Chapter II: Part 2

“That reminds me,” remarked Mr. Lincoln one day, “of a farmer who lost his way on the Western frontier. Night came on, and the embarrassments of his position were increased by a furious tempest which suddenly burst upon him. To add to his discomfort, his horse had given out, leaving him exposed to all the dangers of the pitiless storm.

“The peals of thunder were terrific, the frequent flashes of lightning affording the only guide on the road as he resolutely trudged onward, leading his jaded steed. The earth seemed fairly to tremble beneath him in the war of elements. One bolt threw him suddenly upon his knees.

“Our traveler was not a prayerful man, but finding himself involuntarily brought to an attitude of devotion, he addressed himself to the Throne of Grace in the following prayer for his deliverance:

“‘O God! hear my prayer this time, for Thou knowest it is not often that I call upon Thee. And, O Lord! if it is all the same to Thee, give us a little more light and a little less noise.’

“I wish,” the President said, sadly, “there was a stronger disposition manifested on the part of our civilian warriors to unite in suppressing the rebellion, and a little less noise as to how and by whom the chief executive office shall be administered.”

ONE BULLET AND A HATFUL.

Lincoln made the best of everything, and if he couldn’t get what he wanted he took what he could get. In matters of policy, while President he acted according to this rule. He would take perilous chances, even when the result was, to the minds of his friends, not worth the risk he had run.

One day at a meeting of the Cabinet, it being at the time when it seemed as though war with England and France could not be avoided, Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of War Stanton warmly advocated that the United States maintain an attitude, the result of which would have been a declaration of hostilities by the European Powers mentioned.

“Why take any more chances than are absolutely necessary?” asked the President.

“We must maintain our honor at any cost,” insisted Secretary Seward.

“We would be branded as cowards before the entire world,” Secretary Stanton said.

“But why run the greater risk when we can take a smaller one?” queried the President calmly. “The less risk we run the better for us. That reminds me of a story I heard a day or two ago, the hero of which was on the firing line during a recent battle, where the bullets were flying thick.

“Finally his courage gave way entirely, and throwing down his gun, he ran for dear life.

“As he was flying along at top speed he came across an officer who drew his revolver and shouted, ‘Go back to your regiment at once or I will shoot you!’

“‘Shoot and be hanged,’ the racer exclaimed. ‘What’s one bullet to a whole hatful?’”

LINCOLN’S STORY TO PEACE COMMISSIONERS.

Among the reminiscences of Lincoln left by Editor Henry J. Raymond, is the following:

Among the stories told by Lincoln, which is freshest in my mind, one which he related to me shortly after its occurrence, belongs to the history of the famous interview on board the River Queen, at Hampton Roads, between himself and Secretary Seward and the rebel Peace Commissioners. It was reported at the time that the President told a “little story” on that occasion, and the inquiry went around among the newspapers, “What was it?”

The New York Herald published what purported to be a version of it, but the “point” was entirely lost, and it attracted no attention. Being in Washington a few days subsequent to the interview with the Commissioners (my previous sojourn there having terminated about the first of last August), I asked Mr. Lincoln one day if it was true that he told Stephens, Hunter and Campbell a story.

“Why, yes,” he replied, manifesting some surprise, “but has it leaked out? I was in hopes nothing would be said about it, lest some over-sensitive people should imagine there was a degree of levity in the intercourse between us.” He then went on to relate the circumstances which called it out.

“You see,” said he, “we had reached and were discussing the slavery question. Mr. Hunter said, substantially, that the slaves, always accustomed to an overseer, and to work upon compulsion, suddenly freed, as they would be if the South should consent to peace on the basis of the ‘Emancipation Proclamation,’ would precipitate not only themselves, but the entire Southern society, into irremediable ruin. No work would be done, nothing would be cultivated, and both blacks and whites would starve!”

Said the President: “I waited for Seward to answer that argument, but as he was silent, I at length said: ‘Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal better about this argument than I, for you have always lived under the slave system. I can only say, in reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit on the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the whole herd into the field, and let them have full swing, thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but also that of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along.

“‘Well, well,’ said he, ‘Mr. Case, this is all very fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now, but you know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the ground freezes for a foot deep. Then what you going to do?’

“This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case had not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was ‘way on in December or January! He scratched his head, and at length stammered: ‘Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don’t see but that it will be “root, hog, or die.”’”

“ABE” GOT THE WORST OF IT.

When Lincoln was a young 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 shoulders.

Great were the shouts and laughter of the crowd, and both were greatly increased when 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.”

IT DEPENDED UPON HIS CONDITION.

