Judge Joseph Gillespie, of Chicago, was a firm friend of Mr. Lincoln, and went to Springfield to see him shortly before his departure for the inauguration.
“It was,” said judge Gillespie, “Lincoln’s Gethsemane. He feared he was not the man for the great position and the great events which confronted him. Untried in national affairs, unversed in international diplomacy, unacquainted with the men who were foremost in the politics of the nation, he groaned when he saw the inevitable War of the Rebellion coming on. It was in humility of spirit that he told me he believed that the American people had made a mistake in selecting him.
“In the course of our conversation he told me if he could select his cabinet from the old bar that had traveled the circuit with him in the early days, he believed he could avoid war or settle it without a battle, even after the fact of secession.
“‘But, Mr. Lincoln,’ said I, ‘those old lawyers are all Democrats.’
“‘I know it,’ was his reply. ‘But I would rather have Democrats whom I know than Republicans I don’t know.’”
“I remember one day being in his room when Lincoln was sitting at his table with a large pile of papers before him, and after a pleasant talk he turned quite abruptly and said: ‘Get out of the way, Swett; to-morrow is butcher-day, and I must go through these papers and see if I cannot find some excuse to let these poor fellows off.’
“The pile of papers he had were the records of courts-martial of men who on the following day were to be shot.”
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It took quite a long time, as well as the lives of thousands of men, to say nothing of the cost in money, to take Richmond, the Capital City of the Confederacy. In this cartoon, taken from “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,” of February 21, 1863, Jeff Davis is sitting upon the Secession eggs in the “Richmond” nest, smiling down upon President Lincoln, who is up to his waist in the Mud of Difficulties.
The President finally waded through the morass, in which he had become immersed, got to the tree, climbed its trunk, reached the limb, upon which the “bad bird” had built its nest, threw the mother out, destroyed the eggs of Secession and then took the nest away with him, leaving the “bad bird” without any home at all.
The “bad bird” had its laugh first, but the last laugh belonged to the “mudsill,” as the cartoonist was pleased to call the President of the United States. It is true that the President got his clothes and hat all covered with mud, but as the job was a dirty one, as well as one that had to be done, the President didn’t care. He was able to get another suit of clothes, as well as another hat, but the “bad bird” couldn’t, and didn’t, get another nest.
The laugh was on the “bad bird” after all.
Once, when asked what he remembered about the war with Great Britain, Lincoln replied: “Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish, which I was taking home. I met a soldier in the road, and, having been always told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish.”
This must have been about 1814, when “Abe” was five years of age.
Lincoln was once associate counsel for a defendant in a murder case. He listened to the testimony given by witness after witness against his client, until his honest heart could stand it no longer; then, turning to his associate, he said: “The man is guilty; you defend him—I can’t,” and when his associate secured a verdict of acquittal, Lincoln refused to share the fee to the extent of one cent.
Lincoln would never advise clients to enter into unwise or unjust lawsuits, always preferring to refuse a retainer rather than be a party to a case which did not commend itself to his sense of justice.
General Creswell called at the White House to see the President the day of the latter’s assassination. An old friend, serving in the Confederate ranks, had been captured by the Union troops and sent to prison. He had drawn an affidavit setting forth what he knew about the man, particularly mentioning extenuating circumstances.
Creswell found the President very happy. He was greeted with: “Creswell, old fellow, everything is bright this morning. The War is over. It has been a tough time, but we have lived it out,—or some of us have,” and he dropped his voice a little on the last clause of the sentence. “But it is over; we are going to have good times now, and a united country.”
General Creswell told his story, read his affidavit, and said, “I know the man has acted like a fool, but he is my friend, and a good fellow; let him out; give him to me, and I will be responsible that he won’t have anything more to do with the rebs.”
“Creswell,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “you make me think of a lot of young folks who once started out Maying. To reach their destination, they had to cross a shallow stream, and did so by means of an old flatboat. When the time came to return, they found to their dismay that the old scow had disappeared. They were in sore trouble, and thought over all manner of devices for getting over the water, but without avail.
