Chapters 136
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1 256 - Accuse Not A Servant---- 1:18
Williams. Accused not the servant.
As the possibilities of rapid advancement were redoubled during the war, the president, in his first term of office, was stormed by the office-seekers, who thought it the best plan to have occupiers of posts outed to give them an opening. So they maligned and even accused chief officials with a freedom unknown in other countries where the bureaucracy is a sacred institution, as, within a generation, it has become here. Lincoln rebuked one of those covetous vexers by saying gravely to him, Friend, go home, and attentively read Proverbs, Chapter 13, verse 10. The rebuffed applicant found at that page in the book, accused not a servant to his master. Lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
Attested by Shiloh Colflax.
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2 257 - A Wolf In A Trap Must Sacrifice His Tail To Be Free. 0:49
Williams. A Wolf in A trap must sacrifice his tail to be free.
The presidential private secretary, Stoddard, maintains that his chief sorely astonished and baffled the tribe of acquaintances who flocked in upon him as soon as he was elevated, and went back home with empty haversacks, wondering that he ignored them with heartless ingratitude. He did not make even his own father a brigadier, nor invite cousin Dennis Hanks to a seat in his cabinet.
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3 258 - Somewhat Of A Newsman. 1:39
precocious, Abraham Lincoln soon learned his letters and drank in all the learning that his few books could supply. Hence, at an early age, he became the oracle on the rude frontier, where even a smattering made him handy and valuable to the illiterate backwoodsman. Besides, as working at any place and at any work, he rarely abided long in any one spot, and had not what might be called a home in his teens. Dennis Hanks, his cousin, said of Abraham, at 14 to 18, Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and a kind of newsboy. Hence he was a sort of volunteer co-porter, distributing gossip, as the notion peddler, before he was a store clerk where centered all the local news. It was on this experience that he would mingle with the newspaper reporters and telegraph men fraternally, saying with his winning smile an undeniable push, "'Let me in, boys, for I am somewhat of a newsgatherer myself,' and then he would fix his footing by one of his stories, always, well often, uttered with a view to publication."
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4 259 - A Little More Light And A Little Less Noise 1:11
The President was a diligent devourer of the newspaper in the vexatious times, as at all others, he met many a torrent of criticism, incitement, and counsels, which left him stunned rather than alleviated. To a special correspondent who hampered him, he said, "'Your papers remind me of a little story. There was a gentleman travelling on horseback in the west, where the roads were few and bad and no settlements. He lost his way. To make matters worse, as night came on, a terrible thunderstorm arose. Lightning dazzled the eye or thunder shook the earth. Frightened, he got off and led his horse, seeking to guide himself by the spasmodic and flickering electric light. All of a sudden, a tremendous crash brought the man in terror to his knees, when he stammered, "'O Lord, if it be the same to thee, give us a little more light and a little less noise.'"
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5 260 - My Part Of The Ship Is Anchored. 2:07
My part of the ship is anchored. Among the first men called out was a young Massachusetts man, Burridge, who went as a private. Grievously wounded, he was sent into the hospital and then to his home. Recuperated, he joined his old regiment at the front. He was unaware that strict orders were out against the soldiers exchanging newspapers, and so performed the daily courtesy of giving a paper to the rebels. They had two, and he promised to give them the one due next time. This was held as keeping up correspondence with the Johnnies, and the authorities reduced him to the ranks, as he was then a captain. Worse and worse, the enemy seized him when he went out to redeem his promise about the news, and he was imprisoned on their side.
This regaled his wounds, and he was a great sufferer. The Massachusetts member of Congress, Alexander Rice, pleaded with the president for his native citizen. The complication was that Burrage was a captain when captured, but a private again soon after, and the rebels would probably hold him at the higher rate if an exchange was allowed, while the Union War Department stood for his being but a common soldier. If General Wadsworth raises that point, replied the president, who had allowed this pathetic case to break his rule to deal with classes and not individual offenses, tell him if he could take care of the exchange part. I guess I can take care of the rank part. It is clear that the president saw in this punctilio about a humane act whose offense was ranker.
It reminded one of the story of the New England skipper who, with his mate and crew of a small fisher, owned the vessel. They having quarrelled, and the captain bidding the other mind his part of the ship, the latter did so, and presently came to the stern to report, Captain, I have anchored my part of the ship. Take care of your own.
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6 261 - Angels Swearing Make no Difference 1:12
Williams. Angels swearing make no difference. Read for LibriVox.org by Rick Rodstrom.
On the president being urged to answer some virulent newspaper assault, his reply was, Oh, no, if I were to try to read, much less answer, Oh, the attacks made on me. This shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, Ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
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7 262 - Washington's Difficult Task 0:43
The Lincolns' Story Book by Henry L. Williams. Washingtons Difficult Task. Read for LibriVox.
Shortly after Lincoln's inauguration, a senator said to him, "'You have as difficult a task as Washington's,' when he took command of the American army, and as little to do with it. "'That is true, but I have larger resources.' The three thousand millions spent on the war vividly contrasts with the colonies fighting rich England with an empty treasury and barefoot ragged soldiers.
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8 263 - Steel And Steal. 1:07
Williams. Steele and Steele.
President Lincoln asked a friend, a senator, immediately on his taking office, upon an embarrassed condition of affairs, "'Have you seen that prophecy about my administration in the papers?' "'A prophet foretells that my rule will be one of Steele.' To which the Wags retort, Well, Buchanan's was one of steel. The Georgian slaveholder, late Secretary of the Treasury, was accused of diverting some millions to the South, as if for the War Office similarly diverted ordnance and munitions to the same quarter. The head of the Navy, with what looked like collusion, had scattered the war vessels so as to be long delayed in concentrating.
