''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 7

"A friend, who was a Democrat, had come to him early in the canva.s.s and told him he wanted to see him elected, but did not like to vote against his party; still he would vote for him, if the contest was to be so close that every vote was needed.

"A short time before the election Lincoln said to him: 'I have got the preacher, and I don't want your vote.'"

BIG JOKE ON HALLECK.

When General Halleck was Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, with headquarters at Was.h.i.+ngton, President Lincoln unconsciously played a big practical joke upon that dignified officer. The President had spent the night at the Soldiers' Home, and the next morning asked Captain Derickson, commanding the company of Pennsylvania soldiers, which was the Presidential guard at the White House and the Home--wherever the President happened to be--to go to town with him.

Captain Derickson told the story in a most entertaining way: "When we entered the city, Mr. Lincoln said he would call at General Halleck's headquarters and get what news had been received from the army during the night. I informed him that General Cullum, chief aid to General Halleck, was raised in Meadville, and that I knew him when I was a boy.

"He replied, 'Then we must see both the gentlemen.' When the carriage stopped, he requested me to remain seated, and said he would bring the gentlemen down to see me, the office being on the second floor. In a short time the President came down, followed by the other gentlemen. When he introduced them to me, General Cullum recognized and seemed pleased to see me.

"In General Halleck I thought I discovered a kind of quizzical look, as much as to say, 'Isn't this rather a big joke to ask the Commander-in-Chief of the army down to the street to be introduced to a country captain?'"

STORIES BETTER THAN DOCTORS.

A gentleman, visiting a hospital at Was.h.i.+ngton, heard an occupant of one of the beds laughing and talking about the President, who had been there a short time before and gladdened the wounded with some of his stories. The soldier seemed in such good spirits that the gentleman inquired: "You must be very slightly wounded?"

"Yes," replied the brave fellow, "very slightly--I have only lost one leg, and I'd be glad enough to lose the other, if I could hear some more of 'Old Abe's' stories."

SHORT, BUT EXCITING.

William B. Wilson, employed in the telegraph office at the War Department, ran over to the White House one day to summon Mr. Lincoln. He described the trip back to the War Department in this manner: "Calling one of his two younger boys to join him, we then started from the White House, between stately trees, along a gravel path which led to the rear of the old War Department building. It was a warm day, and Mr. Lincoln wore as part of his costume a faded gray linen duster which hung loosely around his long gaunt frame; his kindly eye was beaming with good nature, and his ever-thoughtful brow was unruffled.

"We had barely reached the gravel walk before he stooped over, picked up a round smooth pebble, and shooting it off his thumb, challenged us to a game of 'followings,' which we accepted. Each in turn tried to hit the outlying stone, which was being constantly projected onward by the President. The game was short, but exciting; the cheerfulness of childhood, the ambition of young manhood, and the gravity of the statesman were all injected into it.

"The game was not won until the steps of the War Department were reached. Every inch of progression was toughly contested, and when the President was declared victor, it was only by a hand span. He appeared to be as much pleased as if he had won a battle."

MR. BULL DIDN'T GET HIS COTTON.

Because of the blockade, by the Union fleets, of the Southern cotton ports, England was deprived of her supply of cotton, and scores of thousands of British operatives were thrown out of employment by the closing of the cotton mills at Manchester and other cities in Great Britain. England (John Bull) felt so badly about this that the British wanted to go to war on account of it, but when the United States eagle ruffled up its wings the English thought over the business and concluded not to fight.

"Harper's Weekly" of May 16th, 1863, contained the cartoon we reproduce, which shows John Bull as manifesting much anxiety regarding the cotton he had bought from the Southern planters, but which the latter could not deliver. Beneath the cartoon is this bit of dialogue between John Bull and President Lincoln: MR. BULL (confiding creature): "Hi want my cotton, bought at fi'pence a pound."

MR. LINCOLN: "Don't know anything about it, my dear sir. Your friends, the rebels, are burning all the cotton they can find, and I confiscate the rest. Good-morning, John!"

As President Lincoln has a big fifteen-inch gun at his side, the black muzzle of which is pressed tightly against Mr. Bull's waistcoat, the President, to all appearances, has the best of the argument "by a long shot." Anyhow, Mr. Bull had nothing more to say, but gave the cotton matter up as a bad piece of business, and pocketed the loss.

STICK TO AMERICAN PRINCIPLES.

