The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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"I have been put to a deal of bother on your account, Scott," he said
paternally. "What I want to know is how are you going to pay _my_
bill?"

From a lawyer turned sword of the State, this was reasonable enough;
so the young man responded:

"I hope I am as grateful to you, Mr. Lincoln, as any man can be for
his life. But this came so sudden that I did not lay out for it. But
I have my bounty-money in the savings-bank, and I guess we could raise
some money by a mortgage on the farm; and, if we wait till pay-day
for the regiment, I guess the boys will help some, and we can make
it up--if it isn't more nor five or six hundred, eh?"

With the same gravity, the intermediator reckoned the cost would be
more.

"My son," said he, "the bill is a large one. Your friends cannot pay
it--nor your comrades, nor the farm, nor the pay! If from this day
William Scott does his duty so that, if I were there when he came to
die, he could look me in the face as now and say: 'I have kept my
promise and have done my duty as a soldier,' then _my_ debt will
be paid."

The boy made the promise, and was immediately restored to the
regiment. He earned promotion, but refused it. At Lee's Mills, on the
Warwick River, he was wounded while distinguishing himself in a grand
assault. Mortally wounded in saving three lives, he was enabled with
his dying breath to send a message to the President to the effect
that he had redeemed his pledge. On his breast was found one of the
likenesses of Lincoln with the motto, "God bless our President!" which
the Grand Army men were given. He thanked the benefactor for having
let him fall like a soldier, in battle, and not like a coward, by
his comrades' rifles.

* * * * *

"THE SWEARING HAD TO BE DONE THEN, OR NOT AT ALL!"

An old man came from Tennessee to beg the life of his son,
death-doomed under the military code. General Fiske procured him
admittance to the President, who took the petition and promised to
attend to the matter. But the applicant, in anguish, insisted that a
life was at stake--that to-morrow would not do, and that the decision
must be made on the instant.

Lincoln assumed his mollifying air, and in a soothing tone brought
out his universal soothing-sirup, the little story:

"It was General Fiske, who introduced you, who told me this. The
general began his career as a colonel, and raised his regiment in
Missouri. Having good principles, he made the boys promise then not
to be profane, but let him do all the swearing for the regiment.
For months no violation of the agreement was reported. But one day
a teamster, with the foul tongue associated with their calling and
mule-driving, as he drove his team through a longer and deeper series
of mud-puddles than ever before, unable to restrain himself, turned
himself inside out as a vocal Vesuvius. It happened, too, that this
torrent was heard surging by the colonel, who called him to account.

"'Well, yes, colonel,' he acknowledged, 'I did vow to let you do all
the swearing of the regiment; but the cold fact is, that the swearing
_had_ to be done thar and then, or not at all, to do the 'casion
justice--and you were not thar!'

"Now," summed up Mr. Lincoln to the engrossed and semiconsoled parent,
"I may not be there, so do you take this and do the swearing him off!"

He furnished him with the release autograph, and sent another mourner
on his way rejoicing.

* * * * *

DISPLACE THE THISTLES BY FLOWERS.

Two ladies called upon the President at the end of 1864, one the
wife, the other the mother of western Pennsylvanians imprisoned for
resisting the military draft. A number of other men were fellows in
their durance on precisely the same grounds. Finding it meet to grant
this dual relief sought, Lincoln directed the whole to be liberated,
and signed the paper with one signature to cover the entire act of
humanity. His old friend, Speed, was witness of this scene, and,
knowing only too well the sensitive nature of the President, he
spoke his wonder that such ordeals were not killing.

Lincoln mused, and agreed that such scenes were not to be wantonly
undergone.

"But they do not hurt me. That is the only thing today to make me
forget my condition, or give me any pleasure"--he was unwell, then;
his feet and hands were always cold, and often when about he ought
to have been abed. "I have in that order made two persons happy, and
alleviated the distress of many a poor soul whom I never expect to
see. It is more than one can often say that, in doing right, one has
made two happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me
by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted
a flower when I thought a flower would grow."--(Vouched for by Joshua
R. Speed, the first to be friend to Lincoln when he set out to become
a lawyer, at Springfield, in 1837.)

* * * * *

"YOU HAVE ONE, AND I HAVE ONE--THAT IS RIGHT!"