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9 264 - That's What's The Matter 5:54
Williams. That's What's the Matter. Read for LibriVox.org by Magdalena Cooke.
That's what's the matter. In a spiritualist performance at the White House, which seemed to have been edited by the president himself, as often royalty revises place for his special entertainment, The cabinet being invited, after a rigmarole of stilted phrases purporting to be by Washington, Franklin, Napoleon, and other past celebrities, Mr. Wells, secretary of the Navy, remarked, I will think this matter over and see what conclusion to arrive at. This was his set phrase. There was a smile at this, as the age minister's prolonged meditations were the laughing-stock of the country, he being the clog on the wheels of the car of state. Instantly raps were heard in the spirit cabinet, and the alphabet being consulted, the result was spelled out as, "'That's what's the matter?' This hit at Mr.
Welfe's stereotyped fault aroused more mirth, and the crowd at the back of the room, domestics, petty officials and sub-officers laughed prodigiously, while the secretary stroked his long white beard musingly. To this can't term hangs a tale propus of the president. Its origin was low, but humorous. A benevolent gentleman pierced a crowd to its centre to see there. On the pavement under a lamp-post, a poor woman, curled in a heap, with a satisfied grin on her flushed face, breathing brokenly, "'What's the matter?' eagerly inquired the compassionate man. A bystander removed his pipe from his mouth, and with it pointed to a flattened pocket-flast sticking out of her smashed reticule half under her, and centeniously explained, "'That's what's the matter with Hannah?' The sentence took growth and spread all over the union.
It has settled down, as we know, to a fixed form at political meetings, where the audience beguiled the waiting time with demanding, What is the matter with this or that favorite demagogue? In the sixties, it patently answered any problem. At the presidential election time of Lincoln's success, a Negro minstrel, Unsworth, was a star at 444 Broadway. Dressing up the Daily News Drolley under his title, that is, ending each paragraph with that line. On the 22nd of February 1861, Abraham Lincoln, scheduled to pass on from Harrisburg, where he had made a speech as arranged, instead of waiting to depart by the morning train. Sped to Philadelphia, and thence by a special train, detained for a military messenger with a parcel, to Washington by the regular midnight train.
The news of his arrival at the capital by this unexpected and clandestine route, and in disguise this was denied, off a scotch cap and plaid shawl, startled everybody. Rumors of an attempt to make mischief, as he called it, were rife. But the public still took things as quake proof, and Mr. Lincoln assured his audiences as he spoke at every city on his way that the crisis was artificial.
On the evening of the twenty-third, the writer dropped into the Broadway Negro Minstrel Hall. Newspaper men knew that Unsworth introduced the latest skimming of the press into his burlesque lecture, and liked to hear his funny versions and perversions. The comic sheet of the Metropolis, Vanity Fair, and framing the witty scintillations of Artemis Ward, George Arnold, and a brilliant band complained that this nigger comedian used or anticipated their best effusions. On the whole, the public saw in the surreptious flight of the ruler into his due seat only a farce, in keeping with his jesting humor. He was regarded as Don Quixote, in figure, but a Sancho Pansa for his philosophical proverbs, widely retailed and considered opportune.
So the indignation proper toward the forced escapade was absent, everybody still mocked at the terrible plots, as so much stale quail. And when the blackened-faced orator, coming to a pause after enunciation of his, that's what's the matter, looked around wistfully. The audience were agog. Suddenly, out of the wing, an attendant darted with an alarmed manner and face. He carried on his arm a shawl, gray and travel-stained, and in one shaking hand a Scotch bonnet. Unsworth snatched him in hot haste and fright, clapped on the cap, and, draping himself in the plate, rushed off at the side, forgetting his own high silk hat. This was the black suit. The orthodox lecturers now gave him a resemblance to Mr.
Lincoln, not previously perceived, for they were men of opposite shapes. The eclipse brought home to the spectators the ludicrousness of the president entering his capital in secret. But, I repeat, no one felt any shame. And the audience went forth to relate the excellent finish to the parody, at home or in the saloons, to hearers as obtuse as themselves, to the seriousness of the episode. Somehow, so far, the elect from Illinois was ever the Western buffoon. But when, in his inaugural address, Lincoln thundered the new keynote, the veil fell. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, is the momentous issue of the Civil War. War? The crisis was no longer artificial. He admitted that. What impended?
What had fallen? Jest and Ernest were still coupled, but Ernest took the lead from that hour. So the chief magistrate, in his first official speech, physically speaking, we cannot separate. That's what's the matter.
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10 265 - The Ship Of State Simile. 1:18
The ship of state simile. On the morning of Lincoln's arrival in Washington, General Logan and Mr. Lovejoy called on him at Willard's Hotel to urge a firm and vigorous policy. He replied, As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I'll try to steer her through. The Sagamon River pilot spoke there. I understand the ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved with the cargo, it should never be abandoned, unless it fails in the probability of its preservation, and shall cease to exist, except at the risk of throwing overboard both freight and passengers. Speech, New York Reception, 1861. I trust that I may have the assistance of the members of this legislature in piloting the ship of state through this voyage, Surrounded by perils as it is, for if it should suffer shipwreck now, there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage.
Speech, Trenton, New Jersey, 1861.