The President had made arrangements to visit New York, and was told that President Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, would be glad to furnish a special train.

“I don’t doubt it a bit,” remarked the President, “for I know Mr. Garrett, and like him very well, and if I believed--which I don’t, by any means--all the things some people say about his ‘secesh’ principles, he might say to you as was said by the Superintendent of a certain railroad to a son of one my predecessors in office. Some two years after the death of President Harrison, the son of his successor in this office wanted to take his father on an excursion somewhere or other, and went to the Superintendent’s office to order a special train.

“This Superintendent was a Whig of the most uncompromising sort, who hated a Democrat more than all other things on the earth, and promptly refused the young man’s request, his language being to the effect that this particular railroad was not running special trains for the accommodation of Presidents of the United States just at that season.

“The son of the President was much surprised and exceedingly annoyed. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you have run special Presidential trains, and I know it. Didn’t you furnish a special train for the funeral of President Harrison?’

“‘Certainly we did,’ calmly replied the Superintendent, with no relaxation of his features, ‘and if you will only bring your father here in the same shape as General Harrison was, you shall have the best train on the road.”’

When the laughter had subsided, the President said: “I shall take pleasure in accepting Mr. Garrett’s offer, as I have no doubts whatever as to his loyalty to the United States government or his respect for the occupant of the Presidential office.”

“GOT DOWN TO THE RAISINS.”

A. B. Chandler, chief of the telegraph office at the War Department, occupied three rooms, one of which was called “the President’s room,” so much of his time did Mr. Lincoln spend there. Here he would read over the telegrams received for the several heads of departments. Three copies of all messages received were made--one for the President, one for the War Department records and one for Secretary Stanton.

Mr. Chandler told a story as to the manner in which the President read the despatches:

“President Lincoln’s copies were kept in what we called the ‘President’s drawer’ of the ‘cipher desk.’ He would come in at any time of the night or day, and go at once to this drawer, and take out a file of telegrams, and begin at the top to read them. His position in running over these telegrams was sometimes very curious.

“He had a habit of sitting frequently on the edge of his chair, with his right knee dragged down to the floor. I remember a curious expression of his when he got to the bottom of the new telegrams and began on those that he had read before. It was, ‘Well, I guess I have got down to the raisins.’

“The first two or three times he said this he made no explanation, and I did not ask one. But one day, after he had made the remark, he looked up under his eyebrows at me with a funny twinkle in his eyes, and said: ‘I used to know a little girl out West who sometimes was inclined to eat too much. One day she ate a good many more raisins than she ought to, and followed them up with a quantity of other goodies. They made her very sick. After a time the raisins began to come.

“She gasped and looked at her mother and said: ‘Well, I will be better now I guess, for I have got down to the raisins.’”

“HONEST ABE” SWALLOWS HIS ENEMIES.

“‘Honest Abe’ Taking Them on the Half-Shell” was one of the cartoons published in 1860 by one of the illustrated periodicals. As may be seen, it represents Lincoln in a “Political Oyster House,” preparing to swallow two of his Democratic opponents for the Presidency--Douglas and Breckinridge. He performed the feat at the November election. The Democratic party was hopelessly split in 1860 The Northern wing nominated Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, as their candidate, the Southern wing naming John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky; the Constitutional Unionists (the old American of Know-Nothing party) placed John Bell, of Tennessee, in the field, and against these was put Abraham Lincoln, who received the support of the Abolitionists.

Lincoln made short work of his antagonists when the election came around. He received a large majority in the Electoral College, while nearly every Northern State voted majorities for him at the polls. Douglas had but twelve votes in the Electoral College, while Bell had thirty-nine. The votes of the Southern States, then preparing to secede, were, for the most part, thrown for Breckinridge. The popular vote was: Lincoln, 1,857,610; Douglas, 1,365,976; Breckinridge, 847,953; Bell, 590,631; total vote, 4,662,170. In the Electoral College Lincoln received 180; Douglas, 12; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; Lincoln’s majority over all, 57.

SAVING HIS WIND.

Judge H. W. Beckwith of Danville, Ill., said that soon after the Ottawa debate between Lincoln and Douglas he passed the Chenery House, then the principal hotel in Springfield. The lobby was crowded with partisan leaders from various sections of the state, and Mr. Lincoln, from his greater height, was seen above the surging mass that clung about him like a swarm of bees to their ruler. The day was warm, and at the first chance he broke away and came out for a little fresh air, wiping the sweat from his face.