President Lincoln's first conclusion (that Mason and Slidell should be released) was the real ground on which the Administration submitted. "We must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals." It was to many, as Secretary of the Treasury Chase declared it was to him, "gall and wormwood." James Russell Lowell's verse expressed best the popular feeling: We give the critters back, John, Cos Abram thought 'twas right; It warn't your bullyin' clack, John, Provokin' us to fight.

The decision raised Mr. Lincoln immeasurably in the view of thoughtful men, especially in England.

USED "RUDE TACT."

General John C. Fremont, with headquarters at St. Louis, astonished the country by issuing a proclamation declaring, among other things, that the property, real and personal, of all the persons in the State of Missouri who should take up arms against the United States, or who should be directly proved to have taken an active part with its enemies in the field, would be confiscated to public use and their slaves, if they had any, declared freemen.

The President was dismayed; he modified that part of the proclamation referring to slaves, and finally replaced Fremont with General Hunter.

Mrs. Fremont (daughter of Senator T. H. Benton), her husband's real chief of staff, flew to Was.h.i.+ngton and sought Mr. Lincoln. It was midnight, but the President gave her an audience. Without waiting for an explanation, she violently charged him with sending an enemy to Missouri to look into Fremont's case, and threatening that if Fremont desired to he could set up a government for himself.

"I had to exercise all the rude tact I have to avoid quarreling with her," said Mr. Lincoln afterwards.

"ABE" ON A WOODPILE.

Lincoln's attempt to make a lawyer of himself under adverse and unpromising circ.u.mstances--he was a bare-footed farm-hand--excited comment. And it was not to be wondered. One old man, who was yet alive as late as 1901, 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 in that early day to do," said the old man, when relating the story, "I asked him what he was reading.

"'I'm not 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. 'Great G.o.d Almighty!' I exclaimed, and pa.s.sed on." Lincoln merely laughed and resumed his "studies."

TAKING DOWN A DANDY.

In a political campaign, Lincoln once replied to Colonel Richard Taylor, a self-conceited, dandified man, who wore a gold chain and ruffled s.h.i.+rt. His party at that time was posing as the hard-working bone and sinew of the land, while the Whigs were stigmatized as aristocrats, ruffled-s.h.i.+rt 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."

WHEN OLD ABE GOT MAD.

Soon after hostilities broke out between the North and South, Congress appointed a Committee on the Conduct of the War. This committee beset Mr. Lincoln and urged all sorts of measures. Its members were aggressive and patriotic, and one thing they determined upon was that the Army of the Potomac should move. But it was not until March that they became convinced that anything would be done.

One day early in that month, Senator Chandler, of Michigan, a member of the committee, met George W. Julian. He was in high glee. "'Old' Abe is mad," said Julian, "and the War will now go on."

WANTED TO "BORROW" THE ARMY.

During one of the periods when things were at a standstill, the Was.h.i.+ngton authorities, being unable to force General McClellan to a.s.sume an aggressive att.i.tude, President Lincoln went to the general's headquarters to have a talk with him, but for some reason he was unable to get an audience.

Mr. Lincoln returned to the White House much disturbed at his failure to see the commander of the Union forces, and immediately sent for two general officers, to have a consultation. On their arrival, he told them he must have some one to talk to about the situation, and as he had failed to see General McClellan, he wished their views as to the possibility or probability of commencing active operations with the Army of the Potomac.

"Something's got to be done," said the President, emphatically, "and done right away, or the bottom will fall out of the whole thing. Now, if McClellan doesn't want to use the army for awhile, I'd like to borrow it from him and see if I can't do something or other with it.

"If McClellan can't fish, he ought at least to be cutting bait at a time like this."

YOUNG "SUCKER" VISITORS.

After Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency, 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 ill.u.s.trative of the nature of many of his calls, the following incident was related by Mr. Holland, an eye-witness: "Mr. Lincoln being in conversation 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 saw their embarra.s.sment, he rose and walked to them, saying: 'How do you do, my good fellows? What can I do for you? Will you sit down?' 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 a.s.serted his belief that they were of exactly the same height. He had come in to verify his judgment. Mr. Lincoln 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. Lincoln 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 impression that they had in any way insulted his dignity."

"AND YOU DON'T WEAR HOOPSKIRTS."

An Ohio Senator had an appointment with President Lincoln at six o'clock, and as he entered the vestibule of the White House his attention was attracted toward a poorly clad young woman, who was violently sobbing. He asked her the cause of her distress. She said she had been ordered away by the servants, after vainly waiting many hours to see the President about her only brother, who had been condemned to death. Her story was this: She and her brother were foreigners, and orphans. They had been in this country several years. Her brother enlisted in the army, but, through bad influences, was induced to desert. He was captured, tried and sentenced to be shot--the old story.

