The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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* * * * *

LITTLE DAVID AND THE STONE FOR GOLIATH.

In the spring, 1862, spies and foreign officers who had seen the
rebel ram _Merrimac_ being built at Norfolk, reported her as
formidable. The United States _Galena_, our first ironclad, was
a failure. There was no vessel of the kind to deal with the monster
save Ericsson's floating battery, ready for sea in March, called the
_Monitor_, as a warning to Great Britain, expected to interfere
on behalf of the South and raise the blockade over the cotton ports.
This craft with a revolving turret was just as much of a new idea as
its prototype.

On March 8, the _Merrimac_ came out of Norfolk and ran down the
_Cumberland_ sloop of war; blew the _Congress_ to splinters,
and compelled her being blown up to save her from the enemy; the
_Minnesota_ was run aground to prevent being rammed. The victor
returned to her dock to make ready for a fresh onslaught. The
effect was profound; it seemed no exaggeration to suppose that the
irresistible conqueror would pass through the United States fleet at
Hampton Roads and, speeding along the coast, reduce New York to the
most onerous terms or to ashes.

On Sunday, the ninth, the _Monitor_ arrived after a sea passage,
showing she rode too low for ocean navigation. Though in no fit state
for battle, no time was allowed her, as the _Merrimac_ ran out
to exult over the ruins of the encounter. The _Monitor_ threw
herself in her way, bore her broadside without injury, and her shock
with impunity, but on the other hand hurled her extremely heavy ball
in, under her water-line. The ram backed out, and, wheeling and
putting on full steam, returned to her haven. She was, it appears, too
low to cross the bar to go up to Richmond, and was not ocean-going;
she was blown up when Yorktown was evacuated by the Confederates
in May, 1862.

The President had said of her defeater, to some naval officers: "I
think she will be the veritable sling with the stone to smite the
Philistine _Merrimac_."

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S CHEESE-BOX ON A RAFT.

There is a chapter yet to be published upon iron-clad war-ships, as
introduced practically in the Civil War. To the Southerners is due the
innovation on a fair scale, though the experiments were not at all
profitably demonstrative. Upon rumors that the enemy were building
the novelties of iron-cased vessels, the Federal government responded
by voting money--and throwing it away upon a fiasco. Meanwhile, the
others had razeed a frigate, the _Merrimac_, and upon an angular
roof laid railroad-iron to make her shot-proof. Stories of her
likelihood to be a terror, especially as she was stated by spies to be
seaworthy, inspired the Americanized Swedish naval engineer, Ericsson,
to build a turret-ship. The Naval Construction Board unanimously
rebuffed the innovator. Luckily, President Lincoln became interested
as a flat-boat builder, in his youth. He took up the inventor and
the design. He scoffed at the idea that the man had not planned
thoroughly, saying, as to the weight of the armor sinking the hull:

"Out West, in boat-building, we figured out the carrying power to
a nicety."

His championship earned the _Monitor_ the name of Lincoln's
"cheese-box on a raft."

The assistant secretary of the navy, knowing all the facts, observes:

"I withhold no credit from Captain John Ericsson, her inventor, but
_I know_ the country is principally indebted to President Lincoln
for the construction of this vessel, and for the success of the trial
to Captain Worden."--(Captain Fox, Ericsson's adviser, confirms this
credit.)

* * * * *

NO "DUTCH COURAGE."

After the miraculous intervention of the Ericsson _Monitor_, the
President took a party aboard to inspect the little champion which had
saved the fleet and, perhaps, the capital, where the captain received
them. He apologized for the limited accommodation, and for the lack
of the traditional lemon and necessary attributes for a presidential
visit. But the teetotaler chief merrily replied:

"Some uncharitable persons say that old Bourbon valor inspires our
generals in the field, but it is plain that _Dutch courage_ was
not needed on board of the _Monitor!_"

* * * * *

"IF I HAD AS MUCH MONEY AND WAS AS BADLY SKEERED----"

In March, 1862, after her terrifying exploits, the _Merrimac_ ram
was reported to have escaped to sea and was seeking fresh prey to
devour. The Eastern seaports were in a panic. A deputation of New
York's merchant princes, bullion barons, and plutocrats generally,
representing "a hundred millions," was the rumor heralding their
"rush" visit to the capital, arrived at the White House.

The spokesman faltered that the great metropolis was in peril, that
treasures were involved by the apprehension, and that, in brief, the
government ought to take measures to defend the Empire City from the
spite of this irresistible ocean-terror.

At the conclusion, the patient hearer responded:

"Well, gentlemen, the government has at present no vessel which can
sink this _Merrimac_. (They were not, for state reasons, to know
what the sly fox had up his sleeve.) The government is pretty poor;
its credit is not good; its legal-tender notes are worth only forty
cents on your Wall Street; and we have to pay you a high rate of
interest on our loans. Now, if I were in your place, and had as much
money as you represent, and was as badly _skeered_ as you say
you are--I'd go right back to New York and build some war-vessels and
present them to the government."--(Authenticated by Schuyler Colfax,
afterward vice-president under General Grant; and by Judge Davis,
who presented the delegation.)

* * * * *

"IT PLEASES HER, AND IT DON'T HURT ME."

April, 1862, closed brilliantly for the Union, as New Orleans was
captured. General Porter Phelps issued a proclamation which freed the
slaves. As on previous occasions, when this bomb was brought out, the
President had directed its being stifled and reserved for _his_
occasion, there was wonder that he took no official notice of the
premature flash. Taken to task by a friendly critic for his odd
omission, he deigned to reply:

"Well, I feel about it a good deal like that big, burly, good-natured
canal laborer who had a little waspy bit of a wife, in the habit of
beating him. One day she put him out of the house and switched him up
and down the street. A friend met him a day or two after, and rebuked
him with the words:

"'Tom, as you know, I have always stood up for you, but I am not going
to do so any longer. Any man may stand for a bullyragging by his wife,
but when he takes a switching from her right out on the public
highway, he deserves to be horsewhipped.'

"Tom looked up with a wink on his broad face, and, slapping the
interferer on the back with a leg-of-mutton fist, rejoined:

"'Why, drop it! It pleases her and it don't hurt me!'"

* * * * *

"LET HIM SQUEAL IF HE WORKS."

One of the Northern war governors was admirably loyal and devoted to
the reunion, but he was set on doing things his own way, and protested
every time he was called on for men or material. Lincoln saw that he
was willing, and was only like the lady who "methinks protests too
much." So he told Secretary Stanton, who laid before him the
objections:

"Never mind! These despatches do not mean anything. Go right ahead.
The governor reminds me of a boy I knew at a launching. He was a small
boy, chosen to fit the hollow in the midst of the ways where he should
lie down, after knocking out the king-dog, which holds the ship on
the stocks, when all other checks are removed. The boy did everything
right, but yelled as if he was being murdered every time the keel
rushed over him in the channel. I thought the hide was being peeled
from his back, but he wasn't hurt a mite.

"The shipyard-master told me that the boy was always chosen for the
job, doing his work well and never being hurt, but that he
_always_ squealed in that way.

"Now, that's the way with our governor; make up your mind that he is
not hurt and that he is doing the work all right, and pay no attention
to his squealing."

To his confidant, General Viele, the President said:

"We cannot afford to quarrel with the governors of the loyal States
about collateral issues. We want their soldiers."

* * * * *

BRIGADIERS CHEAP--CHARGERS COSTLY.

The news was transmitted to the Executive that a brigadier-general
and his escort of cavalry had been "gobbled up," the current and
expressive term, by rebel raiders, near Fairfax Court-house, close
enough to resound the echoes of the affray.

"I am sorry of the loss of the horses," deplored the President. "I
mean that I can make a brigadier-general any day--but those horses
cost the government a hundred and twenty-five to fifty dollars a
head!"

* * * * *

TO CURE SINGING IN THE HEAD.

The key to the trammels which bore upon the several generals of the
Army of the Potomac is found in the fears of the inhabitants of the
capital that at the least weakness in its defenders, there would be
a shifting of the two governments, and the Richmond one would replace
that at Washington. [Footnote: This seems unlikely now, but General
Lee and many competent judges clung to the belief that, had his
General Early held his position at Gettysburg, Jefferson Davis, and
not Abraham Lincoln, would have occupied Washington's seat--for a
time, anyway! But IF--the story of the Civil War is studded with
"Ifs."] But the navy was not considered in this relation. Hence,
there was a proposition to draw the rebel forces from the North, by
threatening the Southern seaports with naval attacks, and descents of
the tars and marines. A deputation visited the President with this
project. He listened to its unfolding with his proverbial patient
attention, and rejoined:

"This reminds me of the case of a girl out our way, troubled with a
singing in the head. All the remedies having been uselessly tried,
a plain, common horse-sense sort of a fellow (he bowed to the
deputation) was called in.

"'The cure is simple,' he said; 'what is called by sympathy--make a
plaster of psalm tunes and apply to the feet; it will draw the singing
down and out!'"--(Repeated by Frank Carpenter's "Recollections.")

* * * * *

BOWING TO THE BOY OF BATTLES.

Congressman W. D. Kelley wished to procure the admittance of a youth
into the Naval School. Though a lad he had "shown the mettle of
a man" on two serious occasions, while belonging to the gunboat
_Ottawa_. The President has the right to send three candidates
to the school yearly, who have served a year in the naval service.
Thrilled by the recital of the youth's heroic conduct, the President
wrote to the secretary of the navy to have the boy put on the list of
his appointees. But the subject was found short of the age required.
He would not be fourteen until September of that year, and it was but
July.

Lincoln had the hero appear before him. He admired him frankly and
altered the order so as to suit the later date. He bade the boy go
home and have "a good time" during the two months, as about the
last holiday he would get. The President had reconsidered his first
impression that the "disturbance" was but "an artificial excitement."

"And that's the boy who did so gallantly in those two great battles!"
he mused; "why, I feel that I should bow to him, and not he to
me."--(Authority: Congressman W. D. Kelley; the person was Willie
Bladen, U. S. N.)

* * * * *

WHEN WASHINGTON WAS ALL ONE TAVERN.

As men wining with Mars expect to sup with Pluto, the drinking at
the capital during the war was horrifying. The bars were overflowing
with officers, and while, as "Orpheus C. Kerr" was saying of the
civil-service corps, that spilling red ink was very different from
spilling red blood, the novices in uniform were staining their
new coats with port. Coming out of the West with the unique
recommendation, "This gentleman from Kentucky never drinks," President
Lincoln had only the American standby, the ice-water pitcher, on his
sideboard. And up to the last, even when the jubilation upon the war's
close made many a stopper fly out of the tabooed bottle, he could say:
"My example never belied the position I took when I was a young man."
So he could reply to a New England women's temperance deputation,
probably believing the caricaturists who pictured "Old Abe"
mint-juleping with the eagle.

"They would be rejoiced if they only knew how much I have tried to
remedy this great evil." Indeed, he was still "meddling" when he
wrote and spoke against drunken habits in the army, especially
among the officers.

* * * * *

"BREAK THE CRITTER WHERE SLIM!"

Lincoln's letters to his generals would be a revelation of character
if it were not already famed. He warns "Fighting Joe" Hooker, in June,
1863, "not to get entangled on the Rappahannock, like an ox jumped
half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear,
without a fair chance to give one way or kick the other." Later:
"Fight Lee, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is,
fret him--and fret him!" Finally: "If the head of Lee's army is at
Martinsburg, and the tail on the plank road between Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville, the critter must be slim _somewhere_;
could you not break him there?"

* * * * *

HOW GET HIM OUT?

During the avalanche of plans to conduct the suppression of the
rebellion, a genius proposed what afterward seemed a forecast for
Sherman's march to the sea. But at the time, Lincoln saw in it merely
a desperate venture which would detail a rescue-party much more
important.

"That reminds me," he said, with his whimsical smile, "of a cooper out
my way, new at the trade and much annoyed by the head falling in as he
was hooping in the staves around it. But the bright idea occurred to
him to put his boy in to hold up the cover. Only when the job was
completed by this inner support, the new problem rose: how to get the
boy out?

"Your plan is feasible, sir; but how are you to get the boy out?"

(The story was originally credited to a Chinese cooper, to whom modern
caskmaking was a mystery.)

* * * * *

"A PLEASURE TO PRESIDE, AT LAST!"

On the 4th of March, 1863, when Congress was closing the session,
President Lincoln gave away the bride at a marriage ceremony held--by
his invitation--in the House of Representatives' chamber. This seems
a singular and high honor to the couple. Their preeminence and the
function being acclaimed by all the notables connected with the field
and the forum in the capital, was a characteristic testimonial to the
comforters whose service to the soldier was inestimable. The pair were
John A. Fowle and Elida Rumsey, the man from Boston, the lady from New
York. They were both attendants on the hospitals at the front, when
their acquaintance verged into community, and this eventful matrimony.
Lincoln had met both, in his continuous calls at the hospitals, and
offered the west wing of the Capitol building for the wedding. He gave
away the bride, and in the records figure his name and those of the
illustrious witnesses. He gave a huge basket of the finest flowers
from the White House conservatory. He stayed to witness the dedication
of the Soldier's Library, founded by Mr. Fowle, who had seen
the arrant want of reading-matter by our soldiers--so few being
illiterate. At the President's hint, Congress granted the ground for
the library, but the Pension Office now occupies the site.

Sixty-three was a dark year, and the President might well say on this
typical incident, during a time there was little marrying, it is for
once a pleasure to _preside_.

* * * * *

ON THE LORD'S SIDE.

On a pastor assuring the President that "the Lord is on our side!" he
replied:

"I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is
always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and
prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

* * * * *

"TO CANAAN!"

This hymn plays quite a part in the music of the Civil War. There is
a negro variation--"Canaan's fair and happy land," given to the old
hymn, "Canaan's happy shore," which, better known by its chorus: "Say,
brothers, will you meet us?" and turned by the soldiers into the grand
"John Brown's body's moldering in the grave, but his soul is marching
on," was paraphrased by Julia Ward Howe into a "battle hymn." And
Holmes wrote "To Canaan," relative to the first levy. And to top
these, the Southerners had a parody on the "Old John Brown," also
called "Lincoln Going to Canaan."

* * * * *

"GOING TO CANAAN!"

Although the South is a poetic country, no bard wrote any
"Marseillaise Hymn" on that side. One of the few effusions bidding
tolerably for publicity was "Lincoln Going to Canaan," a parody on the
numerous negro camp-meeting lays in which Lincoln was hailed as the
coming Moses. This burlesque was laid before Mr. Lincoln, he taking
the grim relish in hits at him, caricatures and sallies, which great
men never spurn.

"Going to Canaan," he (is reported to have) said. "Going to _cane
'em,_ I expect!"

* * * * *

THE FOX APPOINTED PAYMASTER.

The President came into the telegraph-office of the White House,
laughing. He had picked up a child's book in his son "Tad's" room and
looked at it. It was a story of a motherly hen, struggling to raise
her brood to lead honest and useful lives; but in her efforts she was
greatly annoyed by a mischievous fox. She had given him many lectures
on his wicked ways, and--said the President: "I thought I would turn
over to the finis, and see how they came out. This is what it said:

"'And the fox became a good fox, and was appointed paymaster in the
army.' I think it very funny that I should have appointed him a
paymaster. I wonder who he is?"

Such inability to distinguish one officer as "good" does not speak
highly for the eradication of the soldiers' prejudice for the
gentry.--(Superintendent Tinker.)

* * * * *

RISKING THE DICTATORSHIP.

Every one of the generals leading the Army of the Potomac was accused
of the "longing for the Presidency," which placed the occupant in a
peculiar predicament. Of General "Joe" Hooker, it was said in the
press and in the Washington hotels that he was the "Man on Horseback,"
and would, at the final success of clearing out the rebel beleaguers,
set up as dictator. Hence the letter which Lincoln wrote to him:

"I have heard in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying
that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course,
it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the
command of the Army of the Potomac. What I now ask of you is military
success, and I will risk the dictatorship!"

It was April, 1863, Hooker issued the stereotyped address full of
confidence on taking command, advanced, and withdrew his army after
the repulse by Lee. All he scored was the death of "Stonewall"
Jackson, Lee's right hand, and that was an accident. As Lee invaded
Maryland, all hopes of Hooker's dictatorship were dispersed in the
battle smoke penetrating too far North to be pleasant incense to
fallen heroes.

* * * * *

A STAGE IN THE CEASELESS MARCH ONWARD TO VICTORY.

Veterans will remember the peculiar effect, on a forced march, of the
younger or less-enduring comrade falling asleep as to all but his eyes
and the muscles employed, but stepping out and apparently sustained
only by the touching of elbows in the lurching from the ruts in
the obliterated road. On the night of the stunning news of the
last conflict at Chancellorsville, Lincoln could derive no comfort
from later intelligence. Late at night General Halleck, commanding
the capital, and Secretary Stanton left him unconsoled. Then his
secretary, as long as he stayed, heard the man on whom rested the
national hopes--her very future--pace his room without pause save to
turn. It was like the fisher on the banks who must keep awake for
a chance at a grab at the chains of the ship that may burst through
the fog and crush his smack like a coconut-shell. At midnight the
chief may have stopped to write, for there was a pause--but a
breathing-spell. Then the pacing again till the attache left at 3 A.M.
When he came in the morning, not unanxious himself, he found his chief
eating breakfast alone in the unquitted room. On the table lay a
sheet of written paper: instructions for General Hooker to renew
fighting although it only brought the slap on the other cheek--at
Winchester--and still Lee pressed on into Pennsylvania till Harrisburg
was menaced! But Meade supplanted "Fighting Joe," and Gettysburg wiped
out the shame of the later repulses.

(The private secretary was W. O. Stoddard.)

* * * * *

WORKING FOR A LIVING MAKES ONE PRACTICAL.

The year 1863 was black-lettered in the North by disaster. General
Hooker had been badly beaten by General Lee. The Confederate advance
into Pennsylvania shook the strongest faith in the triumph of the
Federal arms, and the victory of Gettysburg was attained at a bloody
cost. The draft riots in New York excited a fear that the discontent
with the colossal strife was deep-rooted. General Thomas, at
Chickamauga, saved the Union Army from destruction, but the call for
300,000 three-years' men denoted that the end was not even glimpsed.
Nevertheless, this latter feat of arms gladdened tremulous Washington,
and among the exploits was cited to the President the desperate
victualing of General Thomas' exhausted troops by General Garfield.
He performed a dangerous ride from Rosencrantz to the beleagured victor
and brought him craved-for provisions.

"How is it," inquired President Lincoln of an officer, courier of the
details, "that Garfield did in two weeks what would have taken one of
your _West Pointers_ two months to accomplish?"

The recollection was perfectly well understood by the regular, who
thought the amateur commander "meddled too much" with the operations
of the field.

"Because he was not educated at West Point," was the reply, but half
in jest.

"No, that was not the reason," corrected the questioner; "it was
because, when a boy, he had to work for a living."

He rewarded "the purveyor-general" with the rank of major-general.

* * * * *

"HOLD ON AND CHAW!"

While in July, 1863, General Grant was held at Vicksburg by the siege
which he successfully prosecuted, the New York draft riots broke out.
Without knowing from experience that a riot, however portentous, must
cease when the mob are drunk or spent, the inevitable contingencies,
in his alarm General Halleck, at Washington, begged General Grant to
send reenforcements, that he might not weaken the capital defenses
to any extent. The commander of the West declined and referred to the
President. General Horace Porter was on Grant's staff and saw his
smiles as he read the despatch from headquarters.

"The President has more nerve than any of his advisers," observed he
to his officers, for Lincoln did not agree with his Cabinet, as to the
revolution in the rear; and the message was sent by the staff:

"I have seen your despatch, expressing your unwillingness to break
your hold. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and
_chaw_ and choke as much as possible!"

* * * * *

THE GREAT NATIONAL JOB.

"The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the
sea.... The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who
bore an honorable part in it. And while those who cleared the great
river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say
that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam,
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. Nor must
Uncle Sam's webfeet be forgotten. Not only on the deep sea, the broad
bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bay, and
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been, and made their
tracks! Thanks to all--for the great republic!"--(Letter by President
Lincoln, regretting inability to attend a meeting of unconditional
Union men at Springfield, Illinois; dated August 26, 1863, to
J. C. Conkling.)

* * * * *

FOR FLAYING A MAN ALIVE.

A representative of Ohio, Alexander Long, proposed in the House a
recognition of the Southern Confederacy. It must be borne in mind
that, before the firing on the supply-steamer at Charleston, which
was despatched surreptitiously not "to offend the sympathizers'
susceptibilities," many good citizens, dwelling on the silence of the
Constitution as to secession, said openly that they did not see why
the States chafing under the partnership all the original thirteen
made, should not withdraw peacefully. Long was not solitary in his
unseemly proposition, which, however, could never have been otherwise
than untimely after the first shot.

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