“As he passed the door he saw me,” said Judge Beckwith, “and, taking my hand, inquired for the health and views of his ‘friends over in Vermillion county.’ He was assured they were wide awake, and further told that they looked forward to the debate between him and Senator Douglas with deep concern. From the shadow that went quickly over his face, the pained look that came to give way quickly to a blaze of eyes and quiver of lips, I felt that Mr. Lincoln had gone beneath my mere words and caught my inner and current fears as to the result. And then, in a forgiving, jocular way peculiar to him, he said: ‘Sit down; I have a moment to spare, and will tell you a story.’ Having been on his feet for some time, he sat on the end of the stone step leading into the hotel door, while I stood closely fronting him.

“‘You have,’ he continued, ‘seen two men about to fight?’

“‘Yes, many times.’

“‘Well, one of them brags about what he means to do. He jumps high in the air, cracking his heels together, smites his fists, and wastes his wreath trying to scare somebody. You see the other fellow, he says not a word,’--here Mr. Lincoln’s voice and manner changed to great earnestness, and repeating--‘you see the other man says not a word. His arms are at his sides, his fists are closely doubled up, his head is drawn to the shoulder, and his teeth are set firm together. He is saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off he will win it, or die a-trying.’”

RIGHT FOR, ONCE, ANYHOW.

Where men bred in courts, accustomed to the world, or versed in diplomacy, would use some subterfuge, or would make a polite speech, or give a shrug of the shoulders, as the means of getting out of an embarrassing position, Lincoln raised a laugh by some bold west-country anecdote, and moved off in the cloud of merriment produced by the joke. When Attorney-General Bates was remonstrating apparently against the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President interposed with: “Come now, Bates, he’s not half as bad as you think. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court one morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, and I had no horse.

“The judge overtook me in his carriage.

“‘Hallo, Lincoln! are you not going to the court-house? Come in and I will give you a seat!’

“Well, I got in, and the Judge went on reading his papers. Presently the carriage struck a stump on one side of the road, then it hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver was jerking from side to side in his seat, so I says:

“‘Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a little too much this morning.’

“‘Well, I declare, Lincoln,’ said he, ‘I should not much wonder if you were right, for he has nearly upset me half a dozen times since starting.’

“So, putting his head out of the window, he shouted, ‘Why, you infernal scoundrel, you are drunk!’

“Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning round with great gravity, the coachman said:

“‘Begorra! that’s the first rightful decision that you have given for the last twelvemonth.’”

While the company were laughing, the President beat a quiet retreat from the neighborhood.

“PITY THE POOR ORPHAN.”

After the War was well on, and several battles had been fought, a lady from Alexandria asked the President for an order to release a certain church which had been taken for a Federal hospital. The President said he could do nothing, as the post surgeon at Alexandria was immovable, and then asked the lady why she did not donate money to build a hospital.

“We have been very much embarrassed by the war,” she replied, “and our estates are much hampered.”

“You are not ruined?” asked the President.

“No, sir, but we do not feel that we should give up anything we have left.”

The President, after some reflection, then said: “There are more battles yet to be fought, and I think God would prefer that your church be devoted to the care and alleviation of the sufferings of our poor fellows. So, madam, you will excuse me. I can do nothing for you.”

Afterward, in speaking of this incident, President Lincoln said that the lady, as a representative of her class in Alexandria, reminded him of the story of the young man who had an aged father and mother owning considerable property. The young man being an only son, and believing that the old people had outlived their usefulness, assassinated them both. He was accused, tried and convicted of the murder. When the judge came to pass sentence upon him, and called upon him to give any reason he might have why the sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he with great promptness replied that he hoped the court would be lenient upon him because he was a poor orphan!

“BAP.” McNABB’S BOOSTER.

It is true that Lincoln did not drink, never swore, was a stranger to smoking and lived a moral life generally, but he did like horse-racing and chicken fighting. New Salem, Illinois, where Lincoln was “clerking,” was known the neighborhood around as a “fast” town, and the average young man made no very desperate resistance when tempted to join in the drinking and gambling bouts.

“Bap.” McNabb was famous for his ability in both the raising and the purchase of roosters of prime fighting quality, and when his birds fought the attendance was large. It was because of the “flunking” of one of “Bap.’s” roosters that Lincoln was enabled to make a point when criticising McClellan’s unreadiness and lack of energy.

One night there was a fight on the schedule, one of “Bap.” McNabb’s birds being a contestant. “Bap.” brought a little red rooster, whose fighting qualities had been well advertised for days in advance, and much interest was manifested in the outcome. As the result of these contests was generally a quarrel, in which each man, charging foul play, seized his victim, they chose Lincoln umpire, relying not only on his fairness but his ability to enforce his decisions. Judge Herndon, in his “Abraham Lincoln,” says of this notable event:

“I cannot improve on the description furnished me in February, 1865, by one who was present.