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“After a time, one of the boys proposed that each fellow should pick up the girl he liked best and wade over with her. The masterly proposition was carried out, until all that were left upon the island was a little short chap and a great, long, gothic-built, elderly lady.
“Now, Creswell, you are trying to leave me in the same predicament. You fellows are all getting your own friends out of this scrape; and you will succeed in carrying off one after another, until nobody but Jeff Davis and myself will be left on the island, and then I won’t know what to do. How should I feel? How should I look, lugging him over?
“I guess the way to avoid such an embarrassing situation is to let them all out at once.”
He made a somewhat similar illustration at an informal Cabinet meeting, at which the disposition of Jefferson Davis and other prominent Confederates was discussed. Each member of the Cabinet gave his opinion; most of them were for hanging the traitors, or for some severe punishment. President Lincoln said nothing.
Finally, Joshua F. Speed, his old and confidential friend, who had been invited to the meeting, said, “I have heard the opinion of your Ministers, and would like to hear yours.”
“Well, Josh,” replied President Lincoln, “when I was a boy in Indiana, I went to a neighbor’s house one morning and found a boy of my own size holding a coon by a string. I asked him what he had and what he was doing.
“He says, ‘It’s a coon. Dad cotched six last night, and killed all but this poor little cuss. Dad told me to hold him until he came back, and I’m afraid he’s going to kill this one too; and oh, “Abe,” I do wish he would get away!’
“‘Well, why don’t you let him loose?’
“‘That wouldn’t be right; and if I let him go, Dad would give me h—. But if he got away himself, it would be all right.’
“Now,” said the President, “if Jeff Davis and those other fellows will only get away, it will be all right. But if we should catch them, and I should let them go, ‘Dad would give me h—!’”
Don Piatt, a noted journalist of Washington, told the story of the first proposition to President Lincoln to issue interest-bearing notes as currency, as follows:
“Amasa Walker, a distinguished financier of New England, suggested that notes issued directly from the Government to the people, as currency, should bear interest. This for the purpose, not only of making the notes popular, but for the purpose of preventing inflation, by inducing people to hoard the notes as an investment when the demands of trade would fail to call them into circulation as a currency.
“This idea struck David Taylor, of Ohio, with such force that he sought Mr. Lincoln and urged him to put the project into immediate execution. The President listened patiently, and at the end said, ‘That is a good idea, Taylor, but you must go to Chase. He is running that end of the machine, and has time to consider your proposition.’
“Taylor sought the Secretary of the Treasury, and laid before him Amasa Walker’s plan. Secretary Chase heard him through in a cold, unpleasant manner, and then said: ‘That is all very well, Mr. Taylor; but there is one little obstacle in the way that makes the plan impracticable, and that is the Constitution.’
“Saying this, he turned to his desk, as if dismissing both Mr. Taylor and his proposition at the same moment.
“The poor enthusiast felt rebuked and humiliated. He returned to the President, however, and reported his defeat. Mr. Lincoln looked at the would-be financier with the expression at times so peculiar to his homely face, that left one in doubt whether he was jesting or in earnest. ‘Taylor!’ he exclaimed, ‘go back to Chase and tell him not to bother himself about the Constitution. Say that I have that sacred instrument here at the White House, and I am guarding it with great care.’
“Taylor demurred to this, on the ground that Secretary Chase showed by his manner that he knew all about it, and didn’t wish to be bored by any suggestion.
“‘We’ll see about that,’ said the President, and taking a card from the table, he wrote upon it:
“‘The Secretary of the Treasury will please consider Mr. Taylor’s proposition. We must have money, and I think this a good way to get it.
“‘A. LINCOLN.’”
Among the men whom Captain Lincoln met in the Black Hawk campaign were Lieutenant-Colonel Zachary Taylor, Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, and Lieutenant Robert Anderson, all of the United States Army.
Judge Arnold, in his “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” relates that Lincoln and Anderson did not meet again until some time in 1861. After Anderson had evacuated Fort Sumter, on visiting Washington, he called at the White House to pay his respects to the President. Lincoln expressed his thanks to Anderson for his conduct at Fort Sumter, and then said:
“Major, do you remember of ever meeting me before?”
