The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, is the momentous
issue of the Civil War."

War! The crisis was no longer "artificial"--he admitted that! What
impended, what had fallen? Jest and earnest were still coupled, but
earnest took the lead from that hour. Said the Chief Magistrate, in
his first official speech: "Physically speaking, we cannot
separate--that's what's the matter."

* * * * *

"THE SHIP OF STATE" SIMILE.

On the morning of Lincoln's arrival in Washington, General Logan and
Mr. Lovejoy called on him at Willard's Hotel, to urge a firm and
vigorous policy. He replied:

"As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I'll try to
steer her through." The Sangamon River pilot spoke there.

"I understand the ship to be made for the carrying and the
preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved with
the cargo, it should never be abandoned, unless it fails in the
probability of its preservation, and shall cease to exist, except
at the risk of throwing overboard both freight and passengers."--
(Speech, New York reception, 1861.)

"I trust that I may have the assistance of the members of this
legislature in piloting the ship of state through this voyage,
surrounded by perils as it is; for, if it should suffer shipwreck now,
there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage."--(Speech,
Trenton, New Jersey, 1861.)

* * * * *

A PILL FOR THE PUBLIC PRINTER.

In Lincoln's first message to Congress, special session, July 4, 1861,
is seen this passage:

"With rebellion thus _sugar-coated_, they have been drugging the
public mind," etc.

Mr. Defrees, public printer, with the proofreader's sublime spurning
of plain speech, objected to this sweet word, and said: "Mr.
President, you are using an undignified expression! I would alter the
construction if I were you!"

"Defrees," was the crushing reply, "that word expresses precisely
_my_ idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will
never come in this country when the people won't know exactly what
'sugar-coated' means!"

"'I JINKS! I CAN BEAT YOU BOTH!"

One day the public printer wanted to correct a Lincolnism in one of
the presidential documents.

"Go home, Defrees, and see if you can better it." The next day,
Defrees took him his amendment. It happened that Secretary Seward had
spied the same fault as the printer, and Lincoln confronted the two
improvements.

"'I jinks! (by Jingo!) Seward has been rewriting the same paragraph. I
believe you have beat Seward, but I think I can beat you both!"

And he wrote with his firm hand "_Stet!_ so let it stand!" on the
proof-sheet.

* * * * *

"LET THE GRASS GROW WHERE IT MAY!"

Up to the dread day when the news of the flag of our Union being fired
upon, in Charleston harbor, the country resembled the sea in one of
those calms preceding a storm. When the placidity betrays hidden and
mighty currents, and overhead, in the clear sky, one divines the
coursers of the tempest gathering to race in strife like that beneath.
Up to Lincoln's arrival in Washington, the nest of sedition, the
pro-slavery, peace-at-any-price party slackened in no efforts to
retain the _statu quo_, or worse, a new State of the Southern
States branching off as suckers strike from the main stem. William E.
Dodge had the courage to face the wrought-up Chief Magistrate, chafed
with his narrow escape from the assassins of the railroad journey from
Baltimore. Said Mr. Dodge:

"It is for you, Mr. President, to say whether the whole nation shall
be plunged into bankruptcy (the slaves were valued as property at
two thousand million dollars!); whether the grass shall grow in the
streets of our commercial cities." (The balance of trade against the
South to the manufacturing and supplying North was stupendous.)

"Then, I say, it shall not," replied Lincoln; "if it depends upon me,
the grass will not grow anywhere, save in the fields and meadows."

Mr. Dodge persisted in his sordid and businesslike errand.

"Then you will not go to war on account of slavery?"

"I do not know what my acts may be in the future, beyond this: The
Constitution will not be preserved and defended until it is enforced
and obeyed in every part of every one of the United States. It must be
so respected, obeyed, enforced, and defended--let the grass grow where
it will!"

* * * * *

THE PEACE-AT-ANY-PRICE PARTY.

"If there were a class of men who, having no choice of sides in the
contest, were anxious to have only quiet and comfort for themselves
while it rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end
of it, without loss to themselves, their advice as to the mode
of conducting the contest would be precisely such as his."--
(_His_--Mr. Thomas Durant, who, in 1862, wrote a letter
on behalf of the conservatives, asking to be let alone.)