“They formed a ring, and the time having arrived, Lincoln, with one hand on each hip and in a squatting position, cried, ‘Ready.’ Into the ring they toss their fowls, ‘Bap.’s’ red rooster along with the rest. But no sooner had the little beauty discovered what was to be done than he dropped his tail and ran.

“The crowd cheered, while ‘Bap.,’ in disappointment, picked him up and started away, losing his quarter (entrance fee) and carrying home his dishonored fowl. Once arrived at the latter place he threw his pet down with a feeling of indignation and chagrin.

“The little fellow, out of sight of all rivals, mounted a woodpile and proudly flirting out his feathers, crowed with all his might. ‘Bap.’ looked on in disgust.

“‘Yes, you little cuss,’ he exclaimed, irreverently, ‘you’re great on dress parade, but not worth a darn in a fight.”’

It is said, according to Judge Herndon, that Lincoln considered McClellan as “great on dress parade,” but not so much in a fight.

A LOW-DOWN TRICK.

When Lincoln was a candidate of the Know Nothings for the State Legislature, the party was over-confident, and the Democrats pursued a still-hunt. Lincoln was defeated. He compared the situation to one of the camp-followers of General Taylor’s army, who had secured a barrel of cider, erected a tent, and commenced selling it 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 entire trade 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!”

END FOR END.

Judge H. W. Beckwith, of Danville, Ill., in his “Personal Recollections of Lincoln,” tells a story which is a good example of Lincoln’s way of condensing the law and the facts of an issue in a story: “A man, by vile words, first provoked and then made a bodily attack upon another. The latter, in defending himself, gave the other much the worst of the encounter. The aggressor, to get even, had the one who thrashed him tried in our Circuit Court on a charge of an assault and battery. Mr. Lincoln defended, and told the jury that his client was in the fix of a man who, in going along the highway with a pitchfork on his shoulder, was attacked by a fierce dog that ran out at him from a farmer’s dooryard. In parrying off the brute with the fork, its prongs stuck into the brute and killed him.

“‘What made you kill my dog?’ said the farmer.

“‘What made him try to bite me?’

“‘But why did you not go at him with the other end of the pitchfork?’

“‘Why did he not come after me with his other end?’

“At this Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his long arms an imaginary dog, and pushed its tail end toward the jury. This was the defensive plea of ‘son assault demesne’--loosely, that ‘the other fellow brought on the fight,’--quickly told, and in a way the dullest mind would grasp and retain.”

LET SIX SKUNKS GO.

The President had decided to select a new War Minister, and the Leading Republican Senators thought the 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 characteristic 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?’ asked 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 concluded it was best to let the other six go.”’

The Senators laughed and retired.

HOW HE GOT BLACKSTONE.

The following story was told by Mr. Lincoln to Mr. A. J. Conant, the artist, who painted his portrait in Springfield in 1860:

“One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for it. Without further examination, I put it away in the store and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and, emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I read”--this he said with unusual emphasis--“the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them.”

A JOB FOR THE NEW CABINETMAKER.

This cartoon, labeled “A Job for the New Cabinetmaker,” was printed in “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” on February 2d, 1861, a month and two days before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States. The Southern states had seceded from the Union, the Confederacy was established, with Jefferson Davis as its President, the Union had been split in two, and the task Lincoln had before him was to glue the two parts of the Republic together. In his famous speech, delivered a short time before his nomination for the Presidency by the Republican National Convention at Chicago, in 1860, Lincoln had said: “A house divided against itself cannot stand; this nation cannot exist half slave and half free.” After his inauguration as President, Mr. Lincoln went to work to glue the two pieces together, and after four years of bloody war, and at immense cost, the job was finished; the house of the Great American Republic was no longer divided; the severed sections--the North and the South--were cemented tightly; the slaves were freed, peace was firmly established, and the Union of states was glued together so well that the nation is stronger now than ever before. Lincoln was just the man for that job, and the work he did will last for all time. “The New Cabinetmaker” knew his business thoroughly, and finished his task of glueing in a workmanlike manner. At the very moment of its completion, five days after the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox, the Martyr President fell at the hands of the assassin, J. Wilkes Booth.

“I CAN STAND IT IF THEY CAN.”

United States Senator Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and Wendell Phillips were strongly opposed to President Lincoln’s re-election, and Wade and Davis issued a manifesto. Phillips made several warm speeches against Lincoln and his policy.

