated in no battle. 24 LIFE OF LINCOLN. The early part of this year was made memorable in the history of Central Illinois by the arrival of the steamer "Talisman" from Cincinnati, in the Sangamon River, which it ascended to the vicinity of Springfield. The event produced the wildest enthusiasm through that region, as it was the first steamer to attempt the ascent of that stream, and was regarded as demonstrat- ing its navigability. Mr. Lincoln and Rowan Herndon piloted the vessel out of the river, and it never attempted a second trip, nor has any other tried the experiment. After returning from the Black Hawk War, Mr. Lin- coln made his first entry into business for himself as the partner of one Berry in the purchase of a stock of goods, to which they added two others by buying out local dealers on credit. To this, for a time, he added the office of Postmaster. In less than a year, they sold out their store on credit to other parties, who failed and absconded, leaving a burden of debt on Lincoln's shoulders which lasted until his retirement from Congress in 1849. It was during his stay at New Salem that occurred the romance connecting the names of Lincoln and the amiable but short-lived Anne Rutledge, destined to end in her early death, which has furnished so touch- ing a theme for his biographers. IV. ENTERS POLITICS— BEU INS THE STUDY OF LAW. The year of the Black Hawk War (183a) saw Lin- coln's entrance into politics as a candidate for Repre- LIFE OP LINCOLN. 25 sentative in the General Assembly from Sangamon County, in opposition to Col. E. D. Taylor, who after- wards became Receiver of Public Moneys at Chicago by appointment of President Jackson, and died there in 1 89 1, at the age of nearly ninety years. Taylor was elected, Lincoln then sustaining the only defeat of his life as a candidate for office directly at the hands of the people. He took a just and natural pride in the fact that, although he was an avowed supporter of Henry Clay, and General Jackson, a few months later, carried the New Salem precinct by a majority of 115 votes, he received 277 out of the 284 votes cast at his home precinct at the earlier election. Lincoln was then in his twenty-fourth year, uncouth in dress and unpolished in manners, but with a basis of sound sense and sterling honesty which commanded the respect and confidence of all who knew him. He also had a fund of humor and drollery, which, in spite of a melancholy temperament, found expression in sallies of wit and the relation of amusing stories, and led him to enter with spirit into any sort of amusement or practical jokes so customary at that time; yet those who knew him best say that he "never drank intoxi- cating liquors," nor "even, in those days, did he smoke or chew tobacco." After his disastrous experience as a merchant at New Salem, and a period of service as Deputy County Sur- veyor, in 1834 he again became a candidate for the Legislature and was elected. During the succeeding session at Vandalia, he was thrown much into the company of his colleague, Maj. John T. Stuart, whose acquaintance he had made during the Black Hawk War, and through whose advice, and the offer of 26 LIFE OF LINCOLN. books, he was induced to enter upon the study of law. Again, in 1836, he was re-elected to the Legislature. His growing popularity was indicated by the fact that, at this election, he received the highest vote cast for any candidate on the legislative ticket from Sangamon County. In the Legislature chosen at this time, Sangamon County was represented by the famous "Long Nine" — two being members of the Senate and Seven of the House — of whom Lincoln was the tallest. This Legislature was made memorable in State history by the fact that it was the one which passed the act removing the State capital from Vandalia to Spring- field, and set on foot the ill-fated "internal improve- ment scheme," in both of which Lincoln bore a prominent part, but the last of which he lived to regret on account of the burdensome debt which it imposed upon the State without beneficial results. It was also conspicuous for the large number of its members who afterwards became distinguished in state or national history. Among them we find such names as Edward D. Baker, afterwards Congressman from the Spring- field and Galena districts, United States Senator from Oregon, and killed at Ball's Bluff during the Civil War; Orville H. Browning, who became United States Senator and Attorney-General of the United States; four others — Stephen A. Douglas, James Semple, James Shields, and William A. Richardson — became United States Senators; four — John J. Hardin. John A. McClernand, William A. Richardson, ami Robert Smith — occupied scats in the lower House of Congress; three became Attorney-Generals ; four, Stale 'Treas- urers; three, Lieutenant-Governors, and one (Augus- tus C. French), Governor. Re-elected to the House in LIFE OF LINCOLN. 27 1838, and again in 1840, we find him the associate of such men as Dr. John Logan, the father of Gen. John A. Logan; William H. Bissell, afterwards Congress- man and Governor; Lyman Trumbull, afterwards a Justice of the Supreme Court and United States Sen- ator; Thomas Drummond, who became Judge of the United States District Court; Joseph Gillespie, Ebenezer Peck, and many more who became his life- long friends. His prominence at this time is shown by the fact that, at both of these sessions — 1838 and 1840 — he was the choice of his party (the Whig) for Speaker of the House, but defeated by the candidate of the Democracy, who were in the majority. On his return from the Legislature of 1836-37, he entered upon the practice of law, for which he had been preparing, as the necessity of making a livelihood would permit, for the past two years, entering into partnership with his preceptor and legislative col- league, Hon. John T. Stuart. The story of his removal, as told by his friend, Joshua F. Speed, then a merchant of Springfield, whose invitation to share his room Lincoln finally accepted, is so graphic, and, withal, tinged with such a mixture of frankness, humor, and pathos, as to be worthy of reproduction here. Mr. Speed says: "He had ridden into town on a borrowed horse, and engaged from the only cabinet-maker in the village a single bedstead. He came into my store, set his sad- dle-bags on the counter, and inquired what the furni- ture for a single bedstead would cost. I took slate and pencil, made a calculation, and found the sum for furniture, complete, would amount to seventeen dollars in all. Said he: 'It is probably cheap enough; but I 28 LIFE OF LINCOLN. want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay. But if you will credit me until Christmas, and my experiment as a lawyer here is a success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that, I will probably never pay you at all. ' The tone of his voice was so melancholy that I felt for him. I looked at him, and I thought then, as I think now, that I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face in my life. I said to him, 'So small a debt seems to affect you so deeply, I think I can sug- gest a plan by which ) 7 ou will be able to attain your end without any debt. I have a very large room, and a very large double-bed in it, which you are perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose.' 'Where is your room?' he asked. 'Upstairs,' said I, pointing to the stairs leading from the store to my room. With- out saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, and, with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles, exclaimed, 'Well, Speed, I'm moved.' " The friendship between Lincoln and Speed, which began in, and was cemented by, this generous act of the latter, was of the most devoted character, and, although Mr. Speed returned to his native State of Kentucky a few years later, it was continued through life. During the Civil War, he was intrusted by Mr. Lincoln with many delicate and important duties in the interest of the Government. His brother, James Speed, was appointed by Mr. Lincoln Attorney-* Gen- eral in 1864, but resigned after the accession of Presi- dent Johnson. LIFE OF LINCOLN. 29 V. AS LAWYER AND POLITICAL LEADER. After 1840 Mr. Lincoln declined a re-election to the Legislature. His prominence as a political leader was indicated by the appearance of his name on the Whig electoral ticket of that year, as it did again in 1844 and in 1852, and on the Republican ticket for the State-at- Large in 1856. Except while in the Legislature, from 1837 he gave his attention to the practice of his profession, first as the partner of Maj. John T. Stuart, then of Judge Stephen T. Logan, and finally of Wil- liam H. Herndon, the latter partnership continuing, at least nominally, until his death. His life as a lawyer upon "the circuit" was much to his liking, as it brought him in contact with many congenial minds. Friendships were formed during this period which lasted through life. Next to those among the lawyers about his home at Springfield — the Edwardses, Judge Logan, John T. Stuart, J. C. Conkling, and others of an earlier and later period — probably none was stronger than that entertained for David Davis, of Blooming- ton, who was one of the most earnest supporters of his nomination for the Presidency in i860, and afterwards received at his hands an appointment on the Supreme Bench of the United States. In an address before the Young Men's Lyceum at Springfield, in January, 1837, on "The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions, ' ' Mr. Lincoln gave out what may be construed as one of his earliest public utter- ances on the subject of slavery. His theme was sug- gested by numerous lynchings and mob outrages which had been taking place in a number of the Southern 30 LIFE OF LINCOLN. States — especially in Mississippi — and by the recent burning of a negro in St. Louis charged with the com- mission of a murder. The argument, as a whole, was a warning against the danger of mob law to the prin- ciples of civil liberty enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, and a cautious plea for the right of free speech. In it he said: "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is necessarily true — that the thing is right within itself, and therefore deserves protection of all law and all good citizens; or it is wrong, and, therefore, proper to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case is the interposition of mob law either necessary, justifiable, or excus- able." While there are some crudities in this early effort, and an absence of that logical clearness, directness, and force which distinguished Air. Lincoln's later pro- ductions, it indicates the bent of his mind at that time on this subject. This was shown, possibly, with still greater emphasis and distinctness during the session of the Legislature in March of the same year, when, in conjunction with one other member — his colleague, Dan Stone — he entered upon the House Journal his protest against a scries of pro-slavery resolutions which had been adopted by that body. In that document the protectants expressed their belief "that the institution of slavery is founded >>n both injustice and bad policy," ami that, while Congress had "no power under the Con ttitUtion to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States," it had the power to abolish LIFE OF LINCOLN. 31 it in the District of Columbia, but ought not to exercise it except at the request of the people of the District. ' ' On November 4, 1842, Mr. Lincoln was married to Miss Mary Todd, but held no office until his election in 1846 as Representative in Congress for the Springfield District. He made several speeches during his term, the most noteworthy being one in which, in his char- acteristic style, he took ground in opposition to the position of the administration in reference to the Mex- ican War — on that subject agreeing with the famous Tom Corwin. His attitude on the slavery question is indicated by his statement that, while in Congress, he voted in favor of the Wilmot Proviso forty-two times, and supported a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, with the consent of the voters of the District and with compensation to the owners. This was his uniform position with reference to slavery up to the time when the slave-holders forfeited their right to be protected by engaging in rebellion, and when its abolition became a "war measure." VI. ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Impelled by the necessity of providing for his family, during the five years following his retirement from Congress in 1849, Mr. Lincoln gave his time to the practice of his profession more industriously than ever before. The passage, in May, 1854, of the so-called 32 LIFE OF LINCOLN. Kansas-Nebraska bill, repealing the Missouri Compro- mise and opening the way for the admission of slavery into territory which had been "dedicated to freedom," again called him into the political arena, and marked a new era in his career. Although neither holding an office nor a candidate for one, he almost immediately became one of the leaders of the opposition to that measure. During the early days of October, 1854, the State Fair being in progress, Senator Douglas came to Springfield to enter upon a defense of his action. In Mr. Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull he found his chief and ablest critics and antagonists. Two weeks later, Mr. Lincoln delivered, at Peoria, probably the most exhaustive argument that had, so far, been delivered on this question. At this time, Mr. Lincoln had strong hopes that the Whig party would align itself in opposi- tion to the Nebraska bill, and refused to identify him- self with any scheme for the organization of a new party. At the November election, he and Judge Stephen T. Logan — confessedly the two ablest men of the party in Sangamon County — were taken up and elected to the Legislature. Lincoln, recognizing that his name was to come before the Legislature at the coming session, as a candidate for the United States Senate, as a successor to General Shields, declined to accept his certificate of election, thereby leaving a vacancy t«> be filled by a special election. By the device popularly known as a "still hunt," a Democrat was chosen to iill the vacancy. When the Legislature met on January 1, 1855, the Anti-Nebraska Whigs and Anti-Nebraska Democrats still had a small majority. The Senatorial election came on February 8. Lincoln became tin- caucus nominee of the Whigs, Shields of LIFE OF LINCOLN. 33 the straight-out Democrats, while Lyman Trumbull received the support of the Anti- Nebraska Democrats. On the first ballot Lincoln received his full vote of forty-five members, while Trumbull received five, which, combined with the Lincoln vote, would have been sufficient to elect — all other candidates receiving forty-nine votes. Trumbull's supporters stood by him, while a portion of Lincoln's fell off. Before reaching the tenth ballot it was evident that a combi- nation would have to be effected in order to prevent the election of a Democrat. By Lincoln's advice, his friends went to Trumbull, and he was elected. While Lincoln frankly acknowledged his disappointment at the result, he never displayed his characteristic magnanimity and unselfishness, for the good of the cause which he represented and the welfare of the country, more conspicuously than he did in this in- stance. A year later, realizing the utter hopelessness of the attempt to inspire the Whig party with new life, he entered with zeal into the work of organizing a new party. He attended the conference of a dozen Anti- Nebraska editors held at Decatur on the 2 2d of Feb- ruary, 1856, for the purpose of agreeing on a line of policy to be pursued in opposition to the effort to carry slavery into the new Territories under the Kansas- Nebraska Act. He consulted with the Committee on Resolutions, with the result that a platform was adopted clearly embodying the principles finally enunciated by the Republican party. A resolution was also adopted appointing a State Convention to be held at Bloomington on May 29, following, with a State Central Committee to carry this program into effect. 34 LIFE OF LINCOLN. At a banquet given in the evening to the members of the conference at the St. Nicholas Hotel, by the citizens of Decatur, while discountenancing the use of his own name as a candidate for Governor, he favored the nomination of Col. William H. Bissell, as that of an Anti-Nebraska Democrat who would unite all the ele- ments opposed to the Nebraska bill in his support. The convention was held at the time and place named ; Mr. Lincoln made before it one of the ablest and most inspiring speeches of his life; the Republican party, so far as Illinois was concerned, was brought into exist- ence; the program proposed by him at Decatur, for the nomination of Bissell for Governor, was carried into effect by acclamation, and its wisdom demon- strated by the election of the entire State ticket in November following. In the first National Conven- tion of the Republican party, held at Philadelphia on June 17, he was a leading candidate for the nomination for the Vice- Presidency on the Fremont ticket, receiv- ing no votes, and coming next to William L. Dayton, who was nominated. In the canvass of that year, he made over fifty speeches in different parts of the State, though not a candidate for any office except as the head of the electoral ticket. VII. HOUSE-DIVIDED AGAINST-I TS1-.LF SPEECH— THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE of 1S5S. Witli the exception of a speech before his neighbors at Springfield, in reply to one by Judge Douglas, in LIFE OF LINCOLN. 35 June, 1857, Mr. Lincoln gave little time to politics between 1856 and 1858, devoting his attention chiefly to his profession. As the date of the State Conven- tions of the latter year approached, the political ele- ments began to seethe and bubble. That of the Republicans met June 16, continuing its session two days. On the 17th a resolution was unanimously adopted declaring Abraham Lincoln its "first and only choice for United States Senator, to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas' term of office." In the evening, Mr. Lincoln delivered an address in response to this reso- lution. This meeting was held in the Hall of Repre- sentatives in the old State capitol. His speech was, in large part, a reiteration of the sentiments expressed at the Bloomington Convention of two years before, carried out to their logical conclusions. As it was written out, there is no doubt of the accuracy of the report given to the public. This has been universally recognized as one of the most important utterances of his life, scarcely second in importance to his two inaugural addresses. Its most striking passage is comprised in the following paragraph : "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved— I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall, become alike lawful in 36 LIFE OF LINCOLN. all the States — old as well as new, North as well as South." While he recognized that there was a "tendency to the latter condition," in the removal of the last obstacle to the introduction of slavery in the new Territories by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he evi- dently hoped for a different result, as shown by the encouraging words with which he closed this historical address: "The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come." The effect of this speech was startling. While it provoked the bitter criticism of his opponents — who, without justification, denounced it as a plea for dis- union — it was regarded by many of his friends as ill- advised. Yet its far-reaching sagacity and foresight, which now seem to have been prompted by a species of inspired prophecy, were demonstrated by the events of less than five years later, in which he was a prin- cipal factor. The Springfield speech was followed, a few months later, by the scries of joint debates with Senator las, in which Lincoln was the challenging party, Douglas naming the conditions. Seven meetings were held, as fellows: Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, Au- gust 27; Jonesboro, September 15; Charleston, tember 18; Galesburg, October 7 ; Quincy, October is: Alton, October 15 -Douglas opening and closing at four and Lincoln at three. They not only aroused the interesl of both parties throughout the State, but attracted the attention of the whole country. A fea- LIFE OF LINCOLN. 37 ture of this debate was the seven questions submitted to Douglas by Lincoln, four of which were propounded at Freeport and the other three at subsequent dates. These were a sort of offset to an equal number of questions propounded to Lincoln by Douglas at their first debate at Ottawa. The answers made by Douglas involved him in inconsistencies and apparent contra- dictions, which weakened him in the South and con- tributed to his defeat as a candidate for the Presidency in i860. At the election in November, 1858 — although the Republicans elected their State ticket by nearly 4,000 plurality — the friends of Judge Douglas secured a majority in the Legislature, thus a second time defeat- ing Mr. Lincoln's aspirations to the United States Senate. This debate served as a sort of school for Mr. Lin- coln, in which he studied, with the deepest intensity, those questions affecting human rights and the per- manent welfare of the nation ; and, while proving the capacity which he ever manifested to rise to every demand of the occasion, qualified him for the problems which he was called to face a few years later. The national reputation thus won for him was still further enhanced by his speeches in Ohio in September, 1859, still later in Kansas, and early in i860 in the East — that delivered at Cooper Institute, New York, on Feb- ruary 27, i860, being the most memorable. The latter, by their sound sentiment, convincing logic, and lofty patriotism, evoked the admiration of Eastern Republicans and prepared the way for what was to come at Chicago in May following. 38 LIFE OF LINCOLN. VIII. ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY— ADMINISTRA- TION— DEATH. The National Republican Convention met at Chi- cago, May 1 6, i860. The Republicans of Illinois had already been stirred to enthusiasm by the scenes wit- nessed in the State Convention at Decatur, a week earlier, and this was sustained in the National Conven- tion by the presence of such men, on the floor or in the audience, as David Davis, Norman B. Judd, Bur- ton C. Cook, Stephen T. Logan, O. H. Browning, Leonard Swett, R. J. Oglesby, Joseph Gillespie, and large delegations of Mr. Lincoln's personal friends from all parts of Illinois, to say nothing of those from other States. The work of nominating a candidate for President was taken up on the third day — May 18. On the first ballot, William H. Seward led Lincoln by 53^ votes, on the second by only 3^; on the third, Lincoln received 231^ votes to 180 for Seward — all others receiving 533^ votes. Before the result was announced, Lincoln's vote had increased to 354, and he was finally nominated unanimously amid the wildest enthusiasm. Lincoln received the announcement of his nomination in the editorial room of "The State Journal" at Springfield, and, after receiving the congratulations of his friends, withdrew to inform his wife of the result. The succeeding campaign was one of great earnest- ness and enthusiasm on the part of his political friends in all the Northern States, and one of intense bitter- ness on the part of his enemies, especially in the LIFE OP LINCOLN. 39 South. He was described in the partisan press as rude, ignorant, and uncultivated to the last degree, and pictured as a "baboon," and even painted as a sot and drunkard after his election, in spite of his abstemi- ous habits. The election in November gave him a plurality of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes out of 303, although not a single vote was returned for him from ten Southern States. From this point the history of his life is the history of his country. On the morning of February 11, 1861, he left his home at Springfield to assume the duties of his office at Washington. Standing on the rear plat- form of the train at the depot of the Great Western (now the Wabash) Railroad, he addressed his friends and neighbors, who had assembled to witness his departure : "My Friends: No one not in my position can realize the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same divine blessing which sus- tained him ; and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support. And I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which suc- cess is certain. Again, I bid you an affectionate fare- well." 4 o LIFE OF LINCOLN. No man ever spoke with profounder earnestness, or from a conscience stirred to deeper feeling by the bur- den of responsibility which had been placed upon his shoulders by the choice of the people. His route on the way to the National Capital lay through the States of Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- vania, and, at nearly every important station, immense throngs were gathered to greet him and bid him God- speed in the cause he had undertaken. The discovery of a plot to assassinate him in Baltimore led to a change of the program of his journey at Harrisburg, and he passed through Baltimore at night in company with Ward H. Lamon and Allan Pinkerton, the detective, arriving at Washington in safety on the morning of February 23. At that time the National Capital was full of leaders of secession, and unrest and mutual suspicion pre- vailed everywhere. Already seven States had adopted ordinances of secession, and four more soon followed their example. Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address was a touching appeal to stand by the Union, but, so far as the great bulk of the Southern people were concerned, it fell upon deaf ears. Then came four years of civil war with all its horrors. These were years of the deepest gloom and anxiety for Mr. Lincoln, but he never swerved from the duty he had assumed on the day of his inauguration, to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Union. The fall of Fort Sumter, the disaster at Bull Run, the reverses at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and the long wait of McCkllan at Manassas and in the Valley of the James — though counterbalanced by the LIFE OF LINCOLN. 41 Union victories in the West, especially at Fort Donel- son and Vicksburg, and the check to rebel invasion at Antietam and Gettysburg — tried the patience and faith of the President greatly, but he never lost confidence in the ultimate success of the Union cause. Then, too, he was the subject of bitter criticism on the part of political enemies, as well as a class of political friends — by the former, because he consented to the appeal to arms at all in defense of the Union; by the latter, because the war was not pushed with sufficient energy, and especially on his tardiness in striking at the insti- tution of slavery, which was regarded as the cause of the war. And yet, as to the latter, it is the universal judgment of impartial historians of that period, that he chose the right juncture for the issue of the Emancipa- tion Proclamation of January 1, 1863. That document — now universally regarded, next to the preservation of the Union itself, as the crowning feature of his administration — preceded by the prelim- inary proclamation of September 22, 1862, was issued as a "war measure" after months of anxious delibera- tion. It is well known that Mr. Lincoln, "while determined to resist the further extension of slavery into free territory, and desirous of its "ultimate extinc- tion," still believed that the supremacy of the laws and the Constitution should be respected, on this question as well as all others. For this reason, he urged upon the few loyal members who still remained in Congress from the Southern States the acceptance of emancipa- tion with compensation — which, if accepted by the South as a solution of the controversy between the two sections, would have resulted in immense saving of life and treasure. But this was not to be, and the 42 LIFE OF LINCOLN. blow came, forced as a "war measure," immediately upon the heels of the victory at Antietam. If it had come earlier, there is reason to believe that it would have cost the Union some of its ablest but more con- servative supporters. Mr. Lincoln never evinced his remarkable political sagacity more strikingly than in the time and manner of its issue, and it was accepted by the people and the army, as a rule, without protest — often with enthusiastic approval as time proved its wisdom. And thus was verified the prophecy which he had made in his "house-divided-against-itself" speech less than five years before — and he had been the chief instrument in its accomplishment. The re-election of Mr. Lincoln in 1864, followed by the triumph of Thomas and Sherman in the West, and of Grant before Richmond, determined the fate of the Union. On April 3, 1865, the Union forces entered the city of Richmond, and, the day following, Presi- dent Lincoln visited the Rebel capital, receiving an enthusiastic welcome, the most unique feature of which was the thanks of the members of the race whom he had emancipated. On the nth — two days after the surrender of Lee to Grant — he arrived in Washington. Three days later (April 14), the fourth anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter, the people in the principal cities of the country celebrated the fall of Richmond, the surrender of Lee, and the end of the rebellion. < >n the evening of that day, Mr. Lincoln, accom- panied by his wife, attended Ford's Theatre in Wash- ington, and, about half past nine, was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a fanatical champion of secession. His death occurred at 7 : sa o'clock the next morning. The nation, which had been rejoicing the day before LiFE OP LINCOLN. 