“No, Mr. President, I have no recollection of ever having had that pleasure.”
“My memory is better than yours,” said Lincoln; “you mustered me into the service of the United States in 1832, at Dixon’s Ferry, in the Black Hawk war.”
In February, 1860, not long before his nomination for the Presidency, Lincoln made several speeches in Eastern cities. To an Illinois acquaintance, whom he met at the Astor House, in New York, he said: “I have the cottage at Springfield, and about three thousand dollars in money. If they make me Vice-President with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand, and that is as much as any man ought to want.”
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“A few days after the battle of Antietam, the President was driving over the field in an ambulance, accompanied by Marshal Lamon, General McClellan and another officer. Heavy details of men were engaged in the task of burying the dead. The ambulance had just reached the neighborhood of the old stone bridge, where the dead were piled highest, when Mr. Lincoln, suddenly slapping Marshal Lamon on the knee, exclaimed: ‘Come, Lamon, give us that song about “Picayune Butler”; McClellan has never heard it.’
“‘Not now, if you please,’ said General McClellan, with a shudder; ‘I would prefer to hear it some other place and time.’”
President Lincoln refused to pay any attention to the story, would not read the comments made upon it by the newspapers, and would permit neither denial nor explanation to be made. The National election was coming on, and the President’s friends appealed to him to settle the matter for once and all. Marshal Lamon was particularly insistent, but the President merely said:
“Let the thing alone. If I have not established character enough to give the lie to this charge, I can only say that I am mistaken in my own estimate of myself. In politics, every man must skin his own skunk. These fellows are welcome to the hide of this one. Its body has already given forth its unsavory odor.”
But Lamon would not “let the thing alone.” He submitted to Lincoln a draft of what he conceived to be a suitable explanation, after reading which the President said:
“Lamon, your ‘explanation’ is entirely too belligerent in tone for so grave a matter. There is a heap of ‘cussedness’ mixed up with your usual amiability, and you are at times too fond of a fight. If I were you, I would simply state the facts as they were. I would give the statement as you have here, without the pepper and salt. Let me try my hand at it.”
The President then took up a pen and wrote the following, which was copied and sent out as Marshal Lamon’s refutation of the shameless slander:
“The President has known me intimately for nearly twenty years, and has often heard me sing little ditties. The battle of Antietam was fought on the 17th day of September, 1862. On the first day of October, just two weeks after the battle, the President, with some others, including myself, started from Washington to visit the Army, reaching Harper’s Ferry at noon of that day.
“In a short while General McClellan came from his headquarters near the battleground, joined the President, and with him reviewed the troops at Bolivar Heights that afternoon, and at night returned to his headquarters, leaving the President at Harper’s Ferry.
“On the morning of the second, the President, with General Sumner, reviewed the troops respectively at Loudon Heights and Maryland Heights, and at about noon started to General McClellan’s headquarters, reaching there only in time to see very little before night.
“On the morning of the third all started on a review of the Third Corps and the cavalry, in the vicinity of the Antietam battle-ground. After getting through with General Burnside’s corps, at the suggestion of General McClellan, he and the President left their horses to be led, and went into an ambulance to go to General Fitz John Porter’s corps, which was two or three miles distant.
“I am not sure whether the President and General McClellan were in the same ambulance, or in different ones; but myself and some others were in the same with the President. On the way, and on no part of the battleground, and on what suggestions I do not remember, the President asked me to sing the little sad song that follows (“Twenty Years Ago, Tom”), which he had often heard me sing, and had always seemed to like very much.
“After it was over, some one of the party (I do not think it was the President) asked me to sing something else; and I sang two or three little comic things, of which ‘Picayune Butler’ was one. Porter’s corps was reached and reviewed; then the battle-ground was passed over, and the most noted parts examined; then, in succession, the cavalry and Franklin’s corps were reviewed, and the President and party returned to General McClellan’s headquarters at the end of a very hard, hot and dusty day’s work.