When asked if he had read the manifesto or any of Phillips’ speeches, the President replied:

“I have not seen them, nor do I care to see them. I have seen enough to satisfy me that I am a failure, not only in the opinion of the people in rebellion, but of many distinguished politicians of my own party. But time will show whether I am right or they are right, and I am content to abide its decision.

“I have enough to look after without giving much of my time to the consideration of the subject of who shall be my successor in office. The position is not an easy one; and the occupant, whoever he may be, for the next four years, will have little leisure to pluck a thorn or plant a rose in his own pathway.”

It was urged that this opposition must be embarrassing to his Administration, as well as damaging to the party. He replied: “Yes, that is true; but our friends, Wade, Davis, Phillips, and others are hard to please. I am not capable of doing so. I cannot please them without wantonly violating not only my oath, but the most vital principles upon which our government was founded.

“As to those who, like Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my policy and cavil at my official acts, I shall not complain of them. I accord them the utmost freedom of speech and liberty of the press, but shall not change the policy I have adopted in the full belief that I am right.

“I feel on this subject as an old Illinois farmer once expressed himself while eating cheese. He was interrupted in the midst of his repast by the entrance of his son, who exclaimed, ‘Hold on, dad! there’s skippers in that cheese you’re eating!’

“‘Never mind, Tom,’ said he, as he kept on munching his cheese, ‘if they can stand it I can.’”

LINCOLN MISTAKEN FOR ONCE.

President Lincoln was compelled to acknowledge that he made at least one mistake in “sizing up” men. One day a very dignified man called at the White House, and Lincoln’s heart fell when his visitor approached. The latter was portly, his face was full of apparent anxiety, and Lincoln was willing to wager a year’s salary that he represented some Society for the Easy and Speedy Repression of Rebellions.

The caller talked fluently, but at no time did he give advice or suggest a way to put down the Confederacy. He was full of humor, told a clever story or two, and was entirely self-possessed.

At length the President inquired, “You are a clergyman, are you not, sir?”

“Not by a jug full,” returned the stranger heartily.

Grasping him by the hand Lincoln shook it until the visitor squirmed. “You must lunch with us. I am glad to see you. I was afraid you were a preacher.”

“I went to the Chicago Convention,” the caller said, “as a friend of Mr. Seward. I have watched you narrowly ever since your inauguration, and I called merely to pay my respects. What I want to say is this: I think you are doing everything for the good of the country that is in the power of man to do. You are on the right track. As one of your constituents I now say to you, do in future as you d---- please, and I will support you!”

This was spoken with tremendous effect.

“Why,” said Mr. Lincoln in great astonishment, “I took you to be a preacher. I thought you had come here to tell me how to take Richmond,” and he again grasped the hand of his strange visitor.

Accurate and penetrating as Mr. Lincoln’s judgment was concerning men, for once he had been wholly mistaken. The scene was comical in the extreme. The two men stood gazing at each other. A smile broke from the lips of the solemn wag and rippled over the wide expanse of his homely face like sunlight overspreading a continent, and Mr. Lincoln was convulsed with laughter.

He stayed to lunch.

FORGOT EVERYTHING HE KNEW.

President Lincoln, while entertaining a few friends, is said to have related the following anecdote of a man who knew too much:

During the administration of President Jackson there was a singular young gentleman employed in the Public Postoffice in Washington.

His name was G.; he was from Tennessee, the son of a widow, a neighbor of the President, on which account the old hero had a kind feeling for him, and always got him out of difficulties with some of the higher officials, to whom his singular interference was distasteful.

Among other things, it is said of him that while employed in the General Postoffice, on one occasion he had to copy a letter to Major H., a high official, in answer to an application made by an old gentleman in Virginia or Pennsylvania, for the establishment of a new postoffice.

The writer of the letter said the application could not be granted, in consequence of the applicant’s “proximity” to another office.

When the letter came into G.’s hand to copy, being a great stickler for plainness, he altered “proximity” to “nearness to.”

Major H. observed it, and asked G. why he altered his letter.

“Why,” replied G., “because I don’t think the man would understand what you mean by proximity.”

“Well,” said Major H., “try him; put in the ‘proximity’ again.”

In a few days a letter was received from the applicant, in which he very indignantly said that his father had fought for liberty in the second war for independence, and he should like to have the name of the scoundrel who brought the charge of proximity or anything else wrong against him.

“There,” said G., “did I not say so?”

G. carried his improvements so far that Mr. Berry, the Postmaster-General, said to him: “I don’t want you any longer; you know too much.”