"He speaks of no duty--apparently thinks of none--resting upon Union
men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should
be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to
touch neither a sail nor a pump--live merely as passengers (deadheads,
at that!)--to be carried snug and dry through the storm, and safely
landed right side up! Nay, more--even a mutineer is to go untouched
lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound."--(Letter
to C. Bullitt, July 28, 1862.)

* * * * *

THINGS WERE TOPSY-TURVY ALOFT, TOO.

One evening, when Mr. Hall, astronomer, was working in the Naval
Observatory, Washington, on the great equatorial telescope, he was
startled to have his sanctum invaded by the gaunt, extenuated figure
of the President. He was made welcome, of course, and the varied
mechanism explained to him. As the crowning "treat," he was given a
peer through the celebrated instrument. It was leveled at the moon,
or, rather, arranged to have that orb in its focus at the time. The
visitor was appalled, as well as wondering at the view, and slowly
withdrew by the trap-door. But when the astronomer resumed his
observations and calculations he was interrupted by the same sedate
and absorbed caller. He returned, perplexed, as, on glancing up at
the moon with unhindered vision, he saw it in another position to
that presented in the spy-glass.

Mr. Hall made it clear to him that, as the telescope was pointed, not
at the satellite but at its image in a mirror, he saw its reflection
and consequently the reverse of the face we observe. The President
went away with the satisfaction of a man wanting every novelty
demonstrated.

* * * * *

HITCHING TO THE MOON.

Lincoln came to Washington,
To view the situation;
And found the world all upside down,
A rumpus in the nation.
(_Topical song,_ 1860.)

* * * * *

A RED FLAG TO HIM.

A most remarkable prelude to the war was the performance through
the Northern States of the Chicago Zouaves. The name came from the
irregular regiment in the French Algerian service, composed of men
worthy of being drummed out of the regular corps; they dressed like
the Arabs in the small bolero jacket and baggy red, trousers familiar
since. They drilled gymnastically, not to say theatrically. Ellsworth,
a clerk in the Lincoln & Herndon law office, had a martial turn, and
hearing daily in that quasi-political vortex of the impending crisis,
determined to be forearmed in case of the differences coming to blows.
He raised, uniformed _a la Zou-zou_, a score of young men like
himself and proceeded to give exhibitions at home and then in the
East. The writer retains a vivid memory of the odd and fantastic show,
which, however, was regarded as "not war, though magnificent." But
Captain Ellsworth was in earnest. Mustered in with his company, he
started the Zouave movement which led to two or more regiments being
formed. His being the first volunteers at the fore, he claimed the
right of the reconnoitering force sent out in May, against Alexandria,
to break up railroads held by the rebels. Seeing a rebel flag on a
hotel top, he entered the building, and was shot by the landlord in
coming down from cutting it away. He was slain instantly, and the like
fate befell the murderer, the host, from Ellsworth's guard. Apart from
four men killed at Sumter and two in the Baltimore riots, the Chicago
Zouave was the first victim of the rebellion. But the position was
regained by the secessionists, and the rebel flag replaced the removed
one, to the grief of President Lincoln. He could see it from his
residence, and Murat Halstead, without knowing the melancholy
association of the young officer, being a familiar in his office,
reports seeing him dwell with spyglass bent on the flag, for hours.

Elmer Ellsworth, in his last speech, made to the men he was leading
out to the front, proves that he imbibed Lincoln's humanity with legal
precepts in the office: "Show the enemy that I want to kill them with
kindness."

* * * * *

"FLY AWAY, JACK!"

At the end of 1860, South Carolina took the lead in seceding, and
in the opening of the next year six other Southern States allied
themselves with her. The timid feared hasty acting would precipitate
the marshaling of the waverers under the same flag. To a committee
urging a pause to see "how the cats would jump," the President
observed:

"If there be three pigeons on the fence, and you fire and kill one,
how many will there be left?"

The voices said: "Two."

"Oh, no," he corrected; "there would be none left; for the other two,
frightened by the shot, would have flown away."

As a truth, the firing on Fort Sumter welded the seceders into their
Union; at the same time as it likewise fused the Northerners into
consistency.

The President said to General Viele: "We want to keep all that we have
of the Border States--those that have not seceded and the portions we
have occupied."

* * * * *

HIS _PEN_ WANTED TO KEEP THEIR HOGS SAFE.