“Next day (the 4th), the President and General McClellan visited such of the wounded as still remained in the vicinity, including the now lamented General Richardson; then proceeded to and examined the South-Mountain battle-ground, at which point they parted, General McClellan returning to his camp, and the President returning to Washington, seeing, on the way, General Hartsoff, who lay wounded at Frederick Town.
“This is the whole story of the singing and its surroundings. Neither General McClellan nor any one else made any objections to the singing; the place was not on the battle-field; the time was sixteen days after the battle; no dead body was seen during the whole time the President was absent from Washington, nor even a grave that had not been rained on since the time it was made.”
Nothing in Lincoln’s entire career better illustrated the surprising resources of his mind than his manner of dealing with “The Trent Affair.” The readiness and ability with which he met this perilous emergency, in a field entirely new to his experience, was worthy the most accomplished diplomat and statesman. Admirable, also, was his cool courage and self-reliance in following a course radically opposed to the prevailing sentiment throughout the country and in Congress, and contrary to the advice of his own Cabinet.
Secretary of the Navy Welles hastened to approve officially the act of Captain Wilkes in apprehending the Confederate Commissioners Mason and Slidell, Secretary Stanton publicly applauded, and even Secretary of State Seward, whose long public career had made him especially conservative, stated that he was opposed to any concession or surrender of Mason and Slidell.
But Lincoln, with great sagacity, simply said, “One war at a time.”
The President made his last public address on the evening of April 11th, 1865, to a gathering at the White House. Said he:
“We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.
“The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained.
“In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten.
“Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked; their honors must not be parceled out with others.
“I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for plan or execution, is mine.
“To General Grant, his skillful officers and brave men, all belongs.”
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One day an old lady from the country called on President Lincoln, her tanned face peering up to his through a pair of spectacles. Her errand was to present Mr. Lincoln a pair of stockings of her own make a yard long. Kind tears came to his eyes as she spoke to him, and then, holding the stockings one in each hand, dangling wide apart for general inspection, he assured her that he should take them with him to Washington, where (and here his eyes twinkled) he was sure he should not be able to find any like them.
Quite a number of well-known men were in the room with the President when the old lady made her presentation. Among them was George S. Boutwell, who afterwards became Secretary of the Treasury.
The amusement of the company was not at all diminished by Mr. Boutwell’s remark, that the lady had evidently made a very correct estimate of Mr. Lincoln’s latitude and longitude.
Lincoln was appointed postmaster at New Salem by President Jackson. The office was given him because everybody liked him, and because he was the only man willing to take it who could make out the returns. Lincoln was pleased, because it gave him a chance to read every newspaper taken in the vicinity. He had never been able to get half the newspapers he wanted before.
Years after the postoffice had been discontinued and Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer at Springfield, an agent of the Postoffice Department entered his office and inquired if Abraham Lincoln was within. Lincoln responded to his name, and was informed that the agent had called to collect the balance due the Department since the discontinuance of the New Salem office.
A shade of perplexity passed over Lincoln’s face, which did not escape the notice of friends present. One of them said at once:
“Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let us help you.”
He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, asked the agent how much the amount of his debt was.
The sum was named, and then Lincoln opened the trunk, pulled out a little package of coin wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the exact sum, amounting to more than seventeen dollars.
After the agent had left the room, he remarked quietly that he had never used any man’s money but his own. Although this sum had been in his hands during all those years, he had never regarded it as available, even for any temporary use of his own.
At a Saturday afternoon reception at the White House, many persons noticed three little girls, poorly dressed, the children of some mechanic or laboring man, who had followed the visitors into the White House to gratify their curiosity. They passed around from room to room, and were hastening through the reception-room, with some trepidation, when the President called to them:
“Little girls, are you going to pass me without shaking hands?”
Then he bent his tall, awkward form down, and shook each little girl warmly by the hand. Everybody in the apartment was spellbound by the incident, so simple in itself.
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Uncle Sam was pretty well satisfied with his horse, “Old Abe,” and, as shown at the Presidential election of 1864, made up his mind to keep him, and not “swap” the tried and true animal for a strange one. “Harper’s Weekly” of November 12th, 1864, had a cartoon which illustrated how the people of the United States felt about the matter better than anything published at the time. We reproduce it on this page. Beneath the picture was this text:
JOHN BULL: “Why don’t you ride the other horse a bit? He’s the best animal.” (Pointing to McClellan in the bushes at the rear.)
