The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

H >> Henry L. Williams >> The Lincoln Story Book

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

The President was chatting in his own study when a messenger ran in
with a paper, explaining his haste with the words:

"Compliments of the secretary with the speech your excellency is to
make to the Swiss minister."

Anybody else would have been abashed by the seeming exposure, but the
executive merely cried aloud as if to publish the facts to the
auditory:

"Oh, this is a speech Mr. Seward has written for me. I guess I will
try it before these gentlemen, and see how it goes." He read it in
the burlesque manner with which he parodied circuit preachers in his
boyhood and public speakers in his prime, and added at the close:

"There, I like that. It has the merit of originality!"

* * * * *

RIGHTING WRONG HURTS, BUT DOES GOOD.

In May, 1861, all looked with anxiety to the letter by which the
United States of America should reply to Great Britain furnishing
the Confederated States with its first encouragement, the rights of
belligerents. Without them their privateers were useless, as they
could have gone into no ports and sold their prizes nowhere. Mr.
Seward was in touch with the New England school. It clamored for war
with any friend to the revolting States. But Lincoln corrected what
was provocative in the original advice to our minister, Adams, at St.
James'. The English were no longer held to have issued a proclamation
without due grounds in usage or the law of nations. It became by the
modification no more a proceeding about which we could warrantably go
to war. For instance, the President changed the words "wrongful" into
"hurtful." According to Webster, wrongful means unjust, injurious,
dishonest; while hurtful implies that the course will cause injury.
The original has vanished in that odd but certain way in which state
documents disappear when casting odium on public men; they are mayhap
"filed away"--in the stove!

* * * * *

STANTON'S SERVICE WAS WORTH HIS SAUCE.

Among the President's minor worries was the assiduity with which his
generosity was cultivated by his relatives--not only those by his
marriage, but by his father's second marriage. He was like the eldest
son of the family to whom all looked for sustenance. There came to the
seat of government that Dennis Hanks, his cousin, who stood to reach
for boons on the platform of rails which they had cut long ago in
cohort. Dennis was seeking the pardon of some "Copperheads"--that
is, Southern sympathizers of the North, veiled in their enmity, but
dangerous. The secretary of war had pronounced against any leniency
toward what were dubbed glaring traitors. All the chief could do--for
he bared his head like _Lear_ to let the Stanton tempest blow
upon him and so spare others--was to say he would look at the cases
the next day. Hanks was muttering.

"Why, Dennis, what would you do were you President?" he asked the raw
backwoodsman, turning badly into suppliant.

"Do? Why, Abe, if I were as big and 'ugly'--aggressively combative--as
you are, I would take your Mr. Stanton over my knee and spank him!"

This caused a laugh, but the other replied severely:

"No. Stanton is an able and valuable man for this nation in his
station, and I am glad to have his _service_ in spite of his
_sauce_."

* * * * *

A SECRET OF THE INTERIOR.

Lincoln, the junior, "Tad," had the run of the Executive Mansion, and,
like all spoiled children, abused the license. He burst into the heart
of a company listening to his father's talk with the exclamation:

"Ma says, come to supper!"

It was impossible for the most diplomatic to pretend that he had not
heard, and all looked from the intruder to the host. Never at a loss,
Mr. Lincoln rose from the sofa, and blandly said as to "married folks
together":

"You have heard, gentlemen, the announcement concerning the seductive
state of things in the dining-room. I had intended to train up this
young man in his father's footsteps, but, if I am elected, I must
forego any intention of making him a member of my Cabinet, as he
manifestly cannot be trusted with secrets of the interior!"

* * * * *

ALL STAFF AND NO ARMY.

Many of the volunteer officers developed a liking for the new
profession, and to secure a permanency obtained entrance into the
established army. Among these was one Lieutenant Ben Tappan. Secretary
Stanton being his uncle, no difficulty offered but this autocrat ought
to remove, but unfortunately Stanton was a stickler for forms, and the
relationship looked like nepotism to the world. Tappan particularly
wished to stay on the staff on account of the privileges. His
stepfather, Frank Wright, induced their congressman, Judge
Shellabarger, to accompany him to the presidential mansion to obtain
the boon. Lincoln was lukewarm, and told a story about the army being
all staff and no strength, saying that, if one rolled a stone in front
of Willard's Hotel, the military rendezvous for those officers off
duty and on (dress) parade, it must knock over a brigadier or two,
but suddenly wrote a paper to this novel effect:

"Lieutenant Ben Tappan, of ---, etc., desires transfer to --- Regiment,
regular service, and is assigned to staff duty with present rank.
If the only objection to this transfer is Lieutenant Tappan's
relationship to the secretary of war, that objection is hereby
overruled.