Just after the call for seventy-five thousand ninety-day men to subdue
the outbreak after Sumter was cannonaded, a deputation of loyal
Virginians waited upon the President. They expounded on this levy that
the fair fields of the South would be overrun by the ragamuffins of
the Northern cities, and the hen-roosts and pig-houses ravished, etc.

"But what would you have me do?" asked Lincoln, who did not then
foresee his having to conduct the military movements.

"Mr. President, if you would only lend us your pen a moment--"
meaning, of course, that he should write a line to calm the rising
storm.

But the other pretended to misunderstand him, saying: "Lend my pen!
my _pen_? What would you do with that?--keep your hogs safe with
that?"

* * * * *

"HURRAH FOR YOU!"

At the Chicago reception, a little boy came into the room, with his
father. No doubt he had been instructed to behave with decorum in the
august presence; but he no sooner saw the tall, prominent figure than
he shouted: "Hurrah for Mist' Lincoln!"

The crowd laughed, and still the more as the object of the ovation
caught up the little fellow, gave him a toss to the ceiling, and,
while he was in the air, shouted out lustily:

"Hurrah for Mister You!" and, catching him, lowered him, red and
panting, to the floor.

* * * * *

"PUT YOUR FEET RIGHT AND STAND FIRM!"

Giving a lift in his carriage to two ladies, to the Soldiers' Home,
the horses were splashing and sliding after a shower in the mire, when
Mr. Lincoln assisted the frightened women to alight. He set three
stones for stepping-stones in the mud, and assisted them to firm
ground. He had cautioned them in making the passage:

"All through life be sure you put your feet in the right place, and
then stand firm!"

Looking down on his muddy boots (Lincoln as a Westerner always stuck
to leg-boots, and was never seen in the effeminate "Congress gaiters,"
by the bye), he added: "I have always heard of 'Washington mud,' and
now I shall take home some as a sample!"

* * * * *

GET THEIR GRAVES READY!

In April, 1861, a deputation of sympathizers with secession had the
boldness to call on President Lincoln and demand a cessation of
hostilities until convening of Congress, threatening that seventy-five
thousand Marylanders would contest the passage of troops over their
soil.

"I presume," quietly replied Mr. Lincoln, "that there is room enough
in her soil for seventy-five thousand graves?"--(Peterson's "Life of
Lincoln.")

* * * * *

MR. LINCOLN'S OPINION OF GENERAL McCLELLAN.

In the first stage of the war, when the President was
commander-in-chief of the forces by virtue of his office, he played
the part of the elevated boy in "The King of the Castle." Every one
of his colleagues, who ought to have been his loyal supporters, until
some firm stand was attained under the batteries of Richmond, civil
and military, warred against him, underhandedly and haply openly. All
aimed, in Cabinet and on the staff, to be ruler. The understrappers
of aged General Scott upheld all that concurred with warfare, set
and obsolete, of the European strategists, overthrown by the great
Napoleon. The principal practiser of these tactics, the _summum
bonum_, or "good thing," of the "West Pointers" was General
McClellan, "the Little Mac" of his worshipers and "the Little
Napoleon" of the dazzled crowd. He was, like Cassio, "a great
arithmetician, who had never set a squadron in the field or the
division of a battle knew," etc. Seeming utterly to ignore that
the enemy was composed of men trained by their life and "genteel"
occupations to shoot true, to ride like Comanches or Revolutionary
Harry Lee's Light-horse, used to lying outdoors under skies genial
to them, and subsisting on game and corn-cake as Marion on sweet
potatoes, he expected to foil such guerrillas as "Jeb" Stuart, Mosby,
and Quantrell by earthworks, which they probably would have leaped
their horse over if they wanted to reach their spoil in that way. It
was in allusion to this adherence to Vauban that the President, who
eyed the aspiring Hotspur as Henry V. his heir, the sixth Henry,
trying on his crown, observed shrewdly, when the general kept silence:

"He is entrenching."

* * * * *

A "STATIONARY" ENGINE.

Lincoln said of the much-promising General McClellan: "He is an
admirable engineer, but he seems to have a special talent for a
_stationary_ engine."

He also cited him as a scholar and a gentleman.

Nevertheless, as the education lavished on the Army of the Potomac
to make it earn foreign military critics' praise at reviews, was not
thrown away, but made sound soldiers which in time were invaluable
to General Grant, Lincoln did him justice by quaintly, but earnestly,
saying:

"I would like to borrow _his_ arm if he has no further use for
it."