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11 266 - A Pill For The Public Printer 1:30
In Lincoln's first message to Congress, Special Session, July Fourth, 1861, is seen this passage, With rebellion thus sugar-coated, they have been drugging the public mind, etc. Mr. de Fries, public printer, with the proofreader's sublime spurning of plain speech, objected to this sweet word, and said, Mr. President, You are using an undignified expression. I would alter the construction if I were you. "'Devries,' was the crushing reply. "'That word expresses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when the people won't know exactly what sugar-coated means.' "'I jinx. I can beat you both.' One day the public printer wanted to correct a lincolnism in one of the presidential documents.
"'Go home, Devries, and see if you can better it.' The next day, de Vries took him his amendment. It happened that Secretary Seward had spied the same fault as the printer, and Lincoln confronted the two improvements. "'I jinx,' by Jingo. "'Seward has been rewriting the same paragraph. I believe that you have beat Seward, but I think I can beat you both.' And he wrote, with his firm hand, "'Stet, so let it stand,' on the proof-sheet."
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12 267 - Let the Grass Grow Where it May! 2:14
Williams. Let the Grass Grow Where It May. Up to the dread day, when the news of the flag of our union being fired upon in Charleston Harbour, the country resembled the sea in one of those calms preceding a storm. When the placidity betrays hidden in mighty currents, and overhead in the clear sky One divines the coursers of the tempest gathering to race and strife like that beneath. Up to Lincoln's arrival in Washington, the nest of sedition, the pro-slavery peace-at-any-price party slackened in no efforts to retain the status quo, or worse, a new state of the southern states branching off as suckers strike from the main stem. William E. Dodge had the courage to face the wrought-up chief magistrate, Chafed with his narrow escape from the assassins of the railroad journey from Baltimore, said Mr.
Dodge, It is for you, Mr. President, to say whether the whole nation shall be plunged into bankruptcy. The slaves were valued as property at two thousand million dollars. Whether the grass shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities. The balance of trade against the South to the manufacturing and supplying North was stupendous. Then I say it shall not. replied Lincoln. If it depends on me, the grass will not grow anywhere, save in the fields and meadows. Mr. Dodge persisted in his sordid and businesslike errand. Then you will not go to war on account of slavery? I do not know what my acts may be in the future beyond this. The Constitution will not be preserved and defended until it is enforced and obeyed in every part of every one of the United States.
It must be so respected, obeyed, enforced, and defended. Let the grass grow where it will.
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13 268 - The Peace-At-Any-Price Party 1:27
The Peace at Any Price Party. If there were a class of men who, having no choice of sides in the contest, were anxious to have only quiet and comfort for themselves while it rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end of it, without loss to themselves. Their advice as to the mode of conducting the contest would be precisely such as his. His being Mr. Thomas Durant, who, in 1862, wrote a letter on behalf of the Conservatives, asking to be let alone. He speaks of no duty, apparently thinks of none, resting upon Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump, live merely as passengers, dead-heads at that, to be carried snug and dry through the storm, and safely landed right side up.
Nay, more, even a mutineer is to go untouched, lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound. The letter was to C. Bullitt, July 28, 1862.
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14 269 - Things Were Topsy-Turvy Aloft, Too. 1:26
Williams. Things were topsy-turvy aloft, too. Read for LibriVox. One evening, when Mr. Hall, astronomer, was working in the Naval Observatory, Washington, on the Great Equatorial Telescope, he was startled to have his sanctum invaded by the gaunt, extenuated figure of the President. He was made welcome, of course, and the varied mechanism explained to him. As the crowning treat, he was given a peer through the celebrated instrument. It was levelled at the moon, or rather arranged to have that orb in its focus at the time. The visitor was appalled, as well as wondering at the view, and slowly withdrew by the trap-door. But when the astronomer resumed his observations and calculations, he was interrupted by the same sedate and absorbed caller.
He returned, perplexed, as on glancing up at the moon with the unhindered vision, He saw it in another position to that presented in the spy-glass. Mr. Hall made it clear to him, as the telescope was pointed, not at the satellite, but at its image in a mirror, he saw its reflection, and consequently the reverse of the face we observe. The President went away with the satisfaction of a man wanting every novelty demonstrated.
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15 270 - Hitching To The Moon 0:32
Williams. Hitching to the Moon. Lincoln came to Washington to view the situation, and found the world all upside down, a rumpus in the nation. Topical Song, 1860.
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16 271 - A Red Flag To Him 2:38
A red flag to him.
A most remarkable prelude to the war was the performance through the northern states of the Chicago Suaves. The name came from the irregular regiment in the French-Algerian service, composed of men worthy of being drummed out of the regular corps, They dressed like the Arabs in the small bolero jacket and baggy red trousers familiar since. They drilled gymnastically, not to say theatrically. Elsewhere, a clerk in the Lincoln and Herndon Law Office, had a martial turn, and hearing daily in that quasi-political vortex of the impending crisis, determined to be forearmed in case of the differences coming to blows. He raised, uniformed, la Zouzou, a score of young men like himself, and proceeded to give exhibitions at home and then in the East.
The writer retains a vivid memory of the odd and fantastic show, which, however, was regarded as not war, though magnificent. But Captain Ellsworth was in earnest. Mustered in with his company, he started the Zouave movement, which led to two or more regiments being formed. His being the first volunteers at the fore, he claimed the right of the reconnoitring force sent out in May against Alexandria to break up railroads held by the rebels. Seeing a rebel flag on a hotel top, he entered the building and was shot by the landlord in coming down from cutting it away. He was slain instantly, and the like fate befell the murderer, the host from Ellsworth's Guard. Apart from four men killed at Sumter, and two in Baltimore riots, the Chicago Zooav was the first victim of the rebellion.