43 over a restored Union, was cast beneath a pall of the deepest gloom. His public funeral occurred on the 19th, after which his remains lay in state in the rotunda of the National Capitol. On the 21st, the funeral cortege started on its sorrowful journey to Springfield, stopping at the principal cities en route, and arriving at its destination on the morning of May 3d. No such evidence of national sorrow has been witnessed in this country or elsewhere. His remains lay in state in the Hall of Representatives — the theater of some of his most brilliant oratorical triumphs — until the 4th, when the final obsequies took place in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist Church, delivering the funeral address. Here a stately monument, including a statue of the martyred Presi- dent, has been erected to his memory, which was dedi- cated, October 15, 1874, the late Governor Oglesby delivering the principal address. Among other distin- guished men present, and who delivered addresses, were Gen. U. S. Grant (then President), Vice-President Henry Wilson, Gen. William T. Sherman, Hon. Wil- liam E. Forster, M.P., of England, and Hon. Schuyler Colfax. Nothing could more strikingly illustrate Mr. Lin- coln's high ideal and firmness for the right, his intense humanity, his deep sympathy and his broad charity for all — friends and foes alike — than the closing paragraph of his last inaugural address — his last important public utterance : "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall 44 LIFE OF LINCOLN. have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. ' ' Stories of Lincoln's Early Life. BOOKS READ BY LINCOLN IN HIS EARLY LIFE. The books which Abraham had the early privilege of reading were the Bible, much of which he could repeat, -^Esop's Fables, all of which he could repeat, Pilgrim's Progress, Weem's Life of Washington, and a Life of Henry Clay, which his mother had managed to purchase for him. Subsequently he read the Life of Franklin and Ramsey's Life of Washington. In these books, read and re-read, he found meat for his hungry mind. The Holy Bible, ^Esop and John Bunyan — could three better books have been chosen for him from the richest library? For those who have witnessed the dissipating effects of many books upon the minds of modern children, it is not hard to believe that Abraham's poverty of books was the wealth of his life. These three books did much to perfect that which his mother's teaching had begun, and to form a character which, for quaint sim- plicity, earnestness, truthfulness and purity, has never 45 46 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. been surpassed among the historic personages of the world. The Life of Washington, while it gave him a lofty example of patriotism, incidentally conveyed to his mind a general knowledge of American history; and the Life of Henry Clay spoke to him of a living man who had risen to political and professional eminence from circumstances almost as humble as his own. The latter book undoubtedly did much to excite his taste for politics, to kindle his ambition, and to make him a warm admirer and partisan of Henry Clay. Abraham must have been very young when he read Weem's Life of Washington, and we catch a glimpse of his precocity in the thoughts which it excited, as revealed by himself in the speech made to the New Jersey Senate, while on his way to Washing- ton to assume the duties of the Presidency. Alluding to his early reading of this book, he says: "I remember all the accounts there given of the battle- fields and struggles for the liberty of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. I recollect thinking then, a boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that those men struggled for." Even at this age, he not only an interested reader of the story, but a student of motives. ABE'S REBUKE. "The first time I ever remember seeing Abe Lin- coln," is the testimony of one of his neighbors, "was when I was a small boy and had gone with my father to attend some kind of an election. One of the neigh- STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE 49 "bors, James Larkins, was there. Larkins was a great hand to brag on anything he owned. This time it was his horse. He stepped up before Abe, who was in a crowd, and commenced talking to him, boasting all the while of his animal. " 'I have got the best horse in the country,' he shouted to his young listener. 'I ran him nine miles in exactly three minutes, and he never fetched a long breath. ' " 'I presume,' said Abe, rather dryly, 'he fetched a good many short ones, though.' " LINCOLN'S LIZARD STORY. A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was quite a distance from any other house. The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in coarse linen pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. The pants, manufactured after the old fashion, with baggy legs and a flap in the front, were made to attach to his frame without the aid of suspenders. A single button held his shirt in position, and that was at the collar. He rose up in the pulpit, and with a loud voice announced his text thus: "I am the Christ whom I shall represent to-day." About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy pantaloons. The old preacher, not wishing to inter- rupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder; but his efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on ascend- ing higher and higher. Continuing the sermon, the preacher loosened the central button which graced the 5° STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick off came that easy fitting- garment. But, meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of the waistband, and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher's anatomy which lay underneath the back of his shirt. Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding on. The next movement on the preacher's part was for the collar button, and with one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt. The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; at length one old lady in the rear part of the room rose up, and glancing at the excited object in the pulpit, shouted at the top of her voice, "If you represent Christ, then I'm done with the Bible." HOW LINCOLN OBTAINED THE NAME OF "HONEST ABE." During the year that Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's store, that gentleman, whose business was somewhat widely and unwisely spread about the country, ceased to prosper in his finances, and finally failed. The store was shut up, the mill was closed, and Abraham Lincoln was out of business. The year had been one of great advance, in many respects. He had made new and valuable acquaintances, read many bonks, mastered the grammar of his own tongue, won multi- tudes of friends, and became ready for a step still further in advance. Those who could appreciate brains respected him, and those whose ideas of a man related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was while he was performing the work of the store that he STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 5* acquired the sobriquet "Honest Abe" — a characteriza- tion that he never dishonored, and an abbreviation that he never outgrew. He was judge, arbitrator, referee, umpire, authority, in all disputes, games and matches of man-flesh, horse-flesh, a pacificator in all quarrels; everybody's friend; the best-natured, the most sen- sible, the best-informed, the most modest and unassum- ing, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best fellow in all New Salem and the region round about. LINCOLN CARRIES A DRUNKARD EIGHTY RODS ON HIS BACK. An instance of young Lincoln's practical humanity at an early period of his life is recorded as follows: One evening, while returning from a "raising" in his wide neighborhood, with a number of companions, he discovered a stray horse, with saddle and bridle upon him. The horse was recognized as belonging to a man who was accustomed to excess in drink, and it was sus- pected at once that the owner was not far off. A short search only was necessary to confirm the suspicion of the men. The poor drunkard was found in a perfectly helpless condition, upon the chilly ground. Abraham's com- panions urged the cowardly policy of leaving him to his fate, but young Lincoln would not hear to the proposition. At his request, the miserable sot was lifted on his shoulders, and he actually carried him eighty rods to the nearest house. Sending word to his father that he should not be back that night, with the reason for his absence, he attended and nursed the 52 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. man until the morning, and had the pleasure of believ- ing that he had saved his life. HOW LINCOLN EARNED HIS FIRST DOLLAR. The following interesting story was told by Mr. Lin- coln to Mr. Seward and a few friends one evening in the Executive Mansion at Washington. The Presi- dent said: "Seward, you never heard, did you, how I earned my first dollar?" "No," rejoined Mr. Seward. "Well," continued Mr. Lincoln, "I belonged, you know, to what they called down South the 'scrubs.' We had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in tak- ing it down the river to sell. "After much persuasion, I got the consent of mother to go, and constructed a little flatboat, large enough to take a barrel or two of things that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to the Southern market. A steamer was coming down the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the Western streams; and the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings, for them to go out in a boat, the steamer Stopping and taking them on board. "I was contemplating my new flatboat, and wonder- ing whether I could make it strong or improve it in any particular, when two men came down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and looking at the differenl boats singled out mine, ami asked, 'Who owns this?' I answered, somewhat modestly, '1 do.' 'Will you,' said <>ne <>f tluun, 'take us and our trunks out to the STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 53 steamer?' 'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earning something. I supposed that each of them would give me one or two or three bits. The trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them out to the steamboat. "They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks, and put them on deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar, and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit, that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time." YOUNG LINCOLN "PULLS^FODDER" TWO DAYS FOR a damag'ed BOOK. The following incident, illustrating several traits already developed in the early boyhood of Lincoln, is vouched for by a citizen of Evansville, Ind., who knew him in the days referred to : In his eagerness to acquire knowledge, young Lin- coln had borrowed of Mr. Crawford, a neighboring farmer, a copy of Weem's Life of Washington — the only one known to be in existence in that region of the country. Before he had finished reading the book, it 54 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. had been left, by a not unnatural oversight, in a win- dow. Meantime, a rain storm came on and the book was so thoroughly wet as to make it nearly worthless. This mishap caused him much pain ; but he went, in all honesty, to Mr. Crawford with the ruined book, explained the calamity that had happened through his neglect, and offered, not having sufficient money, to "work out" the value of the book. "Well, Abe," said Mr. Crawford, after due delibera- tion, "as it's you, I won't be hard on you. Just come over and pull fodder for me two days, and we will call our accounts even." The offer was readily accepted, and the engagement literally fulfilled. As a boy, no less than since, Abra- ham had an honorable conscientiousness, integrity, honesty, and an ardent love of knowledge. YOUNG LINCOLN NARROWLY ESCAPES DEATH. A little incident occurred while young Lincoln lived in Indiana, which illustrates the early hardships and surroundings to which lie was subjected. On one occa- sion he was obliged to take his grist upon the back of his father's horse, and go fifty miles to get it ground. The mill itself was very rude, and driven by horse- power, the customers were obliged to wait their "turn," without reference to their distance from home, and then used their own horse to propel the machinery. On this occasion, Abraham, having arrived at his turn, fastened his mare to the lever, and was following her closely upon her rounds, when, urging her with the switch, ami "clucking" to her in the usual way, he LINCOLN AS A RAIL SFLITTER. STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 57 received a kick from her which prostrated him, and made him insensible. With the first instant of return- ing consciousness, he finished the cluck, which he had commenced when he received the kick (a fact for the psychologist), and with the next he probably thought about getting home, where he arrived at last, battered, but ready for further service. NO VICES— FEW VIRTUES. Riding at one time in the stage, with an old Ken- tuckian who was returning from Missouri, Lincoln excited the old gentleman's surprise by refusing to accept either of tobacco or French brandy. When they separated that afternoon, the Kentuckian to take another stage bound for Louisville, he shook hands warmly with Lincoln, and said good-humoredly, "See here, stranger, you're a clever but strange com- panion. I may never see you again, and I don't want to offend you, but I want to say this: My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has d d few virtues. Good-day. ' ' Lincoln enjoyed this reminiscence of his journey, and took great pleasure in relating it. LINCOLN'S PROPHECY. An old copy-book of Lincoln's has the following, written when he was fourteen years old : " 'Tis Abraham Lincoln holds the pen, He will be good, but God knows when!" 58 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. HOW LINCOLN THRASHED A BULLY AND MADE A LIFELONG FRIEND. While showing goods to two or three women in Offutt's store one day, a bully came in and began to talk in an offensive manner, using much profanity, and evidently wishing to provoke a quarrel. Lincoln leaned over the counter, and begged him, as ladies were present, not to indulge in such talk. The bully retorted that the opportunity had come for which he had long sought, and he would like to see the man who could hinder him from saying anything he might choose to say. Lincoln, still cool, told him that if he would wait until the ladies had retired he would hear what he had to say, and give him any satisfaction he desired. As soon as the women were gone, the man became furious. Lincoln heard his boasts and abuse for a time, and, finding he was not to be put off without a fight, said: "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I may as well whip you as any other man." This was just what the bully had been seeking, he said, so out of doors they went, and Lincoln made short work of him. He threw him upon the ground, held him there as if he had been a child, and gathering some "smart- weed" which grew upon the spot, rubbed it into his face and eves, until the fellow bellowed with pain. Lincoln did all this without a particle of anger, and, when the Jul) was finished, went immediately for water, washed his victim's face, and did everything he COUld t<> alleviate his distress. Tho upshot of the matter was that tin- man became his fast and lifelong friend, and was a better ni.m from that day. It was STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 59 impossible then, and it always remained, for Lincoln to cherish resentment and revenge. AN INCIDENT FROM LINCOLN'S EXPERIENCE ON A MISSISSIPPI FLATBOAT. At the age of nineteen, Abraham made his second essay in navigation, and at this time caught something more than a glimpse of the great world in which he was destined to play so important a part. A trading neighbor applied to him to take charge of a flatboat and its cargo, and, in company with his own son, to take it to the sugar plantations near New Orleans. The entire business of the trip was placed in Abra- ham's hands. The fact tells its own story touching the young man's reputation for capacity and integrity. He had never made the trip, knew nothing of the journey, was unaccustomed to business transactions, had never been much upon the river; but his tact, ability and honesty were so trusted that the trader was willing to risk his cargo and his son in Lincoln's care. The incidents of a trip like this were not likely to be exciting, but there were many social chats with the settlers and hunters along the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and there was much hailing of similar craft afloat. Arriving at a sugar plantation some- where between Natchez and New Orleans, the boat was pulled in, and tied to the shore for purposes of trade; and here an incident occurred which was sufficiently exciting, and one which, in the memory of recent events, reads somewhat strangely. Here seven negroes attempted the life of the future liberator of the race, and it is not improbable that some of them 6o STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. have lived to be emancipated by his proclamation. Night had fallen, and the two tired voyagers had lain down on their hard bed for sleep. Hearing a noise on shore, Abraham shouted: "Who's there?" The noise continuing and no one replying, he sprang to his feet and saw seven negroes, evidently bent on plunder. Abraham guessed the errand at once, and seizing a hand-spike, rushed towards them, and knocked one into the water the moment he touched the boat. The second, third, and fourth who leaped on board were served in the same rough way. Seeing that they were not likely to make headway in their thieving enter- prise, the remainder turned to flee. Abraham and his companion, growing excited and warm with their work, leaped on shore, and followed them. Both were too swift on foot for the negroes, and all of them received a severe pounding. They returned to their boat just as the others escaped from the water, but the latter fled into the darkness as fast as their legs could carry them. Abraham and his fellow in the fight were both injured, but not disabled. Not being armed, and unwilling to wait until the negroes had received reinforcements, they cut adrift, and floated down a mile or two, tied up to the bank again, and watched and waited for the morning. The trip was brought at length to a successful end. The cargo, "load," as they called it, was all disposed of for money, the boat itself sold for lumber, and the young men retraced the- passage, partly, at least, on shore and on foot, Occupying several weeks in the difficult and tedious journey. STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 61 "HONEST ABE" AS A COUNTRY STOREKEEPER. Lincoln could not rest for an instant under the con- sciousness that he had, even unwittingly, defrauded anybody. On one occasion, while clerking in Offutt's store, at New Salem, 111., he sold a woman a little bale of goods, amounting in value by the reckoning to two dollars and twenty cents. He received the money, and the woman went away. On adding the items of the bill again to make himself sure of correctness, he found that he had taken six and a quarter cents too much. It was night, and, closing and locking the store, he started out on foot, a distance of two or three miles, for the house of his defrauded customer, and, delivering over to her the sum whose possession had so much troubled him, went home satisfied. On another occasion, just as he was closing the store for the night, a woman entered, and asked for a half pound of tea. The tea was weighed out and paid for, and the store was left for the night. The next morn- ing Lincoln entered to begin the duties of the day, when he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw at once that he had made a mistake, and, shutting the store, he took a long walk before break- fast to deliver the remainder of the tea. These are very humble incidents, but they illustrate the man's perfect conscientiousness — his sensitive honesty — better, perhaps, than they would if they were of greater moment. "HONEST ABE" AS VILLAGE POSTMASTER. Mr. Lincoln was appointed postmaster by President Jackson. The office was too insignificant to be con- 62 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. sidered politically, and it was given to the young man because everybody liked him, and because he was the only man who was willing to take it who could make out the returns. He was exceedingly pleased with the appointment, because it gave him a chance to read every newspaper that was taken in the vicinity. He had never been able to get half the newspapers he wanted before, and the office gave him the prospect of a constant feast. Not wishing to be tied to the office, as it yielded him no revenue that would reward him for the confinement, he made a post-office of his hat. Whenever he went out the letters were placed in his hat. When an anxious looker for a letter found the postmaster, he had found his office; and the public officer, taking off his hat, looked over his mail wher- ever the public might find him. He kept the office until it was discontinued, or removed to Petersburg. One of the most beautiful exhibitions of Mr. Lin- coln's rigid honesty occurred in connection with the settlement of his accounts with the Post-office Depart- ment, several years afterward. It was after he had become a lawyer, and had been a legislator. He had passed through a period of great poverty, had acquired his education in the law in the midst of many perplexities, inconveniences, and hard- ships, and had met with temptations such as few men could resist, to make a temporary use of an}' money he might have in his hands. One day, seated in the law office of his partner, the agent of the Post-office Department entered, and inquired If Abraham Lincoln was within. Mr. Lincoln responded to his name, and was informed that the agent had called to collect the balance due the Department since the discontinuance STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 6 3 of the New Salem office. A shade of perplexity passed over Mr. Lincoln's face, which did not escape the notice of friends present. One of them said at once: "Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let us help you." He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, asked the agent how much the amount of his debt was. The sum was named, and then Mr. Lincoln opened the trunk, pulled out a little package of coin wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the exact sum, amounting to something more than seven- teen dollars. After the agent had left the room, he remarked quietly that he had never used any man's money but his own. Although this sum had been in his hands during all these years, he had never regarded it as available, even for any temporary use of his own. A FLATBOAT INCIDENT ILLUSTRATING LINCOLN'S READY INGENUITY. Governor Yates, of Illinois, in a speech at Spring- field, quoted one of Mr. Lincoln's early friends — W. T. Green — as having said that the first time he ever saw Mr. Lincoln, he was in the Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot a fiatboat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let it run out; affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future President in the quick invention of moral expedients* 64 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. A WRESTLING MATCH. There lived, at the time young; Lincoln resided at New Salem, 111., in and around the village, a band of rollicking fellows, or, more properly, roistering rowdies, known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." The special tie that united them was physical courage and prowess. These fellows, although they embraced in their number many men who have since become respectable and influential, were wild and rough beyond toleration in any community not made up like that which produced them. They pretended to be "regu- lators," and were the terror of all who did not acknowl- edge their rule; and their mode of securing allegiance was by flogging every man who failed to acknowledge it. They took it upon themselves to try the mettle of every new-comer, and to learn the sort of stuff he was made of. Some of their number was appointed to fight, wrestle, or run a foot-race with each incoming stranger. Of course, Abraham Lincoln was obliged to pass the ordeal. Perceiving that he was a man who would not easily be floored, they selected their champion, Jack Arm- strong, and imposed upon him the task of laying Lin- coln upon his back. There is no evidence that Lincoln was an unwilling party to the sport, for it was what he had always been accustomed to. The bout was entered upon, but Armstrong soon discovered that he had met more than his match. The boys were looking on, and seeing that their champion was likely to get the worst of it, did after LINCOLN'S EARLY HOME AT ELIZABETHTOWN, HARDIN CO., KY. FROM A PHOTO- GRAPH TAKEN IN 1895. STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 67 the manner of such irresponsible bands. They gath- ered around Lincoln, struck and disabled him, and then Armstrong, by "legging" him, got him down. Most men would have been indignant, not to say furiously angry, under such foul treatment as this; but if Lincoln was either, he did not show it. Getting up in perfect good humor, he fell to laughing over his dis- comfiture, and joking about it. They had all calcu- lated on making him angry, and they intended, with the amiable spirit which characterized the "Clary's Grove Boys, ' ' to give him a terrible drubbing. They were disappointed, and, in their admiration of him, immediately invited him to become one of the com- pany. THE FIRST MEETING OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT AND GOVERNOR. Lincoln was a marked and a peculiar young man. People talked about him. His studious habits, his greed for information, his thorough mastery of the difficulties of every new position in which he was placed, his intelligence touching all matters of public concern, his unwearying good-nature, his skill in tell- ing a story, his great athletic power, his quaint, odd ways, his uncouth appearance, all tended to bring him in sharp contrast with the dull mediocrity by which he was surrounded. Denton Offutt, his old employer in the store, said, after having had a conver- sation with Lincoln, that the young man "had talent enough in him to make a President. ' ' In every circle in which he found himself, whether refined or coarse, he was always the center of attraction. 68 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. William G. Greene says that when he (Greene) was a member of the Illinois College, he brought home with him, on a vacation, Richard Yates, afterwards Governor of the State, and some other boys, and, in order to entertain them, took them up to see Lincoln. He found him in his usual position and at his usual occupation. He was flat on his back, on a cellar door, reading a newspaper. This was the manner in which a President of the United States and a Governor of Illinois became acquainted with each other. Mr. Greene says that Lincoln then repeated the whole of Burns, and was a devoted student of Shakespeare. So the rough backwoodsman, self-educated, enter- tained the college boys, and was invited to dine with them on bread and milk. How he managed to upset his bowl of milk is not a matter of history, but the fact that he did so, as is the further fact that Greene's mother, who loved Lincoln, tried to smooth over the accident and to relieve the young man's embarrass-, ment. LINCOLN'S NAME GOOD FOR A BED. In the year 1S55 or 1S56, George B. Lincoln, Esq., of Brooklyn, was traveling through the west in connec- tion with a large New York dry-goods establishment. He found himself one night in a town on the Illinois River, by the name of Naples. The only tavern of the place had evidently been constructed with reference to business on a small scale. Poor as the prospect seemed, Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but to put tip at the place. STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 69 The supper-room was also used as a lodging-room. Mr. Lincoln told his host that he thought he would "go to bed." "Bed!" echoed the landlord. "There is no bed for you in this house unless you sleep with that man yon- der. He has the only one we have to spare. " "Well," returned Mr. Lincoln, "the gentleman has possession, and perhaps would not like a bed-fellow." Upon this a grizzly head appeared out of the pillows, and said: "What is your name?" "They call me Lincoln at home," was the reply. "Lincoln!" repeated the stranger; "any connection of our Illinois Abraham?" "No," replied Mr. Lincoln. "I fear not." "Well," said the old gentleman, "I will let any man by the name of 'Lincoln' sleep with me, just for the sake of the name. You have heard of Abe?" he inquired. "Oh, yes, very often," replied Mr. Lincoln. "No man could travel far in this State without hearing of him, and I would be very glad to claim connection if I could do so honestly. ' ' "Well," said the old gentleman, "my name is Sim- mons. 