Poor G. went out, but his old friend got him another place.

This time G.’s ideas underwent a change. He was one day very busy writing, when a stranger called in and asked him where the Patent Office was.

“I don’t know,” said G.

“Can you tell me where the Treasury Department is?” said the stranger.

“No,” said G.

“Nor the President’s house?”

“No.”

The stranger finally asked him if he knew where the Capitol was.

“No,” replied G.

“Do you live in Washington, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” said G.

“Good Lord! and don’t you know where the Patent Office, Treasury, President’s House and Capitol are?”

“Stranger,” said G., “I was turned out of the postoffice for knowing too much. I don’t mean to offend in that way again.

“I am paid for keeping this book.

“I believe I know that much; but if you find me knowing anything more you may take my head.”

“Good morning,” said the stranger.

HE LOVED A GOOD STORY.

Judge Breese, 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, Breese! 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.

HEELS RAN AWAY WITH THEM.

In an argument against the opposite political party at one time during a campaign, Lincoln said: “My opponent uses a figurative expression to the effect that ‘the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are sound in the heart and head.’ The first branch of the figure--that is the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel--I admit is not merely figuratively but literally true. Who that looks but for a moment at their hundreds of officials scampering away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a villain may hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most distressingly affected in their heels with a species of running itch?

“It seems that this malady of their heels operates on the sound-headed and honest-hearted creatures very much as the cork leg in the comic song did on its owner, which, when he once got started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the more it would run away.

“At the hazard of wearing this point threadbare, I will relate an anecdote the situation calls to my mind, which seems to be too strikingly in point to be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, but who invariably retreated without orders at the first charge of the engagement, being asked by his captain why he did so, replied, ‘Captain, I have as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever had, but somehow or other, whenever danger approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with it.’

“So with the opposite party--they take the public money into their hands for the most laudable purpose that wise heads and honest hearts can dictate; but before they can possibly get it out again, their rascally, vulnerable heels will run away with them.”

WANTED TO BURN HIM DOWN TO THE STUMP.

Preston King once introduced A. J. Bleeker to the President, and the latter, being an applicant for office, was about to hand Mr. Lincoln his vouchers, when he was asked to read them. Bleeker had not read very far when the President disconcerted him by the exclamation, “Stop a minute! You remind me exactly of the man who killed the dog; in fact, you are just like him.”

“In what respect?” asked Bleeker, not feeling he had received a compliment.

“Well,” replied the President, “this man had made up his mind to kill his dog, an ugly brute, and proceeded to knock out his brains with a club. He continued striking the dog after the latter was dead until a friend protested, exclaiming, ‘You needn’t strike him any more; the dog is dead; you killed him at the first blow.’

“‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘I know that; but I believe in punishment after death.’ So, I see, you do.”

Bleeker acknowledged it was possible to overdo a good thing, and then came back at the President with an anecdote of a good priest who converted an Indian from heathenism to Christianity; the only difficulty he had with him was to get him to pray for his enemies. “This Indian had been taught to overcome and destroy all his friends he didn’t like,” said Bleeker, “but the priest told him that while that might be the Indian method, it was not the doctrine of Christianity or the Bible. ‘Saint Paul distinctly says,’ the priest told him, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.’

“The Indian shook his head at this, but when the priest added, ‘For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head,’ Poor Lo was overcome with emotion, fell on his knees, and with outstretched hands and uplifted eyes invoked all sorts of blessings on the heads of all his enemies, supplicating for pleasant hunting-grounds, a large supply of squaws, lots of papooses, and all other Indian comforts.

“Finally the good priest interrupted him (as you did me, Mr. President), exclaiming, ‘Stop, my son! You have discharged your Christian duty, and have done more than enough.’

“‘Oh, no, father,’ replied the Indian; ‘let me pray! I want to burn him down to the stump!”

HAD A “KICK” COMING.

During the war, one of the Northern Governors, who was able, earnest and untiring in aiding the administration, but always complaining, sent dispatch after dispatch to the War Office, protesting against the methods used in raising troops. After reading all his papers, the President said, in a cheerful and reassuring tone to the Adjutant-General:

“Never mind, never mind; those dispatches don’t mean anything. Just go right ahead. The Governor is like a boy I once saw at a launching. When everything 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 yard 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.”

THE CASE OF BETSY ANN DOUGHERTY.

Many requests and petitions made to Mr. Lincoln when he was President were ludicrous and trifling, but he always entered into them with that humor-loving spirit that was such a relief from the grave duties of his great office.