But the position was regained by the secessionist, and the rebel flag replaced the removed one. To the grief of President Lincoln. He could see it from his residence, and Murad Halstead, without knowing the melancholy association of the young officer, being a familiar in his office, reports seeing him dwell with spyglass bent on the flag for hours. Elmer Ellsworth, in his last speech, made to the men he was leading out to the front, proves that he imbibed Lincoln's humanity with legal precepts in the office. Show the enemy that I want to kill them with kindness.
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17 272 - Fly Away, Jack! 1:19
Williams. Fly Away Jack. Fly Away Jack. At the end of 1860, South Carolina took the lead in seceding, and in the opening of the next year, six other southern states allied themselves with her. The timid feared hasty acting would precipitate the marshalling of the waverers under the same flag. To a committee urging a pause to see how the cats would jump, the president observed, "'If there be three pigeons on the fence, and you fire and kill one, how many will there be left?' The voices said, "'Two.'" Oh, no, he corrected. There would be none left, for the other two, frightened by the shot, would have flown away. As a truth, the firing on Fort Sumter welded the seceders into their union, at the same time as it likewise fused the northerners into consistency.
The president said to General Veal, We want to keep all that we have of the border states, those that have not seceded, and the portions we have occupied.
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18 273 - His Pen Wanted To Keep Their Hogs Safe. 1:01
Williams. His pen wanted to keep their hogs safe. Read for LibriVox. Just after the call for seventy-five thousand, ninety-day men to subdue the outbreak after Sumter was cannonaded, a deputation of loyal Virginians waited upon the president. They expounded on this levy that the fair fields of the South would be overrun by the ragamuffins of the northern cities, and the hen-roosts and pig-houses ravished. "'But what would you have me do?' asked Lincoln, who did not then foresee his having to conduct the military movements. "'Mr. President, if you would only lend us your pen a moment,' meaning, of course, that he should write a line to calm the rising storm. But the other pretended to misunderstand him, saying, "'Lend my pen—my pen!
What would you do with that?
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19 274 - Hurrah For You! 0:56
The Lincoln's storybook by Henry L. Williams. Hurrah for you! At the Chicago reception, a little boy came into the room with his father. No doubt he had been instructed to behave with decorum in the august presence, but he no sooner saw the tall, prominent figure than he shouted, Hurrah for Miss Lincoln! The crowd laughed, and still the more, as the object of the ovation caught up the little fellow, gave him a toss to the ceiling, and while he was in the air shouted out lustily, Hurrah for Mr. Hugh, and catching him, lowered him red and panting to the floor.
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20 275 - Put Your Feet Right and Stand Firm 1:02
The lincoln's story book by Henry L. Williams. Put your feet right and stand firm. Giving a lift in his carriage to two ladies, to the soldiers' home, the horses were splashing and sliding after a shower in the mire, when Mr. Lincoln assisted the frightened women to alight. He set three stones for stepping-stones in the mud, and assisted them to firm ground. He had cautioned them in making the passage, "'All through life be sure to put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.' Looking down on his muddy boots, Lincoln, as a westerner, always stuck to leg-boots and was never seen in the effeminate Congress gaiters,
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21 276 - Get Their Graves Ready! 0:44
Williams. Get their graves ready. Read for LibriVox.org. In April, 1861, a deputation of sympathizers with secession had the boldness to call on President Lincoln and demand a cessation of hostilities until convening of Congress, threatening that Seventy-five thousand Marylanders would contest the passage of troops over their soil. I presume... quietly replied Mr. Lincoln, that there is room enough in her soil for seventy-five thousand graves.
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22 277 - Mr. Lincoln's Opion of General McClellan 2:43
In the first stage of the war, when the president was commander-in-chief of the forces by virtue of his office, he played the part of the elevated boy in the King of the Castle, Every one of his colleagues, who ought to have been his loyal supporters, until some firm stand was attained under the batteries of Richmond, civil and military, warred against him, underhandedly and haply openly. All aimed, in cabinet and on the staff, to be ruler. The understrappers of aged General Scott upheld all that concurred with warfare, Set and obsolete, of the European strategists, overthrown by the great Napoleon. The principal practicer of these tactics, the summum bonum, or good thing, of the West Pointers, was General McClellan, the little Mac of his worshippers, and the little Napoleon of the dazzled crowd.
He was, like Cassio, a great arithmetician, who had never set a squadron in the field, or the division of a battle new, etc., seeming utterly to ignore that the enemy was composed of men trained by their life in genteel occupations to shoot true, to ride like Comanches, or revolutionary Harry Lee's Light Horse, Used to lying outdoors under skies genial to them, and subsisting on game and corn-cake as Marion on sweet potatoes. He expected to foil such guerrillas as Jeb Stuart, Mosby, and Quantrell by Earthworks, which they probably would have leaped their horse over if they wanted to reach their spoil in that way. It was in allusion to this adherence to Vauban that the President, who eyed the aspiring hotspur as Henry V, his heir, the sixth Henry, trying on his crown, observed shrewdly when the general kept silence.
He is entrenching.
