''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 6

Lincoln himself appreciated this. "Sumner thinks he runs me," he said, with an amused twinkle, one day.

A USELESS DOG.

When Hood's army had been scattered into fragments, President Lincoln, elated by the defeat of what had so long been a menacing force on the borders of Tennessee 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 neighborhood, and its owner, a churlish and quarrelsome fellow, took pleasure in the brute's forcible att.i.tude.

"Finally, all other 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 bait.

"There was a dull rumbling, a m.u.f.fled 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."

ORIGIN OF THE "INFLUENCE" STORY.

Judge Baldwin, of California, being in Was.h.i.+ngton, called one day on General Halleck, then Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, and, presuming upon a familiar acquaintance in California a few years since, solicited a pa.s.s outside of our lines to see a brother in Virginia, not thinking that he would meet with a refusal, as both his brother and himself were good Union men.

"We have been deceived too often," said General Halleck, "and I regret I can't grant it."

Judge B. then went to Stanton, and was very briefly disposed of with the same result. Finally, he obtained an interview with Mr. Lincoln, and stated his case.

"Have you applied to General Halleck?" inquired the President.

"Yes, and met with a flat refusal," said Judge B.

"Then you must see Stanton," continued the President.

"I have, and with the same result," was the reply.

"Well, then," said Mr. Lincoln, with a smile, "I can do nothing; for you must know that I have very little influence with this Administration, although I hope to have more with the next."

FELT SORRY FOR BOTH.

Many ladies attended the famous debates between Lincoln and Douglas, and they were the most unprejudiced listeners. "I can recall only one fact of the debates," says Mrs. William Crotty, of Seneca, Illinois, "that I felt so sorry for Lincoln while Douglas was speaking, and then to my surprise I felt so sorry for Douglas when Lincoln replied."

The disinterested to whom it was an intellectual game, felt the power and charm of both men.

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

"What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day, "when you stood in the presence of the Falls of Niagara, the greatest of natural wonders?"

"The thing that struck me most forcibly when I saw the Falls," Lincoln responded, with characteristic deliberation, "was, where in the world did all that water come from?"

"LONG ABE" FOUR YEARS LONGER.

The second election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States was the reward of his courage and genius bestowed upon him by the people of the Union States. General George B. McClellan was his opponent in 1864 upon the platform that "the War is a failure," and carried but three States--New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. The States which did not think the War was a failure were those in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, all the Western commonwealths, West Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas and the new State of Nevada, admitted into the Union on October 31st. President Lincoln's popular majority over McClellan, who never did much toward making the War a success, was more than four hundred thousand. Underneath the cartoon reproduced here, from "Harper's Weekly" of November 26th, 1864, were the words, "Long Abraham Lincoln a Little Longer."

But the beloved President's time upon earth was not to be much longer, as he was a.s.sa.s.sinated just one month and ten days after his second inauguration. Indeed, the words, "a little longer," printed below the cartoon, were strangely prophetic, although not intended to be such.

The people of the United States had learned to love "Long Abe," their affection being of a purely personal nature, in the main. No other Chief Executive was regarded as so sincerely the friend of the great ma.s.s of the inhabitants of the Republic as Lincoln. He was, in truth, one of "the common people," having been born among them, and lived as one of them.

Lincoln's great height made him an easy subject for the cartoonist, and they used it in his favor as well as against him.

"ALL SICKER'N YOUR MAN."

A Commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands was to be appointed, and eight applicants had filed their papers, when a delegation from the South appeared at the White House on behalf of a ninth. Not only was their man fit--so the delegation urged--but was also in bad health, and a residence in that balmy climate would be of great benefit to him.

The President was rather impatient that day, and before the members of the delegation had fairly started in, suddenly closed the interview with this remark: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for that place, and they are all 'sicker'n' your man."

EASIER TO EMPTY THE POTOMAC.

An officer of low volunteer rank persisted in telling and re-telling his troubles to the President on a summer afternoon when Lincoln 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."

HE WANTED A STEADY HAND.

When the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation was taken to Mr. Lincoln by Secretary Seward, for the President's signature, Mr. Lincoln 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 doc.u.ment 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."

LINCOLN SAW STANTON ABOUT IT.

Mr. Lovejoy, heading a committee of Western men, discussed an important scheme with the President, and the gentlemen were then directed to explain it to Secretary of War 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 you mean to say that the President is a d--d fool?" asked Lovejoy, in amazement.

"Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that."

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."

MRS. LINCOLN'S SURPRISE.

A good 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 trips, late one night, Mr. Lincoln dismounted from his horse at the familiar corner and then turned to go into the house, but stopped; a perfectly 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 there?"

"Abe Lincoln," was the reply. "I am looking for my house. I thought it was across the way, but when I went away a few weeks ago there was only a one-story house there and now there is a two-story house in its place. 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.

MENACE TO THE GOVERNMENT.

The persistence of office-seekers nearly drove President Lincoln wild. They slipped in through the half-opened doors of the Executive Mansion; they dogged his steps if he walked; they edged their way through the crowds and thrust their papers in his hands when he rode; and, taking it all in all, they well-nigh worried him to death.

He once said that if the Government pa.s.sed through the Rebellion without dismemberment there was the strongest danger of its falling a prey to the rapacity of the office-seeking cla.s.s.

"This human struggle and scramble for office, for a way to live without work, will finally test the strength of our inst.i.tutions," were the words he used.

