Early in January, 1861, Colonel Alex. K. McClure, of Philadelphia, received a telegram from President-elect Lincoln, asking him (McClure) to visit him at Springfield, Illinois. Colonel McClure described his disappointment at first sight of Lincoln in these words:
“I went directly from the depot to Lincoln’s house and rang the bell, which was answered by Lincoln himself opening the door. I doubt whether a wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him.
“Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill clad, with a homeliness of manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the gravest period of its history.
“I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday—snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons, open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight or evening dresscoat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, and all supplemented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among men of intelligence.
“Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his plainly furnished parlor, and were uninterrupted during the nearly four hours that I remained with him, and little by little, as his earnestness, sincerity and candor were developed in conversation, I forgot all the grotesque qualities which so confounded me when I first greeted him.”
“If a man is honest in his mind,” said Lincoln one day, long before he became President, “you are pretty safe in trusting him.”
“Abe’s” nephew—or one of them—related a story in connection with Lincoln’s first love (Anne Rutledge), and his subsequent marriage to Miss Mary Todd. This nephew was a plain, every-day farmer, and thought everything of his uncle, whose greatness he quite thoroughly appreciated, although he did not pose to any extreme as the relative of a President of the United States.
Said he one day, in telling his story:
“Us child’en, w’en we heerd Uncle ‘Abe’ wuz a-goin’ to be married, axed Gran’ma ef Uncle ‘Abe’ never hed hed a gal afore, an’ she says, sez she, ‘Well, “Abe” wuz never a han’ nohow to run ‘round visitin’ much, or go with the gals, neither, but he did fall in love with a Anne Rutledge, who lived out near Springfield, an’ after she died he’d come home an’ ev’ry time he’d talk ‘bout her, he cried dreadful. He never could talk of her nohow ‘thout he’d jes’ cry an’ cry, like a young feller.’
“Onct he tol’ Gran’ma they wuz goin’ ter be hitched, they havin’ promised each other, an’ thet is all we ever heered ‘bout it. But, so it wuz, that arter Uncle ‘Abe’ hed got over his mournin’, he wuz married ter a woman w’ich hed lived down in Kentuck.
“Uncle ‘Abe’ hisself tol’ us he wuz married the nex’ time he come up ter our place, an’ w’en we ast him why he didn’t bring his wife up to see us, he said: ‘She’s very busy and can’t come.’
“But we knowed better’n that. He wuz too proud to bring her up, ’cause nothin’ would suit her, nohow. She wuzn’t raised the way we wuz, an’ wuz different from us, and we heerd, tu, she wuz as proud as cud be.
“No, an’ he never brought none uv the child’en, neither.
“But then, Uncle ‘Abe,’ he wuzn’t to blame. We never thought he wuz stuck up.”
“My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery.
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.
“If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
“What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
“I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.”
{9259}
One of President Lincoln’s friends, visiting at the White House, was finding considerable fault with the constant agitation in Congress of the slavery question. He remarked that, after the adoption of the Emancipation policy, he had hoped for something new.
“There was a man down in Maine,” said the President, in reply, “who kept a grocery store, and a lot of fellows used to loaf around for their toddy. He only gave ‘em New England rum, and they drank pretty considerable of it. But after awhile they began to get tired of that, and kept asking for something new—something new—all the time. Well, one night, when the whole crowd were around, the grocer brought out his glasses, and says he, ‘I’ve got something New for you to drink, boys, now.’
“‘Honor bright?’ said they.
“‘Honor bright,’ says he, and with that he sets out a jug. ‘Thar’ says he, ‘that’s something new; it’s New England rum!’ says he.
“Now,” remarked the President, in conclusion, “I guess we’re a good deal like that crowd, and Congress is a good deal like that store-keeper!”
When Mr. Lincoln was quite a small boy he met with an accident that almost cost him his life. He was saved by Austin Gollaher, a young playmate. Mr. Gollaher lived to be more than ninety years of age, and to the day of his death related with great pride his boyhood association with Lincoln.
“Yes,” Mr. Gollaher once said, “the story that I once saved Abraham Lincoln’s life is true. He and I had been going to school together for a year or more, and had become greatly attached to each other. Then school disbanded on account of there being so few scholars, and we did not see each other much for a long while.
“One Sunday my mother visited the Lincolns, and I was taken along. ‘Abe’ and I played around all day. Finally, we concluded to cross the creek to hunt for some partridges young Lincoln had seen the day before. The creek was swollen by a recent rain, and, in crossing on the narrow footlog, ‘Abe’ fell in. Neither of us could swim. I got a long pole and held it out to ‘Abe,’ who grabbed it. Then I pulled him ashore.