"A. LINCOLN."

This threw the responsibility upon the secretary.

* * * * *

NO MAN IS INDISPENSABLE.

One of the Cabinet ministers disagreed with the majority on a vital
question, and rose with a threat to resign. One of his friends advised
the chairman to do anything to recover his aid, whereupon he sagely
said:

"Our secretary a national necessity?--how mistaken you are! Yet it is
not strange--I used to have similar notions. No, if we should all be
turned out to-morrow, and could come back here in a week, we should
find our places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we
did, and in many instances better! It was truth that the Irishman
uttered when he answered the speaker: 'Is not one man as good as
another?' with 'He is, sure, and a deal betther!' No, sir, this
government does not depend on the life of any man!"

* * * * *

SLEEPING ON POST CANCELS A COMMISSION.

Nobody who met Secretary Stanton--the Carnot of the war--would
give him credit for joking, but Mr. Lincoln's example that way was
infectious. The eldest son, Robert, was at college, but a captaincy
was awaiting him when he could enter the army. So the war secretary
for a pleasantry issued a mock commission to Tad, ranking him as a
regular lieutenant. As long as he confined his supposed duties to
arming the under servants and drilling the more or less fantastically,
as well as he remembered, evolutions on the parade-grounds, where he
accompanied his father, all was amusing. But he terminated his first
steps in the school of "Hardee's Tactics," the standard text-book of
the period, by bringing his awkward squad from the servants' hall,
and, relieving the sentries, replaced the genuine with these tyros.
For the sake of the vacation they, the regulars, bowed to the
commission with its potent Stanton and Lincoln, and United States Army
seal. His brother, startled, intervened, but the cadet vowed he would
put him in "the black hole," presumably the coal-shed. The President
laughed, and when he went to check the usurpation he found the little
lieutenant, overpowered by his brief authority, asleep. So he removed
him from the service, put aside his commission, and, when he woke to
the situation, made it plain that, being a real soldier and officer,
he had forfeited his title by falling asleep on post! He went then and
formally discharged the sham sentinels placed by the boy's orders and
replaced them by the "simon pures."

* * * * *

MY QUESTION!

A recent volume has undertaken the superfluous vindication of
President Lincoln from being the mere ornamental figurehead of the
republic during the Civil War. In fact, there are many instances
of his incurring the reproach of interfering with the chiefs of
departments, but it is testified to by a leading minister that he
paid much less attention to details than was popularly supposed and
invidiously asserted in the capital. He "brought up with a round
turn," to use river language, both General Fremont and other military
commanders who tried to steal the finishing weapon he kept in store:
to wit, the emancipation of the Southern slaves. Senator Cameron, as
war secretary, advised in a report that the slaves should be armed to
enable them successfully to rise against their masters. The President
scratched out this recommendation, which would have spiked his gun,
and perverted a great statesmanlike act into a fostered insurrection,
saying:

"This will never do! _Secretary_ Cameron must take no such
responsibility. This question belongs exclusively to me!"

* * * * *

"IF GOOD, HE'S GOT IT! IF T'AINT GOOD, HE AIN'T GOT IT!"

A revenue cutter conveyed a presidential party from Washington to
Fortress Monroe, consisting of the chief, his secretaries of war and
of the treasury, and General Egbert L. Viele--who preserved this tale.
On the way Secretary Stanton stated that he had telegraphed to General
Mitchell in Alabama "All right--go ahead!" though he did not know
what emergency was thus to meet. He wished the executive to take
the responsibility in case his ignorance erred.

"I will have to get you to countermand the order." So he hinted.

"Well," exclaimed the good-humored superior, "that is very much like
a certain horse-sale in Kentucky when I was a boy (Lincoln was only
eight when leaving Kentucky for Indiana). A particularly fine horse
was to be sold, and the people gathered together. They had a small
boy to ride the horse up and down while the spectators examined it
for points. At last, one man whispered to the boy as he went by:

"'Look here, boy, ain't that hoss got the splints?'