'Abe' and I used to live and work together when young men. Many a job of wood-cutting and rail-splitting have I done up with him. Abe Lincoln was the likeliest boy in God's world. He would work all day as hard as any of us — and study by firelight in the log-house half the night; and in this way he made himself a thorough, practical surveyor. Once, during those days, I was in the upper part of the State, and I met General Ewing, whom President Jackson had sent 7o STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. to the Northwest to make surveys. I told him about Abe Lincoln, what a student he was, and that I wanted he should give me a job. He looked over his memo- randum, and, holding out a paper, said: 1 'There is County must be surveyed; if your friend can do the work properly, I shall be glad to have him undertake it — the compensation will be six hun- dred dollars.' "Pleased as I could be, I hastened to Abe, after I got home, with an account of what I had secured for him. He was sitting before the fire in the log-cabin when I told him; and what do you think was his answer? When I finished, he looked up very quietly, and said: " 'Mr. Simmons, I thank you very sincerely for your kindness, but I don't think I will undertake the job.' " 'In the name of wonder,' said I, 'why? Six hun- dred does not grow upon every bush out here in Illinois.' " 'I know that,' said Abe, 'and I need the money bad enough, Simmons, as you know; but I have never been under obligation to a Democratic Administration, and I never intend to be so long as I can get my living another way. General Ewing must find another man to do his work. ' " Mr. Carpenter related this story to the President one day, and asked him if it were true. "Pollard Simmons!" said Lincoln. "Well do I remember him. It is correct about our working together, but the old man must have stretched the facts somewhat about the survey of the County. I think I should have been very glad of the job at the time, no matter what Administration was in power." STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 71 Notwithstanding this, however, Mr. Carpenter was inclined to believe Mr. Simmons was not far out of the way, and thought this seemed very characteristic of what Abraham Lincoln may be supposed to have been at twenty-three or twenty- five years of age. AN UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE AS A MERCHANT IN NEW SALEM. It is interesting to recall the fact that at one time Mr. Lincoln seriously took into consideration the project of learning the blacksmith's trade. He was without means, and felt the immediate necessity of undertaking some business that would give him bread. It was while he was entertaining this project that an event occurred which in his undetermined state of mind seemed to open a way to success in another quarter. A man named Reuben Radford, the keeper of a small store in the village of New Salem, had somehow incurred the displeasure of the Clary's Grove Boys, who had exercised their "regulating" derogatives by irregularly breaking his windows. William G. Greene, a friend of young Lincoln, riding by Radford's store soon afterward, was hailed by him, and told that he intended to sell out. Mr. Greene went into the store, and offered him at random four hundred dollars for his stock. The offer was immediately accepted. Lincoln happening in the next day, and being familiar with the value of the goods, Mr. Greene pro- posed to him to take an inventory of the stock, and see what sort of a bargain he had made. This he did, and 72 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. it was found that the goods were worth six hundred dollars. Lincoln then made him an offer of a hundred and twenty-five dollars for his bargain, with the propo- sition that he and a man named Berry, as his partner, should take his (Greene's) place in the notes given to Radford. Mr. Greene agreed to the arrangement, but Radford declined it, except on condition that Greene would be their security, and this he at last assented to. Berry proved to be a dissipated, trifling man, and the business soon became a wreck. Mr. Greene was obliged to go in and help Mr. Lincoln close it up, and not only do this but pay Radford's notes. All that young Lincoln won from the store was some very valu- able experience, and the burden of a debt to Greene which, in conversations with the latter, he always spoke of as the national debt. But this national debt, unlike the majority of those which bear the title, was paid to the utmost farthing in after years. Six years afterwards, Mr. Greene, who knew nothing of the law in such cases, and had not troubled himself to inquire about it, and who had in the meantime removed to Tennessee, received notice from Mr. Lin- coln that he was ready to pay him what he paid for Berry — he (Lincoln) being legally bound to pay the liabilities of his partner. now LINCOLN BECAME A CAPTAIN IX 'nil-: r.LACK hawk war. In the threatening aspect of the Black Hawk War, Governor Reynolds issued a call for volunteers, and among the companies that immediately responded was STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 73 one from Menard County, Illinois. Many of the volunteers were from New Salem and Clary's Grove, and Lincoln, being out of business, was first to enlist. The company being full, they held a meeting at Rich- land for the election of officers. Lincoln had won many hearts, and they told him that he must be their captain. It was an office that he did not aspire to, and one for which he felt that he had no special fitness ; but he consented to be a candidate. There was but one other candidate for the office (a Mr. Kirkpatrick), and he was one of the most influential men of the County. Previously, Kirkpatrick had been an em- ployer of Lincoln, and was so overbearing in his treat- ment of the young man that the latter left him. The simple mode of their electing their captain, adopted by the company, was by placing the candi- dates apart, and telling the men to go and stand with the one they preferred. Lincoln and his competitor took their positions, and then the word was given. At least three out of every four went to Lincoln at once. When it was seen by those who had arranged them- selves with the other candidate that Lincoln was the choice of the majority of the company, they left their places, one by one, and came over to the successful side, until Lincoln's opponent in the friendly strife was left standing almost alone. "I felt badly to see him cut so," says a witness of the scene. Here was an opportunity for revenge. The humble laborer was his employer's captain, but the oppor- tunity was never improved. Mr. Lincoln frequently confessed that no subsequent success of his life had given him half the satisfaction that this election did. 74 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. He had achieved public recognition; and to one so humbly bred, the distinction was inexpressibly delight- ful. LINCOLN APPLIES FOR A PATENT. That he had enough mechanical genius to make him a good mechanic there is no doubt. With such rude tools as were at his command he had made cabins and flatboats; and after his mind had become absorbed in public and professional affairs, he often recurred to his mechanical dreams for amusement. One of his dreams took form, and he endeavored to make a practical matter of it. He had had experience in the early navigation of the Western rivers. One of the most serious hindrances to this navigation was low water, and the lodgment of the various craft on the shifting shoals and bars with which these rivers abound. He undertook to contrive an apparatus which, folded to the hull of the boat like a bellows, might be inflated on occasions, and, by its levity, lifted over any obstruction upon which it might rest. On this contrivance, illustrated by a model whittled out by himself, and now preserved in the Patent Office in Washington, he secured letters patent; but it is cer- tain that the navigation of the Western rivers was not revolutionized by it. LINCOLN THE TALLEST OF THE "LONG NINE." The Sangamon County delegation to the Illinois Legislature, in 1834, of which Lincoln was a member, consisting of nine representatives, was so remarkable for the physical altitude of its members that they were STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 75 known as "The Long Nine. " Not a member of the number was less than six feet high, and Lincoln was the tallest of the nine, as he was the leading man intellectually in and out the House. Among those who composed the House were Gen. John A. McClernand, afterward a member of Con- gress; Jesse K. DeBois, afterwards Auditor of the State ; James Semple, afterwards twice the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and subsequently United States Senator; Robert Smith, afterwards member of Congress ; John Hogan, afterwards a mem- ber of Congress from St. Louis; Gen. James Shields, afterwards United States Senator (who died recently) ; John Dement, who has since been Treasurer of the State ; Stephen A. Douglas, whose subsequent career is familiar to all ; Newton Cloud, President of the Con- vention which framed the present State Constitution of Illinois; John J. Hardin, who fell at Buena Vista; John Moore, afterward Lieutenant-Governor of the State; William A. Richardson, subsequently United States Senator, and William McMurtry, who has since been Lieutenant-Governor of the State. This list does not embrace all who had then, or who have since been distinguished, but it is large enough to show that Lincoln was, during the term of this Legis- lature, thrown into association and often into antag- onism, with the brightest men of the new State. LINCOLN'S ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE. In 1834, Lincoln was a candidate for the Legislature, and was elected by the highest vote cast for any candi- date. Major John T. Stuart, an officer in the Black 76 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. Hawk War, and whose acquaintance Lincoln made at Beardstown, was also elected. Major Stuart had already conceived the highest opinion of the young man, and seeing much of him during the canvass for the election, privately advised him to study law. Stuart was himself engaged in a large and lucrative practice at Springfield. Lincoln said he was poor — that he had no money to buy books, or to live where books might be borrowed or used. Major Stuart offered to lend him all he needed, and he decided to take the kind lawyer's advice, and accept his offer. At the close of the can- vass which resulted in his election, he walked to Spring- field, borrowed "a load" of books of Stuart, and took them home with him to New Salem. Here he began the study of law in good earnest, though with no preceptor. He studied while he had bread, and then started out on a surveying tour to win the money that would buy more. One who remembers his habits during this period says that he went, day after day, for weeks, and sat under an oak tree near New Salem and read, moving around to keep in the shade as the sun moved. He was so much absorbed that some people thought and said he was crazy. Not unfrequently he met and passed his best friends without noticing them. The truth was that he had found the pursuit of his life, and had become very much in earnest. During Lincoln's campaign he possessed and rode a horse, to procure which he had quite likely sold his compass and chain, for, as soon as the canvass had closed, he sold the horse and bought these instruments, LINCOLN S FIRST HOME IN ILLINOIS. "T'WtWIMffi LINCOLN'S HOME IN SPRINGFIELD, ILL. STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 79 indispensable to him in the only pursuit by which he could make his living. When the time for the assembly of the Legislature had arrived Lincoln dropped his law books, shouldered his pack, and, on foot, trudged to Vandalia, then the Capital of the State, about a hundred miles, to make his entrance into public life. INCIDENT IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR. An old Indian strayed, hungry and helpless, into the camp one day. The soldiers were conspiring to kill him as a spy. A letter from General Cass, recommending him, for his past kind and faithful service to the whites, the trembling old savage drew from beneath the folds of his blankets; but failed in any degree to appease the wrath of the men who confronted him. "Make an example of him," they exclaimed; "the letter is a forgery, and he is a spy." They might have put their threats into execution had not the tall form of their captain, his face swarthy with resolution and rage, interposed itself between them and their defenseless victim. Lincoln's determined look and demand that it must not be done were enough. They sullenly desisted, and the Indian, unmolested, continued on his way. COOL UNDER DIFFICULTIES. At one time Major Hill charged Lincoln with mak- ing defamatory remarks about his wife. 80 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. Hill was insulting in his language to Lincoln, who never lost his temper. When he saw his chance to edge a word in, Lincoln denied emphatically using the language or anything like that attributed to him. He entertained, he insisted, a high regard for Mrs. Hill, and the only thing he knew to her discredit was the fact that she was Major Hill's wife. "THANK YOU, I NEVER DRINK." When Lincoln was in the Black Hawk War as cap- tain, the volunteer soldiers drank in with delight the jests and stories of the tall captain. ^Esop's Fables were given a new dress, and the tales of the wild adventures that he had brought from Kentucky and Indiana were many, but his inspiration was never stimulated by recourse to the whisky jug. When his grateful and delighted auditors pressed this on him he had one reply: "Thank you, I never drink it." THE LINCOLN-SHIELDS DUEL. The late General Shields was Auditor of the State of Illinois in 1839. While he occupied this important office he was involved in an "affair of honor" with a Springfield lawyer — no less a personage than Abra- ham Lincoln. At this time, "James Shields, Auditor," was the pride of the young Democracy, and was con- sidered a dashing fellow by all, the ladies included. In the summer of 1842, the Springfield Journal con- tained some letters from the "Lost Township," by a STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 81 contributor whose nom de plume was "Aunt Becca," which held up the gallant young Auditor as "a ball- room dandy, floatin' about on the earth without heft or substance, just like a lot of cat fur where cats had been fightin'." These letters caused intense excitement in the town. Nobody knew or guessed their authorship. Shields swore it would be coffee and pistols for two if he should find out who had been lampooning him so unmerci- fully. Thereupon "Aunt Becca" wrote another letter, which made the furnace of his wrath seven times hotter than before, in which she made a very humble apology, and offered to let him squeeze her hand for satisfaction, adding: "If this should not answer, there is one thing more I would rather do than get a lickin'. I have all along expected to die a widow ; but, as Mr. Shields is rather good-looking than otherwise, I must say I don't care if we compromise the matter by — really, Mr. Printer, I can't help blushing — but I must come out — I — but widowed modesty — well, if I must, I must — wouldn't he — maybe sorter let the old grudge drap if I was to consent to be — be — his wife? I know he is a fightin' man, and would rather fight than eat; but isn't marryin' better than fightin', though it does sometimes run into it? And I don't think, upon the whole, I'd be sich a bad match neither; I'm not over sixty, and am just four feet three in my bare feet, and not much more around the girth; and for color, I wouldn't turn my back to nary a girl in the Lost Townships. But, after all, maybe I'm counting my chickens before they're hatched, and dreamin' of matrimonial bliss when the only alternative reserved for me may be a lickin'. Jeff 82 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. tells me the way these fire-eaters do is to give the challenged party the choice of weapons, which being the case, I tell you in confidence, I never fight with anything but broomsticks or hot water, or a shovelful of coals, or some such thing; the former of which, being somewhat like a shillelah, may not be so very objectionable to him. I will give him a choice, how- ever, in one thing, and that is whether, when we fight, I shall wear breeches or he petticoats, for I presume this change is sufficient to place us on an equality." Of course, some one had to shoulder the responsi- bility of these letters after such a shot. The real author was none other than Miss Mary Todd, after- ward the wife of Abraham Lincoln, to whom she was engaged, and who was in honor bound to assume, for belligerent purposes, the responsibility of her sharp pen-thrusts. Mr. Lincoln accepted the situation. Not long after, the two men, with their seconds, were on their way to the field of honor. But the affair was fixed up without any fighting, and thus ended in a fizzle the Lincoln-Shields duel of the Lost Township. Stories of Lincoln as a Lawyer. LINCOLN THE STUDENT. That Lincoln's attempt to make a lawyer of himself under the adverse and unpromising circumstances ex- cited comment is not to be wondered at. Russell Goodby, an old man who still survives, told the following: He had often employed Lincoln to do farm work for him, and was surprised to find him one day, sitting barefoot on the summit of a woodpile, and attentively reading a book. "This being an unusual thing for farm hands at that early date to do, I asked him," relates Goodby, "what he was reading. "He answered, 'I'm studying. " 'Studying what?' I inquired. " 'Law, sir,' was the emphatic response. It was really too much for me, as I looked at him sitting there proud as Cicero." "WELL, SPEED, I'M MOVED." Speed, who was a prosperous young merchant, reports that Lincoln's personal effects consisted of a pair of saddle-bags, containing two or three lawbooks, 84 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. and a few pieces of clothing. Riding on a borrowed horse, he thus made his appearance in Springfield. When he discovered that a single bedstead would cost seventeen dollars, he said, "It is probably cheap enough, but I have not money enough to pay for it." When Speed offered to trust him, he said: "If I fail here as a lawyer, I will probably never pay you at all. ' ' Then Speed offered to share a large double bed with him. "Where is your room?" Lincoln asked. "Upstairs," said Speed, pointing from the store lead- ing to his room. Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, and with a face beaming with pleas- ure and smiles, exclaimed: "Well, Speed, I'm moved." LINCOLN RESCUES A PIG FROM A BAD PREDICAMENT. An amusing incident occurred in connection with "riding the circuit," which gives a pleasant glimpse into the good lawyer's heart. He was riding by a deep slough, in which, to his exceeding p;iin, he saw a pig struggling, and with such faint efforts that it was evi- dent that he could not extricate himself from the mud. Mr. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud which enveloped him, and then looked at some new clothes with which he had hut a short time before enveloped himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he rode on, but he could not get rid of the vision of the poor brute, and, at last, after riding two miles, he turned back, determined to rescue the animal at the LINCOLN RESCUES A PIG. STORIES OP LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 87 expense of his new clothes. Arrived at the spot, he tied his horse, and coolly went to work to build of old rails a passage to the bottom of the hole. Descending on these rails, he seized the pig and dragged him out, but not without serious damage to the clothes he wore. Washing his hands in the nearest brook, and wiping them on the grass, he mounted his gig and rode along. He then fell to examining the motive that sent him back to the release of the pig. At the first thought it seemed to be pure benevolence, but, at length, he came to the conclusion that it was selfish- ness, for he certainly went to the pig's relief in order (as he said to the friend to whom he related the inci- dent), "to take a pain out of his own mind." This is certainly a new view of the nature of sympathy; and one which it will be well for the casuist to examine. HOW LINCOLN INVESTED HIS FIRST FIVE HUN- DRED DOLLARS FOR THE BENEFIT OF HIS STEP-MOTHER. Soon after Mr. Lincoln entered upon his profession at Springfield, he was engaged in a criminal case in which it was thought there was little chance of suc- cess. Throwing all his powers into it, he came off victorious, and promptly received for his services five hundred dollars. A legal friend calling upon him the next morning found him sitting before a table, upon which his money was spread out, counting it over and over. "Look here, Judge," said he. "See what a heap of money I've got from the case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never had so much money in 88 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. my life before, put it all together." Then, crossing his arms upon the table, his manner sobering down, he added: "I have got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase a quarter section of land, and settle it upon my old step-mother." His friend said that if the deficiency was all he needed, he would loan him the amount, taking his note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded. His friend then said: "Lincoln, I would not do just what you have indi- cated. Your step-mother is getting old, and will not probably live many years. I would settle the property upon her for her use during her lifetime, to revert to you upon her death." With much feeling, Mr. Lincoln replied: "I shall do no such thing. It is a poor return at best for all the good woman's devotion and fidelity to me, and there is not going to be any half-way business about it." And so saying, he gathered up his money and proceeded forthwith to carry his long-cherished purpose into execution. A DISTINCTION WITH A DIFFERENCE. Lincoln had assisted in the prosecution of a man who had appropriated some of his neighbor's hen roosts. Jogging home along the highway with the foreman of the jury, who had convicted the hen stealer, he was complimented by Lincoln on the zeal and ability of the prosecution, and remarked: "Why, when the country was young, and I was stronger than I am STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 89 now, I didn't mind packing off a sheep now and again, but stealing hens!" The good man's scorn could not find words to express his opinion of a man who would steal hens. THAT STAGE-COACH RIDE. Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Ind., who was appointed minister to Chili by Lincoln, when he was President, relates the following: Judge Abram Hammond, afterwards Governor of Indiana, and myself, arranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in the stage-coach. As we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occu- pant, and was sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him if he had chartered the coach that day. "Certainly not," and he at once took the front seat, politely surrendering to us the place of honor and comfort. An odd-looking fellow he was, with a twenty-five cent hat, without vest or cravat. Regard- ing him as a good subject for merriment, we perpe- trated several jokes. He took them all with utmost innocence and good nature, and joined in the laugh, although at his own expense. We amazed him with words of length and thunder- ing sound. After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics, the dazed and bewildered stranger asked, "What will be the upshot of this comet business?" 9 o STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning's hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether. We retired to our room to brush our clothes. In a few minutes I descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow traveler in the cen- ter of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were Judges McLean and Huntington, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I inquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. "Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, a member of Con- gress," was his response. I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I has- tened upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by a back door, and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding further contact with our distinguished fellow traveler. Years afterward, when the President-elect was on his way to Washington, I was in the same hotel looking over the distinguished party, when a long arm reached to my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaimed, "Hello, Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow the darned thing off?" The words were my own in answer to his question in the stage- coach. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln. ADVICE TO A YOUNG LAWYER "Billy, don't shoot too high — aim lower, and the common people will understand you. STORIES OP LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 91 "They are the ones you want to reach — at least, they are the ones you ought to reach. "The educated and refined people will understand you, anyway. If you aim too high, your idea will go over the heads of the masses, and only hit those who need no hitting." LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. Two things were essential to his success in managing a case. One was time ; the other was a feeling of con- fidence in the justice of the cause he represented. He used to say: "If I can free this case from techni- calities and get it properly swung to the jury, I'll win it." When asked why he went so far back, on a cer- tain occasion, in legal history, when he should have presumed that the court knew enough history, he replied: "There's where you are mistaken. I dared not trust the case on the presumption that the court knew anything; in fact, I argued it on the presump- tion that the court did not know anything." A state- ment that may not be as extravagant as one would at first suppose. When told by a friend that he should speak with more vim, and arouse the jury, talk faster and keep them awake, he replied: "Give me your little penknife with its short blade, and hand me that old jackknife, lying on the table." Opening the blade of the pen- knife he said: "You see this blade on the point travels rapidly, but only through a small portion of space till it stops, while the long blade of the jackknife moves no faster but through a much greater space than the small one. Just so with the long-labored movements 92 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. of the mind. I cannot emit ideas as rapidly as others because I am compelled by nature to speak slowly, but when I do throw off a thought it comes with some effort, it has force to cut its own way and travels a greater distance." The above was said to his partner in their private office, and was not said boastingly. When Lincoln attacked meanness, fraud or vice, he was powerful, merciless in his castigation. The following are Lincoln's notes for the argument of a case where an attempt was being made to defraud a soldier's widow, with her little babe, of her pension: "No contract, — Not professional services, — Unreas- onable charge, — Money retained by Def., not given by Pl'ff, — Revolutionary War, — Describe Valley Forge privations, — Ice, — Soldiers' Bleeding Feet, — Pl'ff hus- band, — Soldier leaving home for Army, — Skin Deft, — Close." Judgment was made in her behalf, and no charges made. The following reply was overheard in Lincoln's office, where he was in conversation with a man who appeared to have a case that Lincoln did not desire: "Yes," he said, "we can doubtless gain your case for you; we can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; we can distress a widowed mother and her six father- less children, and thereby get for you six hundred dol- lars to which you seem to have a legal claim, but which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much to the woman and children as it does to you. You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right. We shall not take your ease, but will give you a little advice for which we will charge you nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man; STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 93 we would advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other way. ' ' LINCOLN'S KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NATURE. Once, pleading a cause, the opposing lawyer had all the advantage of the law in the case ; the weather was warm, and his opponent, as was admissible in frontier courts, pulled off his coat and vest as he grew warm in the argument. At that time, shirts with the buttons behind were unusual. Lincoln took in the situation at once. Know- ing the prejudices of the primitive people against pre- tension of all sorts, or any affectation of superior social rank, arising, he said: "Gentlemen of the jury, having justice on my side, I don't think you will be at all influenced by the gentleman's pretended knowledge of the law, when you see he does not even know which side of his shirt should be in front." There was a general laugh, and Lincoln's case was won. LINCOLN AND FINANCES. Lincoln paid but little attention to the fees and money matters of the firm — he usually left all such matters to his partner. He never entered an item in the account book. If anybody paid money to him which belonged to the firm, on arriving at the office he divided it with his partner, and if he was not there, he would wrap up his share in a piece of paper and place it in his partner's drawer — marking it with a pencil, Case of Roe vs. Doe — Herndon's half," 94 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. LINCOLN DEFENDS THE SON OF AN OLD FRIEND, INDICTED FOR MURDER. Jack Armstrong, the leader of the "Clary Grove Boys," with whom Lincoln early in life had a scuffle which "Jack" agreed to call "a drawn battle," in con- sequence of his own foul play, afterward became a life- long, warm friend of Mr. Lincoln. Later in life the rising lawyer would stop at Jack's cabin home, and here Mrs. Armstrong, a most womanly person, learned to respect Mr. Lincoln. There was no service to which she did not make her guest abundantly welcome, and he never ceased to feel the tenderest gratitude for her kindness. At length her husband died, and she became depend- ent upon her sons. The oldest of these, while in attendance upon a camp meeting, found himself involved in a melee, which resulted in the death of a young man, and young Armstrong was charged by one of his associates with striking the fatal blow. He was examined, and imprisoned to await his trial. The public mind was in a blaze of excitement, and inter- ested parties fed the flame. Mr. Lincoln knew nothing of the merits of this case, that is certain. He only knew that his old friend, Mrs. Armstrong, was in sore trouble ; and he sat down at once, and volunteered by letter to defend her son. His first act was to secure the postponement, and a change of the place of trial. There was too much fever in the minds of the immediate public to permit of fair treatment. When the trial came on, the case looked very hopeless to all but Mr. Lincoln, who bad assured himself that the young man was nut guilty. The evidence on behalf of the State being all in, and STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 97 looking like a solid and consistent mass of testimony against the prisoner, Mr. Lincoln undertook the task of analyzing it, and destroying it, which he did in a manner that surprised every one. The principal wit- ness testified that "by the aid of the brightly shining moon he saw the prisoner inflict the death blow with a slung shot." Mr. Lincoln proved by the almanac that there was no moon shining at that time. The mass of testimony against the prisoner melted away, until "not guilty" was the verdict of every man present in the crowded court-room. There is, of course, no record of the plea made on this occasion, but it is remembered as one in which Mr. Lincoln made an appeal to the sympathies of the jury, which quite surpassed his usual efforts of the kind, and melted all to tears. The jury were out but half an hour, when they returned with their verdict of "not guilty. " The widow fainted in the arms of her son, who divided his attention between his services to her and his thanks to his deliverer. And thus the kind woman who cared for the poor young man, and showed herself a mother to him in his need, received the life of a son, saved from a cruel conspiracy, as her reward, from the hands of her grateful beneficiary. LINCOLN DEFENDS A WIDOWED PENSIONER WITH SUCCESS. An old woman of seventy years, the widow of a Revolutionary pensioner, came tottering into his law office, one day, and, taking a seat, told him that a certain pension agent had charged her the exorbitant 98 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. fee of $200 for collecting her claim. Mr. Lincoln was satisfied by her representations that she had been swindled, and, finding that she was not a resident of the town, and that she was poor, gave her money, and set about the work of procuring restitution. He immediately entered suit against the agent to recover a portion of his ill-gotten money. The suit was entirely successful, and Mr. Lincoln's address to the jury, before which the case was tried, is remembered to have been peculiarly touching, by allusions to the poverty of the widow, and the patriotism of the husband she had sacrificed to secure the nation's independence. He had the gratification of paying back to her $100, and sent her home rejoicing. HOW MRS. LINCOLN SURPRISED HER HUSBAND. A funny story is told of how Mrs. Lincoln made a little surprise for her husband. In the early days it was customary for lawyers to go from one county to another on horseback, a journey which often required several weeks. On returning from one of these jaunts, late one night, Mr. Lincoln dismounted from his horse at the familiar corner and then turned to go into the house, but stopped; a per- fectly unknown structure was before him. Surprised, and thinking there must be some mistake, he went across the way and knocked at a neighbor's door. The family had retired, and so called out: "Who's the: "Abe Lincoln," was the reply. "I am looking for my house. I thought it was across the way, but when STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 99 I went away a few weeks ago, there was only a one- story house there, and now there is two. I think I must be lost." The neighbors then explained that Mrs. Lincoln had added another story during his absence. And Mr. Lincoln laughed and went to his remodeled house. A NOTED HORSE TRADE IN WHICH LINCOLN CON- FESSED HE GOT THE WORST OF IT. When Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in Illinois, he and a certain judge once got to bantering one another about trading horses ; and it was agreed that the next morning at nine o'clock they should make a trade, the horses to be unseen up to that hour, and no backing out, under a forfeiture of $25. At the hour appointed, the Judge came up, leading the sorriest-looking specimen of a horse ever seen in those parts. In a few minutes Mr. Lincoln was seen approaching with a wooden saw-horse upon his shoul- ders. Great were the shouts and laughter of the crowd, and both were greatly increased when Mr. Lincoln, on surveying the Judge's animal, set down his saw-horse, and exclaimed: "Well, Judge, this is the first time I ever got the worst of it in a horse trade. ' ' CONSIDERATIONS SHOWN TO RELATIVES. One of the most beautiful traits of Mr. Lincoln was his considerate regard for the poor and obscure rela- tives he had left, plodding along in their humble ways of life. Wherever upon his circuit he found them, he ioo STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. always went to their dwellings, ate with them, and, when convenient, made their houses his home. He never assumed in their presence the slightest superiority to them, in the facts and conditions of his life. He gave them money when they needed and he possessed it. Countless times he was known to leave his com- panions at the village hotel, after a hard day's work in the court-room, and spend the evening with these old friends and companions of his humbler days. On one occasion, when urged not to go, he replied, "Why, Aunt's heart would be broken if I should leave town without calling upon her" ; yet, he was obliged to walk several miles to make the call. A PATHETIC STORY OF LINCOLN'S DISAPPOINTMENT IN FAILING TO SECURE THE SUPPORT OF THE SPRINGFIELD MINISTERS. At the time of Lincoln's nomination, at Chicago, Mr. Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Illinois, occupied a room adjoining and opening into the Executive Chamber at Springfield. Frequently this door was open during Mr. Lincoln's receptions, and throughout the seven months or more of his occupation, he saw him nearly every day. Often, when Mr. Lincoln was tired, he closed the door against all intruders and called Mr. Bateman into his room for a quiet talk. On one of these occasions, Mr. Lincoln took up a book containing canvass of the city of Springfield, in which he lived, showing the candidate for whom each citizen had declared it his intention to vote in the approaching election. Mr. Lincoln's friends had, doubtless at his STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 101 own request, placed the result of the canvass in his hands. This was towards the close of October, and only a few days before election. Calling Mr. Bateman to a seat by his side, having previously locked all the doors, he said: "Let us look over this book; I wish particularly to see how the ministers of Springfield are going to vote." The leaves were turned, one by one, and as the names were examined Mr. Lincoln frequently asked if this one and that one was not a minister, or an elder, or a member of such and such a church, and sadly expressed his surprise on receiving an affirmative answer. In that manner he went through the book, and then he closed it, and sat silently for some minutes regarding a memorandum in pencil which lay before him. At length he turned to Mr. Bateman, with a face full of sadness, and said : "Here are twenty-three ministers of different denominations, and all of them are against me but three, and here are a great many prominent members of churches, a very large majority are against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian, — God knows I would be one, — but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not so understand this book," and he drew forth a pocket New Testament. "These men well know," he continued, "that I am for freedom in the Territories, freedom everywhere, as free as the Constitution and the laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me; I do not understand it at all." io2 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. Here Mr. Lincoln paused — paused for long minutes, his features surcharged with emotion. Then he rose and walked up and down the reception-room in the effort to retain or regain his self-possession. Stopping at last, he said, with a trembling voice and cheeks wet with tears : "I know there is a God, and that he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am noth- ing, but Truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and Reason say the same ; and they will find it so. "Douglas don't care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care ; and with God's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find they have not read their Bible right." Much of this was uttered as if he were speaking to himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of manner impossible to be described. After a pause he re- sumed: "Doesn't it seem strange that men can ignore the moral aspect of this contest? No revelation could make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government must be destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this rock on which I stand" (alluding to the Testament which he still held in his hand), "especially with the knowledge of how these ministers are going to vote. It seems as if God STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 103 had borne with this thing (slavery) until the teachers of religion have come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction ; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out. ' ' Everything he said was of a peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone, and all was tinged with a touching melancholy. He repeatedly referred to his conviction that the day of wrath was at hand, and that he was to be an actor in the terrible struggle which would issue in the overthrow of slavery, although he might not live to see the end. After further reference to a belief in the Divine Providence and the fact of God in history, the con- versation turned upon prayer. He freely stated his belief in the duty, privilege, and efficacy of prayer, and intimated, in no unmistakable terms, that he had sought in that way Divine guidance and favor. The effect of this conversation upon the mind of Mr. Bate- man, a Christian gentleman whom Mr. Lincoln pro- foundly respected, was to convince him that Mr. Lincoln had, in a quiet way, found a path to the Christian standpoint — that he had found God, and rested on the eternal truth of God. As the two men were about to separate, Mr. Bateman remarked : "I have not supposed that you were accustomed to think so much upon this class of subjects; certainly your friends generally are ignorant of the sentiments you have expressed to me." He replied quickly : "I know they are, but I think more on these subjects than upon all others, and I have done so for years; and I am willing you should know it." io 4 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. INCIDENTS OF LINCOLN'S HOME LIFE. A lady relative who lived for two years with the Lin- colns, told me that Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of lying on the floor with the back of a chair for a pillow when he read. One evening, when in this position in the hall, a knock was heard at the front door, and, although in his shirt sleeves, he answered the call. Two ladies were at the door, whom he invited into the parlor, notifying them in his open, familiar way, that he would "trot the women folks out." Mrs. Lincoln, from an adjoin- ing room, witnessed the ladies' entrance, and, over- hearing her husband's jocose expression, her indig- nation was so instantaneous she made the situation exceedingly interesting for him, and he was glad to retreat from the mansion. He did not return till very late at night, and then slipped quietly in at a rear door. "NOTHING TO WEAR." A lady reader or elocutionist came to Springfield in 1857. A large crowd greeted her. Among other things she recited "Nothing to Wear," a piece in which is described the perplexities that beset "Miss Flora McFlimsey" in her efforts to appear fashionable. In the midst of one stanza in which no effort is made to say anything particularly amusing, and during the reading of which the audience manifested the most respectful silence and attention, some one in the rear scats burst out with a loud, coarse laugh, a sudden and explosive guffaw. It startled the speaker and audience, and kindled a storm of unsuppressed laughter and applause. Kverybody looked back to ascertain STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 107 the cause of the demonstration, and were greatly sur- prised to find that it was Mr. Lincoln. He blushed and squirmed with the awkward diffi- dence of a schoolboy. What caused him to laugh, no one was able to explain. He was doubtless wrapped up in a brown study, and recalling some amusing epi- sode, indulged laughter without realizing his surround- ings. The experience mortified him greatly, DEFEATED BY A STILL-HUNT. Lincoln was a candidate of the Know Nothings for the State Legislature, the party was overconfident, the Democrats pursued a still-hunt. Lincoln was defeated. He compared the situation to one of the camp follow- ers of General Taylor's army who had secured a barrel of cider, erected a tent, and commenced dealing it out to the thirsty soldiers at twenty-five cents a drink, but he had sold but little before another sharp one set up a tent at his back, and tapped the barrel so as to flow on his side, and peddled out No. 1 cider at five cents a drink ! of course, getting the latter's trade entire on the borrowed capital. "The Democrats," said Mr. Lincoln, "had played Knownothing on a cheaper scale than had the real devotees of Sam, and had raked down his pile with his own cider!" HOW LINCOLN WON THE NOMINATION FOR CONGRESS. Old-time politicians, says a correspondent, will readily recall the heated political campaign of 1843, in the neighboring State of Illinois. 108 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. The chief interest of the campaign lay in the race for Congress in the Capital district, which was between Hardin — fiery, eloquent, and impetuous Democrat — and Lincoln — plain, practical, and ennobled Whig. The world knows the result. Lincoln was elected. It is not so much his election as the manner in which he secured his nomination with which we have to deal. Before that ever-memorable spring, Lin- coln vacillated between the courts of Springfield, rated as a plain, honest, logical Whig, with no ambition higher politically than to occupy some good home office. Late in the fall of 1842 his name began to be mentioned in connection with Congressional aspira- tions, which fact greatly annoyed the leaders of his political party, who had already selected as the Whig candidate one Baker, afterward the gallant Colonel who fell so bravely and died such an honorable death on the battlefield of Ball's Bluff in 1862. Despite all efforts of his opponents within his party, the name of the "gaunt rail-splitter" was hailed with acclaim by the masses, to whom he had endeared himself by his witti- cisms, honest tongue, and quaint philosophy when on the stump, or mingling with them in their homes. The convention, which met in early spring, in the city of Springfield, was to be composed of the usual number of delegates. The contest for the nomination was Spirited and exciting. A few weeks before the meeting of the convention the fact was found by the leaders that the advantage lay with Lincoln, and that unless they pulled some very fine wires nothing conld save Baker. They attempted to play the game that has so often won, by "convincing" delegates under instructions for STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 109 Lincoln, to violate them, and vote for Baker. They had apparently succeeded. "The plans of mice and men aft gang aglee. " So it was in this case. Two days before the convention, Lincoln received an intimation of this, and, late at night, indited the following letter. The letter was addressed to Martin Morris, who resides at Petersburg, an intimate friend of his, and by him circulated among those who were instructed for him at the county convention. It had the desired effect. The convention met, the scheme of the conspirators miscarried, Lincoln was nominated, made a vigorous canvass, and was triumph- antly elected, thus paving the way for his more extended and brilliant conquests. This letter, Lincoln had often told his friends, gave him ultimately the Chief Magistracy of the nation. He has also said, that, had he been beaten before the convention he would have been forever obscured. The following is a verbatim copy of the epistle : "April 14, 1843- "Friend Morris: I have heard it intimated that Baker is trying to get you or Miles, or both of you, to violate the instructions of the meeting that appointed you, and to go for him. I have insisted, and still insist, that this cannot be true. "Sure Baker would not do the like. As well might Hardin ask me to vote for him in the convention. "Again, it is said there will be an attempt to get instructions in your county requiring you to go for Baker. This is all wrong. Upon the same rule, why might I not fly from the decision against me at Sanga- no STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. mon and get up instructions to their delegates to go for me. There are at least 1,200 Whigs in the county that took no part, and yet I would as soon stick my head in the fire as attempt it. "Besides, if any one should get the nomination by such extraordinary means, all harmony in the district would inevitably be lost. Honest Whigs (and very nearly all of them are honest) would not quietly abide such enormities. "I repeat, such an attempt on Baker's part cannot be true. Write me at Springfield how the matter is. Don't show or speak of this letter. "A. Lincoln." Mr. Morris did show the letter, and Mr. Lincoln always thanked his stars that he did. "HOLD ON, BREESE!" Judge Brcese, of the Supreme bench, — one of the most distinguished of American jurists, and a man of great personal dignity, — was about to open court at Springfield, when Lincoln called out in his hearty way, "Hold on, Brcese! Don't open court yet! Here's Bob Blackwell just going to tell a story!" The Judge passed on without replying, evidently regarding it as beneath the dignity of the Supreme Court to delay proceedings for the sake of a story. COLONEL BAKER DEPENDED BY LINCOLN. On one occasion, Colonel Baker was speaking in a courthouse, which had been a storehouse, and, on STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 113 making some remarks that were offensive to certain political rowdies in the crowd, they cried : ' ' Take him off the stand!" Immediate confusion ensued, and there was an attempt to carry the demand into execu- tion. Directly over the speaker's head was an old scuttle, at which it appeared Mr. Lincoln had been listening to the speech. In an instant, Mr. Lincoln's feet came through the scuttle, followed by his tall and sinewy frame, and he was standing by Colonel Baker's side. He raised his hand, and the assembly subsided into silence. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, "let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it." The suddenness of his appearance, his perfect calm- ness and fairness, and the knowledge that he would do what he had promised to do, quieted all disturbance, and the speaker concluded his remarks without difficulty. "WHOLE HOG JACKSON MAN." When Lincoln was working for the nomination for the Legislature the second time, he was on a certain occasion pitted against one George Forquer, who had been a leading Whig, but was now a "Whole Hog Jackson Man," and his reward was a good office. Forquer devoted himself to taking down the young ii 4 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. man from New Salem. He ridiculed his dress, man- ners and rough personal appearance, and with much pomposity derided him as an uncouth youngster. Lin- coln had noticed, on coming into Springfield, Forquer's fine house, on which was a lightning rod, then a great novelty in those parts. Lincoln, on rising to reply, stood for a moment with flashing eyes, and pale cheeks, betraying his inward but unspoken wrath. He began by discussing very briefly this ungenerous attack. He said: "I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks of the trade of the politician; but, live long, or die young, I would rather die now, than, like that gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning rod over my house to protect my guilty conscience from an offended God." The effect upon the simple audience, gathered there in the open air, was electrical. At another time, Lincoln replied to Col. Richard Taylor, a self-conceited, dandified man who wore a gold chain and ruffled shirt. His party at that time were posing as the hardworking, bone and sinew of the land, while the Whigs were stigmatized as aristocrats, ruffled-shirt gentry. Taylor making a sweeping gesture, his overcoat became torn open, displaying his finery. Lincoln in reply said, laying his hand on his jeans-clad breast: "Here is your aristocrat, one of your silk-stocking gentry, at your service." Then, spreading out his hands, bronzed and gaunt with toil: "Here is your rag-basin with lily-white hands. Yes, I suppose, according to my friend Taylor, I am a bloated aristocrat," STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 115 HARK FROM THE TOMBS. "Fellow-citizens: My friend, Mr. Douglas, made the startling announcement to-day that the Whigs are all dead. "If that be so, fellow citizens, you will now experi- ence the novelty of hearing a speech from a dead man ; and I suppose you might properly say, in the language of the old hymn : " 'Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.' " TRUSTED TILL THE "BRITCHEN" BROKE. In the campaign of 1852, Lincoln, in reply to Douglas' speech, wherein he speaks of confidence in Providence, replied: "Let us stand by our candidate (General Scott) as faithfully as he has always stood by our country, and I much doubt if we do not perceive a slight abatement of Judge Douglas's confidence in Providence as well as the people. I suspect that con- fidence is not more firmly fixed with the Judge than it was with the old woman whose horse ran away with her in a buggy. She said she 'trusted in Providence till the britchen broke,' and then she 'didn't know what in airth to do. ' "The chance is, the Judge will see the britchen broke, and then he can, at his leisure, bewail the fate of Locofocism as the victim of misplaced confidence." CROCODILE AND NEGRO. Douglas made use in one of his brief tours of the Mowing figure of spwQh; "A* feetweea the QroQodile n6 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. and the negro, I take the side of the negro; but as between the negro and the white man — I would go for the white man every time." Lincoln, at home, noted that; and afterwards, when he had occasion to refer to the remark, he said: "I believe that this is a sort of proposition in proportion, which may be stated thus: "As the negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or reptile." LINCOLN'S LAST INTERVIEW WITH DOUGLAS. "One day Douglas came rushing in," he related, "and said he had just got a telegraph dispatch from some friends in Illinois urging him to come out and help set things right in Egypt, and that he would go, or stay in Washington, just where I thought he could do the most good. "I told him to do as he chose, but that probably he could do best in Illinois. Upon that he shook hands with me, and hurried away to catch the next train. I never saw him again." PEN PICTURE OF LINCOLN, AND HIS SPEECH IN NEW YORK CITY. "When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disap- pointed. He was tall, tall, oh, so tall, and so angular and awkward that I had for an instant a feeling of pity for BO ungainly a man He began in a low tone of voice, as if he were used to speaking out of doors, and was afraid of speaking too loud. STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 119 "He said 'Mr. Cheerman,' instead of 'Mr. Chair- man, ' and employed many other words with an old- fashioned pronunciation. I said to myself, 'Old fellow, you won't do; it is all very well for the Wild West, but this will never go down in New York. ' But pretty soon he began to get into the subject; he straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures ; his face lighted as with an inward fire ; the whole man was transfigured. I forgot the clothing, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Pres- ently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering the wonder- ful man. In the close parts of his argument, you could hear the gentle sizzling of the gas burners. "When he reached a climax, the thunders of applause were terrific. It was a great speech. When I came out of the hall my face was glowing with excitement and my frame all a-quiver. A friend, with his eyes aglow, asked me what I thought of Abe Lincoln, the rail-splitter. I said, 'He's the greatest man since St. Paul. ' And I think so yet." REMARKS UTTERED BY LINCOLN, 1858. "Though I now sink out of view, I believe I have made some mark which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am gone. ' ' TRENT AFFAIR. Through Minister Adams he said to angry England : "It is unnecessary to remind your lordship that this means war. ' ' i2o STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. SLAVERY. He said of slavery in '55: "I bite my lips and keep quiet." A while later, in indignation: "Gentlemen, I'll make the ground of this country too hot for the feet of slaves." "THE HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF." Lincoln read the speech, containing the above, to many of his friends, before he delivered it in the con- test for the United States Senate against Douglas. Some condemned, some indorsed, characterized it as "fool utterances, ahead of its time"; another said, "Lincoln, deliver that speech as read, and it will make you President." Lincoln answered all their objec- tions, substantially as follows: "Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth — let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right." To one complainant who followed into his office he said proudly: "If I had to draw a pen across my record, and erase my whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased. " This was Lincoln's position in the Lincoln-Douglas debate. His opening speech at Springfield contained this memorable sentence. In a letter to a friend, August 22, 1858, Lincoln said: "Douglas and I, for the first time during this canvass, Crossed swords hero yesterday. The fire flew some, and I am glad to know I am yet alive." CAMPAIGN CLUB. For President, OFILLIWOIS. H.HAMtTUJ OF MAINE. CAMPAIGN BADGES OF i860 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 123 FIRST ECHOES FROM CHICAGO CONVENTION. Mr. Volk, the artist, relates that, being in Spring- field when the nomination was announced, he called upon Mr. Lincoln, whom he found looking radiant. "I exclaimed, 'I am the first man from Chicago, I believe, who has had the honor of congratulating you on your nomination for President.' Then those two great hands took both of mine with a grasp never to be forgotten, and while shaking, I said, 'Now that you will doubtless be the next President of the United States, I want to make a statue of you, and shall try my best to do you justice. ' "Said he, 'I don't doubt it, for I have come to the conclusion that you are an honest man, ' and with that greeting, I thought my hands in a fair way of being crushed. "On the Sunday following, by agreement, I called to make a cast of Mr. Lincoln's hands. I asked him to hold something in his hands, and told him a stick would do. Thereupon he went to the woodshed, and I heard the saw go, and he soon returned to the dining- room, whittling off the end of a piece of broom handle. I remarked to him that he need not whittle off the edges. 'Oh, well,' said he, 'I thought I would like to have it nice. ' ' ' MR. LINCOLN'S VISION. Mr. Lincoln, after hearing of his nomination at Chi- cago for the Presidency, returned home, and, feeling somewhat weary, went upstairs to his wife's sitting- room, and lay down upon a couch in the room directly opposite a bureau, upon which was a looking-glass. i2 4 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. "As I reclined," said he, "my eye fell upon the glass, and I saw distinctly two images of myself, exactly alike, except that one was a little paler than the other. I arose and lay down again with the same result. It made me quite uncomfortable for a few minutes, but, some friends coming in, the matter passed out of my mind. The next day, while walking in the street, I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance, and the disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had never seen anything of the kind before, and did not know what to make of it. I determined to go home and place myself in the same position, and, if the same effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it was the natural result of some principle of refraction or optics, which I did not understand, and dismiss it. I tried the experiment, with the same result; and, as I had said to myself, accounted for it on some principle unknown to me, and it then ceased to trouble me. But the God who works through the laws of Nature, might surely give a sign to me, if one of His chosen servants, even through the operation of a principle in optics." Mr. Lincoln remarked to Mr. Noah Brookes, one of his most intimate personal friends: "I should be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool if I for one day thought that I could discharge the duties which have come upon me, since I came to this place, without the aid and enlightenment of One who is stronger and wiser than all others." He said on another occasion: "I am very sure that if I do not go away from here a wiser man, I shall go away a better man, from having learned here what a very poor sort of a man I am." STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 125 "ADAM'S ALE," LINCOLN'S ONLY BEVERAGE. Immediately after Mr. Lincoln's nomination for President at the Chicago Convention, a committee, of which Governor Morgan, of New York, was Chairman, visited him in Springfield, 111., where he was officially informed of his nomination. After this ceremony had passed, Mr. Lincoln remarked to the company that as an appropriate con- clusion to an interview so important and interesting as that which had just transpired, he supposed good man- ners would require that he should treat the committee with something to drink ; and opening the door that led into the rear, he called out, "Mary! Mary!" A girl responded to the call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words in an undertone, and, closing the door, returned again and conversed with his guests. In a few minutes the maiden entered, bearing a large waiter, containing several glass tumblers, and a large pitcher in the midst, and placed it upon the center- table. Mr. Lincoln arose, and gravely addressing the company, said: "Gentlemen, we must pledge our mutual health in the most healthy beverage that God has given to man — it is the only bever- age I have ever used or allowed my family to use, and I cannot conscientiously depart from it on the present occasion. It is pure Adam's ale from the spring;" and, taking the tumbler, he touched it to his lips, and pledged them his highest respects in a cup of cold water. Of course, all his guests were constrained to admire his consistency, and to join in his example. i26 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. STANTON'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LINCOLN. He made no secret of his disgust of that "long, lank creature from Illinois," and declared if "that giraffe" was permitted to appear in the case he would throw up his brief and leave it. Mr. Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but recognizing Stanton's ability beneath his brusque exterior, he afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to a seat in his Cabinet. TWO ENTERTAINING ANECDOTES ILLUSTRATING LINCOLN'S GOOD NATURE. Soon after Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presi- dency, the Executive Chamber, a large, fine room in the State House at Springfield, was set apart for him, where he met the public until after his election. As illustrative of the nature of many of his calls, the following brace of incidents were related to Mr. Hol- land by an eye-witness: "Mr. Lincoln being in con- versation with a gentleman one day, two raw, plainly-dressed young 'Suckers' entered the room, and bashfully lingered near the door. As soon as he observed them, and apprehended their embarrassment, he rose and walked to them, saying: 'How do you do, my good fellows? What can I do for you? Will you sit down 5 ' The spokesman of the pair, the shorter of the two, declined to sit, and explained the object of the call thus: He had had a talk about the relative height of Mr. Lincoln and his companion, and had asserted his belief that they were of exactly the same height. He had come in to verify his judgment, Mr. Lincoln STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 127 smiled, went and got his cane, and, placing the end of it upon the wall, said: " 'Here, young man, come under here. "The young man came under the cane as Mr. Lin- coln held it, and when it was perfectly adjusted to his height, Mr. Lincoln said : " 'Now, come out, and hold the cane.' "This he did, while Mr. Lincoln stood under. Rubbing his head back and forth to see that it worked easily under the measurement, he stepped out, and declared to the sagacious fellow who was curiously looking on, that he had guessed with remarkable accuracy — that he and the young man were exactly the same height. Then he shook hands with them and sent them on their way. Mr. Lincoln would just as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as he would have thought of turning those boys away with the im- pression that they had in any way insulted his dignity. "They had hardly disappeared when an old and modestly dressed woman made her appearance. She knew Mr. Lincoln, but Mr. Lincoln did not at first recognize her. Then she undertook to recall to his memory certain incidents connected with his ride upon the circuit — especially his dining at her house upon the road at different times. Then he remembered her and her home. Having fixed her own place in his recollection, she tried to recall to him a certain scanty dinner of bread and milk that he once ate at her house. He could not remember it — on the contrary, he only remembered that he had always fared well at her house. '■ 'Well,' said she, 'one day you came along after we had got through dinner, and we had eaten up every- thing, and I could, give you nothing but a bowl of. ia8 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. bread and milk, and you ate it; and when you got up you said it was good enough for the President of the United States!' "The good woman had come in from the country, making a journey of eight or ten miles, to relate to Mr. Lincoln this incident, which, in her mind, had doubtless taken the form of a prophecy. Mr. Lincoln placed the honest creature at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy and complacent frame of mind." "I AM NOT FIT FOR THE PRESIDENCY." The opening of the year i860 found Mr. Lincoln's name freely mentioned in connection with the Repub- lican nomination for the Presidency. To be classed with Seward, Chase, McLean, and other celebrities was enough to stimulate any Illinois lawyer's pride; but in Mr. Lincoln's case, if it had any such effect, he was most artful in concealing it. Now and then, some ardent friend, an editor, for example, would run his name up to the masthead, but in all cases he discour- aged the attempt. "In regard to the matter you spoke of," he answered one man who proposed his name, "I beg you will not give it a further mention. Seriously, I do not think I am fit for the Presidency." SIX FOOT THREE COMMITTEE MAN. Tall Judge Kelly, of Pennsylvania, who was one of the committee to inform Mr. Lincoln of his nomina- STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 129 tion at the Chicago Convention, had been eyeing Mr. Lincoln's lofty form with a mixture of admiration, and very likely jealousy. This had not escaped Mr. Lin- coln, and as he shook hands with the Judge he inquired: "What is your height?" "Six feet three; what is yours, Mr. Lincoln?" "Six feet four." "Then," said the Judge, "Pennsylvania bows to Illi- nois. My dear sir, for years my heart has been aching for a President that I could look up to, and I've found him at last in the land where we thought there were none but little giants." A VISIT TO THE "FIVE POINTS HOUSE OF IN- DUSTRY" IN NEW YORK. When Mr. Lincoln visited New York in i860, he felt a great interest in many of the institutions for reform- ing criminals and saving the young from a life of crime. Among others, he visited, unattended, the Five Points House of Industry, and the superinten- dent of the Sabbath school there gave the following account of the event : "One Sunday morning I saw a tall, remarkable- looking man enter the room and take a seat among us. He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his countenance expressed such genuine interest that I approached him and suggested that he might be willing to say something to the children. He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and coming for- ward began a simple address, which at once fascinated every little hearer and hushed the room into silence. i 3 o STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. His language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical with intense feeling. The little faces would droop into sad conviction when he uttered sentences of warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the imperative shout of, 'Go on! Oh, do go on!' would compel him to resume. "As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of the stranger, and marked his powerful head and determined features, now touched into softness by the impressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity to learn something more about him, and while he was quietly leaving the room, I begged to know his name. He courteously replied: 'It is Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois.' " THE UGLIEST MAN. Mr. Lincoln enjoyed a joke at his own expense. Said he: "In the days when I used to be in the circuit, I was accosted in the cars by a stranger, who said, ' Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you.' 'How is that?' I asked, con- siderably astonished. "The stranger took a jackknife from his pocket. 'This knife,' said he, 'was placed in my hands some years ago, with the injunction that I was to keep it until I had found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the prop- erty. ' " SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS [Frcothe Daily Journal of the 9th.] A Political Earthquake] THE PRAIRIES ON FIRE FOR LINCOLN! THE BIGGEST DEMONSTRATION EVER HELD IN THE WEST! 75,000 REPUBLICANS IN COUNCIL f IMMENSE PROCESSION! Speaking from Five Stands by Trumbull, Poolittle, Kellogg, Palmer, Browning, Gillespie, etc., etc* HAGNmCENT TORCHLIGHT PROCEfiSION AT NIG ST. MEETINGS AT THE WWW AM AND TBBJtEfr BBSBNTATIVES If ALL. STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 133 THE OLD SIGN, "LINCOLN AND HERNDON." Enduring friendship and love of old associations were' prominent characteristics of President Lincoln. When about to leave for Washington, he went to the dingy little law office which had sheltered his saddest hours. He sat down on the couch, and said to his law partner, Herndon, "Billy, you and I have been together for more than twenty years, and have never passed a word. Will you let my name stay on the old sign until I come back from Washington?" The tears started to Mr. Herndon's eyes. He put out his hand. "Mr. Lincoln," said he, "I never will have any other partner while you live" ; and to the day of assassina- tion, all the doings of the firm were in the name of 4 ' Lincoln & Herndon. ' ' "HONEST OLD ABE." "An old man hailing from Mississippi, dressed in plain homespun, came to our city Saturday. He mingled freely with the Republican Representatives, got their news, and seemed to think we are not quite so black as we are represented. "He called on Mr. Lincoln, talked freely with him, and heard the President-elect express his sentiments and intentions. He learned that Mr. Lincoln enter- tained none but the kindest feelings towards the people of the South, and that he would protect the South in her just rights. "He had a long conversation, and went away delighted. He left the office of Mr. Lincoln in com- pany with a friend, who communicated this to us, and i34 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. when outside the door he remarked, while the tears stole down his furrowed cheeks: 'Oh! if the people of the South could hear what I have heard, they would love and not hate Mr. Lincoln. I will tell my friends at home; but,' he added sorrowfully, 'they will not believe me. ' He said that he did wish that every man in the South could be personally acquainted with Mr. Lincoln. ' ' Incidents from the x residential dareer of Lincoln. THE INAUGURATION— MARCH 4, 1861. The procession set out from the Executive Mansion. President Buchanan there entered the carriage, which, drawn by four horses, and preceded by the Mar- shal of the District, with his aids, on horseback, moved out of the grounds to the avenue. In front of Willard's Hotel a halt was made. Mr. Lincoln walked out through the crowd, which civilly opened a lane to permit him to pass, and entered the carriage. Upon arrival at the Capitol building the party pro- ceeded at once to the platform, when Senator Baker, of Oregon, spoke with his silvery voice the simple words, "Fellow citizens, I introduce to you Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect of the United States of America." The Rail-splitter, as he was popularly known, held the vast multitude spellbound. The sentiments of the President-elect could not be mistaken : "The Union must be, should be, preserved. " "I hold that in the 135 136 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitu- tion, the Union of the United States is perpetual!" "I shall take care, as the Constitution expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the States!" "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government." "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." Lincoln controlled the audience at his will, and clos- ing with these memorable words, he prepared to take the oath of office : "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriotic grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be." The Chief Justice of the United States now came forward. His venerable appearance gave, to what might have been a mere matter of form, great dignity and impressed significance. He extended an open Bible, upon which Mr. Lincoln laid his left hand, and uplifting his right arm, he slowly repeated after the Chief Justice the words of the Constitution: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President <>t" the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me ( rod !" The ceremony ended. Then those upon the plat- PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 139 form rose and remained standing as the President and his party passed back into the building. The procession reformed in the same order as before, and returned, leaving at the White House as President of the United States the private citizen it had escorted from the hotel. Within an hour, another carriage, in which there was a single occupant, was driven down the avenue to the only railroad station then in Washington. It contained Ex- President Buchanan, returning as a private citizen to his Pennsylvania home. "I'LL TRY TO STEER HER THROUGH." Gen. John A. Logan and Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, called upon Mr. Lincoln at Willard's Hotel, Wash- ington, February 23, the morning of his arrival, and urged a vigorous, firm policy. Patiently listening, the President replied seriously but cheerfully, "As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I'll try to steer her through." ONE CONCEPTION OF THE NEW PRESIDENT. Soon after Mr. Lincoln began his Administration, a distinguished South Carolina lady, the widow of a Northern scholar, called upon him out of curiosity. She was very proud and aristocratic, and was anxious to see this monstrosity, as he had been represented. Upon being presented she hissed in the President's ear: "I am a South Carolinian." The President, 140 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. taking in the situation, was at once courteous and dig- nified. After a pleasant conversation, she said: "Why, Mr. Lincoln, you look, act, and speak like a kind, good- hearted, generous man." "And did you expect to meet a savage?" said he. "Certainly I did, or even something worse. I am glad I have met you, and now the best way to preserve peace is for you to go to Charleston, and show the people what you are, and tell the people you have no intention of injuring them." The lady attended the first levee after the inauguration. LINCOLN'S UNCONVENTIONALITY IN RECEIVING OLD FRIENDS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. Mr. Lincoln's habits at the White House were as simple as they were at his old home in Illinois. He never alluded to himself as "President," or as occu- pying "the Presidency." His office he always desig- nated as "the place." "Call me Lincoln," said he to a friend; "Mr. President" had become so very tiresome to him. "If you see a newsboy down the street, send him up this way," said he to a passenger, as he stood waiting for the morning news at his gate. Friends cautioned him about exposing himself so openly in the midst of enemies; but he never heeded them. He frequently walked the streets at night, entirely unpro- tected; and felt any check upon his movements a great annoyance. He delighted to see his familiar Western friends; and he gave them always a cordial welcome. He met them on the old footing, and fell at once into the accustomed habits of talk and story-telling. PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 141 An old acquaintance, with his wife, visited Washing- ton. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln proposed to these friends a ride in the Presidential carriage. It should be stated in advance that the two men had probably never seen each other with gloves on in their lives, unless when they were used as protection from the cold. The question of each — Mr. Lincoln at the White House, and his friend at the hotel — was, whether he should wear gloves. Of course the ladies urged gloves; but Mr. Lincoln only put his in his pocket, to be used or not, according to the circumstances. When the Presidential party arrived at the hotel, to take in their friends, they found the gentleman, over- come by his wife's persuasions, very handsomely gloved. The moment he took his seat he began to draw off the clinging kids, while Mr. Lincoln began to draw his on! "No! no! no!" protested his friend, tugging at his gloves. "It is none of my doings ; put up your gloves, Mr. Lincoln." So the two old friends were on even and easy terms, and had their ride after their old fashion. REMARKABLE MEMORY OF LINCOLN. Mr. Lincoln's memory was very remarkable. At one of the afternoon receptions at the White House a stranger shook hands with him, and, as he did so, remarked casually, that he was elected to Congress about the time Mr. Lincoln's term as representative expired, which happened many years before. "Yes," said the President, "you are from " i 4 2 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. (mentioning the State). "I remember reading of your election in a newspaper one morning on a steamboat going down to Mount Vernon." At another time a gentleman addressed him, saying, "I presume, Mr. President, you have forgotten me?" "No," was the prompt reply; "your name is Flood. I saw you last, twelve years ago, at " (naming the place and the occasion). "I am glad to see," he con- tinued, "that the Flood goes on." Subsequent to his re-election a deputation of bankers from various sections were introduced one day by the Secretary of the Treasury. After a few moments of general conversation, Mr. Lincoln turned to one of them and said: "Your district did not give me so strong a vote at the last election as it did in i860. " "I think, sir, that you must be mistaken," replied the banker. "I have the impression that your majority was considerably increased at the last elec- tion." "No," rejoined the President, "you fell off about six hundred votes." Then taking down from the book- case the official canvass of 1S60 and 1864, he referred to the vote of the district named, and proved to be quite right in his assertion. GENERAL FISK'S STORY OF THE "SWEARING DRIVER." General Fisk, attending the reception at the White House on one occasion, saw, waiting in the ante-room, a poor old man from Tennessee. Sitting down beside him, he inquired his errand, and learned that he had PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 143 been waiting three or four days to get an audience, and that on his seeing Mr. Lincoln probably depended the life of his son, who was under the sentence of death for some military offense. General Fisk wrote his case in outline on a card, and sent it in, with a special request that the President would see the man. In a moment the order came; and past senators, governors, and generals, waiting impatiently, the old man went into the President's presence. He showed Mr. Lincoln his papers, and he, on taking them, said he would look into the case and give him the result on the following day. The old man, in an agony of apprehension, looked up into the President's sympathetic face, and actually cried out: "To-morrow may be too late! My son is under sen- tence of death! The decision ought to be made now!" and the streaming tears told how much he was moved. "Come," said Mr. Lincoln, "wait a bit, and I'll tell you a story. ' ' And then he told the old man General Fisk's story about the swearing driver, as follows: The General had begun his military life as a colonel, and, when he raised his regiment in Missouri, he pro- posed to his men that he should do all the swearing of the regiment. They assented; and for months no instance was known of the violation of the promise. The Colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as roads were not always best, had some difficulty in commanding his temper and his tongue. John hap- pened to be driving a mule team through a series of mud-holes a little worse than usual, when, unable to restrain himself any longer, he burst forth into a vol- i 4 4 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. ley of energetic oaths. The Colonel took notice of the offense, and brought John to an account. "John," said he, "didn't you promise to let me do all the swearing of the regiment?" "Yes, I did, Colonel," he replied, "but the fact was, the swearing had to be done then, or not at all, and you weren't there to do it." As he told the story, the old man forgot his boy, and both the President and his listener had a hearty laugh together at its conclusion. Then he wrote a few words which the old man read, and in which he found new occasion for tears; but the tears were tears of joy, for the words saved the life of his son. THE PRESIDENT'S MIND WANDERED. An amusing, yet touching, instance of the Presi- dent's preoccupation of mind occurred at one of his levees when he was shaking hands with a host of visit- ors passing him in a continuous stream. An intimate acquaintance received the usual conventional hand- shake and salutation, but perceiving that he was not recognized, kept his ground instead of moving on, and spoke again ; when the President, roused to a dim con- sciousness that something unusual had happened, per- ceived who stood before him, and, seizing his friend's hand, shook it again heartily, saying: " How do you do? How do you do? Excuse me for not noticing you. I was thinking of a man down South. " He afterwards privately acknowledged that the "man down South" was Sherman, then on his march to the sea. LINCOLN RECEIVING DENNIS HANKS. PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 147 HEARTY WELCOME OF DENNIS HANKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. Dennis Hanks was once asked to visit Washington to secure the pardon of certain persons in jail for partici- pation in copperheadism. Dennis went and arrived in Washington, and instead of going, as he said, to a "tavern," he went to the White House. There was a porter on guard, and he asked : "Is Abe in?" "Do you mean Mr. Lincoln?" asked the porter. "Yes; is he in there?" and brushing the porter aside he strode into the room and said, "Hello, Abe; how are you?" And Abe said, "Well!" and just gathered him up in his arms and talked of the days gone by. Oh, the days gone by! They talked of their boy- hood days, and by and by Lincoln said: "What brings you here all the way from Illinois?" And then Dennis told him his mission, and Lincoln replied: "I will grant it, Dennis, for old-times' sake. I will send for Mr. Stanton. It is his business. " Stanton came into the room, and strolled up and down, and said that the men ought to be punished more than they were. Mr. Lincoln sat quietly in his chair and waited for the tempest to subside, and then quietly said to Stanton he would like to have the papers next day. When he had gone Dennis said : "Abe, if I was as big and as ugly as you are, I would take him over my knee and spank him. " Lincoln replied : "No, Stanton is an able and valu- i 4 8 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. able man for this nation, and I am glad to bear his anger for the service he can give this nation." THE INTERVIEWS. Modesty and obscurity are mingled with arrogance of pride and distinction in the interviews that the Chief Executive of the nation is forced to endure. One day an attractively and handsomely-dressed woman called to procure the release from prison of a relation in whom she professed the deepest interest. She was a good talker, and her winning ways seemed to be making a deep impression on the President. After listening to her story, he wrote a few words on a card: "This woman, dear Stanton, is a little smarter than she looks to be," enclosed it in an envelope and directed her to take it to the Secretary of War. On the same day another woman called, more hum- ble in appearance, more plainly clad. It was the old story. Father and son both in the army, the former in prison. Could not the latter be discharged from the army and sent home to help his mother? A few strokes of the pen, a gentle nod of the head, and the little woman, her eyes filling with tears ami expressing a grateful acknowledgment her tongue could not utter, passed out. A lady so thankful for the release of her husband was in the act of kneeling in thankfulness. "Get up," he said, "don't kneel to me, but thank God and go." An old lady for the same reason came forward with tears in her eyes to express her gratitude. "Good- bye, Mr. Lincoln/ 1 said she; "I shall probably never PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 149 see you again till we meet in heaven." She had the President's hand in hers, and he was deeply moved. He instantly took her right hand in both of his, and following her to the door, said, "I am afraid with all my troubles I shall never get to the resting-place you speak of; but if I do, I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to get there is, I believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-bye." Then the President remarked to a friend, "It is more than many can often say, that in doing right one has made two people happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow." THE PRESIDENCY NOT A BED OF ROSES. An old and intimate friend from Springfield called on the President and found him much depressed. The President was reclining on a sofa, but rising suddenly, he said to his friend : "You know better than any man living that from my boyhood up my ambition was to be President. I am President of one part of this divided country at least ; but look at me! Oh, I wish I had never been born! I've a white elephant on my hands, one hard to manage. With a fire in my front and rear to contend with, the jealousies of the military commanders, and not receiv- ing that cordial co-operative support from Congress that could reasonably be expected with an active and formidable enemy in the field threatening the very life-blood of the Government, my position is anything but a bed of roses." iSo PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. UNHEALTHY GROUP OF OFFICE SEEKERS. A delegation was pressing the claims of a gentleman as commissioner to the Sandwich Islands. Among the many points urged was that the applicant was in poor health. The President closed the interview with the good-natured remark: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for that place, and they are all sicker than your man." THE OLD LADY AND THE PAIR OF STOCKINGS. An old lady from the country called on the Presi- dent, her tanned face peering out from the interior of a huge sunbonnet. Her errand was to present Mr. Lincoln a pair of stockings of her own make a yard long. Kind tears came to his eyes as she spoke to him, and then, holding the stockings one in each hand, dangling wide apart for general inspection, he assured her that he should take them with him to Washington, where (and here his eyes twinkled) he was sure he should not be able to find any like them. The amusement of the company was not at all diminished by Mr. Boutwell's remark, that the lady had evidently made a very cor- rect estimate of Mr. Lincoln's latitude and longitude. THE PRESIDENT WIELDS AN AX AT THE WASHING- TON NAVY YARDS. One afternoon during the summer of 1862, the Presi- dent accompanied several gentlemen to the Washing- ton Navy Yard to witness some experiments with a PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 151 newly-invented gun. Subsequently the party went aboard one of the steamers lying at the wharf. A dis- cussion was going on as to the merits of the invention, in the midst of which Mr. Lincoln caught sight of some axes hanging up outside of the cabin. Leaving the group, he quietly went forward, and taking one down, returned with it, and said : "Gentlemen, you may talk about your 'Raphael repeaters' and 'eleven-inch Dahlgrens, ' but here is an institution which I guess I understand better than either of you. " With that he held the ax out at arm's length by the end of the handle, or "helve," as the wood-cutters call it — a feat not another person in the party could perform, though all made the attempt. In such acts as this, showing that he neither forgot nor was ashamed of his humble origin, the good Presi- dent exhibited his true nobility of character. He was a favorite illustration of his favorite poet's words: "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gold, for a' that!" A PETITIONER'S SUDDEN CHANGE OF MIND. The President was feeling indisposed, and had sent for his physician, who upon his arrival informed the President that his trouble was either varioloid, or mild smallpox. "They're all over me. Is it contagious?" said Mr. Lincoln. "Yes," answered the Doctor, "very contagious, indeed." "Well," said a visitor, "I can't stop. I just called to see you. ' ' 152 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. "Oh, don't be in a hurry, sir," placidly said the President. "Thank ) r ou, sir; I'll call again," retreating abruptly. "Some people," said the Executive, looking after him, "said they could not take very well to my procla- mation, but now, I am happy to say, I have something that everybody can take." 'THOROUGH. Some one came to the President with a story about a plot to accomplish some mischief in the Government. Lincoln listened to what was a very superficial and ill- formed story, and then said: "There is one thing that I have learned, and that you have not. It is only one word — 'thorough.'" Then, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump to emphasize his meaning, he added, "thorough." MR. LINCOLN'S TACT. Two young men called on the President from Spring- field, 111. Mr. Lincoln shook hands with them, and asked about the crops, the weather, etc. Finally one of the young men said, "Mother is not well, and she sent me up to inquire of you how the suit about the Wells property is getting on." Mr. Lincoln, in the same even tone with which he had asked the question, said: "(live my best wishes and respects to your mother, and tell her that I have so many outside mat- ters to attend to now, that I have put that case, and PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 153 others, in the hands of a lawyer friend of mine, and if you will call on him" (giving name and address), "he will give you the information you want." After they had gone, I said: "Mr. Lincoln, you did not seem to know the young men?" He laughed and said: "No, I had never seen them before, and I had to beat around the bush until I found who they were. It was uphill work, but I topped it at last." LINCOLN'S HAIR. "By the way," said Mr. Lincoln to Colonel Cannon, "I can tell you a good story about my hair. When I was nominated at Chicago, an enterprising fellow thought that a great many people would like to see how Abe Lincoln looked, and, as I had not long before sat for a photograph, the fellow, having seen it, rushed over and bought the negative. "He at once got no end of wood-cuts, and so active was their circulation they were soon selling in all parts of the country. "Soon after they reached Springfield. I heard a boy crying them for sale on the streets. 'Here's your likeness of Abe Lincoln!' he shouted. 'Buy one, price only two shillings ! Will look a great deal better when he gets his hair combed!' " "OH, PA! HE ISN'T UGLY!" Lincoln's great love for children easily won their confidence. A little girl, who had been told that the President 154 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. was very homely, was taken by her father to see the President at the White House. Mr. Lincoln took her upon his knee and chatted with her for a moment in his merry way, when she turned to her father and exclaimed: "Oh, Pa! he isn't ugly at all; he's beau- tiful!" SIMPLICITY. Mr. Jeriah Bonham describes a visit that he paid Mr. Lincoln at his room in the State House, where he found him quite alone except that two of his children, one of whom was Tad, were with him. The door was open. We walked in and were at once recognized and seated — the two boys still continuing their play about the room. Tad was spinning his top; and Mr. Lin- coln, as we entered, had just finished adjusting the string for him so as to give the top the greatest degree of force. He remarked that he was having a little fun with the boys. At another time, at Lincoln's residence, Tad came into the room, and putting his hand to his mouth, and his mouth to his father's ear, said in a boy's whisper, "Ma says come to supper." All heard the announcement, and Mr. Lincoln, per- ceiving this, said: "You have heard, gentlemen, the announcement concerning the interesting state of things in the dining-room. It will never do for me, if elected, to make this young man a member of my cabinet, for it is plain he cannot be trusted with secrets of state." PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 155 MR. LINCOLN'S GREAT LOVE FOR LITTLE TAD. No matter who was with the President, or how intently absorbed, his little son Tad was always wel- come. He almost always accompanied his father. Once, on the way to Fortress Monroe, he became very troublesome. The President was much engaged in conversation with the party who accompanied him, and he at length said : "Tad, if you will be a good boy, and not disturb me any more until we get to Fortress Monroe, I will give you a dollar. ' ' The hope of reward was effectual for a while in securing silence, but, boy-like, Tad soon forgot his promise, and was as noisy as ever. Upon reaching their destination, however, he said, very promptly, "Father, I want my dollar." Mr. Lincoln looked at him half-reproachfully for an instant, and then taking from his pocketbook a dollar note, he said: "Well, my son, at any rate, I will keep my part of the bargain. ' ' While paying a visit to Commodore Porter, of Fort- ress Monroe, on one occasion, an incident occurred, subsequently related by Lieutenant Braine, one of the officers on board the flag-ship, to the Rev. Dr. Ewer, of New York. Noticing that the banks of the river were dotted with spring blossoms, the Presi- dent said, with the manner of one asking a special favor : "Commodore, Tad is very fond of flowers; won't you let a couple of your men take a boat and go with him for an hour or two along the shore, and gather a few? It will be a great gratification to him. " 156 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. THE HARDEST TRIAL OF LINCOLN'S LIFE. In February, 1862, Mr. Lincoln was visited by a severe affliction in the death of his beautiful son, Willie, and the extreme illness of his son Thomas, familiarly called "Tad." This was a new burden, and the visitation which, in his firm faith in Providence, he regarded as providential, was also inexplicable. A Christian lady from Massachusetts, who was officiating as nurse in one of the hospitals at the time, came to attend the sick children. She reports that Mr. Lincoln watched with her about the bedside of the sick ones, and that he often walked the room, saying sadly: "This is the hardest trial of my life; why is it? Why is it?" In the course of conversation with her, he ques- tioned her concerning his situation. She told him that she was a widow, and that her husband and two chil- dren were in heaven ; and added that she saw the hand of God in it all, and that she had never loved him so much before as she had since her affliction. "How is that brought about?" inquired Mr. Lincoln. "Simply by trusting in God and feeling that he does all things well," she replied. "Did you submit fully under the first loss?" he asked. "No," she answered, "not wholly; but, as blow came upon blow, and all were taken, I could and did submit, and was very happy." He responded: "I am glad to hear you say that. Your experience will help me to bear my affliction." On being assured that many Christians were praying for him on the morning of the funeral, he wiped away the tears that sprang in his eyes, and said: LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD," PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 159 "I am glad to hear that. I want them to pray for me. I need their prayers. ' ' As he was going out to the burial, the good lady expressed her sympathy with him. He thanked her gently, and said: "I will try to go to God with my sorrows." A few days afterward she asked him if he could trust God. He replied : "I think I can, and will try. I wish I had that childlike faith you speak of, and I trust he will give it to me. ' ' And then he spoke of his mother, whom so many years before he had committed to the dust among the wilds of Indiana. In this hour of his great trial the memory of her who had held him upon her bosom, and soothed his childish griefs, came back to him with tenderest recollections. "I remember her prayers," said he, "and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." DEATH OF LINCOLN'S FAVORITE SON. Mr. Lincoln regarded the death of his favorite son as the turning-point in his spiritual history. He said, "That blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never felt it before." Again, in 1862, at Fortress Monroe, after having read the discussion between Hamlet and his courtiers, and the soliloquy in which conscience debates of a future state, also where Constance bewails her impris- oned lost boy; then, closing the book, and recalling the words, "And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say, that we shall see and know our friends in heaven. " "If 160 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. that be true, I shall see my boy again," Mr. Lincoln said: "Colonel [Cannon], did you ever dream of a lost friend, and feel that you were holding sweet com- munion with that friend, and yet have a sad conscious- ness that it was not a reality? Just so I dream of my boy Willie." Overcome with emotion, he dropped his head on his Bible, and sobbed aloud. HOW YOUNG DANIEL WEBSTER ESCAPES A FLOG- GING, AS RELATED BY LINCOLN. Mr. Lincoln, on one occasion, narrated to Hon. Mr. Odell and others, with much zest, the following story about young Daniel Webster: When quite young, at school, Daniel was one day guilty of a gross violation of the rules. He was detected in the act, and called up by the teacher for punishment. This was to be the old-fashioned "feruling" of the hand. His hands happened to be very dirty. Knowing this, on the way to the teacher's desk, he spit upon the palm of his right hand, wiping it off upon the side of his pantaloons. "Give me your hand, sir," said the teacher, very sternly. Out went the right hand, partly cleansed. The teacher looked at it a moment, and said: "Daniel, if you will find another hand in this schoolroom as filthy as that, I will let you off this time." Instantly from behind the back came the left hand. "Here it is, sir," was the ready reply. "That will do," said the teacher, "for this time; you can take your seat, sir." PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 161 "MOTHER, HE'S JUST THE SAME OLD ABE." "It was during the dark days of 1863," says Schuyler Colfax, "on the evening of a public reception given at the White House. The foreign legations were there gathered about the President. A young English nobleman was just being presented to the President. Inside the door, evidently overawed by the splendid assemblage, was an honest-faced old farmer, who shrank from the passing crowd until he and the plain-faced old lady clinging to his arm were pressed back to the wall. The President, tall, and, in a measure, stately in his personal presence, looking over the heads of the assembly, said to the English nobleman: "Excuse me, my Lord, there's an old friend of mine." Passing backward to the door, Mr. Lincoln said, as he grasped the old farmer's hand: "Why, John, I'm glad to see you. I haven't seen you since you and I made rails for old Mrs. , in Sangamon County, in 1837. How are you?" The old man turned to his wife with quivering lip, and without replying to the President's salutation, said : "Mother, he's just the same old Abe!" "Mr. Lincoln," he said finally, "you know we had three boys; they all enlisted in the same company; John was killed in the 'seven days' fight'; Sam was taken prisoner and starved to death, and Henry is in the hospital. We had a little money, an' I said, 'Mother, we'll go to Washington and see him. An' while we were here,' I said, 'we'll go up and see the President.' " Mr. Lincoln's eyes grew dim, and across his rugged, 162 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. homely, tender face swept the wave of sadness his friends had learned to know, and he said: "John, we all hope this miserable war will soon be over. I must see all these folks here for an hour or so, and I want to talk with you." The old lady and her husband were hustled into a private room, in spite of their protests. "TIME LOST DON'T COUNT." Mr. Weed, the veteran journalist and politician, relates how, when he was opposing the claims of Montgomery Blair, who aspired to a cabinet appoint- ment, when Mr. Lincoln inquired of Mr. Weed whom he would recommend, "Henry Winter Davis," was the response. "David Davis, I see, has been posting you up on this question," retorted Lincoln. "He has Davis on the brain. I think Maryland must be a good State to move from." The President then told a story of a witness in court in a neighboring county, who, on being asked his age, replied, "Sixty." Being satisfied he was much older the question was repeated, and on receiving the same answer the court admonished the witness, saying, "The court knows you to be much older than sixty. " "Oh, I understand now," was there joinder, "you're thinking of those ten years I spent on the eastern shore of Maryland; that was so much time lost, and didn't count." CABINET RECONSTRUCTION. The President had decided to select a new war min- ister, and the leading Republican Senators thought the PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 163 occasion was opportune to change the whole seven Cabinet ministers. They, therefore, earnestly advised him to make a clean sweep, and select seven new men, and so restore the waning confidence of the country. The President listened with patient courtesy, and when the Senators had concluded he said, with a character- istic gleam of humor in his eye : "Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole Cabinet because I have made one change, reminds me of a story I once heard in Illinois, of a farmer who was much troubled by skunks. His wife insisted on his trying to get rid of them. He loaded his shotgun one moonlight night and awaited developments. After some time the wife heard the shotgun go off, and, in a few minutes, the farmer entered the house. 'What luck have you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the wood-pile,' said the old man, 'with the shotgun pointed towards the hen roost, and before long there appeared not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he raised such a fearful smell that I con- cluded it was best to let the other six go. ' " The Senators laughed and retired. HE'S ALL RIGHT; BUT A CHRONIC SQUEALER. One of the Northern Governors was able, earnest, and untiring in aiding the administration, but always complaining. After reading all his papers, the Presi- dent said, in a cheerful and reassuring tone: "Never mind, never mind; those dispatches don't mean anything. Just go right ahead. The Governor is like a boy I saw once at a launching. When every- i6 4 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. thing was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him under the ship to knock away the trigger and let her go. At the critical moment everything depended on the boy. He had to do the job well by a direct, vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still while the boat slid over him. "The boy did everything right, but he yelled as if he were being murdered from the time he got under the keel until he got out. I thought the hide was all scraped off his back; but he wasn't hurt at all. "The master of the } T ard told me that this boy was always chosen for that job, that he did his work well, that he never had been hurt, but that he always squealed in that way. That's just the way with Governor . Make up your mind that he is not hurt, and that he is doing the work right, and pay no attention to his squealing. He only wants to make you understand how hard his task is, and that he is on hand performing it." SECRETARY STANTON'S UNCOMPLIMENTARY OPINION. Mr. Lovejoy, heading a committee of western men, discussed an important scheme with the President, and was then directed to explain it to Secretary Stanton. Upon presenting themselves to the Secretary, and showing the President's order, the Secretary said, "Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?" "He did, sir." "Then he is a d d fool," said the angry Secretary. "Do yon mean to say that the President is ad d fool?" asked Lovejoy. in amazement. "Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that." PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 165 The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once to the President and related the result of the conference. "Did Stanton say I was a d d fool?" asked Lincoln, at the close of the recital. "He did, sir, and repeated it." After a moment's pause, and looking up, the President said: "If Stanton said I was a d d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means. I will slip over and see him." LINCOLN'S MODESTY. Secretary Chase, when Secretary of the Treasury, had a disagreement, and the Secretary had resigned. The President was urged not to accept it, as "Secre- tary Chase is to-day a national necessity, ' ' his advisers said. " How mistaken you are!" he quietly observed. "Yet it is not strange; I used to have similar notions. No! if we should all be turned out to-morrow, and could come back here in a week, we should find our places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we did, and in many instances better. "As the Irishman said, 'In this country one man is as good as another; and, for the matter of that, very often a great deal better. ' No ; this Government does not depend upon the life of any man. " . ^ AN INCIDENT IN LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGU- RATION. Noah Brooks, in his "Reminiscences," relates the following incident: While the ceremonies of the second inauguration were in progress, just as Lincoln stepped forward to 166 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. take the oath of office, the sun, which had been obscured by rain-clouds, burst in splendor. In con- versation the next day, the President asked: "Did you notice that sun-burst? It made my heart jump." Later in the month, Miss Anna Dickinson, in a lec- ture delivered in the hall of the House of Represent- atives, eloquently alluded to the sun-burst as a happy omen. The President sat directly in front of the speaker, and from the reporters' gallery, behind her, I had caught his eye, soon after he sat down. When Miss Dickinson referred to the sunbeam, he looked up to me, involuntarily, and I thought his eyes were suffused with moisture. Perhaps they were ; but the next day he said : "I wonder if Miss Dickinson saw me wink at you?" KINDNESS OF HEART. An old acquaintance of the President visited him in Washington. Lincoln desired to give him a place. Thus encouraged, the visitor, who was an honest man, but wholly inexperienced in public affairs or business, asked for a high office, Superintendent of the Mint. The President was aghast, and said: "Good gracious! Why didn't lie ask to be Secretary of the Treasury, and have done with it?" Afterwards, he said: "Well, now, I never thought Mr. had anything more than average ability, when we were young men together. But, then, I suppose he thought the same thing about me, and — here I am!" PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 167 Lincoln was censured for appointing one that had zealously opposed his second term. He replied: "Well, I suppose Judge E., having been disappointed before, did behave pretty ugly, but that wouldn't 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, that same Aaron was at the foot of the mountain making a false god for the people to worship. Yet Aaron got his commis- sion, you know." Stories of the War. THE PRESIDENT "MAKING GENERALS." H. C. Whitney wrote in 1866: "I was in Washing- ton in the Indian service for a few days before August, 1 86 1, and I merely said to Lincoln, one day, 'Every- thing is drifting into the war, and I guess you will have to put me in the army. ' 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.' " HARDTACK WANTED, NOT GENERALS. Secretary Stanton told the President the following that greatly amused him, as he was especially fond of a joke at the expense of some high military or civil dignity. When Stanton was making a trip up the Broad river in North Carolina, in a tub boat, a Federal picket yelled out, "What have you got on board of that tug?" The severe and dignified answer was, "The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster." Instantly the picket roared back, "We've got Major- Generals enough up here. Why don't you bring us up some hardtaek ?" 168 STORIES OP THE WAR. 169 WHIPPED AND THEN RAN. Three or four days after the battle of Bull Run, some gentlemen who had been on the field called upon him. He inquired very minutely regarding all the cir- cumstances of the affair, and after listening with the utmost attention, said, with a touch of humor: "So it is your notion that we whipped the rebels and then ran away from them!" A TOUCHING SONG INFLUENCES LINCOLN TO PARDON A REBEL PRISONER. The following interesting particulars connected with the early life of Abraham Lincoln, are from the Virginia (111.) Enquirer, of date of March 1, 1879: "John McNamer was buried last Sunday, near Petersburg, Menard County. A long while ago he was Assessor and Treasurer of the County for several successive terms. Mr. McNamer was an early settler in that section, and before the town of Petersburg was laid out, in business in Old Salem, a village that existed many years ago two miles south of the present site of Petersburg. Abe Lincoln was then postmaster of the place and sold whisky to its inhabitants. There are old-timers yet living in Menard who bought many a jug of corn-juice from Old Abe when he lived at Salem. It was here that Annie Rutledge dwelt, and in whose grave Lincoln wrote that his heart was buried. As the story runs, the fair and gentle Annie was originally John McNamer's sweetheart, but Abe 170 STORIES OF THE WAR. took a 'shine' to the young lady, and succeeded in heading off McNamer and won her affections. But Annie Rutledge died, and Lincoln went to Springfield, where he some time afterwards married. "It is related that during the war a lady belonging to a prominent Kentucky family visited Washington to beg for her son's pardon, who was then in prison under sentence of death for belonging to a band of guerrillas who had committed many murders and outrages. With the mother was her daughter, a beautiful young lady, who was an accomplished musician. Mr. Lincoln received the visitors in his usual kind manner, and the mother made known the object of her visit, accompany- ing her plea with tears and sobs and all the customary romantic incidents. "There were probably extenuating circumstances in favor of the young rebel prisoner, and while the President seemed to be deeply pondering, the young lady moved to a piano near by and taking a seat commenced to sing 'Gentle Annie,' a very sweet and pathetic ballad which, before the war. was a familiar song in almost every household in the Union, and is not yet entirely forgotten, for that matter. It is to be presumed that the young lady sang the song with more plaintiveness and effect than Old Abe had ever heard it in Springfield. During its rendition, he arose from his seat, crossed the room to a window in the westward, through which he gazed for several minutes with a 'sad, far-away look,' which has so often been noted as one of his peculiarities. His memory, no doubt, went back to the days of his humble life on the Sangamon, and with visions of Old Salem and its rustic people, who once gathered in his primitive store, STORIES OF THE WAR. 171 came a picture of the 'Gentle Annie' of his youth, whose ashes had rested for many long years under the wild flowers and brambles of the old rural bury- ing-ground, but whose spirit then, perhaps, guided him to the side of mercy. Be that as it may, Mr. Lincoln drew a large red silk handkerchief from his coat-pocket, with which he wiped his face vigorously. Then he turned, advanced quickly to his desk, wrote a brief note, which he handed to the lady, and informed her that it was the pardon she sought. The scene was no doubt touching in a great degree and proves that a nice song, well sung, has often a powerful influence in recalling tender recollections. It proves, also, that Abraham Lincoln was a man of fine feelings, and that, if the occurrence was a put-up job on the lady's part it accomplished the purpose all the same. ' ' RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION. A cashiered officer, seeking to be restored through the power of the executive, became insolent, because the President, who believed the man guilty, would not accede to his repeated requests, at last said, "Well, Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to do me justice!" This was too aggravating even for Mr. Lincoln; rising he suddenly seized the disgraced officer by the coat collar, and marched him forcibly to the door, saying as he ejected him into the passage: "Sir, I give you fair warning never to show your face in this room again. I can bear censure, but not insult. I never wish to see your face again." 