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23 278 - A Stationary Engine. 1:05
A stationary engine. Lincoln said of the much-promising General McClellan, he is an admirable engineer, but he seems to have a special talent for a stationary engine. He also cited him as a scholar and a gentleman. Nevertheless, as the education lavished on the army of the Potomac to make it earn foreign military critics' praise at reviews, was not thrown away, but made sound soldiers which in time were invaluable to General Grant. Lincoln did him justice by quaintly but earnestly saying, I would like to borrow his arm if he has no further use for it. General Franklin heard this. But Little Mac had no design on the dictatorship being surely a lover of the Union too.
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24 279 - Shoveling Fleas 0:36
On account of the looseness and corruption attending the raising of soldiers at the first, the President, noting the difference between the number of men forwarded to General McClellan for the Army of the Potomac, and the number reported arrived, said, "'Sending men to that army is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard.
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25 280 - The Georgia Colonel's Costume 0:48
Williams. The Georgia Colonel's Costume. On account of this sectional warfare, Senator Mason of Virginia announced his resolve to wear homespun and dispense with Yankee manufactures altogether. That made Lincoln laugh and say, To carry out his idea, he ought to go barefoot. If that's the plan, they should begin at the Foundation, and adopt the well-known Georgian Colonel's uniform, a shirt-collar, and a pair of spurs. In speech, New England Tour, 1860.
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26 281 - Coarse Feed First 0:51
Williams. Course feed first read for LibriVox.org by Andrew Hoots. Secretary Whitney wrote, In July 1861, I was in Washington, where I merely said to President Lincoln, Everything is drifting into the war, and I guess you will have to put me in the army. He was in the Indian service at the time. The president looked up from his work, and said good-humoredly, "'I'm making generals now.
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27 282 - Ain't I Glad To Git Out O' De Wilderness! 2:08
In the summer of 1862, just when the North was lulled to repose by the note from General McClellan's newsmongers, that the people would have a great surprise on the Fourth of July. Colonel J. E. B. Stewart, Confederate Cavalryist, took about two thousand picked riders and performed a dash within the hostile lines, which achieved a worldwide admiration. It is necessary to premise that the country was inimical to the defenders of Washington, and the farmers kept secessioners clearly informed on the federal movements. Besides, the first duty of keeping Washington engrossed all the Union commanders If by any unexpected movement the rebels occupied the capital long enough to set up their government, Europe would have recognized the stars and bars, and raised the blockade on the cotton ports.
Washington was stupefied and terror-stricken when the news came in from the north that the rebel cavalry were cavorting within McClellan's lines. Communication was cut off with him, and the president was heard to say in the general dumbness of consternation, There is no news from the army of the Potomac. I do not even know that we have an army. He was himself filled with a universal alarm. His hope was that a bright morning would follow the dark hour, but his faith and belief that God would safely lead them out of the wilderness was not widely shared. The allusion was to the popular army song, taken from the Negro camp-meeting repertoire, Ain't I glad to get out of the wilderness, which a clergyman had encouragingly chanted a while before.
This wilderness was metaphorically spiritual, but all applied the figure to the wilderness of Virginia, where the battles were fought.
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28 283 - With Two Guns, Hold Off An Army. 0:46
With two guns, hold off an army.
One Irish artilleryman was left behind, with one gun of his battery, on the wrong bank of the Potomac, when the Union Army retreated before Lee. This gunner actually telegraphed direct to the President as his commander-in-chief that, "'I have the whole rebel army in my front. Send me another gun, and I assure your honor that they shall not come over.' This pleased the president greatly, who answered that the new Horatius was to take counsel with his officer, if he could find him.
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29 284 - Breaking Up The Little Game 2:07
Williams. Breaking up the Little Game. Read for LibriVox.org by Magdalena Cooke. Breaking Up the Little Game In 1862 Washington was full of talk and no hard cider. There was the laugh of the gossips who would chatter under fire. The chaff talk of pressmen taking things farcically, and the staff talk of the officers envying one another and scheming for places. Too many were still carrying water on both shoulders, and would have welcomed a speedy reconciliation. The president heard that some of the latter voiced the petulant complaint of those weary of the gainless military movements, that the intention was to shift the two armies about till both were exhausted, and, like the peace at any price, men, and the still sympathizing pro-slavery tale, a compromise could be effected and slavery saved.
He summoned the parties in this public unbosoming before him. Major Turner said that Major John J. Kaye, Staff Officer to General McClellan, was asked why the Unionists had not bagged the rebel army soon after the Battle of Sharpsburg, whereupon he replied, "'That was not the game.' We should tire ourselves and the rebels out. That was the only way that the Union could be preserved. Then we would come together fraternally, and slavery will be saved. Major Key did not deny the words, but stoutly maintained his loyalty. As McClellan's staff officer, he must have known his leaders' policy. No Confiscation, and no Emancipation Act, for McClellan hoped, like thousands of conservatives, to bring about reaction in the South.
But the president sharply said with some obvious sempiternal humor, "'Gentlemen, if there is a game even among Union men to have our army not take any advantage of the
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30 285 - The Bottom Will Fall Out. 1:28
The bottom will fall out. General McClellan's delayed advance being, in 1862, not upon Manassas, but upon Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with consternation. To the general eye, he seemed to have pitched on the very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in their favor. This direct route to Richmond they had tried to make impregnable. The president, whom McClellan openly thwarted with unconcealed scorn for the civilian, was in profound distress. He called General Franklin into his counsel, and inquired his opinion of the slowness of movements. If something is not soon done in this dry rot, the bottom will fall out of the whole affair. This was his very saying.