"The boy replied: 'Master, I don't know what the splints is; but, if
it is good for him, he has got it! If it ain't good for him, he ain't
got it!' Now," finished the adviser, "if this was good for Mitchell,
it was all right; but, if it was not, I have to countermand,
eh?"--(Noted by General Viele.)

* * * * *

LINCOLN GUESSED THE FIRST TIME.

Postmaster-General James reflects a dialogue between Lincoln and one
of his Cabinet officers, evincing how the iron hand in the velvet
glove squeezed persons into his own mold.

"Mr. President"--Secretary Stanton speaking--"I cannot carry out that
order! It is improper, and I don't believe it is right."

"Well, I reckon, Mr. Secretary"--very gently--"that you will
_hev_ to carry it out."

"But I won't do it--it's all wrong!"

"I guess you will hev to do it!"

He guessed right, the first time.

* * * * *

A PHANTOM CHASE.

Despite Chase's political enmity to him, President Lincoln said of
Salmon Portland Chase: "I consider him one of the best, ablest, and
most reliable men in the country." But he had to "let him slide" off
upon the Supreme Court bench to have "knee-room" at the council-table.
He explained: "He wants to be President, and, if he does not give that
up, it will be a great injury to him and a great injury to me. He can
never be President."--(Ex-Secretary Boutwell, the authority.)

* * * * *

THE WORD FLIES, BUT THE WRIT REMAINS.

Mr. Chase bemoaning that in leaving home he had in the hurry forgot
to write a letter, Lincoln sagely consoled:

"Chase, never regret what you don't write--it is what you do write
that you are often called upon to feel sorry for!"--(Heard by General
Viele.)

* * * * *

THE WAR-LORD.

Lincoln states that the community among whom he was brought up would
have hailed him as a wizard who spoke the dead tongues; and, granting
his legal studies made him familiar with Latin as lawyers use it,
he carefully avoided those hurdles of the classic orator, Latin
quotations. Nevertheless, we have an exception to what would have
pleased Lord Byron--the poet thought we have had enough of the
classics. The President, spying Secretary Stanton, of the War
Department, inadvertently striking an imposing attitude in the doorway
of the telegraph-office in the Executive House, without knowing the
President was here, at the desk, suddenly was aroused by hearing the
jocose hail:

"Good evening, _Mars_!"--(Certified by Mr. A. B. Chandler,
manager of the postal telegraph, War Department.)

* * * * *

FILE IT AWAY!

Stanton, as secretary of war, was bombarded with complaints and
bickerings of the officers under him; they seemed to revel in annoying
one famed for being of the irritable genus. Once he showed his
principal a letter written in answer to a general who had abused him
and accused him of favoritism. Lincoln listened with his quizzing air,
and exclaimed rapturously:

"That's first-rate, Stanton! You've scored him well! Just right!"

As the pleased writer folded up the paper for its envelope, he quickly
inquired:

"Why, what are you going to do with it now?"

It was to be despatched.

"No, no, that would spoil all. File it away! that is the kind of
filing which keeps it sharp--and don't wound the other fellow! File
it away."

* * * * *

"WHAT WE HAVE, WE WILL GIVE YOU."

It being rumored that the paper notes, "the greenbacks," should bear
a motto as the coin had, "In God We Trust," it was suggested to quote
from the apostles:

"Silver and gold we have not, but what we have we will give."

It was ascribed to Mr. Lincoln from his familiarity with the
Scriptures and prevalent quoting from them.

* * * * *

MORE "SHINPLASTERS" TO HEAL THE SORE.

In 1863 President Lincoln went out to condole with the beaten
Unionists, whom General Hooker had led fatally against Lee at
Chancellorsville. Lincoln took his little son "Tad" with him. Amid the
cheering one of the soldiers plainly voiced a terrible grievance--just
when the sufferers were mostly in need of necessaries, the pay was
behindhand. So one cried: "Send along more 'greenbacks,' Father
Abraham!"

The boy was puzzled, but his companion explained that the soldiers
wanted their money due. The hearer thought this over for a moment,
and then pertly said: "Why don't 'Governor' Chase print some more?"

* * * * *

"THERE IS MUCH IN AN 'IF' AND A 'BUT.'"