“He was almost dead, and I was badly scared. I rolled and pounded him in good earnest. Then I got him by the arms and shook him, the water meanwhile pouring out of his mouth. By this means I succeeded in bringing him to, and he was soon all right.
“Then a new difficulty confronted us. If our mothers discovered our wet clothes they would whip us. This we dreaded from experience, and determined to avoid. It was June, the sun was very warm, and we soon dried our clothing by spreading it on the rocks about us. We promised never to tell the story, and I never did until after Lincoln’s tragic end.”
In conversation with some friends at the White House on New Year’s evening, 1863, President Lincoln said, concerning his Emancipation Proclamation:
“The signature looks a little tremulous, for my hand was tired, but my resolution was firm.
“I told them in September, if they did not return to their allegiance, and cease murdering our soldiers, I would strike at this pillar of their strength.
“And now the promise shall be kept, and not one word of it will I ever recall.”
{9261}
During the time the enemies of General Grant were making their bitterest attacks upon him, and demanding that the President remove him from command, “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,” of June 13, 1863, came out with the cartoon reproduced. The text printed under the picture was to the following effect:
OLD ABE: “Greeley be hanged! I want no more new brooms. I begin to think that the worst thing about my old ones was in not being handled right.”
The old broom the President holds in his right hand is labeled “Grant.” The latter had captured Fort Donelson, defeated the Confederates at Shiloh, Iuka, Port Gibson, and other places, and had Vicksburg in his iron grasp. When the demand was made that Lincoln depose Grant, the President answered, “I can’t spare this man; he fights!” Grant never lost a battle and when he found the enemy he always fought him. McClellan, Burnside, Pope and Hooker had been found wanting, so Lincoln pinned his faith to Grant. As noted in the cartoon, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, Thurlow Weed, and others wanted Lincoln to try some other new brooms, but President Lincoln was wearied with defeats, and wanted a few victories to offset them. Therefore; he stood by Grant, who gave him victories.
These lines were found written in young Lincoln’s own hand at the bottom of a page whereon he had been ciphering. Lincoln always wrote a clear, regular “fist.” In this instance he evidently did not appreciate the sacredness of the name of the Deity, when he used a little “g.”
Lincoln once said he did not remember the time when he could not write.
It was the custom in Sangamon for the “menfolks” to gather at noon and in the evening, when resting, in a convenient lane near the mill. They had rolled out a long peeled log, on which they lounged while they whittled and talked.
Lincoln had not been long in Sangamon before he joined this circle. At once he became a favorite by his jokes and good-humor. As soon as he appeared at the assembly ground the men would start him to story-telling. So irresistibly droll were his “yarns” that whenever he’d end up in his unexpected way the boys on the log would whoop and roll off. The result of the rolling off was to polish the log like a mirror. The men, recognizing Lincoln’s part in this polishing, christened their seat “Abe’s log.”
Long after Lincoln had disappeared from Sangamon, “Abe’s log” remained, and until it had rotted away people pointed it out, and repeated the droll stories of the stranger.
{9263}
President Lincoln, in company with General Grant, was inspecting the Dutch Gap Canal at City Point. “Grant, do you know what this reminds me of? Out in Springfield, Ill., there was a blacksmith who, not having much to do, took a piece of soft iron and attempted to weld it into an agricultural implement, but discovered that the iron would not hold out; then he concluded it would make a claw hammer; but having too much iron, attempted to make an ax, but decided after working awhile that there was not enough iron left. Finally, becoming disgusted, he filled the forge full of coal and brought the iron to a white heat; then with his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed: ‘Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will make a fizzle, anyhow.’” “I was afraid that was about what we had done with the Dutch Gap Canal,” said General Grant.
When Lincoln was in the Black Hawk War as captain, the volunteer soldiers drank in with delight the jests and stories of the tall captain. Aesop’s Fables were given a new dress, and the tales of the wild adventures that he had brought from Kentucky and Indiana were many, but his inspiration was never stimulated by recourse to the whisky jug.
When his grateful and delighted auditors pressed this on him he had one reply: “Thank you, I never drink it.”
President Lincoln was passing down Pennsylvania avenue in Washington one day, when a man came running after him, hailed him, and thrust a bundle of papers in his hands.
It angered him not a little, and he pitched the papers back, saying, “I’m not going to open shop here.”