An elderly woman was among the suitors of the President, when the
commander-in-chief by virtue of office was besought to release her
eldest son of three, her husband and two younger sons having been
slain in action.

"Certainly," returned the chief, "if you have given us all, and your
prop has been taken away, you are justly entitled to one of your
boys."

The woman took the discharge, and gratefully went away. But she was
compelled to return more grieved than before, as she had found the son
she sought dying in a hospital at the front. The surgeon made a note
of the fatality, with which, unable to speak, she presented herself
to the President. He knew what she wished this time, and proceeded to
write out the release of the second son. On handing her the paper,
he said--a new judgment of a kinder judge than Solomon:

"Now, you have one, and I the other of the two left; that is no more
than right!"

* * * * *

"SHOOTING A MAN DOES HIM NO GOOD!"

Judge Kellogg, of New York, begged off the son of a voter in his
district, condemned for military infraction; in fact, the judge did
not know much of the case, but his insistence prevailed over the
rectifier of the law and articles of war. Lincoln dryly remarked,
as he appended his signature to the pardon:

"I do not believe that shooting a man does him any good!"

* * * * *

BENEVOLENCE IS BEAUTIFUL.

Thaddeus Stevens accompanied a lady of his constituents to beg a
pardon of the President, her son being under death sentence of a
court-martial. The senator backing up the petition, it was granted.
The grateful woman was choking, and was led away by her escort,
without speaking in thankfulness. But at the exit she found her
voice, and burst forth feelingly:

"Mr. Stevens, they told me that the President was homely looking!
It is a lie! He is the handsomest man I ever saw!"

* * * * *

"IT WAS THE BABY THAT DID IT."

A young mother came to Washington to sue for the life of her husband,
a deserter, condemned to die. Such was the crowd of besiegers for
grace, offices, and simple greeting by the host of the White House
that she was kept out in the hall. But one day, the master passing
through the corridor "to hold the show," heard a baby's pitiful
wail. He halted, listened again to make sure, and on entering his
reception-parlor asked his favorite usher if he had not heard that
odd thing--there--an infant's cry.

The attendant promptly related that a woman with a babe was without,
who had been losing her time three days.

"Go at once, and send her to me," he ordered, expressing regret that
she should have been overlooked.

As there were several extenuating points in her plea, or the benign
official leaned that way, he wrote his pardon and gave it to the
woman, whose still plaintive smile shone through tears of gratitude.

"Take that, my poor woman, and it will bring you back your husband,"
he said, going so far as to direct her to what authority to apply for
the action.

In showing her forth, the old usher, who knew his employer's tender
heart where children were concerned, whispered:

"It was the baby that did it!"--(Told by "Old Dan'el," the good-natured
Irish usher.)

* * * * *

"IT RESTS ME TO SAVE A LIFE!"

Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House, pleaded with Lincoln for
the life of an elector's son, sentenced to be shot. Though he intruded
on the arbiter very late after a long spell of official duties,
Lincoln accorded the boon.

"Colfax," explained he, "it makes me rested after a hard day's work,
if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life, and I go to
bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him,
and his family, and his friends."

* * * * *

"A FAMILY MAN WANTS TO SEE HIS FAMILY."

Superintendent Tinker, of the Western Union Telegraph Company, vouches
for the following:

A woman came to the Honorable Francis Kernan, member of Congress, with
a pitiful tale, with which he went to the President. Her husband was
a soldier who had been away from home a year. He deserted in order to
have a glance at the family, and was captured on his way back to the
front. But the rules of war are imperative, and without compassion.
The President was interested, as in all such cases where a deserving
life and a sorrowing woman were at stake. He said:

"Of course, this man wanted to see his family! They ought not to shoot
him for that!" He telegraphed for action in the matter to cease, and
finally pardoned the deserter.

"A fellow-feeling"--for all his thoughts reverted to _his_ family
life at Springfield.

* * * * *

A RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

Lincoln's Amnesty Proclamation, issued in December, 1863, exemplifies
the perpetual attempt to infuse mercy into that intestine warfare,
which always grows more fierce by oil thrown on the flames, and only
once, in our case, terminated in the brothers becoming brothers again.
He replied thus to a public criticizer of the document:

"When a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds, and gives
satisfactory evidence of the same, he can safely be pardoned,
and there is no exception to the rule."