Mr. Tinkler, telegraph-operator of the cipher telegrams at Washington,
in the Executive residence, took the despatch announcing the
nomination of Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, to the vice-presidency
with Lincoln for the second term. The latter read it carefully, and
_thought aloud:_

"Well, I thought possibly that he might be the man; but--"

He passed out of the office, leaving the hearer impressed. Indeed,
it was a prophecy of the future--poor, inebriate Andy--not the Handy
Andy, but the Merry Andrew of the fag-end of the lamentably sundered
second term. Charles A. Dana, editing the New York _Sun_, printed
this drop-line, and said it was a proof that Lincoln had no hand in
his Vice being proposed or nominated.

* * * * *

DON'T WASTE THE PLUG, BUT USE IT!

Treasurer Chase conducted the financial course of the war on the
principle of each day taking care of itself; but still he resisted
plans for relief not of his own conception. So he threw cold water on
the Walker suggestion that the currency should bear interest with a
view that holders would hoard it. Walker's aid, Taylor, of Ohio, ran
to the President for a higher hearing. But, though the President now
espoused the scheme, the secretary still was counter on the ground
that the Constitution was against it.

"Taylor," said Lincoln, with his frankness, which resembled impiety
now, "go back and tell Chase not to bother about the Constitution--I
have that sacred instrument here, and am guarding it with great care!"
But a personal discussion with Chase was compulsory, during which the
granite man stood on the Constitution.

"Chase," finally said the decisive factor, "this reminds me of a
little sea yarn.

"A little coaster on the Mediterranean was in stress of storm. The
Italian seamen have their own ideas of behavior under disaster,
and fell on their knees to invoke the interposition of the usual
stronghold--the Madonna--of which there was a statue in wood. But,
many and genuine as were the invocations, all were unanswered. The
gale continued, and more and more damage was done the upper works.
Whereupon in a rage the skipper ordered the image to be hurled
overboard. Strange to say, almost instanter the tempest lulled, and
in a short time the bark rode steadily on the pacific waters. Come
to examine the leak in the side, they found the wooden effigy thrown
over, sucked into it, and so plugged up the cavity. The ship was saved
by the castaway notion.

"Now, we are all aboard to save the ship, by any plug [Footnote: Plug,
in Western speech: any substitute, worthless otherwise; an old horse;
a leaden counter, a makeshift; the plug hat, however, comes from the
shape--a cylinder of tobacco being so called.] that is offered, since
prayers don't seem to do it. Let us try friend Amasa Walker's
proposition."

* * * * *

THE RUNNING FEVER.

"There is a malady of vulnerable heels--a species of running
fever--which operates on sound-headed and honest-hearted creatures
very much like the cork leg in the song did on its owner. When he had
once got started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the more it
would run away. A witty Irish soldier always boasting of his bravery
when no danger was nigh, 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 me.'"--(Debate, Lincoln: Springfield, Illinois,
December, 1839.)

* * * * *

"ONE AND A HALF TIMES BIGGER THAN OTHER MEN!"

Most conspicuous among the host of seeming friends consistently and
constantly plotting against their chief to replace him if not actually
displace him, was Salmon P. Chase. His whole career was that of the
office-seeker incarnate. School-teacher, lawyer, governor of his State
of adoption, Ohio--for he was a New Hampshire man--he tried from 1856
all parties to nominate him for the Presidency, at all openings. His
inability to inspire trust forbade his having a personal following
of any strength. Lincoln easily saw through him, but he had a
fellow-feeling for an indubitably honest treasurer. To think of the
countless opportunities he had to enrich himself out of the public
coffers! Like another incorruptible statesman, he might have said:
"I wonder at my qualms when I had but to stretch out my hand to pocket
thousands!" But he truthfully said, when a hack impudently hinted that
he could have the nomination dearest to his heart if he would but use
to his private ends the vast patronage at his command:

"I should despise myself if capable of appointing or removing a man
for the sake of the Presidency."

In February, 1861, the Peace Congress (Massachusetts) delegation
called on the President to recommend Salmon P. Chase for the Treasury
Department. Lincoln was already favorable, for he said:

"From what I know and hear, I think Mr. Chase is about a hundred and
fifty to any other man's hundred for that place."

This is why Lincoln, when compelled to remove the underminer, solaced
him with the bed to fall upon of the Supreme Court judgeship. He said
of him: "Chase is about one and a half times bigger than any one
I ever knew."

* * * * *

SO SLOW, A HEARSE RAN OVER HIM!