The Confederates evacuated Yorktown, but a series of actions ensued, culminating in the massacre at Fair Oaks, where both sides claimed the victory. Soon after, Lincoln took matters in hand, relegating McClellan to one army, and, as commander-in-chief, ordering a general advance. The bottom had fallen out with a vengeance.
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31 286 - Master Of Them Both 0:44
Williams. Master of them both.
General McClellan's attitude is such that in the very selfishness of his nature he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will. And the Secretary of War, Stanton, is in precisely the same situation. If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only the Secretary of War, but myself, For the time, being master of both, cannot but be failures. Speech, August 6, 1862, at Washington.
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32 287 - The Skeered Virginian 1:07
A reviewing party, of which the president was the center, was stopped at a railroad by Harper's Ferry to let a locomotive pass, and look at the old engine-house where John Brown, the raider, was penned in and captured. The little switching engine ran past with much noise and bustle, the engineer blowing the ludicrous whistle in salute to the distinguished visitors. Lincoln referred to the recollections of the scene where old Potawatomi thrilled the natives with panic lest he raise the negroes to revolt, and remarked as the engine flew away, "'You call that the Flying Dutchman, do you? They ought to call that thing the Scared Virginian.' By General O. O. Howard."
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33 288 - He Who Fights And Runs Away-- 0:40
He who fights and runs away.
He who fights and runs away. Shortly after the scandalous rout of Bull Run, the participants in the panic began to try to palliate the disgrace.
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34 289 - No Sunday Fighting 0:38
The first battle of Bull Run, a sanguinary defeat to the Unionists, was fought on the Sabbath day, the President forbade in the future important movements on the day desecrated. But with singular inconsistency in a sage so clear-headed, he did not see that the Southerners chuckled, the better the day, the better the deed, in their victory.
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35 290 - Let A Good Man Alone! 0:49
Williams. Let a good man alone. General Howard, in taking command before Washington, incurred the hostility of certain officers of the convivial, plundering, swashbuckling order, who objected to his piety and orderliness. They tramped off to badger the president with their censure. But he who had appreciated the new leader in a glance reproved them, saying, Howard is a good man. Let him alone. In time he will bring things straight. That was what caused the general to reverence him and love him.
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36 291 - The Blondin Simile 2:46
The Blondin Simile.
One of the universal topics of the early sixties was the feats of the acrobat Blondin. This daring rope-walker crossed the waters by Niagara Falls on a slack wire. On one occasion, He carried a man on his back, to whom he imparted the caution, grappling as with hooks of steel. If you upset me with trembling, I shall drop you. I shall catch the rope and be safe. As for you, inexperienced one, phut! The chain of defeats and flashes in the pan, attending the opening of the campaign, beginning as a march upon Richmond. Footnote. Some northern newspapers kept a standing head. On to Richmond, but eventuating in a defense of Washington, humiliating as was this reverse, promoted all sorts and conditions of men, moneyed, well-grounded, and investing in the new government securities, fluctuating like wildcat stock, to pester the president with jeremiads and counsel.
To one deputation from his home parts, He administered this caustic rebuke in such illustration as was habitual to him. Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin, to carry across the Niagara River on a rope. Would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him? Blondin, stand up straighter. Blondin, stoop a little more. Go a little faster. Lean a little more to the north. To the south? No. You would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off all, until he was safe over. The government—footnote. Lincoln always used government and U.S. as nouns carrying a plural verb—are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands.
They are doing the very best they can. Don't pester them. Keep silence, and we will get you safe across.
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37 292 - The Pioneer's Land-Title 3:35
The Pioneer's Land Title Judge Weldon was appointed United States Attorney, acting in Illinois. Being at Washington, some speculators, knowing he was an old friend of the President, engaged him for their side. They wanted to get cotton permits from the Treasury, which was feasible, but made sure that the military would recognize these passes, no doubt, if the President would countersign them. Otherwise, the Army officers acted often without regard to trade desires. On broaching the subject to the Pontentate, on whose lips so much hung at the epoch, the latter brightened up, and in his branching-off manner said, "'By the way, what has become of your friend Robert Lewis?' Lewis was the clerk of court in Illinois, and at home, well and thrifty.
Do you remember, continued the President, his story about his going to Missouri to look up some Mormon lands belonging to his father? Whereupon, as Weldon said, that he had forgot some details, the story-teller related with Unction. This Robert Lewis, on coming of age, found papers in his father's muniments, entitling him as heir to lands in north-eastern Missouri. where the Mormons had attempted settling before their enforced exodus. There was no railroad, so Lewis rode out to that part and thought he had located the land. For the night he stopped at a solitary log-house. A gruff voice bade him come in, not very hospitably. The owner was a long, lanky man, about eleven feet high, Bob thought.
He had a rifle hanging on its hooks over the fireplace, also about eleven feet long, Bob also reckoned. He was interrupted in necking bullets, for they were cast in a mould, and left the little protubines where the run left off. The first-comer had been there some time, and seemed to know the section, but was rather indifferent to the stranger's inquiries about this site of his lands. Teased at this unconcern, so opposite to the usual feeling of settlers who like a neighbour in the lonesomeness, Louis hastened to lay down the law. He was looking up the paternal purchase. Here were the titles, spreading out the papers. That is my title, to this section. You are on it. What is yours? The other had shown some slight interest in the topic by this time.