* * * * *

EVEN REBELS MIGHT BE SAVED.

A Mr. Shrigley, of Philadelphia, having been appointed hospital
chaplain, the President sent in his name to the Senate, and his
confirmation was imminent. A deputation came on to protest on the
grounds that he was a Universalist, a large-minded man, who did not
believe in endless punishment. Logically, he believed that "even
the rebels will be saved," concluded the opposition, horrified.

"Well, gentlemen," determined the President gravely, "if that be so,
and there is any way under heaven whereby the rebels can be saved,
then, for God's sake and for their sakes, let the man be appointed."

* * * * *

WHIPPING AROUND THE STUMP.

On New-year's morning, 1864, President Lincoln entered the War
Department building. His sensitive nature, more than ever strained
to the utmost tension, was irritated by hearing a woman wailing over
a child in her arms at an office door. Major Eckert requested to
ascertain the cause of the grief brought back the painful but not
unexampled explanation. A soldier's wife had come to Washington with
her babe, expecting to have no difficulty in going on under pass to
the camp where her husband was under the colors. But she learned, to
her dismay, that, while an officer's wife has few obstacles to meet in
communing with her husband under like circumstances, the private's is
dissimilarly situated. This poor soul, with little money anyway, was
perplexed how to wait in the expensive city till her wish was granted.

"Come, Eckert," blurted out the chief in his frank manner, "let's
send the woman down there!"

It was recited that the war office had strengthened the orders against
women in camp.

"H'm!" coughed the other in his dry way, ominous of an alternative,
"let us whip the devil around the stump since he will not step right
over! Send the woman's husband leave of absence to report
_here_--to see his wife and baby!"

So the officer on duty wrote the order, and the couple were happily
reunited.--(By A. B. Chandler, manager of postal telegraphs, attached
to the War Department in the war.)

* * * * *

"LIFE TOO PRECIOUS TO BE LOST."

Benjamin Owen, a young Vermont volunteer, was sentenced to the
extremity for being asleep on post. Lincoln was especially lenient in
these cases, as he held that a farm-boy, used to going to bed early,
was apt to maintain the habit in later life. It came out that the
youth had taken the place of a comrade the night before, as extra
duty, and this overwork had fatigued him so that his succumbing was
at least explicable. This clue being in a letter he wrote home,
his sister journeyed to the capital with it and showed it to the
President.

"Oh, that fatal sleep!" he exclaimed, "thousands of lives might have
been lost through that fatal sleep!"

He wrote out the pardon, and said to the girl:

"Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve
his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a youth like
that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life too precious to be lost."

He went in his carriage to deliver the pardon to the proper
authorities for its execution--and not the soldier's. Then, making
out a furlough for the released volunteer, he saw him and the sister
off on the homeward journey, pinning a badge on the former's arm with
the words:

"The shoulder which should bear a comrade's burden, and die for it so
uncomplainingly, must wear that strap!"

* * * * *

MERCY HAS PRECEDENCE OVER THE RIGID.

On the 9th of April, 1865, Lee accepted Grant's easy conditions, and
practically everything was completed but the formal signing of the
capitulation. The wide rejoicing covered the earth, the eye-witnesses
may say, with one smile of relief and gladness. Washington looked
gay with bunting, like New York City on the day of "Show your flag!"
Above all, the President, whose words at Springfield, in 1860, to
the Illinois school superintendent, Newton Bateman, were justified:
"I may not see the end, but it will come, and I shall be vindicated
(in condemning slavery)."

It was, therefore, in a receptive mood that he was found by Senator
J. B. Henderson, of Missouri. This gentleman came for the third time
on an errand of pity.

At the close of the war, one Colonel Green, brother to United States
Senator James S. Green, crossed into Mississippi with his friend and
brother in arms, George E. Vaughan. He gave Vaughan letters for home
and started him to carry news to his family. Captured within the
Federal lines, he was held as a spy. Mr. Henderson succeeded in
getting a retrial, and even a third hearing, but still the man was
under sentence of death. On the afternoon of April 14, he called at
the White House, and insisted that the pardon should be granted now
if ever, "in the interest of peace and consideration."