By treachery of those in charge of our navy-yards, arsenals, and
treasury, the South began the bloody strife better provided than the
simple North. But adverse fate seemed bent on keeping the disparity
for long in favor of the weaker contestant. By one of those wicked
dispensations tripping up our early march, the secretary of the navy
was selected in Gideon Welles, an estimable gentleman in person, but
wofully unsuited to the berth, if from age alone. Patriarchal in
appearance, with a long face and longer beard, white and sere, it
became proverbial without appearing much of a far-fetched joke that he
was the naval constructor to Noah of Ark-aic fame. Unfortunately his
"set" were antiques as well. Yet Lincoln clung to him--or he clung to
the President like the Old Man of the Sea--under which aspect he was
presented by the caricaturists. One day, however, said the gossips of
the White House, Mr. Lincoln dropped the newspaper in reading, and
exclaimed:

"Listen!" said he to his secretary, "a man has been _run over by
a hearse_! As I saw Welles not so long ago, it must be one of
_Gideon's_ Band!"

A song entitled "Gideon's Band," introduced by the negro minstrels
in New York, was popular on the streets and in the camps.

* * * * *

BLOOD-SHEDDING REMITS SINS.

Judge Kellogg, having an application for condoning a death sentence
against a soldier, urged that he had served well hitherto, having been
badly wounded under fire.

"Kellogg," remarked Lincoln quickly, "is there not something in the
Bible about the shedding of blood for the remission of sins?"

As the judge was not familiar with ecclesiastical law, he merely
bowed. In fact, the blood-offerings of the ancients was of animals,
and it was deemed profane to offer one's own. Still, the offering of
blood is dedication to a friend or the country. Lincoln had _the
idea_ correctly.

"That's a good point," he brightly said, "and there is no going behind
it!"

So saying, he wrote the pardon, which Kellogg transmitted to the
gladdened father of the culprit.

Mr. Lincoln had no need to go back to Scripture for his defense. It
is martial law, unwritten but valid, that if a delinquent soldier,
fugitive from justice, or breaking prison, reaches the battle-field
and takes his place gallantly, no more would be said about the hanging
charge, even though it were literally a hanging one.

* * * * *

HIS "LEG CASES."

The judge advocate-general, Holt, as well as the military chiefs,
were in despair at their superior trifling with the laws of war by
suspending mortal decrees, and, in short, in hunting up excuses for
delaying the blow of justice. Once the judge brought to the President
a case so flagrant that he did not doubt that, for a rarity, the chief
would sign without any cavil and hesitation. A soldier had demoralized
his regiment in the nick of a battle by dashing down his rifle and
hiding behind a tree. He had not a friend or relative to sue for him.
Despite all this, the Executive laid down the pen quivering between
his long fingers, and said:

"Holt, I think I must, after all, file this away with my 'Leg Cases.'"
And thrust the paper in one of a series of pigeonholes already crammed
with the like.

The judge was taken off his guard by the inconsistent levity, and
demanded the meaning of the term with acerbity.

"Holt, were you ever in battle?" he counter queried.

The man of law was a man of peace; he had seen lead, but in seals,
not bullets.

Secretary of War Stanton was spurring the military justice on, as
often before.

"Did Stanton ever march in the first line, to be shot at like this
man?"

Holt answered for his colleague in the negative.

"Well, I tried it in the Black Hawk War!" proceeded the Illinoisian,
"and I remember one time I grew awful weak in the legs when I heard
the bullets whistle around me and saw the enemy in front of me. How my
legs carried me forward I cannot now tell, for I thought every minute
that I should sink to the ground. I am opposed to having soldiers shot
for not facing danger when it is not known that their legs would carry
them into danger! Well, judge, you see the papers crowded in there?
You call them cases of 'Cowardice in the face of the enemy,' a long
title, but I call them my 'Leg Cases,' for short!--and I put it to
you, Holt, and leave it to you to decide for yourself, if Almighty
God gives a man a _cowardly pair of legs,_ how can he help them
running away with him?"

* * * * *

HOW THE DELINQUENT SOLDIER PAID HIS DEBT.

There is a great similarity in the many stories of Lincoln's leniency
to soldiers incurring the death-penalty according to the code of
war, and no wonder, when they were so numerous that he often had
four-and-twenty sentences to sign or ignore in a day.

A member of a Vermont regiment was so sentenced for sleeping at his
post. The more than usual intercession made for him induced Lincoln
to visit the culprit in his cell. He found him a simple country lad,
impressing him as a reminder of himself at that age. In the like plain
and rustic vein he discoursed with him.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18