BROTHER JONATHAN: “Well, that may be; but the fact is, OLD ABE is just where I can put my finger on him; and as for the other—though they say he’s some when out in the scrub yonder—I never know where to find him.”
“One time I remember I asked Mr. Lincoln what attribute he considered most valuable to the successful politician,” said Captain T. W. S. Kidd, of Springfield.
“He laid his hand on my shoulder and said, very earnestly:
“‘To be able to raise a cause which shall produce an effect, and then fight the effect.’
“The more you think about it, the more profound does it become.”
A cashiered officer, seeking to be restored through the power of the executive, became insolent, because the President, who believed the man guilty, would not accede to his repeated requests, at last said, “Well, Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to do me justice!”
This was too aggravating even for Mr. Lincoln; rising he suddenly seized the disgraced officer by the coat collar, and marched him forcibly to the door, saying as he ejected him into the passage:
“Sir, I give you fair warning never to show your face in this room again. I can bear censure, but not insult. I never wish to see your face again.”
Salmon P. Chase, when Secretary of the Treasury, had a disagreement with other members of the Cabinet, and resigned.
The President was urged not to accept it, as “Secretary Chase is to-day a national necessity,” his advisers said.
“How mistaken you are!” Lincoln quietly observed. “Yet it is not strange; I used to have similar notions. No! If we should all be turned out to-morrow, and could come back here in a week, we should find our places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we did, and in many instances better.
“Now, this reminds me of what the Irishman said. His verdict was that ‘in this country one man is as good as another; and, for the matter of that, very often a great deal better.’ No; this Government does not depend upon the life of any man.”
George B. Lincoln, a prominent merchant of Brooklyn, was traveling through the West in 1855-56, and found himself one night in a town on the Illinois River, by the name of Naples. The only tavern of the place had evidently been constructed with reference to business on a small scale. Poor as the prospect seemed, Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but to put up at the place.
The supper-room was also used as a lodging-room. Mr. Lincoln told his host that he thought he would “go to bed.”
“Bed!” echoed the landlord. “There is no bed for you in this house unless you sleep with that man yonder. He has the only one we have to spare.”
“Well,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “the gentleman has possession, and perhaps would not like a bed-fellow.”
Upon this a grizzly head appeared out of the pillows, and said:
“What is your name?”
“They call me Lincoln at home,” was the reply.
“Lincoln!” repeated the stranger; “any connection of our Illinois Abraham?”
“No,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “I fear not.”
“Well,” said the old gentleman, “I will let any man by the name of ‘Lincoln’ sleep with me, just for the sake of the name. You have heard of Abe?” he inquired.
“Oh, yes, very often,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “No man could travel far in this State without hearing of him, and I would be very glad to claim connection if I could do so honestly.”
“Well,” said the old gentleman, “my name is Simmons. ‘Abe’ and I used to live and work together when young men. Many a job of woodcutting and rail-splitting have I done up with him. Abe Lincoln was the likeliest boy in God’s world. He would work all day as hard as any of us and study by firelight in the log-house half the night; and in this way he made himself a thorough, practical surveyor. Once, during those days, I was in the upper part of the State, and I met General Ewing, whom President Jackson had sent to the Northwest to make surveys. I told him about Abe Lincoln, what a student he was, and that I wanted he should give him a job. He looked over his memorandum, and, holding out a paper, said:
“‘There is County must be surveyed; if your friend can do the work properly, I shall be glad to have him undertake it—the compensation will be six hundred dollars.’
“Pleased as I could be, I hastened to Abe, after I got home, with an account of what I had secured for him. He was sitting before the fire in the log-cabin when I told him; and what do you think was his answer? When I finished, he looked up very quietly, and said:
“‘Mr. Simmons, I thank you very sincerely for your kindness, but I don’t think I will undertake the job.’
“‘In the name of wonder,’ said I, ‘why? Six hundred does not grow upon every bush out here in Illinois.’