Lincoln delivered a remarkable speech at Springfield, Illinois, when but twenty-eight years of age, upon the liberty possessed by the people of the United States.
In part, he said:
“In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account running under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era.
“We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate.
“We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which history of former times tells us.
“We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings.
“We toiled not in the acquisition or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed to us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.
“Theirs was the task (and nobly did they perform it) to possess themselves, us, of this goodly land, to uprear upon its hills and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ‘tis ours to transmit these—the former unprofaned by the foot of an intruder, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation—to the generation that fate shall permit the world to know.
“This task, gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity—all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
“How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?
“Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow?
“Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa, combined, with all the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point, then, is this approach of danger to be expected?
“I answer, if ever it reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad.
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
“As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.
“I hope I am not over-wary; but, if I am not, there is even now something of ill-omen amongst us.
“I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country, the disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice.
“This disposition is awfully fearful in any community, and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit it, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to deny.
“Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the every-day news of the times.
“They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana; they are neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former, nor the burning sun of the latter.
“They are not the creatures of climate, neither are they confined to the slave-holding or non-slave-holding States.
“Alike they spring up among the pleasure-hunting Southerners and the order-loving citizens of the land of steady habits.
“Whatever, then, their cause may be, it is common to the whole country.
“Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they may undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or Presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle.
“What! Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never!
“Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
“It seeks no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others.
“It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief.
“It scorns to tread in the footpaths of any predecessor, however illustrious.
“It thirsts and burns for distinction, and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating the slaves or enslaving freemen.
“Another reason which once was, but which to the same extent is now no more, has done much in maintaining our institutions thus far.
“I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon the passions of the people, as distinguished from their judgment.
“But these histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength.
“But what the invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done, the levelling of the walls.
“They were a forest of giant oaks, but the all-resisting hurricane swept over them and left only here and there a lone trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more rude storms, then to sink and be no more.
“They were the pillars of the temple of liberty, and now that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, the descendants, supply the places with pillars hewn from the same solid quarry of sober reason.
“Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy.
“Reason—cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason—must furnish all the materials for our support and defense.
“Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and the laws; and then our country shall continue to improve, and our nation, revering his name, and permitting no hostile foot to pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be the first to hear the last trump that shall awaken our Washington.
“Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest as the rock of its basis, and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”
{9267}
One of Mr. Lincoln’s warm friends was Dr. Robert Boal, of Lacon, Illinois. Telling of a visit he paid to the White House soon after Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, he said: “I found him the same Lincoln as a struggling lawyer and politician that I did in Washington as President of the United States, yet there was a dignity and self-possession about him in his high official authority. I paid him a second call in the evening. He had thrown off his reserve somewhat, and would walk up and down the room with his hands to his sides and laugh at the joke he was telling, or at one that was told to him. I remember one story he told to me on this occasion.
“Tom Corwin, of Ohio, had been down to Alexandria, Va., that day and had come back and told Lincoln a story which pleased him so much that he broke out in a hearty laugh and said: ‘I must tell you Tom Corwin’s latest. Tom met an old man at Alexandria who knew George Washington, and he told Tom that George Washington often swore. Now, Corwin’s father had always held the father of our country up as a faultless person and told his son to follow in his footsteps.
“‘"Well,” said Corwin, “when I heard that George Washington was addicted to the vices and infirmities of man, I felt so relieved that I just shouted for joy.”’”
The lawyers on the circuit traveled by Lincoln got together one night and tried him on the charge of accepting fees which tended to lower the established rates. It was the understood rule that a lawyer should accept all the client could be induced to pay. The tribunal was known as “The Ogmathorial Court.”
Ward Lamon, his law partner at the time, tells about it:
“Lincoln was found guilty and fined for his awful crime against the pockets of his brethren of the bar. The fine he paid with great good humor, and then kept the crowd of lawyers in uproarious laughter until after midnight.
“He persisted in his revolt, however, declaring that with his consent his firm should never during its life, or after its dissolution, deserve the reputation enjoyed by those shining lights of the profession, ‘Catch ‘em and Cheat ‘em.’”
Lincoln had assisted in the prosecution of a man who had robbed his neighbor’s hen roosts. Jogging home along the highway with the foreman of the jury that had convicted the hen stealer, he was complimented by Lincoln on the zeal and ability of the prosecution, and remarked: “Why, when the country was young, and I was stronger than I am now, I didn’t mind packing off a sheep now and again, but stealing hens!” The good man’s scorn could not find words to express his opinion of a man who would steal hens.