The gladsome chief agreed with him, and directed him to go to
Secretary Stanton and have the prisoner released. But the inflexible
official, on whom the general glee had no softening, refused, and the
man had but two days to live. When the intermediary hurried back to
the Executive Mansion, the President was dressed to go to Ford's
Theater, with his wife, his son, and a young couple of friends.

Nevertheless, he stopped, went into the study, and wrote an
unconditional release and pardon for Vaughan, saying:

"I think this will have precedence over Stanton!"

It was his last official act--one of mercy and forgiveness.

* * * * *

TAKEN FROM REBELLION AND GIVEN TO LOYALTY.

A lady out of Tennessee, which was early to join secession, came to
Washington in search of her son, a youth enlisted in the Confederate
Army. She found him in the Fort Henry hospital, where, allowed to see
him, as she was loyal, in spite of regulations about prisoners of
war, she learned that he would recover. She induced him to recant and
offer his parole if he were allowed freedom. She called on Secretary
Stanton, but he was in one of his boorish moods--was he ever out of
them?--and repulsed her with rudeness. She finally appealed to the
President, who seemed very often balm to Stanton, "a fretful corrosive
applied to a deathly wound," and he gave her an order to receive the
young man if he swore off his pledge to the wrong side.

"To take the young man from the ranks of the rebellion," he said to
her, "and give him to a loyal mother is a better investment to this
government than to give him up to its deadly enemies."

The young man was enabled to resume his studies, but in a Northern
college!

* * * * *

SUSPENSION IS NOT EXECUTION.

Among those generals--amateurs, like the President, themselves--who
disapproved of any leniency in discipline, was Major-general Benjamin
F. Butler. He wrote to his commander-in-chief so impudent an epistle
as the annexed:

"MR. PRESIDENT: I pray you not to interfere with the court-martial of
this army. (_His_, of course--his skill was discoursed upon by
General Grant, who said that Butler had "corked himself up.") You will
destroy all discipline among the soldiers."

But in the teeth of this embargo, moved by the entreaties of an old
father whose son was under death sentence by this despot, he said:

"Butler or no Butler, here goes!" and, seizing his pen, wrote that the
soldier in prison was not to be shot until further orders.

The affected parent eagerly took the precious paper, but his jaw fell
on seeing the text: he had looked for a full pardon. But the comforter
hastened to explain:

"Well, my old friend, I see that you are not very well acquainted with
me. If your son never looks upon death till further orders from me to
shoot him, he will live to be a great deal older than Methuselah."

* * * * *

"THE DISCONTENTED ... ABOUT FOUR HUNDRED--"

In 1856, Mr. Lincoln had figured prominently in the Fremont-Dayton
presidential campaign, and ever since he had been partial to the
"Pathfinder," though he clearly saw that he would be a rival for the
chair at Washington--his long-cherished ambition. He gave, at the
outset of the war, the most important military command, that of the
Mountain, or Western Department, to Fremont. The latter attempted to
"steal his thunder" by issuing a forerunner of the Emancipation Act,
and was removed; but Lincoln reinstated him till he had to repeat
the removal. He was repaid by the incorrigible marplot setting up
as candidate for the chief magistracy after it was settled that the
retiring officer should be reelected. Nevertheless, the competitor's
party was so small that, in allusion to it, Lincoln read from
"Samuel," Book I:

"And every one who was in distress, and every one that was in debt,
and every one who was discontented, gathered themselves unto him,
and he became captain over them, and there were with him about four
hundred men!"

* * * * *

"NOT MUCH OF A HEAD, BUT HIS ONLY ONE!"

Although the life of a soldier sleeping on post was at stake, the
pleader wished to forbear on finding that the supreme decider, the
President, meant to make a personal matter of it. He suspended the
execution while looking into it. But it was objected that this was
a burden not intended to impose.

"Never mind," Lincoln answered. "This soldier's life is as valuable
to him as any person's in the land. It reminds me of the old Scotch
woman's saying about her laird going to be beheaded for participation
in a Jacobite rebellion:

"'It waur na mickle of a head, but it is the only head the puir body
ha' got.'"--(Assured, in substance, by L. E. Chittenden.)

* * * * *

"GI'E US A GOOD CONCEIT!"

A place-hunter hastened to his old acquaintance, Lincoln, when he was
seated, of course, to secure a trough. But he aimed high--in contrast
to Lincoln's adage that a novice should aim low! The least he named
was the berth of master of the mint.