He paused in his occupation, and pointed with his long arm to the long rifle, saying, Young man, do you see that gun? That is my title, and if you do not get out of here pretty quick, you will feel the force of it. Lewis crammed his papers into his saddle-bags and rushed out to bestride his pony, but said that the man snapped his gun at him twice before he was out of range. Now, resumed Mr. Lincoln. The military authorities have the same title against the civil ones, the guns. The gentlemen themselves may judge what the result is likely to be. Mr. Weldon reported to his employers at Willard's Hotel, and they laughed heartily at the illustration. But they did not proceed with a cotton speck, understanding that would be the administration's policy as well as if a proclamation were issued.
By Judge Weldon.
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38 293 - Cheers Not Military---But I Like Them 1:04
Williams.
Cheers, not military, but I like them. After the disarray of the first bull-run battle, the president drove out to the camps to rally the boys in the blues. General Sherman was only a colonel, and he had the rudeness of a military man to hint to the visitor that he hoped the orator would not speak so as to encourage cheering and confusion. The president stood up in his carriage and prefaced his speech with this exordium. Don't cheer, boys. I confess that I rather like it myself, but Colonel Sherman here says it isn't military, and I guess we had better defer to his opinion. With his inimitable wink, which would have been an independent fortune to a stage comedian. 2.93.
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39 294 - Numbering The Hairs Of His--Tail! 0:49
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. Numbering the Hairs of His Tail. A Congressional Committee, selected to examine and report upon a new canon, produced so voluminous a tome that Lincoln, reviewing it, dropped it in disgust, and commented, "'I should want a new lease of life to read this through. Why can't a committee of this kind occasionally exhibit a grain of common sense?' If I send a man to buy a horse for me, I expect him to tell me his points, not how many hairs there are in his tail. Authenticated by Mr. Hubbard, Member of Congress of Connecticut, to whom this remark was addressed.
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40 295 - An Unconventional Order 1:31
Williams. An unconventional order. On going over the minor orders, riders, and corrections of the president, it will be seen that he never succumbed to conforming with the stale and set phrases of the civil service documents. For an instance of his unquenchable humor, read the following discharge. Two brothers, Smiths, of Boston, had been arrested, held, and persecuted for a long period by a military tribunal. The charge was defrauding the government. The hue and cry about the cheating contractors called for a victim, but the chief executive, on perusing the testimony, concluded that the defendants were guiltless. He wrote the subsequent release. Whereas Franklin W. and J. C. Smith had transactions with the Navy Department to the amount of one and a quarter millions of dollars, and whereas they had the chance to steal a million, and were charged with stealing twenty-two hundred dollars, and the question now is stealing a hundred, I don't believe they stole anything at all.
Therefore, the record and findings are disapproved, declared null and void, and the defendants are fully discharged.
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41 296 - It Occurs To Me That I Am Commander! 1:20
It occurs to me that I am commander.
It occurs to me that I am commander. To the prairie man, the climate of Washington would be almost tropical. Nevertheless, it participates of American meteorological variability, as old probability would admit. One night, Lincoln, coming out of his rooms at the executive mansion to make his nocturnal round, finishing with the call of the latest dispatches at Garrison Headquarters, noticed, as a fierce gale shook and scourged him with sleet, that a soldier was contending with the storm just outside the outer door. "'Young man,' said he, turning sharply to him, "'you have got a cold job to-night. Step inside and guard there.' The soldier stoutly contended, for the colloquy became an argument by Lincoln's delight in debate.
He persisted that he was posted there by order and was not bold save by superior countermand. Hold on there, cried Lincoln, pleased at the arguer supplying him with a decisive weapon. It occurs to me that I am commander-in-chief, and so I order you to go inside.
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42 297 - Compliments Is All They Do Pay! 0:48
The Lincol story-book.
Compliments is all they do pay. A paymaster introduced to the President by the United States District Marshal remarked with independence noticeable in the sect, "'I have no official business with you, sir. I only call to pay my compliments.' "'I understand,' was the retort.
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43 298 - Bail The Potomac With A Spoon. 1:03
Williams. Bail the Potomac with a spoon. Read for LibriVox. Org. There is as pathetic a picture as the old sated Marquis of Queensberry, Thackeray's Steynes and History's Old Kew, murmuring as he gazed from his window on the unsurpassed view of the Thames Valley. Oh, this cursed river running on all the day, in President Lincoln watching the broad Potomac, where all was so quiet, and yet the hidden and watchful enemy lined the other bank. A petitioner hemmed him in a corner of the room with this sight, and poured on him the bucket of his woes. The at last irritated worm turned on him, and cried, "'My poor man! Go away! Do go away! I cannot meddle in your case.
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44 299 - We Shall Beat Them, My Son 0:56
We shall beat them, my son. We shall beat them, my son. George W. Curtis, New York editor, called on the president in the first winter of the war with the Illinoiseans' friend, Judge Arnold. He said that the official wore a sad, weary, and anxious look, and spoke with a softened, touching voice. But he added to his good-bye at the door in shaking hands, with paternal kindness and profound conviction, "'We shall beat them, my son.
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45 300 - Little For So Big A Business. 1:17
The Lincol story-book by Henry L. Williams. Little for so big a business. Before the war, the museums of the eastern states were regaled by an infant drummer. This lad, Henry W. Stowman, at the age of seven or eight, was a proficient on the drum. He was seen by this editor executing solos of great difficulty, and accompanying the orchestra with variations on his unpromising instrument, which musicians praised, and in which he avoided monotony with precocious talent. Grown up, still a rare drummer, he was attached to the Germantown Hospital as a post-drummer. At the first inauguration he was with the band and noticed by the president. With his habit of applauding the young, the latter spoke to him, commended his playing, and remarked, You are a very little man to be in this big business.