(General Franklin heard this.)

But "Little Mac" had no design on the dictatorship, being surely a
lover of the Union, too.

* * * * *

SHOVELING FLEAS.

On account of the looseness and corruption attending the raising of
soldiers at the first, the President, noting the difference between
the number of men forwarded to General McClellan for the Army of the
Potomac, and the number reported arrived, said:

"Sending men to that army is like shoveling fleas across a
barn-yard--half of them never get there."

* * * * *

THE GEORGIA COLONEL'S COSTUME.

"On account of this sectional warfare," Senator Mason, of Virginia,
announced his resolve to wear homespun, and dispense with Yankee
manufactures altogether. That made Lincoln laugh, and say: "To carry
out his idea, he ought to go barefoot. If that's the plan, they should
begin at the foundation, and adopt the well-known Georgian colonel's
uniform--a shirt-collar and a pair of spurs!"--(In, speech, New England
tour, 1860.)

* * * * *

COARSE FEED FIRST!

Secretary Whitney wrote: "In July, 1861, I was in Washington, where
I merely said to President Lincoln: 'Everything is drifting into the
war, and I guess you will have to put _me_ in the army.' (He
was in the Indian service at the time.)

"The President looked up from his work, and said good-humoredly:

"'I'm making generals _now_! In a few days I will be making
quartermasters, and then I'll fix you.'"

* * * * *

"AIN'T I GLAD TO GIT OUT O' DE WILDERNESS!"

In the summer of 1862, just when the North was lulled to repose by the
note from General McClellan's newsmongers, that the people would have
a great surprise on the Fourth of July, Colonel J. E. B. Stuart,
Confederate cavalrist, took about two thousand picked riders and
performed a dash within the hostile lines, which achieved a world-wide
admiration. It is necessary to premise that the country was inimical
to the defenders of Washington, and the farmers kept the secessionists
clearly informed on the Federal movements. Besides, the first duty
of keeping Washington engrossed all the Union commanders. If, by any
unexpected movement, the rebels occupied the capital long enough
to set up their government, Europe would have recognized the stars
and bars, and raised the blockade on the cotton ports. Washington
was stupefied and terror-stricken when the news came in from the
_North_ that rebel cavalry were "cavortin" within McClellan's
lines. Communication was cut off with him, and the President was
heard to say in the general dumbness of consternation:

"There is no news from the Army of the Potomac. I do not even know
that we have an army!"

He was himself filled with the universal alarm. His hope was that a
bright morning would follow the dark hour, but his faith and belief
that God would safely lead them "_out of the wilderness_" was
not widely shared.

The allusion was to the popular army song, taken from the negro
camp-meeting repertoire: "Ain't I glad to git out o' de Wilderness,"
which a clergyman had encouragingly chanted awhile before. This
wilderness was metaphorically spiritual, but all applied the figure
to the Wilderness of Virginia, where the battles were fought.

* * * * *

WITH TWO GUNS, HOLD OFF AN ARMY.

One Irish artilleryman was left behind, with one gun of his battery,
on the wrong bank of the Potomac, when the Union Army retreated before
Lee. This gunner actually telegraphed direct to the President as his
commander-in-chief that:

"I have the whole rebel army in my front. Send me another gun, and
I assure your honor that they shall not come over!"

This pleased the President greatly, who answered that the new Horatius
was to take counsel with his officer--if he could find him!

* * * * *

BREAKING UP THE LITTLE GAME.

In 1862, Washington was full of talk "and no hard cider." There was
the laugh talk of the gossips, who would chatter under fire, the chaff
talk of the press men taking things farcically, and the staff talk of
the officers envying one another and scheming for places. Too many
were still "carrying water on both shoulders," and would have welcomed
a speedy reconciliation. The President heard that some of the latter
voiced the petulant complaint of those weary of the gainless military
movements, that the intention was to shift the two armies about till
both were exhausted, and, like the peace-at-any-price men, and the
still sympathizing pro-slavery "tail," a compromise could be effected
and slavery saved. He summoned the parties in this public unbosoming
before him. Major Turner said that Major John J. Key, staff-officer
to General McClellan, was asked why the Unionists had not _bagged_
the rebel army soon after the battle of Sharpsburg, whereupon he
replied:

"That was not the game! We should tire ourselves and the rebels out;
that was the only way that the Union could be preserved; then we would
come together fraternally, and slavery will be saved."