A lawyer, who was a stranger to Mr. Lincoln, once expressed to General Linder the opinion that Mr. Lincoln’s practice of telling stories to the jury was a waste of time.
“Don’t lay that flattering unction to your soul,” Linder answered; “Lincoln is like Tansey’s horse, he ‘breaks to win.’”
{0269}
On the 3rd of January, 1863, “Harper’s Weekly” appeared with a cartoon representing Columbia indignantly demanding of President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton that they restore to her those of her sons killed in battle. Below the picture is the reading matter:
COLUMBIA: “Where are my 15,000 sons—murdered at Fredericksburg?”
LINCOLN: “This reminds me of a little joke—”
COLUMBIA: “Go tell your joke at Springfield!!”
The battle of Fredericksburg was fought on December 13th, 1862, between General Burnside, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and General Lee’s force. The Union troops, time and again, assaulted the heights where the Confederates had taken position, but were driven back with frightful losses. The enemy, being behind breastworks, suffered comparatively little. At the beginning of the fight the Confederate line was broken, but the result of the engagement was disastrous to the Union cause. Burnside had one thousand one hundred and fifty-two killed, nine thousand one hundred and one wounded, and three thousand two hundred and thirty-four missing, a total of thirteen thousand seven hundred and seventy-one. General Lee’s losses, all told, were not much more than five thousand men.
Burnside had succeeded McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac, mainly, it was said, through the influence of Secretary of War Stanton. Three months before, McClellan had defeated Lee at Antietam, the bloodiest battle of the War, Lee’s losses footing up more than thirteen thousand men. At Fredericksburg, Burnside had about one hundred and twenty thousand men; at Antietam, McClellan had about eighty thousand. It has been maintained that Burnside should not have fought this battle, the chances of success being so few.
“Abe’s” school teacher, Crawford, endeavored to teach his pupils some of the manners of the “polite society” of Indiana—1823 or so. This was a part of his system:
One of the pupils would retire, and then come in as a stranger, and another pupil would have to introduce him to all the members of the school n what was considered “good manners.”
As “Abe” wore a linsey-woolsey shirt, buckskin breeches which were too short and very tight, and low shoes, and was tall and awkward, he no doubt created considerable merriment when his turn came. He was growing at a fearful rate; he was fifteen years of age, and two years later attained his full height of six feet four inches.
Early in 1831, “Abe” was one of the guests of honor at a boat-launching, he and two others having built the craft. The affair was a notable one, people being present from the territory surrounding. A large party came from Springfield with an ample supply of whisky, to give the boat and its builders a send-off. It was a sort of bipartisan mass-meeting, but there was one prevailing spirit, that born of rye and corn. Speeches were made in the best of feeling, some in favor of Andrew Jackson and some in favor of Henry Clay. Abraham Lincoln, the cook, told a number of funny stories, and it is recorded that they were not of too refined a character to suit the taste of his audience. A sleight-of-hand performer was present, and among other tricks performed, he fried some eggs in Lincoln’s hat. Judge Herndon says, as explanatory to the delay in passing up the hat for the experiment, Lincoln drolly observed: “It was out of respect for the eggs, not care for my hat.”
William G. Greene, an old-time friend of Lincoln, was a student at Illinois College, and one summer brought home with him, on a vacation, Richard Yates (afterwards Governor of Illinois) and some other boys, and, in order to entertain them, took them up to see Lincoln.
He found him in his usual position and at his usual occupation—flat on his back, on a cellar door, reading a newspaper. This was the manner in which a President of the United States and a Governor of Illinois became acquainted with each other.
Greene says Lincoln repeated the whole of Burns, and a large quantity of Shakespeare for the entertainment of the college boys, and, in return, was invited to dine with them on bread and milk. How he managed to upset his bowl of milk is not a matter of history, but the fact is that he did so, as is the further fact that Greene’s mother, who loved Lincoln, tried to smooth over the accident and relieve the young man’s embarrassment.
Once “Abe” borrowed Weems’ “Life of Washington” from Joseph Crawford, a neighbor. “Abe” devoured it; read it and re-read it, and when asleep put it by him between the logs of the wall. One night a rain storm wet it through and ruined it.
“I’ve no money,” said “Abe,” when reporting the disaster to Crawford, “but I’ll work it out.”
“All right,” was Crawford’s response; “you pull fodder for three days, an’ the book is your’n.”
“Abe” pulled the fodder, but he never forgave Crawford for putting so much work upon him. He never lost an opportunity to crack a joke at his expense, and the name “Blue-nose Crawford” “Abe” applied to him stuck to him throughout his life.
When Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for the Legislature, it was the practice at that date in Illinois for two rival candidates to travel over the district together. The custom led to much good-natured raillery between them; and in such contests Lincoln was rarely, if ever, worsted. He could even turn the generosity of a rival to account by his whimsical treatment.
On one occasion, says Mr. Weir, a former resident of Sangamon county, he had driven out from Springfield in company with a political opponent to engage in joint debate. The carriage, it seems, belonged to his opponent. In addressing the gathering of farmers that met them, Lincoln was lavish in praise of the generosity of his friend.
“I am too poor to own a carriage,” he said, “but my friend has generously invited me to ride with him. I want you to vote for me if you will; but if not then vote for my opponent, for he is a fine man.”
His extravagant and persistent praise of his opponent appealed to the sense of humor in his rural audience, to whom his inability to own a carriage was by no means a disqualification.
{0273}
{0274}
Lincoln admitted that he was not particularly energetic when it came to real hard work.
“My father,” said he one day, “taught me how to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh—anything but work.”
The opening of the year 1860 found Mr. Lincoln’s name freely mentioned in connection with the Republican nomination for the Presidency. To be classed with Seward, Chase, McLean, and other celebrities, was enough to stimulate any Illinois lawyer’s pride; but in Mr. Lincoln’s case, if it had any such effect, he was most artful in concealing it. Now and then, some ardent friend, an editor, for example, would run his name up to the masthead, but in all cases he discouraged the attempt.
“In regard to the matter you spoke of,” he answered one man who proposed his name, “I beg you will not give it a further mention. Seriously, I do not think I am fit for the Presidency.”
There was a “social” at Lincoln’s house in Springfield, and “Abe” introduced his wife to Ward Lamon, his law partner. Lamon tells the story in these words:
“After introducing me to Mrs. Lincoln, he left us in conversation. I remarked to her that her husband was a great favorite in the eastern part of the State, where I had been stopping.
“‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘he is a great favorite everywhere. He is to be President of the United States some day; if I had not thought so I never would have married him, for you can see he is not pretty.
“‘But look at him, doesn’t he look as if he would make a magnificent President?’”
The following article on Niagara Falls, in Mr. Lincoln’s handwriting, was found among his papers after his death:
“Niagara Falls! By what mysterious power is it that millions and millions are drawn from all parts of the world to gaze upon Niagara Falls? There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just as any intelligent man, knowing the causes, would anticipate without seeing it. If the water moving onward in a great river reaches a point where there is a perpendicular jog of a hundred feet in descent in the bottom of the river, it is plain the water will have a violent and continuous plunge at that point. It is also plain, the water, thus plunging, will foam and roar, and send up a mist continuously, in which last, during sunshine, there will be perpetual rainbows. The mere physical of Niagara Falls is only this. Yet this is really a very small part of that world’s wonder. Its power to excite reflection and emotion is its great charm. The geologist will demonstrate that the plunge, or fall, was once at Lake Ontario, and has worn its way back to its present position; he will ascertain how fast it is wearing now, and so get a basis for determining how long it has been wearing back from Lake Ontario, and finally demonstrate by it that this world is at least fourteen thousand years old. A philosopher of a slightly different turn will say, ‘Niagara Falls is only the lip of the basin out of which pours all the surplus water which rains down on two or three hundred thousand square miles of the earth’s surface.’ He will estimate with approximate accuracy that five hundred thousand tons of water fall with their full weight a distance of a hundred feet each minute—thus exerting a force equal to the lifting of the same weight, through the same space, in the same time.
“But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent—when Christ suffered on the cross—when Moses led Israel through the Red Sea—nay, even when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker; then, as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants whose bones fill the mounds of America have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Contemporary with the first race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon, so long dead that fragments of their monstrous bones alone testify that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara—in that long, long time never still for a single moment (never dried), never froze, never slept, never rested.”
A lady relative, who lived for two years with the Lincolns, said that Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of lying on the floor with the back of a chair for a pillow when he read.
One evening, when in this position in the hall, a knock was heard at the front door, and, although in his shirtsleeves, he answered the call. Two ladies were at the door, whom he invited into the parlor, notifying them in his open, familiar way, that he would “trot the women folks out.”
Mrs. Lincoln, from an adjoining room, witnessed the ladies’ entrance, and, overhearing her husband’s jocose expression, her indignation was so instantaneous she made the situation exceedingly interesting for him, and he was glad to retreat from the house. He did not return till very late at night, and then slipped quietly in at a rear door.