TROOPS COULDN'T FLY OVER IT.

On April 20th a delegation from Baltimore appeared at the White House and begged the President that troops for Was.h.i.+ngton be sent around and not through Baltimore.

President Lincoln replied, laughingly: "If I grant this concession, you will be back tomorrow asking that no troops be marched 'around' it."

The President was right. That afternoon, and again on Sunday and Monday, committees sought him, protesting that Maryland soil should not be "polluted" by the feet of soldiers marching against the South.

The President had but one reply: "We must have troops, and as they can neither crawl under Maryland nor fly over it, they must come across it."

PAT WAS "FORNINST THE GOVERNMENT."

The Governor-General of Canada, with some of his princ.i.p.al officers, visited President Lincoln in the summer of 1864.

They had been very troublesome in harboring blockade runners, and they were said to have carried on a large trade from their ports with the Confederates. 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 you?' Poor Pat was embarra.s.sed; he did not know who were the candidates. He stopped, scratched his head, then, with the readiness of his countrymen, he said: "'I am forninst the Government, anyhow. Tell me, if your Honor plase: which is the rebellion side, and I'll tell you haw 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!"

"CAN'T SPARE THIS MAN."

One night, about eleven o'clock, Colonel A. K. McClure, whose intimacy with President Lincoln was so great that he could obtain admittance to the Executive Mansion at any and all hours, called at the White House to urge Mr. Lincoln to remove General Grant from command.

After listening patiently for a long time, the President, gathering himself up in his chair, said, with the utmost earnestness: "I can't spare this man; he fights!"

In relating the particulars of this interview, Colonel McClure said: "That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough, and that Grant was safe in Lincoln's hands against his countless hosts of enemies. The only man in all the nation who had the power to save Grant was Lincoln, and he had decided to do it. He was not influenced by any personal partiality for Grant, for they had never met.

"It was not until after the battle of s.h.i.+loh, fought on the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, that Lincoln was placed in a position to exercise a controlling influence in shaping the destiny of Grant. The first reports from the s.h.i.+loh battle-field created profound alarm throughout the entire country, and the wildest exaggerations were spread in a floodtide of vituperation against Grant.

"The few of to-day who can recall the inflamed condition of public sentiment against Grant caused by the disastrous first day's battle at s.h.i.+loh will remember that he was denounced as incompetent for his command by the public journals of all parties in the North, and with almost entire unanimity by Senators and Congressmen, regardless of political affinities.

"I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and in giving my reasons for it I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from the loyal people of the land against Grant's continuance in command.

"I did not forget that Lincoln was the one man who never allowed himself to appear as wantonly defying public sentiment. It seemed to me impossible for him to save Grant without taking a crus.h.i.+ng load of condemnation upon himself; but Lincoln was wiser than all those around him, and he not only saved Grant, but he saved him by such well-concerted effort that he soon won popular applause from those who were most violent in demanding Grant's dismissal."

HIS TEETH CHATTERED.

During the Lincoln-Douglas joint debates of 1858, the latter accused Lincoln of having, when in Congress, voted against the appropriation for supplies to be sent the United States soldiers in Mexico. In reply, Lincoln said: "This is a perversion of the facts. I was opposed to the policy of the administration in declaring war against Mexico; but when war was declared I never failed to vote for the support of any proposition looking to the comfort of our poor fellows who were maintaining the dignity of our flag in a war that I thought unnecessary and unjust."

He gradually became more and more excited; his voice thrilled and his whole frame shook. Sitting on the stand was O. B. Ficklin, who had served in Congress with Lincoln in 1847. Lincoln reached back, took Ficklin by the coat-collar, back of his neck, and in no gentle manner lifted him from his seat as if he had been a kitten, and roared: "Fellow-citizens, here is Ficklin, who was at that time in Congress with me, and he knows it is a lie."

He shook Ficklin until his teeth chattered. Fearing he would shake Ficklin's head off, Ward Lamon grasped Lincoln's hand and broke his grip.

After the speaking was over, Ficklin, who had warm personal friends.h.i.+p with him, said: "Lincoln, you nearly shook all the Democracy out of me to-day."

"AARON GOT HIS COMMISSION."

President 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 G.o.d for the people to wors.h.i.+p. Yet Aaron got his commission, you know."

LINCOLN AND THE 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 canva.s.s 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 own request, placed the result of the canva.s.s 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 if 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--G.o.d 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 Const.i.tution 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."

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 G.o.d, 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 nothing, but Truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is G.o.d. 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 doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or down, but G.o.d cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with G.o.d'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 resumed: "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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d in history, the conversation 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. Bateman, a Christian gentleman whom Mr. Lincoln profoundly respected, was to convince him that Mr. Lincoln had, in a quiet way, found a path to the Christian standpoint--that he had found G.o.d, and rested on the eternal truth of G.o.d. 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 cla.s.s 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."

HARDTACK BETTER THAN GENERALS.

Secretary of War Stanton told the President the following story, which greatly amused the latter, as he was especially fond of a joke at the expense of some high military or civil dignitary.

Stanton had little or no sense of humor.

When Secretary Stanton was making a trip up the Broad River in North Carolina, in a tugboat, 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 hardtack?"

GOT THE PREACHER.

A story told by a Cabinet member tended to show how accurately Lincoln could calculate political results in advance--a faculty which remained with him all his life.