Once a party of Southerners called on him in behalf of one Betsy Ann Dougherty. The spokesman, who was an ex-Governor, said:

“Mr. President, Betsy Ann Dougherty is a good woman. She lived in my county and did my washing for a long time. Her husband went off and joined the rebel army, and I wish you would give her a protection paper.” The solemnity of this appeal struck Mr. Lincoln as uncommonly ridiculous.

The two men looked at each other--the Governor desperately earnest, and the President masking his humor behind the gravest exterior. At last Mr. Lincoln asked, with inimitable gravity, “Was Betsy Ann a good washerwoman?” “Oh, yes, sir, she was, indeed.”

“Was your Betsy Ann an obliging woman?” “Yes, she was certainly very kind,” responded the Governor, soberly. “Could she do other things than wash?” continued Mr. Lincoln with the same portentous gravity.

“Oh, yes; she was very kind--very.”

“Where is Betsy Ann?”

“She is now in New York, and wants to come back to Missouri, but she is afraid of banishment.”

“Is anybody meddling with her?”

“No; but she is afraid to come back unless you will give her a protection paper.”

Thereupon Mr. Lincoln wrote on a visiting card the following:

“Let Betsy Ann Dougherty alone as long as she behaves herself.

“A. LINCOLN.”

He handed this card to her advocate, saying, “Give this to Betsy Ann.”

“But, Mr. President, couldn’t you write a few words to the officers that would insure her protection?”

“No,” said Mr. Lincoln, “officers have no time now to read letters. Tell Betsy Ann to put a string in this card and hang it around her neck. When the officers see this, they will keep their hands off your Betsy Ann.”

HAD TO WEAR A WOODEN SWORD.

Captain “Abe” Lincoln and his company (in the Black Hawk War) were without any sort of military knowledge, and both were forced to acquire such knowledge by attempts at drilling. Which was the more awkward, the “squad” or the commander, it would have been difficult to decide.

In one of Lincoln’s earliest military problems was involved the process of getting his company “endwise” through a gate. Finally he shouted, “This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate!”

Lincoln was one of the first of his company to be arraigned for unmilitary conduct. Contrary to the rules he fired a gun “within the limits,” and had his sword taken from him. The next infringement of rules was by some of the men, who stole a quantity of liquor, drank it, and became unfit for duty, straggling out of the ranks the next day, and not getting together again until late at night.

For allowing this lawlessness the captain was condemned to wear a wooden sword for two days. These were merely interesting but trivial incidents of the campaign. Lincoln was from the very first popular with his men, although one of them told him to “go to the devil.”

“ABE” STIRRING THE “BLACK” COALS.

Under the caption, “The American Difficulty,” “Punch” printed on May 11th, 1861, the cartoon reproduced here. The following text was placed beneath the illustration: PRESIDENT ABE: “What a nice White House this would be, if it were not for the blacks!” It was the idea in England, and, in fact, in all the countries on the European continent, that the War of the Rebellion was fought to secure the freedom of the negro slaves. Such was not the case. The freedom of the slaves was one of the necessary consequences of the Civil War, but not the cause of that bloody four years’ conflict. The War was the result of the secession of the states of the South from the Union, and President “Abe’s” main aim was to compel the seceding states to resume their places in the Federal Union of states.

The blacks did not bother President “Abe” in the least as he knew he would be enabled to give them their freedom when the proper time came. He had the project of freeing them in his mind long before he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the delay in promulgating that document being due to the fact that he did not wish to estrange the hundreds of thousands of patriots of the border states who were fighting for the preservation of the Union, and not for the freedom of the negro slaves. President “Abe” had patience, and everything came out all right in the end.

GETTING RID OF AN ELEPHANT.

Charles A. Dana, who was Assistant Secretary of War under Mr. Stanton, relates the following: A certain Thompson 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 Thompson 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, drawling his words, ‘I rather guess not. When you have an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run.’”

GROTESQUE, YET FRIGHTFUL.

The nearest Lincoln ever came to a fight was when he was in the vicinity of the skirmish at Kellogg’s Grove, in the Black Hawk War. The rangers arrived at the spot after the engagement and helped bury the five men who were killed.

Lincoln told Noah Brooks, one of his biographers, that he “remembered just how those men looked as we rode up the little hill where their camp was. The red light of the morning sun was streaming upon them as they lay, heads toward us, on the ground. And every man had a round, red spot on the top of his head about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his scalp. It was frightful, but it was grotesque; and the red sunlight seemed to paint everything all over.”

Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid picture, and added, somewhat irrelevantly, “I remember that one man had on buckskin breeches.”

“ABE” WAS NO DUDE.