The poor girl had obtained the signatures of some persons who had formerly known him, to a pet.i.tion for a pardon, and alone had come to Was.h.i.+ngton to lay the case before the President. Thronged as the waiting-rooms always were, she had pa.s.sed the long hours of two days trying in vain to get an audience, and had at length been ordered away.

The gentleman's feelings were touched. He said to her that he had come to see the President, but did not know as he should succeed. He told her, however, to follow him upstairs, and he would see what could be done for her.

Just before reaching the door, Mr. Lincoln came out, and, meeting his friend, said good-humoredly, "Are you not ahead of time?" The gentleman showed him his watch, with the hand upon the hour of six.

"Well," returned Mr. Lincoln, "I have been so busy to-day that I have not had time to get a lunch. Go in and sit down; I will be back directly."

The gentleman made the young woman accompany him into the office, and when they were seated, said to her: "Now, my good girl, I want you to muster all the courage you have in the world. When the President comes back, he will sit down in that armchair. I shall get up to speak to him, and as I do so you must force yourself between us, and insist upon his examination of your papers, telling him it is a case of life and death, and admits of no delay." These instructions were carried out to the letter. Mr. Lincoln was at first somewhat surprised at the apparent forwardness of the young woman, but observing her distressed appearance, he ceased conversation with his friend, and commenced an examination of the doc.u.ment she had placed in his hands.

Glancing from it to the face of the pet.i.tioner, whose tears had broken forth afresh, he studied its expression for a moment, and then his eye fell upon her scanty but neat dress. Instantly his face lighted up.

"My poor girl," said he, "you have come here with no Governor, or Senator, or member of Congress to plead your cause. You seem honest and truthful; and you don't wear hoopskirts--and I will be whipped but I will pardon your brother." And he did.

LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN'S SENTINELS.

President Lincoln's favorite son, Tad, having been sportively commissioned a lieutenant 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 consternation, 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.

DOUGLAS HELD LINCOLN'S HAT.

When Mr. Lincoln delivered his first inaugural he was introduced by his friend, United States Senator E. D. Baker, of Oregon. He carried a cane and a little roll--the ma.n.u.script of his inaugural address. There was moment's pause after the introduction, as he vainly looked for a spot where he might place his high silk hat.

Stephen A. Douglas, the political antagonist of his whole public life, the man who had pressed him hardest in the campaign of 1860, was seated just behind him. Douglas stepped forward quickly, and took the hat which Mr. Lincoln held helplessly in his hand.

"If I can't be President," Douglas whispered smilingly to Mrs. Brown, a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln and a member of the President's party, "I at least can hold his hat."

THE DEAD MAN SPOKE.

Mr. Lincoln once said in a speech: "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 experience 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.'"

MILITARY SNAILS NOT SPEEDY.

President Lincoln--as he himself put it in conversation one day with a friend--"fairly ached" for his generals to "get down to business." These slow generals he termed "snails."

Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were his favorites, for they were aggressive. They did not wait for the enemy to attack. Too many of the others were "lingerers," as Lincoln called them. They were magnificent in defense, and stubborn and brave, but their names figured too much on the "waiting list."

The greatest fault Lincoln found with so many of the commanders on the Union side was their unwillingness to move until everything was exactly to their liking.

Lincoln could not understand why these leaders of Northern armies hesitated.

OUTRAN THE JACK-RABBIT.

When the Union forces were routed in the first battle of Bull Run, there were many civilians present, who had gone out from Was.h.i.+ngton to witness the battle. Among the number were several Congressmen. One of these was a tall, long-legged fellow, who wore a long-tailed coat and a high plug hat. When the retreat began, this Congressman was in the lead of the entire crowd fleeing toward Was.h.i.+ngton. He outran all the rest, and was the first man to arrive in the city. No person ever made such good use of long legs as this Congressman. His immense stride carried him yards at every bound. He went over ditches and gullies at a single leap, and cleared a six-foot fence with a foot to spare. As he went over the fence his plug hat blew off, but he did not pause. With his long coat-tails flying in the wind, he continued straight ahead for Was.h.i.+ngton.

Many of those behind him were scared almost to death, but the flying Congressman was such a comical figure that they had to laugh in spite of their terror.