172 STORIES OF THE WAR. LINCOLN'S HIGH COMPLIMENT TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. A fair for the benefit of the soldiers, held at the Patent Office, Washington, called out Mr. Lincoln as an interested visitor; and he was not permitted to retire without giving a word to those in attendance. "In this extraordinary war," said he, "extraordinary developments have \ manifested themselves, such as have not been seen in former wars ; and among these manifestations nothing has been more remarkable than these fairs for the relief of suffering soldiers and their families. And the chief agent in these fairs are the women of America. I am not accustomed to the use of language of eulogy ; I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women ; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world, in praise of women, were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during the war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!" LINCOLN'S PLAN OF WAR. The President explained to Mr. Whitney the theory of the Rebellion by the aid of the maps before him. Running his long fore-finger down the map, he stopped at Virginia. "We must drive them away from here" (Manassas Gap), he said, " and clear them out of this part of the State so that they cannot threaten us here (Washington) and get into Maryland. "We must keep up a good and thorough blockade of their ports. We must march an army into East STORIES OF THE WAR. 173 Tennessee and liberate the Union sentiment there. Finally we must rely on the people growing tired and saying to their leaders, 'We have had enough of this thing, we will bear it no longer.' " Such was Mr. Lincoln's plan for heading off the Rebellion in the summer of 1861. How it enlarged as the war pro- gressed, from a call for seventy thousand volunteers to one for five hundred thousand men and five hundred millions of dollars is a matter of well-known history. THE PRESIDENT'S OBEYING ORDERS. The President was at the battle of Fort Stevens, and standing in a very exposed position, he apparently had been recognized by the enemy. A young colonel of artillery, who appeared to be the officer of the day, finally decided to insist on the President removing to a safer location. He walked to where the President was looking over the parapet, and said, "Mr. President, you are standing within range of four hundred rebel rifles. Please come down to a safer place. If you do not, it will be my duty to call a file of men, and make you. " "And you would do quite right, my boy!" said the President, coming down at once. "You are in com- mand of the fort. I should be the last man to set an example of disobedience!" THE MILLIONAIRES WHO WANTED A GUNBOAT. A delegation of New York millionaires in 1862 waited on President Lincoln to request that he furnish a gunboat for the protection of New York harbor. i74 STORIES OF THE WAR. Mr. Lincoln, after listening patiently, said, "Gentle- men : The credit of the Government is at a very low ebb; greenbacks are not worth more than forty or fifty cents on the dollar; it is impossible for me, in the present condition of things, to furnish you a gunboat, and, in this condition of things, if I was worth half as much as you, gentlemen, are represented to be, and as badly frightened as you seem to be, I would build a gunboat and give it to the Government." They went away, sadder but wiser men. THE PRESIDENT REFUSES TO SIGN TWENTY-FOUR DEATH WARRANTS. A personal friend of President Lincoln says: "I called on him one day in the early part of the war. He had just written a pardon for a young man who had been sentenced to be shot, for sleeping at his post, as a sentinel. He remarked as he read it to me: " 'I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor young man on my skirts. ' Then he added: 'It is not to be wondered at that a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep; and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act.' " Tli is story, with its moral, is made complete by Rev. Newman Hall, of London, who, in a sermon preached after and upon Mr. Lincoln's death, says that the dead body of this youth was found among the slain on the field of Fredericksburg, wearing next his heart a photograph of his preserver, beneath which the grate- ful fellow had written, "God bless President Lincoln!" From the same sermon another anecdote is gleaned, STORIES OF THE WAR. 175 of a similar character, which is evidently authentic. An officer of the army, in conversation with the preacher, said: "The first week of my command there were twenty- four deserters sentenced by court martial to be shot, and the warrants for their execution were sent to the President to be signed. He refused. I went to Washington and had an interview. I said: " 'Mr. President, unless these men are made an example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many. ' "He replied: 'Mr. General, there are already too many weeping widows in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, for I won't do it.' " AMONG THE WOUNDED. As one stretcher was passing Mr. Lincoln, he heard the voice of a lad calling to his mother in agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He forgot the crisis of the hour. Stopping the carriers he knelt, and bend- ing over him asked: "What can I do for you, my poor child?" ' ' Oh, you will do nothing for me, ' ' he replied. ' ' You are a Yankee. I cannot hope that my message to my mother will ever reach her." Mr. Lincoln in tears, his voice full of tenderest love, convinced the boy of his sincerity, and he gave his good-bye words without reserve. The President directed them copied, and ordered that they be sent that night, with a flag of truce, into the enemy's lines. i 7 6 STORIES OF THE WAR. THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. The President noticed a small, pale, delicate looking boy, about thirteen years old, among- the number in the ante-chamber. The President saw him standing- there, looking so feeble and faint, and said: "Come here, my boy, and tell me what you want." The boy advanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President's chair, and with a bowed head and timid accents said : "Mr. President, I have been a drummer boy in a regiment for two years, and my colonel got angry with me and turned me off. I was taken sick and have been a long time in the hospital." The President discovered that the boy had no home, no father — he had died in the army — no mother. "I have no father, no mother, no brothers, no sisters, and," bursting into tears, "no friends — nobody cares for me." Mr. Lincoln's eyes filled with tears, and the boy's heart was soon made glad by a request to certain officials "to care for this poor boy." A CASE WHERE LINCOLN THOUGHT SHOOTING WOULD DO NO GOOD. The Hon. Mr. Kellogg, representative from Essex County, N. Y., received a dispatch one evening from the army to the effect that a young townsman who had been induced to enlist through his instrumentality had, for a serious demeanor, been convicted by a court- martial and was to be shot the next day. Greatly agitated, Mr. Kellogg went to the Secretary of War and urged, in the strongest manner, a reprieve. Stanton was inexorable. STORIES OF THE WAR. 177 "Too many cases of this kind had been let off," said he, "and it was time an example was made." Exhausting his eloquence in vain, Mr. Kellogg said : "Well, Mr. Secretary, the boy is not going to be shot, of that I give you fair warning!" Leaving the War Department, he went directly to the White House, although the hour was late. The sentinel on duty told him that special orders had been given to admit no one whatever that night. After a long parley, by pledging himself to assume the responsibility of the act, the Congressman passed in. Mr. Lincoln had retired, but indifferent to etiquette or ceremony, Judge Kellogg pressed his way through all obstacles to his sleeping apartment. In an excited manner he stated that the dispatch announc- ing the hour of execution had just reached him. "This man must not be shot, Mr. President," said he. "I can't help what he may have done. Why, he is an old neighbor of mine; I can't allow him to be shot!" Mr. Lincoln had remained in bed, quietly listening to the protestations of his old friend (they were in Congress together). He at length said: "Well, I don't believe shooting will do him any good. Give me that pen. " And so saying, "red tape" was unceremoniously cut, and another poor fellow's life was indefinitely extended. NEW INSTRUCTIONS TO GENERALS. "War Department, Washington, July 22, '62. "First ordered that military commanders within the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, 178 STORIES OF THE WAR. Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, in an orderly manner, seize and use any property, real or personal, which may be necessary or convenient for their several commands, for supplies, or for other military purposes ; and that while property may be all stored for proper military objects, none shall be destroyed in wantonness nor malice. "Second: That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers within and from said states, so many persons of African descent as can be advanta- geously used for military or naval purposes, giving them reasonable wages for their labor. "Third: That as to both property and persons of African descent, accounts shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail to show quantities and amounts, and from whom both property and such persons shall have come, as a basis upon which compensation can be made in proper cases; and the several departments of this Government shall attend to and perform their appropriate parts towards the execution of these orders. By order of the President." LINCOLN REFUSES PARDON TO A SLAVE-STEALER. Hon. John B. Alley, of Linn, Massachusetts, was made the bearer to the President of a petition for pardon, by a person confined in the Newburyport jail for being engaged in the slave trade. He had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the pay- ment of a fine of one thousand dollars. The petition was accompanied by a letter to Mr. Alley, in which the prisoner acknowledged his guilt and the justice of his STORIES OF THE WAR. 179 sentence. He was very penitent — at least on paper — and had received the full measure of his punishment, so far as it related to the term of his imprisonment, but he was still held because he could not pay his fine. Mr. Alley read the letter to the President, who was much moved by its pathetic appeals; and when he had himself read the petition he looked up and said: "My friend, that is a very touching appeal to our feelings. You know my weakness is to be, if possible, too easily moved by appeals for mercy, and if this man were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man could perpetrate I might forgive him on such an appeal ; but the man who could go to Africa, and rob her of her children, and sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer, that he can never receive pardon at my hands. No! he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine. ' ' A sudden crime, committed under strong temptation, was venial in his eyes, on evidence of repentance ; but the calculat- ing, mercenary crime of man-stealing and man-selling, with all the cruelties that are essential accompaniments to the business, could win from him, as an officer of the people, no pardon. LINCOLN'S INFLUENCE WITH THE ADMINISTRATION. Many smiles have been caused by the quaint remark of the President, "My dear sir, I have not much influ- ence with the administration." Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, once replied to an i8o STORIES OF THE WAR. order from the President, to give a colonel a com- mission in place of the resigning brigadier : "I shan't doit, sir. I shan't do it! It isn't the way to do it, sir, and I shan't do it. I don't propose to argue the question with you, sir." A few days after the friend of the applicant that presented the order to Stanton called upon the Presi- dent and related his reception. "A look of vexation came over the face of the President, and he seemed unwilling to talk of it, and desired me to see him another day. I did so, when he gave me a positive order for the promotion. I told him I would not speak to Stanton again until he apologized. 'Oh,' said the President, 'Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe, and Dana is acting. He will attend to it for you. ' This he said with a manner of relief, as if it was a piece of good luck to find a man there who would obey his orders. The nomination was sent to the Senate and confirmed." Lincoln was the actual head of the administration, and whenever he chose to do so he controlled Stanton as well as the other Cabinet ministers. One instance will suffice: Stanton on one occasion said: "Now, Mr. President, those are the facts and you must see that your order cannot be executed." Lincoln replied in a somewhat positive tone: "Mr. Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order." Stanton replied with vigor: "Mr. President, I cannot do it. This order is an improper one, and I cannot execute it." Lincoln fixed his eyes upon Stanton, and in a firm voice and accent that clearly showed his determination, he said: "Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done." STORIES OF THE WAR. 181 LINCOLN DEFENDS HIS USE OF THE WORD "SUGAR-COATED" IN A PUBLIC DOCUMENT. Mr. Defrees, the Government printer, states that, when one of the President's messages was being printed, he was a good deal disturbed by the use of the term "sugar-coated," and finally went to Mr. Lincoln about it. Their relations to each other being of the most intimate character, he told the President frankly that he ought to remember that a message to Congress was a different affair from a speech at a mass meeting in Illinois; that the messages became a part of history, and should be written accordingly. "What is the matter now?" inquired the President. "Why," said Mr. Defrees, "you have used an undignified expression in the message"; and then, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, "I would alter the structure of that if I were you." "Defrees," replied Mr. Lincoln, "that word expresses exactly my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will come in this country, when people won't know exactly what 'sugar-coated' means." On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Defrees states that a certain sentence of another message was very awk- wardly constructed. Calling the President's attention to it in the proof copy, the latter acknowledged the force of the objection raised, and said, "Go home, Defrees, and see if you can better it. ' ' The next day Mr. Defrees took him his amendment. Mr. Lincoln met him by saying: "Seward found the same fault that you did, and he has been rewriting the paragraph also." Then, read- ing Mr. Defrees' version, he said, "I believe you have i8 2 STORIES OF THE WAR. beaten Seward; but, 'I jings, ' I think I can beat you both. ' ' Then, taking up his pen, he wrote the sentence as it was finally printed. BAILING OUT THE POTOMAC RIVER. An obscure officer persisted in telling and re-telling his troubles to the President on a summer afternoon when the President was tired and careworn. After listening patiently, he finally turned upon the man, and looking wearily out upon the broad Potomac in the distance, said in a peremptory tone that ended the interview: "Now, my man, go away, go away. I cannot meddle in your case. I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army." And thus one after another had to be disposed of, day after day. At another time, Governor went to the office of the War Department in a towering rage. I said to the President: "I suppose you found it necessary to make large concessions to him, as he returned from you perfectly satisfied." "Oh, no," he replied, "I did not concede anything. You have heard how that Illinois farmer got rid of a big log that was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, and too wet and soggy to burn. 'Well, now,' said he, in response to the inquiries of his neighbors one Sunday, as to how he got rid of it; 'Well, now, boys, if you won't divulge the secret, I'll tell you how I got rid of it — I ploughed around it.' Now," said Lincoln, "don't tell anybody, but that's STORIES OF THE WAR. 183 the way I got rid of Governor . I ploughed around him, but it took me three mortal hours to do it, and I was afraid every minute he'd see what I was at. ' ' THE HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS TELLS OF AN INTERVIEW WITH LINCOLN. The well-known Frederick Douglass, in the North Western Advocate, says: "I saw and conversed with this great man for the first time in the darkest hours of the military situation when the armies of the rebellion seemed more con- fident, defiant and aggressive than ever. "I had never before had an interview with a Presi- dent of the United States, and though I felt that I had something important to say, considering his exalted position and my lowly origin and the people whose cause I came to plead, I approached him with trep- idation as to how this great man might receive me; but one word and look from him banished all my fears and set me perfectly at ease. I have often said since that meeting that it was much easier to see and con- verse with a great man than it was with a small man. "On that occasion he said: " 'Douglass, you need not tell me who you are, Mr. Seward has told me all about you. ' "I then saw that there was no reason to tell him my personal story, however interesting it might be to myself or others, so I told him at once the object of my visit. It was to get some expression from him upon three points : "1. Equal pay to colored soldiers. 184 STORIES OF THE WAR. "2. Their promotion when they had earned it on the battle-field. "3. Should they be taken prisoners and enslaved or hanged, as Jefferson Davis had threatened, an equal number of Confederate prisoners should be executed within our lines. "A declaration to that effect I thought would pre- vent the execution of the rebel threat. To all but the last President Lincoln assented. He argued, however, that neither equal pay nor promotion could be granted at once. He said that in view of existing prejudices it was a great step forward to employ colored troops at all ; that it was necessary to avoid everything that would offend this prejudice and increase opposition to the measure. "He detailed the steps by which white soldiers were reconciled to the employment of colored troops; how these were first employed as laborers; how it was thought they should not be armed or uniformed like white soldiers; how they should only be made to wear a peculiar uniform ; how they should be employed to hold forts and arsenals in sickly locations, and not enter the field like other soldiers. "With all these restrictions and limitations he easily made me see that much would be gained when the colored man loomed before the country as a full- fledged United States soldier to fight, flourish or fall in defense of the united republic. The great soul of Lincoln halted only when he came to the point of retaliation. "The thought of hanging men in cold blood, even though the rebels should murder a few of the colored prisoners, was a horror from which he shrank. STORIES OF THE WAR. 185 " 'Oh, Douglass! I cannot do that. If I could get hold of the actual murderers of colored prisoners, I would retaliate; but to hang those who have no hand in such murders, I cannot. ' "The contemplation of such an act brought to his countenance such an expression of sadness and pity that it made it hard for me to press my point, though I told him it would tend to save rather than destroy life. He, however, insisted that this work of blood, once begun, would be hard to stop — that such violence would beget violence. He argued more like a disciple of Christ than a commander-in-chief of the army and navy of a warlike nation already involved in a terrible war. "How sad and strange the fate of this great and good man, the savior of his country, the embodiment of human charity, whose heart, though strong, was as tender as a heart of childhood; who always tempered justice with mercy; who sought to supplant the sword with counsel of reason, to suppress passion by kindness and moderation ; who had a sigh for every human grief and a tear for every human woe, should at last perish by the hand of a desperate assassin, against whom no thought of malice had ever entered his heart ! ' ' LINCOLN AND TAD. Amid the cheering of the men at Chancellorsville, one of the volunteers lustily called out to the Presi- dent, "Send along more greenbacks." Lincoln was greatly amused by the incident and explained to Tad that the men had not been paid. Tad thought for a 186 STORIES OF THE WAR. moment, then said with great innocence, "Why didn't Governor Chase print some more greenbacks?" TAD THE COMMISSIONED OFFICER. Tad, having been sportively commissioned a lieuten- ant in the United States Army by Secretary Stanton, procured several muskets and drilled the men-servants of the house in the manual of arms without attracting the attention of his father. And one night, to his con- sternation, he put them all on duty, and relieved the regular sentries, who, seeing the lad in full uniform, or perhaps appreciating the joke, gladly went to their quarters. His brother objected; but Tad insisted upon his rights as an officer. The President laughed but declined to interfere, but when the lad had lost his little authority in his boyish sleep, the Commander- in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States went down and personally discharged the sentries his son had put on the post. MR. LINCOLN AS HISTORIAN. Jefferson Davis, it appears, insisted on being recog- nized as commander or President in the regular nego- tiation with the government. This Mr. Lincoln would not consent to. Mr. Hunter hereupon referred to the correspondence between King Charles the First and his Parliament as a precedent for a negotiation between a constitutional ruler and rebels. Mr. Lincoln's face then wore that indescribable expression which generally preceded his hardest hits, and he remarked: "Upon questions of history, I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is STORIES OF THE WAR. 187 posted in such things, and I don't profess to be; but my only distinct recollection of the matter is, that Charles lost his head." THE PRESIDENT AND "FIGHTING JOE." General Joe Hooker, the fourth commander of the noble but unfortunate Army of the Potomac, was appointed to that position by President Lincoln, in January, 1863. General Scott, for some reason, dis- liked Hooker and would not appoint him. Hooker, after some months of discouraging waiting, decided to return to California, and called to pay his respects to Mr. Lincoln. He was introduced as Captain Hooker, and to the surprise of the President began the follow- ing speech: "Mr. President, my friend makes a mistake. I am not Captain Hooker, but was once Lieutenant-Colonel Hooker of the regular army. I was lately a farmer in California, but since the rebellion broke out I have been trying to get into service, but I find I am not wanted. ' ' I am about to return home ; but before going, I was anxious to pay my respects to you, and express my wishes for your personal welfare and success in quelling this rebellion. And I want to say to you a word more. "I was at Bull Run the other day, Mr. President, and it is no vanity in me to say, I am a d — d sight better general than you had on the field. ' ' This was said, not in the tone of a braggart, but of a man who knew what he was talking about. Hooker did not return to California, but in a few weeks Captain Hooker was Brigadier- General Hooker, and i88 STORIES OF THE WAR. "Fighting- Joe" was regarded as one of the most vigorous and efficient Generals of the Union Army. MR. LINCOLN'S MILITARY TALENT. To Hooker on the 5th of June, 1863: He warns Hooker not to run any risk of being 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." On the 10th he warns Hooker not to go south of the Rappahannock upon Lee's moving north of it. "I think Lee's army and not Richmond is your true objective power. If he comes toward the upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stay where he is, fret him, and fret him." On the 14th again he says: "So far as we can make out here, the enemy have Milroy surrounded at Winchester, and Tyler at Martinsburg. If they could hold out for a few days, could you help them? If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the flank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsvillc, the animal must be very slim somewhere; could you not break him?" WHY MR. LINCOLN HESITATED BEFORE SIGNING THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. The roll containing the Emancipation Proclamation was taken to Mr. Lincoln at noon on the first day of January, 1863, by Secretary Seward and his son Frederick. As it lay unrolled before him, Mr. Lincoln STORIES OF THE WAR. 189 took a pen, dipped it in the ink, moved his hand to the place for the signature, held it a moment, then removed his hand and dropped the pen. After a little hesitation he again took up the pen and went through the same movement as before. Mr. Lincoln then turned to Mr. Seward, and said : "I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this morning, and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say, 'He hesitated.' " He then turned to the table, took up the pen again, and slowly, firmly wrote "Abraham Lincoln," with which the whole world is now familiar. He then looked up, smiled, and said, "That will do!" "MAKING A FIZZLE ANYHOW." The President, in company with General Grant, was inspecting the Dutch Gap Canal at City Point. His opinion of the success of the enterprise he made known to General Grant in his usual manner. "Grant, do you know what this reminds me of? Out in Springfield, 111., there was a blacksmith named . One day, not having much to do, he took a piece of soft iron, and attempted to weld it into an agricultural implement, but discovered that the iron would not hold out; then he concluded it would make a claw hammer ; but having too much iron attempted to make an ax, but decided after working a while that there was not enough iron left. Finally, becoming dis- i 9 o STORIES OF THE WAR. gusted, he filled the forge full of coal and brought the iron to a white heat ; then with his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an oath, 'Well, if I can't make anything else of you, I will make a fizzle anyhow.' I was afraid that was about what we had done with the Dutch Gap Canal." A STORY ILLUSTRATING LINCOLN'S IMPATIENCE AT McCLELLAN'S SLOW MOVEMENTS. "On a certain occasion the President said to a friend that he was in great distress ; he had been to General McClellan's house and the General did not ask to see him ; and as he must talk to somebody he had sent for General Franklin and myself, to obtain our opinions as to the possibility of soon commencing operations with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own expression, if something was not done soon the bottom would fall out of the whole affair; and if General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it, provided he could see how it could be made to do something." LINCOLN'S SUMMING UP OF McCLELLAN. "If General McClellan does not want to use the army for some days, I should like to borrow it and see if it cannot be made to do something." Mr. Lincoln said, McClellan's tardiness reminded him of a man who knew a few law phrases but whose lawyer lacked aggressiveness. The man finally lost STORIES OF THE WAR. 191 all patience and springing to his feet said: "Why don't you go at him with a fifa, a demurrer, a capias, a surrebutter, or a ne exeat, or something; or a nundam pactum or a non est?" Lincoln at another time said: "General McClellan is a pleasant and scholarly gentleman. "He is an admirable engineer, but he seems to have a special talent for a stationary engine. " ADVISES AN ANGRY OFFICER. An officer, having had some trouble with General Sherman, being very angry, presented himself before Mr. Lincoln, who was visiting the camp, and said, "Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance. This morning I went to Colonel Sherman and he threatened to shoot me. " "Threatened to shoot you?" said Mr. Lincoln. "Well, (in a stage whisper) if I were you and he threatens to shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it." LINCOLN'S LOVE OF SOLDIER HUMOR. Lincoln loved anything that savored of wit or humor among the soldiers in their deprivations and sufferings. He used to relate these two stories often to show, he said, that neither death nor danger could quench the grim humor of the American soldier: "A soldier of the Army of the Potomac was being carried to the rear of battle with both legs shot off, who, seeing a pie-woman hovering about, asked, 'Say, old lady, are them pies sewed or pegged?' i 9 2 STORIES OF THE WAR. "And there was another one of the soldiers at the battle of Chancellorsville, whose regiment, waiting to be called into the fight, was taking coffee. The hero of the story put to his lips a crockery mug which he had