Major Key did not deny the words, but stoutly maintained his loyalty.
As McClellan's staff-officer, he must have known his leader's
policy--no confiscation, and no Emancipation Act--for McClellan hoped,
like thousands of conservatives, to bring about reaction in the South.

But the President sharply said with some of his sempiternal humor:

"Gentlemen, if there is a game even among Union men, to have our army
not take any advantage of the enemy it can, it is my object to break
up that game!"

* * * * *

"THE BOTTOM WILL FALL OUT."

General McClellan's delayed advance being, in 1862, not upon Manassas,
but on Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with
consternation. To the general eye he seemed to have pitched on the
very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in
their favor. This direct route to Richmond they had tried to make
impregnable. The President, whom McClellan openly thwarted with
unconcealed scorn for the "civilian," was in profound distress. He
called General Franklin into his counsel and inquired his opinion
of the slowness of movements.

"If something is not soon done in this dry rot, the bottom will fall
out of the whole affair!" This was his very saying.

The Confederates evacuated Yorktown, but a series of actions ensued,
culminating in the massacre at Fair Oaks, where both sides claimed
the victory. Soon after, Lincoln took matters in hand, relegating
McClellan to one army, and, as commander-in-chief, ordering a general
advance. The bottom had fallen out with a vengeance!

* * * * *

"MASTER OF THEM BOTH."

"General McClellan's attitude is such that in the very selfishness of
his nature he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will!
And the secretary of war (Stanton) is in precisely the same situation.
If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only
the secretary of war, but myself, for the time being master of both,
cannot but be failures."--(Speech, August 6, 1862, at Washington.)

* * * * *

"THE SKEERED VIRGINIAN."

A reviewing-party, of which the President was the center, was stopped
at a railroad by Harper's Ferry, to let a locomotive pass, and look at
the old engine-house where John Brown, the raider, was penned in and
captured. The little switching-engine ran past with much noise and
bustle, the engineer blowing the ludicrous whistle in salute to the
distinguished visitors. Lincoln referred to the recollections of the
scene, where old "Pottowatomie" thrilled the natives with panic lest
he raised the negroes to revolt, and remarked, as the engine flew
away:

"You call that 'The Flying Dutchman' do you? They ought to call that
thing 'The _Skeered_ Virginian!'"--(By General O. O. Howard,
a hearer.)

* * * * *

"HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY--"

Shortly after the scandalous rout of Bull Run, the participants in the
panic began to try to palliate the disgrace. The President, listening
with revived sarcasm to the new perversion, remarked:

"So it is your notion _now_ that we _licked_ the rebels and
then ran away!"

* * * * *

NO SUNDAY FIGHTING.

As the first Battle of Bull Run, a sanguinary defeat to the Unionists,
was fought on the Sabbath day, the President forbade in the future
important movements on the day desecrated. But with singular
inconsistency in a sage so clear-headed, he did not see that the
Southerners chuckled, "The better the day, the better the deed,"
in their victory.

* * * * *

LET A GOOD MAN ALONE!

General Howard, in taking command before Washington, incurred
the hostility of certain officers of the convivial, plundering,
swashbuckling order, who objected to his piety and orderliness. They
tramped off to badger the President with their censure. But he who had
appreciated the new leader in a glance, reproved them, saying:

"Howard is a _good_ man. Let him alone; in time he will bring
things straight."

That was what caused the general to reverence him and love him.

* * * * *

THE "BLONDIN" SIMILE.

One of the universal topics of the early sixties was the feats of the
acrobat Blondin. This daring rope-walker crossed the waters by Niagara
Falls on a slack wire. On one occasion he carried a man on his back,
to whom he imparted the caution, "grappling as with hooks of steel":

"If you upset me with trembling, I shall drop you! I shall catch the
rope and be safe! As for you, inexperienced one--_pfitt!_"

The chain of defeats and "flashes in the pan" attending the opening
of the campaign beginning as a march upon Richmond, [Footnote: Some
Northern newspapers kept a standing head: "On to Richmond!"] but
eventuating in a defense of Washington, humiliating as was this
reverse, promoted all sorts and conditions of men, moneyed,
well-grounded, and investing in the new government securities,
fluctuating like wildcat stock, to pester the President with Jeremiads
and counsel. To one deputation from his home parts he administered
this caustic rebuke in such illustration as was habitual to him:

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