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed the description of how this Congressman led the race from Bull's Run, and laughed at it heartily.

"I never knew but one fellow who could run like that," he said, "and he was a young man out in Illinois. He had been sparking a girl, much against the wishes of her father. In fact, the old man took such a dislike to him that he threatened to shoot him if he ever caught him around his premises again.

"One evening the young man learned that the girl's father had gone to the city, and he ventured out to the house. He was sitting in the parlor, with his arm around Betsy's waist, when he suddenly spied the old man coming around the corner of the house with a shotgun. Leaping through a window into the garden, he started down a path at the top of his speed. He was a long-legged fellow, and could run like greased lightning. Just then a jack-rabbit jumped up in the path in front of him. In about two leaps he overtook the rabbit. Giving it a kick that sent it high in the air, he exclaimed: 'Git out of the road, gosh dern you, and let somebody run that knows how.'

"I reckon," said Mr. Lincoln, "that the long-legged Congressman, when he saw the rebel muskets, must have felt a good deal like that young fellow did when he saw the old man's shot-gun."

"FOOLING" THE PEOPLE.

Lincoln was a strong believer in the virtue of dealing honestly with the people.

"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens," he said to a caller at the White House, "you can never regain their respect and esteem.

"It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time."

"ABE, YOU CAN'T PLAY THAT ON ME."

The night President-elect Lincoln arrived at Was.h.i.+ngton, one man was observed watching Lincoln very closely as he walked out of the railroad station. Standing a little to one side, the man looked very sharply at Lincoln, and, as the latter pa.s.sed, seized hold of his hand, and said in a loud tone of voice, "Abe, you can't play that on me!"

Ward Lamon and the others with Lincoln were instantly alarmed, and would have struck the stranger had not Lincoln hastily said, "Don't strike him! It is Washburne. Don't you know him?"

Mr. Seward had given Congressman Washburne a hint of the time the train would arrive, and he had the right to be at the station when the train steamed in, but his indiscreet manner of loudly addressing the President-elect might have led to serious consequences to the latter.

HIS "BROAD" STORIES.

Mrs. Rose Linder Wilkinson, who often accompanied her father, Judge Linder, in the days when he rode circuit with Mr. Lincoln, tells the following story: "At night, as a rule, the lawyers spent awhile in the parlor, and permitted the women who happened to be along to sit with them. But after half an hour or so we would notice it was time for us to leave them. I remember traveling the circuit one season when the young wife of one of the lawyers was with him. The place was so crowded that she and I were made to sleep together. When the time came for banis.h.i.+ng us from the parlor, we went up to our room and sat there till bed-time, listening to the roars that followed each ether swiftly while those lawyers down-stairs told stories and laughed till the rafters rang.

"In the morning Mr. Lincoln said to me: 'Rose, did we disturb your sleep last night?' I answered, 'No, I had no sleep'--which was not entirely true but the retort amused him. Then the young lawyer's wife complained to him that we were not fairly used. We came along with them, young women, and when they were having the best time we were sent away like children to go to bed in the dark.

"'But, Madame,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'you would not enjoy the things we laugh at.' And then he entered into a discussion on what have been termed his 'broad' stories. He deplored the fact that men seemed to remember them longer and with less effort than any others.

"My father said: 'But, Lincoln, I don't remember the "broad" part of your stories so much as I do the moral that is in them,' and it was a thing in which they were all agreed."

SORRY FOR THE HORSES.

When President Lincoln heard of the Confederate raid at Fairfax, in which a brigadier-general and a number of valuable horses were captured, he gravely observed: "Well, I am sorry for the horses."

"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."

MILD REBUKE TO A DOCTOR.

Dr. Jerome Walker, of Brooklyn, told how Mr. Lincoln once administered to him a mild rebuke. The doctor was showing Mr. Lincoln through the hospital at City Point.

"Finally, after visiting the wards occupied by our invalid and convalescing soldiers," said Dr. Walker, "we came to three wards occupied by sick and wounded Southern prisoners. With a feeling of patriotic duty, I said: 'Mr. President, you won't want to go in there; they are only rebels.'

"I will never forget how he stopped and gently laid his large hand upon my shoulder and quietly answered, 'You mean Confederates!' And I have meant Confederates ever since.

"There was nothing left for me to do after the President's remark but to go with him through these three wards; and I could not see but that he was just as kind, his hand-shakings just as hearty, his interest just as real for the welfare of the men, as when he was among our own soldiers."