Always indifferent in matters of dress, Lincoln cut but small figure in social circles, even in the earliest days of Illinois. His trousers were too short, his hat too small, and, as a rule, the buttons on the back of his coat were nearer his shoulder blades than his waist.

No man was richer than his fellows, and there was no aristocracy; the women wore linsey-woolsey of home manufacture, and dyed them in accordance with the tastes of the wearers; calico was rarely seen, and a woman wearing a dress of that material was the envy of her sisters.

There being no shoemakers the women wore moccasins, and the men made their own boots. A hunting shirt, leggins made of skins, buckskin breeches, dyed green, constituted an apparel no maiden could withstand.

CHARACTERISTIC OF LINCOLN.

One man who knew Lincoln at New Salem, says the first time he saw him he was lying on a trundle-bed covered with books and papers and rocking a cradle with his foot.

The whole scene was entirely characteristic--Lincoln reading and studying, and at the same time helping his landlady by quieting her child.

A gentleman who knew Mr. Lincoln well in early manhood says: “Lincoln at this period had nothing but plenty of friends.”

After the customary hand-shaking on one occasion in the White House at Washington several gentlemen came forward and asked the President for his autograph. One of them gave his name as “Cruikshank.” “That reminds me,” said Mr. Lincoln, “of what I used to be called when a young man--‘Long-shanks!’”

“PLOUGH ALL ‘ROUND HIM.”

Governor Blank went to the War Department one day in a towering rage:

“I suppose you found it necessary to make large concessions to him, as he returned from you perfectly satisfied,” suggested a friend.

“Oh, no,” the President 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,” remarked Lincoln, in conclusion, “don’t tell anybody, but that’s the way I got rid of Governor Blank. I ploughed all round him, but it took me three mortal hours to do it, and I was afraid every minute he’d see what I was at.”

“I’VE LOST MY APPLE.”

During a public “reception,” a farmer from one of the border counties of Virginia told the President that the Union soldiers, in passing his farm, had helped themselves not only to hay, but his horse, and he hoped the President would urge the proper officer to consider his claim immediately.

Mr. Lincoln said that this reminded him of an old acquaintance of his, “Jack” Chase, a lumberman on the Illinois, a steady, sober man, and the best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick to take the logs over the rapids; but he was skilful with a raft, and always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and “Jack” was made captain of her. He always used to take the wheel, going through the rapids. One day when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and “Jack’s” utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with:

“Say, Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a minute--I’ve lost my apple overboard!”

LOST HIS CERTIFICATE OF CHARACTER.

Mr. Lincoln prepared his first inaugural address in a room over a store in Springfield. His only reference works were Henry Clay’s great compromise speech of 1850, Andrew Jackson’s Proclamation against Nullification, Webster’s great reply to Hayne, and a copy of the Constitution.

When Mr. Lincoln started for Washington, to be inaugurated, the inaugural address was placed in a special satchel and guarded with special care. At Harrisburg the satchel was given in charge of Robert T. Lincoln, who accompanied his father. Before the train started from Harrisburg the precious satchel was missing. Robert thought he had given it to a waiter at the hotel, but a long search failed to reveal the missing satchel with its precious document. Lincoln was annoyed, angry, and finally in despair. He felt certain that the address was lost beyond recovery, and, as it only lacked ten days until the inauguration, he had no time to prepare another. He had not even preserved the notes from which the original copy had been written.

Mr. Lincoln went to Ward Lamon, his former law partner, then one of his bodyguards, and informed him of the loss in the following words:

“Lamon, I guess I have lost my certificate of moral character, written by myself. Bob has lost my gripsack containing my inaugural address.” Of course, the misfortune reminded him of a story.

“I feel,” said Mr. Lincoln, “a good deal as the old member of the Methodist Church did when he lost his wife at the camp meeting, and went up to an old elder of the church and asked him if he could tell him whereabouts in h--l his wife was. In fact, I am in a worse fix than my Methodist friend, for if it were only a wife that were missing, mine would be sure to bob up somewhere.”

The clerk at the hotel told Mr. Lincoln that he would probably find his missing satchel in the baggage-room. Arriving there, Mr. Lincoln saw a satchel which he thought was his, and it was passed out to him. His key fitted the lock, but alas! when it was opened the satchel contained only a soiled shirt, some paper collars, a pack of cards and a bottle of whisky. A few minutes later the satchel containing the inaugural address was found among the pile of baggage.

The recovery of the address also reminded Mr. Lincoln of a story, which is thus narrated by Ward Lamon in his “Recollections of Abraham Lincoln”: