The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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* * * * *

AFTER VOTES.

Lincoln had become the readiest of public speakers by his long
experience. So it was matter for surprise that he, famed for rapid
repartee, should have refrained from taking any notice of an
interrupter whose shout could have been turned on him; so thought
a friend on the platform.

"Why don't you answer him?"

"I am after votes and that man's is as good as any other man's!"
replied Mr. Lincoln.

(The Honorable Mr. Palmer says of above: "Mr. Lincoln told me this.")

* * * * *

THE HIGHWAYMAN'S NON SEQUITUR.

"But you will not abide the election of a Republican President? In
that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then, you
say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is
cool! A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his
teeth: 'Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you--and then you will be
a murderer!'"--(Speech, New York City, February 27, 1860.)

* * * * *

"HOW TO GET MEN TO VOTE!"

"Let them go on with their howling! (Political opponents.) They will
succeed when, by slandering women, you get them to love you, or by
slandering men you get them to vote for you!"

* * * * *

BEGINNING AT THE HEAD WITH CLOTHING.

Upon Mr. Lincoln's nomination in 1860, a hatter sent him a silk hat
for the advertisement and send-off. He put it on before the glass, and
said to his wife:

"Well, Mary, we are going to have some new clothes out of this job,
anyway!"

* * * * *

"LUCE A JUG--THE HANDLE ALL ONE SIDE."

Lincoln's intimates thought it remarkable that he should keep his
finger on the political pulse and show himself as fully cognizant
of the trend of popular feeling. Oddly enough the professional
politicians themselves would not own that he was a king among them,
though Douglas affirmed him to be in his time the most able man in
the Republican party. On clashing returns coming in, he humorously
remarked on two reports: "If that is the way doubtful districts are
coming in, I will not stop to hear from the certain ones." He observed
to Alexander H. Rice, then up for Congress in Massachusetts: "Your
district is a good deal like a jug--the handle is all one side!"

* * * * *

"SUCH A SUCKER AS ME, PRESIDENT!"

When Lincoln's wife, at his prospect of being United States senator
was on the verge of realization, reminded him of her prophecy, away
back in the fifties, that he would attain the highest niche--the
inevitable feminine "I told you so!" he clasped his knees in keen
enjoyment, and, laughing a roar, cried out:

"Think of such a _sucker_ as me as President!"

But presently, he said with his dry smile: "But I do not pretend I do
not want to go _to the Senate_!"--(Henry Villard, then newspaper
reporter.)

* * * * *

ONE HAPPY DAY.

To his friend Bowen, Lincoln avowed during the electioneering-time
that he was sure "from the word go," to become President, though the
split of the opposition into three parties was materially helpful:
Douglas, Bell, and Breckenridge. He thought the reward due him as
having gone "his whole length" for the Republican party, almost his
creation. So he frankly said on his success:

"I cannot conceal the fact that I am a very happy man. Who could help
being so under such circumstances?"--(To H. C. Bowen, of the New York
_Independent._)

* * * * *

OLD ABE WILL LOOK BETTER WHEN HIS HAIR IS COMBED.

"Did I ever tell you the joke the Chicago newsboys had on me? (To the
War Department telegraph manager, A. B. Chandler.) A short time
before my nomination (for President), I was at Chicago attending to a
lawsuit. A photographer asked me to sit for a picture, and I did so.
This coarse, rough hair of mine was in particularly bad tousle at
the time, and the picture presented me in all its fright. After my
nomination, this being about the only picture of me there was, copies
were struck off to show those who had never seen me how I looked. The
newsboys carried them around to sell, and had for their cry:

"'Here's your "Old Abe"--he will look better when he gets his hair
combed!'"

He laughed heartily, says Mr. Chandler.

NOTE.--Mrs. Lincoln seems to have perceived this bar to her husband's
facial beauty. For the journalist, Fiske, relating the arrival of the
Lincolns in New York for the Eastern tour in 1860, speaks thus of the
toilet to befit him for the reception by Mayor Fernando Wood:

"The train stopped, and Mrs. Lincoln opened her handbag, and said:

"'Abraham, I must fix you up a bit for these city folks.'

"Mr. Lincoln gently lifted her upon the seat before him. (She was an
undersized, stout woman.) She parted, combed, and brushed his hair.

"'Do I look nice, now, mother?' he affectionately asked.

"'Well, you'll do, Abraham,' replied Mrs. Lincoln critically."

* * * * *

A CURIOUS COMBINATION.

When the names of Lincoln and Hamlin were painted large on the street
banners, it was immediately noticed that a singular effect appeared,
as

* * * * *

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

One of the anagrams upon the President had, at least, peculiar
signification:

Abraham Lincoln: _O ba! an III. charm_.

It was Hamlin who proposed at the Lincoln Club, of New York, that a
day should be set aside as "the Lincoln Day."

* * * * *

THE SNAKE SIMILE.

"If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I
might seize the nearest stick and kill it. But if I found that snake
in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt
the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more
if I found it abed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself
by a solemn contract not to meddle with his children under any
circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of
getting rid of the gentleman alone. But--if there was a bed newly made
up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to
take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take
it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide."
--(Speech by Abraham Lincoln at New York Cooper Institute, and
repeated through Connecticut, 1860.)

* * * * *

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

The Reverend Doctor Moore, of Richmond, derived Lincoln from two
words, meaning: "On the precipice verge," and Davis as interpretable
as "God with us."

* * * * *

PAYING FOR WHISKY HE DID NOT DRINK.

In 1858, Mr. Lincoln was campaigning in Ohio, and staying in
Cincinnati at the Burnett House, it was the meeting-place of the party
of which he was the looming light. Some of the younger Republicans
(says Murat Halstead, there as a newspaper man) had refreshments in
his rooms, and from some stupid oversight, allowed the whisky and
cigars to be included in his bill. This raised a hot correspondence
between them and the guest, ticklish about his lifelong abstinence
principles. Mr. Halstead said that the episode rankled in the
blunderers after they had elected their pride President. He must have
felt like the gentleman at the inn dining-room who, falling asleep at
his meal, had the fowl consumed by some merry wags; then greasing his
lips with the drumstick, they left him before the carcass so that the
host naturally charged him with the feast.

* * * * *

"THE HIGHEST MERIT TO THE SOLDIER."

"This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all
classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has
been said, 'All that a man hath he will give for his life;' and, while
all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake,
and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit,
then, is due to the soldier."

* * * * *

"HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE?"

If Lincoln did not possess a wide range of reading, he had the habit
of committing to memory entire pages of the text he delighted in.
The consequence was his invariable ability to not only utter apt
quotations at length, but to cap them, if need be. Joining a group
of visitors to Washington, at the Soldiers' Home, during the war,
he suddenly, but in an undertone, murmured:

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest?

The women were affected to tears by their susceptible nature, the
surroundings of the cemetery with its graves, the evening dusk, and
the touching voice with its apposite lines. An effect he redoubled
by concluding:

And women o'er the graves shall weep,
Where nameless heroes calmly sleep!

* * * * *

THE STOKERS AS BRAVE AS ANY.

The first troops arriving by way of the Potomac River were the
volunteers of the first call, ninety-day men; the steamship
_Daylight_--name of good omen! It was torrential rain, but the
President and Secretary Seward came out to welcome them on the wharf.
As he would give a reception then and there, four sailors held a
tarpaulin over his head like a canopy, and he shook hands all around,
including the firemen and stokers out of the coal-hole. Grasping their
smutty hands, he declared that they were as brave as any one!
--(By General Viele, present.)

* * * * *

TRY AND GO AS FAR AS YOU CAN!

On the President, indefatigable in visiting the soldiers anywhere to
see "how the boys are getting on," telling the head surgeon at City
Point Hospital that he had come to shake hands with _all_ the
inmates, the medical authority demurred. There were several thousands
in the wards, and any man would be tired before he had gone the grand
rounds.

"I think," protested Lincoln, with his set smile and dogged
determination to have his own way, "I am quite equal to the task.
At any rate, I can try, and go as far as I can!"

It was on this, at another time--there were many of them, alas!--that
it being found that the patients in one ward were clamoring because
they had been passed over, he insisted on shaking off the fag and
going to pay them respect also.

"The brave boys must not be disappointed in their 'Father Abraham!'"

* * * * *

ARGUMENT OF "THE STUB-TAILED COW."

The President had the knack of illustrating a false syllogism by a
story from the front. Soldiers stole a cow from a farmyard. It had but
the stump of a tail, and foreseeing that there might be a requisition
by the owner, who passed for a Union sympathizer, they disguised the
creature by attaching a long switch from a dead bovine. Sure enough
the man came to headquarters, and from his patriotic plea of having
lost much by adhering to the old cause, his demand was accorded. If he
could find his lost animal, he was entitled to it and the offenders
would be punished. It had not been obtained by the regular forage,
that he swore. Well, he was brought by the officer seeing him round
to the pen where the beeves were secured which the commissariat duly
furnished. Here the rival suppliers had stabled the creature, and she
was lashing off the flies with the substitute for the detached tail
with supreme felicity in the lost enjoyment. The farmer scanned her
with more than a merely suspicious eye, so that the lookers-on grew
anxious, and the sub-officer with him, and who thought of his own
plate of beef, hastened to say:

"Well, you don't see anything here anywheres like your beastie,
do you, old father?"

"I dunno. Thar suttinly is one cow the pictur' of mine--but my
Lilywhite was a stump--had a stub-tail, you know!"

"Hum!" said the corporal firmly, "but this here cow has a long
tail!--ain't it?"

"True--and mine were a stub--let us seek farther, officer!"

* * * * *

PEGGED OR SEWED?

Shoemaking machinery not having attained the present development which
pastes imitation-leather uppers upon paper soles, the soldiers of the
first Union Army had to trudge in the boots made with wooden pegs to
hold the portions together; in wet weather the pegs swelled and held
tolerably, but in dryness the assimilation failed and the upper crust
yawned off the base like a crab-shell divided. As for the supposed
sewed ones, they went to the sub-officers, but the thread was so poor
that parting was as thorough as sudden. Mr. Lincoln _wonted_, as
Walt Whitman says, to repeat this tale when the army contractors were
swarming in his room for a bidding:

"A soldier of the Army of the Potomac was being carried to the rear
among the other wounded, when he spied one of the women following the
army to vend delicacies. In her basket, no doubt, were the cookies to
his fancy--the tarts and pies--open or covered. So he hailed her: 'Old
lady, are them pies sewed or pegged?'"

* * * * *

SOLDIERING APART FROM POLITICS.

In 1864, a soldier at work on the Baltimore defenses, an outbreak of
Southern sympathizers being apprehended, attended a Democratic meeting
and made a speech there in favor of its principles and General
McClellan as the standard-bearer. Secretary of War Stanton, fierce
like all apostates, turned on this Democrat, and his disgrace as to
the army was threatened. Captain Andrews went to the fountain-head
with his remonstrance. He was right, for Lincoln said:

"Andrews has as good a right to hold onto his Democracy, if he
chooses, as Stanton had to throw his overboard. No; when the military
duties of a soldier are fully and faithfully performed, he can manage
his politics his own way!"

* * * * *

A TIME THAT TRIED THE SOUL.

It was the Pennsylvania governor, Curtin, who brought the bad news
from Fredericksburg battle-field, where Burnside was repulsed in
December, 1862.

"It was a terrible slaughter--the scene a veritable slaughter-pen."

This blunt trope stirred up Lincoln, who had been a pig-slaughterer
in his day, remember. He groaned, wrung his hands, and "took on" with
terrible agony of spirit.

"I remember his saying over and over again," says the governor:
"'What has God put me in this place for?'"

* * * * *

"CABINET" TALK.

Like all persons whose early life was passed in seclusion from the
exhibitions common in society eager for anything to animate jaded
nerves, Mr. Lincoln at Washington sought distractions in his brief
intervals for them. One of the _shows_ he tolerated--he called
all sights so--was the seances of Charles E. Shockle--"Phoebus!
what a name!" This medium came to the capital in 1863, under eminent
auspices, and the President and his wife, members of the Cabinet,
and other first citizens were induced to patronize the illusions.
The spirits were irreverent, "pinching Stanton's and plucking Welles'
beard." As for the President, a rapping at his feet announced an
Indian eager "to communicate."

"Well, sir," said the President, "happy to hear what his Indian
majesty has to say. We have recently had a deputation of the red
Indians, and it was the only deputation, black, white, or red,
which did not volunteer advice about the conduct of the war!"

The writing-under-cover trick was played. A paper covered with Mr.
Stanton's handkerchief was found before the President, scrawled with
marks interpreted as advice for action, by Henry Knox--no one knew
him--but the lecturer said he was the first secretary of war in the
Revolution. The recipient said it was not Indian talk!

He transferred it to Mr. Stanton as concerning his province. He asked
for General Knox's forecast as to when the rebellion would be put
down. The reply was a jumble of wild truisms purporting to be from
great spirits, from Washington to Wilberforce.

"Well," exclaimed the President, "opinions differ as much among the
saints as among the--ahem--sinners!" He glanced at the _cabinet_
whence the materialized specters were to emerge if called upon, and
added: "The celestials' talk and advice sound very much like the talk
of _my_ Cabinet!"

He called for Stephen A. Douglas, as his dearest friend, [Footnote:
Stephen Arnold Douglas was so patriotic at the Rebellion's outbreak
that Lincoln forgave him all the politically, hostile past.
Douglas held his new silk hat--Lincoln's abhorrence--at the first
inauguration. Douglas left the field for home, where he assisted in
raising the first volunteer levy by his eloquence.] to speak, if not
appear. The reporter affirms that a voice like the lamented "Little
Giant's" was heard and if others thought they recognized it the
President must have been more affected than he allowed. But the
eloquent statesman also breathed platitudes in which the illustrious
auditor said he believed, "whether it comes from spirit or human."

Here Mr. Shockle became prostrated, and Mrs. Lincoln compassionately
suggested an adjournment. The Spiritualists did not see the sarcasm in
Mr. Lincoln's remarks, and claim that he was not only a convert, but
that he was himself a medium. [Footnote: There is serious evidence for
this fact; he was, at all events, a Spiritualist. See _Was Lincoln
a Spiritualist?_ By Mrs. Nettie Colburn Maynard (1891).]

* * * * *

ON THE BLISTER-BENCH.

At the taking of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1862, the steamer
_Valley City_ was saved from blowing up by a gunner's-mate. This
John Davis coolly sat on a powder-keg from which the top had been shot
off, and was so found by an officer, who hastily censured him for his
loafing--"bumming" during recess. But, on the reason for his taking
his seat being pointed out, Davis was recommended for promotion.
In countersigning the papers entitling him to the rank of gunner,
at a thousand a year for life, the President mock-solemnly observed:

"Metaphorically, we occupy the same position; _we_ are sitting on
the powder under fire!"

* * * * *

"ABE, A THUNDERING OLD GLORY!"

Ex-Registrar Chittenden tells the following incident. It was the 14th
of April, 1865. Captain Robert Lincoln, on General Grant's staff, had
brought the details of the victory of Appomattox, and the gratified
chief had passed the day with the Cabinet revolving those plans of
reconstruction which amazed all the world by their exclusion of
all bitterness and retaliation. He was coming down the White House
stairway to take his accustomed ride in the carriage when he heard
a soldier in the waiting crowd say:

"I would almost give my other hand (he was one-armed) if I could shake
Abe Lincoln's hand!"

Lincoln confronted him. "You shall do that, and it shall cost you
nothing!" interrupted the revivified President, grasping the lone
hand, and, while he held it, he asked the man's name, regiment, etc.

The happy soldier, in telling of this meeting, would end: "I tell you,
boys, Abe Lincoln is a thundering Old Glory!"

* * * * *

PERFECT RETALIATION.

The more apparent it was that inconsistency reigned ins the Lincolnian
Cabinet, the more earnestly the marplots strove to incite them
individually against one another and their head. A speculator who had
induced the latter to oblige him with a permit to trade in cotton
reported with zest how Secretary Stanton had no sooner seen the paper
than, instead of countersigning, he tore up the leaf without respect
even for the august signature. Stanton was famous for irascibility.
And he did not forbear to manifest it toward all, even to the
President. But, as the latter observed, hot or cold, Stanton is
generally right. This time he was not sorry at heart for the reproof
as to his allowing a signal favor which might work harm. But,
affecting rage, he blurted out:

"Oh, he tore my paper, did he? Go and tell Stanton that I will tear
up a dozen of _his_ papers before Saturday night!"

* * * * *

LET DOWN THE BARS A LEETLE.

One of the mischief-makers abounding in Washington, and doing more
harm than all the rebel calumniators, hastened to repeat to the
President that the secretary of war had plainly called him a "d---d
fool!"

"You don't say so? This wants looking into. For, if Stanton called me
that, it must be true!--for he is nearly every time right!" He took
his seat, and excused himself, jerking out as he stalked forth, glad
to be quit of the pest:

"I will step over and see him!"

He was going to have the bars let down "a leetle."

* * * * *

"THE ADMINISTRATION CAN STAND IT IF THE TIMES CAN."

Mrs. Hugh McCulloch and Mrs. Dole (Indian Commissioner) went to Mrs.
Lincoln's reception. The host expressed constant gladness to see the
ladies, as "they asked no offices."

Mrs. McCulloch protested that she did want something.

"I want you to suppress the Chicago _Times_ because it does
nothing but abuse the Administration."

McCulloch was in the treasury.

"Oh, tut, tut! We must not abridge the liberties of: the press or the
people! [Footnote: The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, 1863, was
sorely against the President's sentiments, fond of liberty himself
and fixed on constitutional rule--but he bowed to the inevitable.
Nevertheless, he softened the rod, and many imprisoned under the edict
were never brought to trial.] But never mind the Chicago _Times_!
The Administration can stand it, if the _Times_ can."

* * * * *

BOTTLING THAT WASP.

It was confidently forethought by the numerous admirers of Governor
Seward--who escaped being the President by a political combination
and not want of supreme merit--that he would in the Cabinet, whatever
nominally his post, be the ruling spirit. Not a man suspected that the
plain man of the prairie could develop into the lord of the manor, and
put and keep not only the able and cultured Seward, but the turbulent
Stanton and the obstreperous Chase, in their places. The pettifogger
of the West simply expanded, like its sunflower, in the fierce white
light around the chair, and was the lion, among the lesser creatures.

Seward raised his hand early. Within a month he had the impertinent
fatuity to lay before his superior a paper suggesting the policy, and
moving that the President might commit to him, the secretary, the
carrying out of that policy! With gentle courtesy--says General
Viele--Lincoln took the paper from the author and popped it into
his portfolio. He had no policy, and did not want another's. He had
bottled his wasp. Seward was obedient as the spaniel. His powers were
recognized by the villains who comprised him in the detestable plot.

* * * * *

THAT KING LOST HIS HEAD.

In 1865 the President and his state secretary received as peace
commissioners Alexander Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell. They wanted
recognition of their President, Davis, as head of the Confederated
States--an entity. Without stultification, this was impossible. In the
course of the discussion, reference was made to King Charles I. of
England and his Parliament negotiating--so might the established
Washington government treat with the rebel Davis. On Lincoln's
features stole that grim smile foretelling his shaft ready to shoot,
and he interjected:

"Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he
is posted on such things, and I do not profess to be; but my only
distinct recollection of that matter is that Charles I. lost his
head!"

* * * * *

SWEARING LIKE A CHURCHWARDEN.

To convey the President from General Hooker's camp to the review
of General Reynolds' corps, a ride had to be taken in a six-mule
ambulance. Either not knowing the rank of his passenger, or being a
teamster, which in our army replaces the French sapper for rudeness,
the driver showered as many oaths of the largest caliber--fire and
fury signifying nothing--as snaps of the long cowhide. Lincoln, who
had known the genus in the clay of the West, kept his eye on him
while leaning out of the window. In an interval when the vociferator
had to take breath, he asked quietly:

"Excuse me, my friend, are you an Episcopalian?"

"N-no, Mr. President," stammered the astonished jehu, "I am a
Methodist."

"Well, I thought you must be an Episcopalian, for you swear like
Secretary Seward, a warden of that church."

(Seward was the great man of the Republican party, next to Lincoln
only in some essentials for political success. While a church member,
he was man of the world enough to give a backing to this jest of the
President.)

* * * * *

"MY SPEECHES HAVE ORIGINALITY AS THEIR MERIT."

Instead of believing that Lincoln's extraordinary experiences in the
multifarious West produced a factotum, his revilers asserted that he
looked to one minister for financial instructions, to another for
military guidance, etc. But it is true that by tradition, as the
premier in fact, the secretary of state is supposed to write the first
drafts at least of the presidential speeches to foreign ministers,
and, as the secretary was Seward, a man of letters preeminently, he
had Lincoln's addresses, even to home delegations, fathered upon him.

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