“‘I know that,’ said Abe, ‘and I need the money bad enough, Simmons, as you know; but I have never been under obligation to a Democratic Administration, and I never intend to be so long as I can get my living another way. General Ewing must find another man to do his work.’”
A friend related this story to the President one day, and asked him if it were true.
“Pollard Simmons!” said Lincoln. “Well do I remember him. It is correct about our working together, but the old man must have stretched the facts somewhat about the survey of the county. I think I should have been very glad of the job at the time, no matter what Administration was in power.”
President Lincoln said, long before the National political campaign of 1864 had opened:
“If the unworthy ambition of politicians and the jealousy that exists in the army could be repressed, and all unite in a common aim and a common endeavor, the rebellion would soon be crushed.”
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The President once explained to a friend the theory of the Rebellion by the aid of the maps before him.
Running his long fore-finger down the map, he stopped at Virginia.
“We must drive them away from here” (Manassas Gap), he said, “and clear them out of this part of the State so that they cannot threaten us here (Washington) and get into Maryland.
“We must keep up a good and thorough blockade of their ports. We must march an army into East Tennessee and liberate the Union sentiment there. Finally we must rely on the people growing tired and saying to their leaders, ‘We have had enough of this thing, we will bear it no longer.’”
Such was President Lincoln’s plan for heading off the Rebellion in the summer of 1861. How it enlarged as the War progressed, from a call for seventy thousand volunteers to one for five hundred thousand men and $500,000,000 is a matter of well-known history.
Three or four days after the battle of Bull Run, some gentlemen who had been on the field called upon the President.
He inquired very minutely regarding all the circumstances of the affair, and, after listening with the utmost attention, said, with a touch of humor: “So it is your notion that we whipped the rebels and then ran away from them!”
Old Dennis Hanks was sent to Washington at one time by persons interested in securing the release from jail of several men accused of being copperheads. It was thought Old Dennis might have some influence with the President.
The latter heard Dennis’ story and then said: “I will send for Mr. Stanton. It is his business.”
Secretary Stanton came into the room, stormed up and down, and said the men ought to be punished more than they were. Mr. Lincoln sat quietly in his chair and waited for the tempest to subside, and then quietly said to Stanton he would like to have the papers next day.
When he had gone, Dennis said:
“‘Abe,’ if I was as big and as ugly as you are, I would take him over my knee and spank him.”
The President replied: “No, Stanton is an able and valuable man for this Nation, and I am glad to bear his anger for the service he can give the Nation.”
The quaint remark of the President to an applicant, “My dear sir, I have not much influence with the Administration,” was one of Lincoln’s little jokes.
Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, once replied to an order from the President to give a colonel a commission in place of the resigning brigadier:
“I shan’t do it, sir! I shan’t do it! It isn’t the way to do it, sir, and I shan’t do it. I don’t propose to argue the question with you, sir.”
A few days after, the friend of the applicant who had presented the order to Secretary Stanton called upon the President and related his reception. A look of vexation came over the face of the President, and he seemed unwilling to talk of it, and desired the friend to see him another day. He did so, when he gave his visitor a positive order for the promotion. The latter told him he would not speak to Secretary Stanton again until he apologized.
“Oh,” said the President, “Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe, and Dana is acting. He will attend to it for you.”
This he said with a manner of relief, as if it was a piece of good luck to find a man there who would obey his orders.
The nomination was sent to the Senate and confirmed.
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Many applications reached Lincoln as he passed to and from the White House and the War Department. One day as he crossed the park he was stopped by a negro, who told him a pitiful story. The President wrote him out a check, which read. “Pay to colored man with one leg five dollars.”
When the Republican party came into power, Washington swarmed with office-seekers. They overran the White House and gave the President great annoyance. The incongruity of a man in his position, and with the very life of the country at stake, pausing to appoint postmasters, struck Mr. Lincoln forcibly. “What is the matter, Mr. Lincoln,” said a friend one day, when he saw him looking particularly grave and dispirited. “Has anything gone wrong at the front?” “No,” said the President, with a tired smile. “It isn’t the war; it’s the postoffice at Brownsville, Missouri.”