carried, with infinite care, through several campaigns. A stray bullet, just missing the drinker's head, dashed the mug into fragments and left only the handle on his finger. Turning his head in that direction, he scowled, 'Johnny, you can't do that again.' " THE PRESIDENT AND THE MONITOR. The President expressed his belief in the Monitor, to Captain Fox, the adviser of Captain Ericsson, who constructed the Monitor. "I am not prepared for disastrous results, why should I be? We have three of the most effective vessels in Hampton Roads, and any number of small craft that will hang on the stern of the Merrimac like small dogs on the haunches of a bear. They may not be able to tear her down, but they will interfere with the comfort of her voyage. Her trial trip will not be a pleasure trip, I am certain. "We have had a big share of bad luck already, but I do not believe the future has any such misfortunes in store for us as you anticipate." Said Captain Fox: "If the Merrimac does not sink our ships, who is to prevent her from dropping her anchor in the Potomac, where that steamer lies," pointing to a steamer at anchor below the long bridge, "and throwing her hundred-pound shells into this room, or battering down the walls of the Capitol?" "The Almighty, Captain," answered the President, STORIES OF THE WAR. 193 excitedly, but without the least affectation. ' ' I expect set-backs, defeats ; we have had them and shall have them. They are common to all wars. But I have not the slightest fear of any result which shall fatally impair our military and naval strength, or give other powers any right to interfere in our quarrel. The destruction of the Capitol would do both. "I do not fear it, for this is God's fight, and He will win it in His own good time. He will take care that our enemies will not push us too far." "Speaking of iron-clads, " said the President, "you do not seem to take the little Monitor into account. I believe in the Monitor and her commander. If Captain Worden does not give a good account of the Monitor and of himself, I shall have made a mistake in following my judgment for the first time since I have been here, Captain. I have not made a mistake in following my clear judgment of men since this war began. I followed that judgment when I gave Worden the command of the Monitor. I would make the appointment over again to-day. The Monitor should be in Hampton Roads now. She left New York eight days ago." After the captain had again presented what he considered the possibilities of failure, the President replied, "No, no, Captain, I respect your judgment, as you have reason to know, but this time you are all wrong. "The Monitor was one of my inspirations; I believed in her firmly when that energetic contractor first showed me Ericsson's plans. Captain Ericsson's plain but rather enthusiastic demonstration, made my con- version permanent. It was called a floating battery then ; I called it a raft I caught some of the inventor's i 9 4 STORIES OF THE WAR. enthusiasm and it has been growing upon me. I thought then, and I am confident now, it is just what we want. I am sure that the Monitor is still afloat, and that she will yet give a good account of herself. Sometimes I think she may be the veritable sling with a stone that will yet smite the Merrimac Philistine in the forehead." Soon was the President's judgment verified, for the "Fight of the Monitor and Merrimac" changed all the conditions of naval warfare. After the victory was gained, the presiding Captain Fox and others went on board the Monitor, and Captain Worden was requested by the President to narrate the history of the encounter. Captain Worden did so in a modest manner, and apologized for not being able better to provide for his guests. The President smilingly responded : "Some uncharitable people say that old Bourbon is an indispensable element in the fighting qualities of some of our generals in the field, but, Captain, after the account that we have heard to-day, no one will say that any Dutch courage is needed on board the Monitor." "It never has been, sir," modestly observed the captain. Captain Fox then gave a description of what he saw of the engagement and described it as indescribably grand. Then, turning to the President, he continued, "Now, standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred vessel, the first genuine iron-clad — the victor in the first fight of iron-clads — let me make a confession, and perform an act of simple justice. "I never fully believed in armored vessels until I saw this battle. STORIES OF THE WAR. 195 "I know all the facts which united to give us the Monitor. I withhold no credit from Captain Ericsson, her inventor, but I know that the country is principally indebted for the construction of the vessel to President Lincoln, and for the success of her trial to Captain Worden, her commander." THAT SAVAGE DOG. When Hood's army had been scattered into frag- ments, Lincoln, elated by the defeat of what had so long been a menacing force on the borders of Tenn- essee, was reminded by its collapse of the fate of a savage dog belonging to one of his neighbors in the frontier settlements in which he lived in his youth. "The dog," he said, "was the terror of the neighbor- hood, and its owner, a churlish and quarrelsome fellow, took pleasure in the brute's forcible attitude Finally, all ether means having failed to subdue the creature, a man loaded a lump of meat with a charge of powder, to which was attached a slow fuse ; this was dropped where the dreaded dog would find it, and the animal gulped down the tempting bit. There was a dull rumbling, a muffled explosion, and fragments of the dog were seen flying in every direction. The grieved owner, picking up the shattered remains of his cruel favorite, said: 'He was a good dog, but as a dog, his days of usefulness are over.' Hood's army was a good army," said Lincoln, by way of comment, "and we were all afraid of it, but as an army, its usefulness is gone." 196 STORIES OF THE WAR. "HELP ME LET THIS HOG GO." The terrible butchery at the battle of Fredericks- burg - , made Lincoln almost broken-hearted. Governor Custer, of Pennsylvania, expressed his regrets that his description had so sadly affected the President. He remarked: "I would give all I possess to know how to rescue you from this terrible war." Then Mr. Lincoln's wonderful recuperative powers asserted themselves and this marvelous man was himself. Lincoln's whole aspect suddenly changed, and he relieved his mind by telling a story. "This reminds me, Governor," he said, "of an old farmer out in Illinois that I used to know. "He took it into his head to go into hog-raising. He sent out to Europe and imported the finest breed of hogs he could buy. "The prize hog was put in a pen, and the farmer's two mischievous boys, James and John, were told to be sure not to let it out. But James, the worst of the two, let the brute out the next day. The hog went straight for the boys, and drove John up a tree, then the hog went for the seat of James' trousers, and the only way the boy could save himself was by holding on to the hog's tail. "The hog would not give up his hunt, nor the boy his hold! After they had made a good many circles around the tree, the boy's courage began to give out, and he shotted to his brother, 'I say, John, come down, quick, and help me let go this hog!' "Now, Governor, that is exactly my case. I wish some one would come and help me to let the hog go," THE FRETTING QUESTIONS OF EVEN A GREAT WAR SEEMED TO PERISH UNTIL "TAD" HAD COMPLETED HIS ROMP. STORIES OF THE WAR. 199 "GRANT'S WHISKY" THE RIGHT KIND. Just previous to the fall of Vicksburg a self-con- stituted committee, solicitous for the morals of our armies, took it upon themselves to visit the President and urge the removal of General Grant. In some surprise Mr. Lincoln inquired, "For what reason?" "Why," replied the spokesman, "he drinks too much whisky." "Ah!" rejoined Mr. Lincoln, dropping his lower lip, "by the way, gentlemen, can either of you tell me where General Grant procures his whisky? Because, if I can find out, I will send every general in the field a barrel of it ! " BURNSIDE SAFE! Burnside was shut up in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a time, and there was great solicitude all over the country on his account, as his communications with the North were temporarily cut off. One day Washing- ton was startled. The long silence concerning Burn- side's movements was broken by an urgent call from him for succor. Lincoln, relieved by the news that Burnside was safe, at least, said that he was reminded of a woman who lived in a forest clearing in Indiana, her cabin surrounded by hazel bushes, in which some of her numerous flock of children were continually being lost; when she heard a squall from one of these in the distance, although she knew that the child was in danger, perhaps frightened by a rattlesnake, she would say, "Thank God! there's one of my young ones that isn't lost." 2oo STORIES OP THE WAR. LINCOLN AND LITTLE "TAD." "The day after the review of Burnside's division some photographers," says Mr. Carpenter, "came up to the White House to make some stereoscopic studies for me of the President's office. They requested a dark closet in which to develop the pictures, and with- out a thought that I was infringing upon anybody's rights, I took them to an unoccupied room of which little 'Tad' had taken possession a few days before, and with the aid of a couple of servants had fitted up a miniature theater, with stage, curtains, orchestra, stalls, parquette and all. Knowing that the use required would interfere with none of his arrange- ments, I led the way to this apartment. "Everything went on well, and one or two pictures had been taken, when suddenly there was an uproar. The operator came back to the office and said that 'Tad' had taken great offense at the occupation of his room without his consent, and had locked the door, refusing all admission. "The chemicals had been taken inside, and there was no way of getting at them, he having carried off the key. In the midst of this conversation 'Tad' burst in, in a fearful passion. He laid all the blame upon me — said that I had no right to use his room, and the men should not go in even to get their things. He had locked the door and they should not go there again— 'they had no business in his room!' "Mr. Lincoln was sitting for a photograph, and was still in the chair. He said, very mildly, 'Tad, go and unlock the door.' Tad went off muttering into his mother's room, refusing to obey. I followed him into STORIES OF THE WAR. 201 the passage, but no coaxing would pacify him. Upon my return to the President I found him still patiently in the chair, from which he had not risen. He said : 'Has not the boy opened the door?' I replied that we could do nothing with him — he had gone off in a great pet. Mr. Lincoln's lips came together firmly, and then, suddenly rising, he strode across the passage with the air of one bent on punishment, and disap- peared in the domestic apartments. Directly he returned with the key to the theater, which he unlocked himself. " 'Tad,' said he, half apologetically, 'is a peculiar child. He was violently excited when I went to him. I said, "Tad, do you know that you are making your father a great deal of trouble?" He burst into tears, instantly giving me up the key.' " LET THE ELEPHANT ESCAPE. Mr. Dana relates the following: A certain Thomp- son had been giving the Government considerable trouble. Dana received information that Thompson was about to escape to Liverpool. Calling upon Stanton, Dana was referred to Mr. Lincoln. "The President was at the White House, business hours were over, Lincoln was washing his hands. 'Hallo, Dana,' said he, as I opened the door, 'what is it now?' 'Well, sir,' I said, 'here is the Provost Marshal of Portland, who reports that Jacob Thomp- son is to be in town to-night, and inquires what orders we have to give.' 'What does Stanton say?' he asked. 'Arrest him,' I replied. 'Well,' he continued, drawl- 202 STORIES OF THE WAR. ing his words, 'I rather guess not. When you have an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run.' " FRIGHT A CURE FOR BOILS. "Blair," said the President to his Postmaster- General, "did you ever know that fright has sometimes proven a cure for boils?" "No, Mr. President, how is that?" "I'll tell you. Not long ago, when Colonel , with his cavalry, was at the front, and the Rebs were making things rather lively for us, the colonel wa9 ordered out to a reconnoissance. He was troubled at the time with a big boil where it made horseback riding decidedly uncomfortable. He finally dis- mounted and ordered the troops forward without him. Soon he was startled by the rapid reports of pistols, and the helter-skelter approach of his troops in full retreat before a yelling rebel force. He forgot every- thing but the yells, sprang into his saddle, and made capital time over the fences and ditches till safe within the lines. "The pain from his boil was gone, and the boil too, and the colonel swore that there was no cure for boils so sure as fright from rebel yells." BRIGADIER GENERALS MORE PLENTIFUL THAN HORSES. When Pesident Lincoln heard of the rebel raid at Fairfax, in which a brigadier-general and a number of valuable horses were captured, he gravely observed: STORIES OF THE WAR. 203 "Well, I am sorry for the horses." 1 ' Sorry for the horses, Mr. President ! ' ' exclaimed the Secretary of War, raising his spectacles, and throwing himself back in his chair in astonishment. "Yes," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I can make a brigadier-general in five minutes, but it is not easy to replace a hundred and ten horses." "MASSA LINKUM" WORSHIPED BY THE NEGROES. In 1863, Colonel McKaye, of New York, with Robert Dale Owen and one or two other gentlemen, were associated as a committee to investigate the condition of the freedmen on the coast of North Carolina. Upon their return from Hilton Head they reported to the President, and in the course of the interview, Colonel McKaye related the following incident: He had been speaking of the ideas of power enter- tained by these people. He said they had an idea of God, as the Almighty, and they had realized in their former position the power of their masters. Up to the time of the arrival among them of the Union forces, they had no knowledge of any other power. Their masters fled upon the approach of our soldiers, and this gave the slaves a conception of a power greater than that exercised by them. This power they called "Massa Linkum. " Colonel McKaye said their place of worship was a large building which they called "the praise house" ; and the leader of the meeting, a venerable black man, was known as "the praise man." On a certain day, when there was quite a large gathering of the people, 204 STORIES OP THE WAR. considerable confusion was created by different parsons attempting to tell who and what "Massa Linkum" was. In the midst of the excitement, the white-headed leader commanded silence. "Brederin," said he, "you don't know nosen' what you'se talkin' about. Now, you just listen to me. Massa Linkum, he eberywhar. He know eberyting." Then, solemnly looking up, he added, "He walk de earf like de Lord!" Colonel McKaye said that Mr. Lincoln seemed much affected by this account. He did not smile, as another man might have done, but got up from his chair and walked in silence two or three times across the floor. As he resumed his seat, he said, very impressively, "It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race." THE COLORED PEOPLE OF RICHMOND HONOR LINCOLN. G. F. Shepley gives the following interesting reminiscence: "After Mr. Lincoln's interview with Judge Campbell, the President being about to return to the Wabash, I took him and Admiral Porter in my carriage. An immense concourse of colored people thronged the streets, accompanied and followed the carriage, calling upon the President with the wildest exclamations of gratitude and delight. "He was the Moses, the Messiah, to the slaves of the South. Hundreds of colored women tossed their hands high in the air and then bent down to the ground, weeping for joy. Some shouted songs of STORIES OF THE WAR. 205 deliverance, and sang the old plantation refrains, which prophesied the coming of a deliverer from bondage. 'God bless you, Father Abraham!' went up from a thousand throats. "Those only who have seen the paroxysmal enthu- siasm of a religious meeting of slaves can form an adequate conception of the way in which tears and smiles, and shouts of the emancipated people evinced the frenzy of their gratitude to their deliverer. He looked at all attentively, with a face expressive only of a sort of pathetic wonder. "Occasionally its sadness would alternate with one of his peculiar smiles, and he would remark on the great proportion of those whose color indicated a mixed lineage from the white master and the black slave; and that reminded him of some little story of his life in Kentucky, which he would smilingly tell ; and then his face would relapse again into that sad expression which all will remember who saw him during the last few weeks of the Rebellion. Perhaps it was a presenti- ment of his impending fate. "I accompanied him to the ship, bade him farewell and left him, to see his face no more. Not long after, the bullet of the assassin arrested the beatings of one of the kindest hearts that ever throbbed in human bosom. THE BITER BIT. The Governor-General, with some of his principal officers, visited Lincoln in the summer of 1864. They had been very troublesome in harboring blockade runners, and they were said to have carried pn a large trade from their ports with the Confederates, 2o6 STORIES OF THE WAR. Lincoln treated his guests with great courtesy. After a pleasant interview, the Governor, alluding to the coming Presidential election, said jokingly, but with a grain of sarcasm, "I understand, Mr. President, that everybody votes in this country. If we remain until November, can we vote?" "You remind me," replied the President, "of a countryman of yours, a green emigrant from Ireland. Pat arrived on election day, and perhaps was as eager as your Excellency to vote and to vote early, and late and often. "So, upon landing at Castle Garden, he hastened to the nearest voting place, and, as he approached, the judge who received the ballots inquired, 'Who do you want to vote for? On which side are 3'•ou? , Poor Pat was embarrassed, he did not know who were the candidates. He stopped, scratched his head, then, with the readiness of his countrymen, he said: " 'I am foment the Government, anyhow. Tell me, if your Honor plases, which is the rebellion side, and I'll tell you how I want to vote. In ould Ireland, I was always on the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick, I'll do that same in America.' Your Excellency," said Mr. Lincoln, "would, I should think, not be at all at a loss on which side to vote ! ' ' LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. When Lincoln was on his way to the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, an old gentleman told him that his only son fell on Little Round Top at Gettys- burg, and he was going to look at the spot. STORIES OF THE WAR. 207 Mr. Lincoln replied: "You have been called on to make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh. "But, oh, my dear sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices, and had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands on the graves of those who have already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our tears ; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered, and the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate before this dreadful war is over, my heart is ke lead within me, and I feel at times like hiding in deep darkness. " At one of the stopping places of the train, a very beautiful little child, having a bunch of rosebuds in her hand, was lifted up to an open window of the President's car. "Floweth for the President." The President stepped to the window, took the rosebuds, bent down and kissed the child, saying: "You are a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness." HOW LINCOLN PACIFIED DISAPPOINTED OFFICE SEEKERS. A gentleman states in a Chicago journal: "In the winter of 1864, after serving three years in the Union Army, and being honorably discharged, I made application for the post sutlership at Point Lookout. My father being interested, we made application to Mr. Stanton, then Secretary of War. "We obtained an audience, and were ushered into the presence of the most pompous man I ever met. As I entered he waved his hand for me to stop at a 208 STORIES OF THE WAR. given distance from him, and then put these questions, viz. : " 'Did you serve three years in the army?' 44 'I did, sir.' 44 4 Were you honorably discharged?' 44 4 I was, sir.' 44 4 Let me see your discharge.' 44 I gave it to him. He looked it over, then said: 44 4 Were you ever wounded?' 44 I told him yes, at the battle of Williamsburg, May 5, 1861. 44 He then said: 4 I think we can give this position to a soldier who has lost an arm or leg, he being more deserving' ; and he then said I looked hearty and healthy enough to serve three years more. He would not give me a chance to argue my case. 44 The audience was at an end. He waved his hand to me. I was then dismissed from the august presence of the Honorable Secretary of War. 44 My father was waiting for me in the hallway, who saw by my countenance that I was not successful. I said to my father: 41 'Let us go over to Mr. Lincoln; he may give us more satisfaction.' "He said it would do me no good, but we went over. Mr. Lincoln's reception room was full of ladies and gentlemen when we entered, and the scene was one I shall never forget. 44 On her knees was a woman in the agonies of despair, with tears rolling down her cheeks, imploring for the life of her son, who had deserted and had been condemned to be shot. I heard Mr. Lincoln say: " 'Madam, do not act in this way, it is agony to me; STORIES OF THE WAR. 209 I would pardon your son if it was in my power, but there must be an example made or I will have no army. ' "At this speech the woman fainted. Lincoln motioned to his attendant, who picked the woman up and carried her out. All in the room were in tears. "But now, changing the scene from the sublime to the ridiculous, the next applicant for favor was a big, buxom Irish woman, who stood before the President, with arms akimbo, saying : " 'Mr. Lincoln, can't I sell apples on the railroad?' "Lincoln said: 'Certainly, madam, you can sell all you wish.' "But she said: 'You must give me a pass, or the soldiers will not let me.' "Lincoln then wrote a few lines and gave it to her, who said: " 'Thank you, sir; God bless you.' "This shows how quick and clear were all this man's decisions. "I stood and watched him for two hours, and he dismissed each case as quickly as the above, with satisfaction to all. "My turn soon came. Lincoln turned to my father and said : " 'Now, gentlemen, be pleased to be as quick as possible with your business, as it is growing late. ' "My father then stepped up to Lincoln and intro- duced me to him. Lincoln then said: " 'Take a seat, gentlemen, and state your business as quickly as possible. ' "There was but one chair by Lincoln, so he motioned my father to sit, while I stood. My father stated the business to him as stated above. He then said; aio STORIES OF THE WAR. " 'Have you seen Mr. Stanton?' "We told him yes, that he had refused. He (Mr. Lincoln) then said: 41 'Gentlemen, this is Mr. Stanton's business; I can- not interfere with him ; he attends to all these matters and I am sorry I cannot help you.' "He saw that we were disappointed, and did his best to revive our spirits. He succeeded well with my father, who was a Lincoln man, and who was a staunch Republican. "Mr. Lincoln then said: " 'Now, gentlemen, I will tell you what it is; I have thousands of applications like this every day, but we cannot satisfy all for this reason, that these positions are like office seekers — there are too many pigs for the tits. ' "The ladies who were listening to the conversation placed their handkerchiefs to their faces and turned away. But the joke of Old Abe put us all in a good humor. We then left the presence of the greatest and most just man who ever lived to fill the Presidential chair." LINCOLN'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. When Lincoln was in the White House he told this story : The only time he ever saw blood in this campaign, was one morning when, marching up a little valley that makes into the Rock River bottom, to reinforce a squad of outposts that were thought to be in danger, they came upon the tent occupied by the other party just at sunrise. The men had neglected to place any STORIES OF THE WAR. 211 guard at night, and had been slaughtered in their sleep. As the reinforcing party came up the slope on which the camp had been made, Lincoln saw them all lying with their heads towards the rising sun, and the round red spot that marked where they had been scalped gleamed more redly yet in the ruddy light of the sun. This scene years afterwards he recalled with a shudder. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND PASSES TO RICHMOND. A gentleman called upon President Lincoln before the fall of Richmond and solicited a pass for that place. "I should be very happy to oblige you," said the President, "if my passes were respected; but the fact is, I have, within the past two years, given passes to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to Richmond and not one has got theie yet. " THE SON OF LINCOLN DISPLAYS A REBEL FLAG. "One of the prettiest incidents in the closing days of the Civil War occurred when the troops 'marching home again* passed in grand form, if with well-worn uniforms and tattered bunting, before the White House," says Harper's Young People. "Naturally, an immense crowd had assembled on the streets, the lawns, porches, balconies, and windows, even those of the executive mansion itself being crowded to excess. A central figure was that of the President, Abraham Lincoln, who, with bared head, unfurled and waved our nation's flag in the midst of lusty cheers. "But suddenly there was an unexpected sight. 212 STORIES OF THE WAR. "A small boy leaned forward and sent streaming to the air the banner of the boys in gray. It was an old flag which had been captured from the Confederates, and which the urchin, the President's second son, Tad, had obtained possession of and considered an additional triumph to unfurl on this all-important day. "Vainly did the servant who had followed him to the window plead with him to desist. No, Master Tad, Pet of the White House, was not to be prevented from adding to the loyal demonstration of the hour. "To his surprise, however, the crowd viewed it differently. Had it floated from any other window in the capital that day, no doubt it would have been the target of contempt and abuse; but when the Presi- dent, understanding what had happened, turned, with a smile on his grand, plain face, and showed his approval by a gesture and expression, cheer after cheer rent the air. "It was, surely enough, the expression of peace and good-will which, of all our commanders, none was better pleased to promote than our commander-in- chief." LINCOLN FULFILLS HIS VOW. The following incident, remarkable for its significant facts, is related by Mr. Carpenter, the artist: "Mr. Chase," said Mr. Carpenter, "told me that at the Cabinet meeting immediately after the battle of Antietam and just prior to the issue of the Proclama- tion, the President entered upon the business before them, saying: " 'The time for the annunciation of the emancipa- STORIES OF THE WAR. 213 tion proclamation could be no longer delayed. Public sentiment would sustain it — many of his warmest friends and supporters demanded it — and he had promised his God he would do it!' "The last part of this was uttered in a low tone, and appeared to be heard by no one but Secretary Chase, who was sitting near him. He asked the President if he correctly understood him. Mr. Lincoln replied : " ' I made a solemn vow before God that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the Declaration of freedom to the slaves. ' "In February, 1865, a few days after the constitu- tional amendment, I went to Washington and was received by Mr. Lincoln with the kindness and famil- iarity which had characterized our previous intercourse. "I said to him at this time that I was very proud to have been the artist to have first conceived the design of painting a picture commemorative of the Act of the Emancipation ; that subsequent occurrences had only confirmed my first judgment of that act as the most sublime moral event in our history. " 'Yes,' said he — and never do I remember to have noticed in him more earnestness of expression or manner — 'as affairs have turned, it is the central act of my administration, and the great event of the nineteenth century.' " "LET JEFF. ESCAPE, I DON'T WANT HIM." When Grant saw that Lee must soon capitulate, Grant asked the President whether he should try to capture Jeff. Davis, or let him