"Good gracious!" ejaculated the chief. "Why did he not ask to be
secretary of the treasury and have done with it?" Reflecting, he
observed: "Well, now, I never thought that lank had anything more
than average ability when we were youngsters together. But, then,
I suppose, he thought the same thing about me, and yet--here I am!"

* * * * *

THEY WENT AWAY SICKER STILL.

A party were pressing the claims of a solicitor for a consulship; his
particular plea that his health would be benefited by residence on
these Fortunate Islands. The Lord Bountiful terminated the interview
by lightly saying:

"Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants
for the place--and all of them are sicker than your client!"

* * * * *

OF TWENTY APPLICANTS, NINETEEN ARE MADE ENEMIES.

Hampered, harassed, and hounded by office-seekers, the President once
opened his confidence on this irritating point to a conscientious
public officer. He wished the senators and others would start and
stimulate public sentiment toward changes in public offices being
made on good and sufficient cause--that is, plainly, never on party
considerations. The ideal civil service, in a word. Nine-tenths of
his vexations were due to seekers of sinecures.

"It seems to me that such visitors dart at me and, with finger and
thumb, carry off a portion of my vitality," was his saying.

His hearer laughed at the image, but the other pursued earnestly:

"I have made up my mind to make very few changes in the offices in my
gift for my second term. I think, now, that I shall not move a single
man, except for delinquency. To remove a man is very easy, but when
I go to fill his place, there are twenty applicants, and of these I
must make nineteen enemies."--(Authenticated by Senator Clark, of New
Hampshire, to whom the confidence was imparted.) [Footnote: Secretary
Blaine, out of his similar experience, reiterated the sentiment thus:
"When I choose one out of ten applicants to fill an office, I find
that nine have become my enemies and one is an ingrate."]

* * * * *

RID OF AN OFFICE-SEEKER.

"There was an ignorant man," said a senator, "who once applied to
Lincoln for the post of doorkeeper to the House. This man had no
right to ask Lincoln for anything. It was necessary to repulse him.
But Lincoln repulsed him gently and whimsically without hurting his
feelings, in this way:

"'So you want to be doorkeeper to the House, eh?'

"'Yes, Mr. President.'

"'Well, have you ever been a doorkeeper? Have you ever had any
experience of doorkeeping?'

"'Well, no--no actual experience, sir.'

"'Any theoretical experience? Any instructions in the duties and
ethics of doorkeeping?'

"'Umh--no.'

"'Have you ever attended lectures on doorkeeping?'

"'No, sir.'

'"Have you read any text-book on the subject?'

"'No.'

"'Have you conversed with any one who has read such a book?'

"'No, sir. I'm afraid not, sir.'

"'Well, then, my friend, don't you see that you haven't a single
qualification for this important post?' said Lincoln, in a reproachful
tone.

"'Yes, I do,' said the applicant, and he took leave humbly, almost
gratefully."--(Chicago _Record-Herald_.)

* * * * *

NOT GOOD OFFICES, BUT A GOOD STORY.

When Washington and its chief guardians were more sorely besieged
by office-seekers than by the Confederates, a politician locally
important and generally importunate was sent as a "committee of one"
to headquarters to secure the loaves and fishes for his congeries.
But in about a fortnight this forager came home, full of emptiness.
Asked if he had not seen the President--accounted commonly as only
too accessible--and why he did not get the places, he replied glumly,
yet with a tinge of brightening:

"Yes, I saw the old man. He heard me state my errand, the President
did. He heard me patiently all right enough; and then he said: 'I am
sorry not to have any good offices for you, but--I can give you
something--a good story!'

"And he went on with--

"'Once there was a certain king who kept an astrologer to forewarn him
of coming events, and especially to tell him whether it was going to
rain when he wished to go on hunting expeditions. One day he had
started for the forest with his train of lords and ladies, when he
met a farmer.

"'"Good morning, farmer," said the king.

"'"Good morning, king," said the farmer; "where are you folks going?"

"'"Hunting," said the king.

"'"Hunting! You'll all get wet," said the farmer.

"'The king trusted his astrologer and kept on, but at midday there
came up a tremendous rain that drenched the king and all his party.

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