He took him up, kissed him, and paternally set him down, drum and all. Mr. Stoneman lived to the age of forty with this pretty memory.
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46 301 - Not Shoulder-Straps, But Hardtack. 0:39
Williams. Not Shoulder-Straps, but Hard-Tack. At a military function, when Lincoln presented a new commander to a legion, one of the soldiers burst out with that irreverence distinguishing the American volunteer. It is not Shoulder-Straps, the officer's insignia, but Hard-Tack that we want. Hard-Tack was the nickname for the disused ship-bread turned over to the army by remorseless contractors.
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47 302 - Maryland A Good State To Move From! 1:06
The End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End Maryland must be a good state to move from.
Weed, did you ever hear, in this connection, of the witness in court asked to state his age? He said sixty. As he was on the face of it much older, but persisted, the court admonished him, saying, "'The court knows you to be older than sixty.' "'Oh, I understand now,' owned up the old fellow. "'You're thinking of the ten years I spent in Maryland.
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48 303 - Don't Swap Horses Crossing a Stream 2:35
The Lincolne Story Book by Henry L. Williams. Don't Swap Horses Crossing a Stream. Read for LibriVox.org by Ernst Schnell.
Don't swap horses crossing a stream. The setting up and the bowling over of the generals commanding the army defending Washington from MacDowell at Bull Run to Meade at Gettysburg resembles a grim game at Tenpins. The president, who tried to find a professional captain to relieve him of his responsibility as nominally warchief of the national forces, therefore smiled sarcastically when the ninety-ninth deputation came to suggest still another aspirant to be the new Napoleon, and said to it, Gentlemen, your request and proposition remind me of two gentlemen in Kentucky. The flatlands there bordering on the rivers are subject to inundations. So the fordable creek becomes in an instant a broad lake, deep and rapidly running.
These two riders were talking the common topic. In that famous bluegrass region, where fillies and filles, as the voyageur from Canada said in his broken English, are insurpassable for grace and beauty. Each fell to expatiating upon the good qualities of his steed, And this dialogue was so animated and engrossing they approached a ford without being conscious of outer matters. There was heavy rain in the highlands and an ominous sound in the dampening air. They entered the water still arguing. Then, at midway, while they came to the agreement to exchange horses with no boot, since each conceded the value of the animals, the river rose. In a twinkling, the two horses were floundering, and the riders Taken for once off their balance, lost stirrup and seat, and the four creatures separated were struggling for a footing in the boiling stream.
Away streaked the horses, buried in foam three or four miles down, while the men scrambled out upon the new edge. Gentlemen, concluded the president, drawing his morale with his provoking imperturbability. Those men looked at each other as they dripped, and said with one voice, Ain't this a lesson? Don't swap horses crossin' a stream.
Heard by Superintendent Tinker, Ward, Telegrapher.
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49 304 - No Placing Thorns In The Side Of My Worst Enemy! 0:54
The Free Constitution of Maryland was the work of Lincoln. His and its supporters made a party to go to Washington and congratulate the President on the victory. They had a band, and serenaded him in the White House until he came forth. But he said, to the dampening of their ardor, when the cheering had subsided, "'My friends, I appreciate this honor very highly. But I am very sorry to see you rejoice over the defeat of those opposed to us. It is furthest from my desire to place a thorn in any one's side, though he be my worst enemy. Recited by Mr. High G. Willis, Baltimore, in the sun of that city.
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50 305 - The Lincoln Plan Of Campaign 2:00
The Lincoln Plan of Campaign This historical document promised at one time to be a problem like the Sibylline Leaves or Tsar Peter's will. But Secretary H. C. Whitney declares that it existed as he had it laid before him by the strategist. Running his long finger down the map of Virginia, he said, We must drive them away from here, Manassas Gap, where indeed were fights over the Keystone, and clear them out of this part of the state, so that they cannot threaten them here, Washington, and get to Maryland. Unfortunately, the rebels did threaten Washington right on, and entered Maryland and Pennsylvania as late as July, 1863, and by a cavalry raid a year later. 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.
This was not finally done till the end of 1864. Finally, we must rely on the Southern people growing tired and saying to their leaders, We have had enough of this thing and will bear it no longer. In 1862, a year after, Lincoln says to McClellan, We have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac, Yours to be down the Chesapeake, etc. Mine to move directly to the point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. He hugs his original idea. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine? You see the prudence in him esteemed ignorant and consequently blindly rash. All this amounted to nothing when the president trusted fully to Grant as his lieutenant.
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51 306 - The Commander Should Obey Orders. 0:49
The President at Fort Stevens was the mark for a rebel battery. A colonel in command was diffident about ordering the superior about, but he was averse to letting the dare bring on a fatality, as the sharpshooters had an easy butt in the Lincoln-exceptionable figure. So he took the advice of Mr. Registrar Chittenden on the staff and bade the President retire, or he would move him by a file of men. "'And you would do quite right, my boy,' acquiesced the chief.
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52 307 - The Idlers Equaled The Effectives 1:08
The Idlers Equaled the Effectives During a review of General Howard's Corps on the Rappahannock in April 1863, President Lincoln noticed, whether his eyes were unmilitary or not, that a very numerous mass of men were spectators, Though wearing semi-soldiery look and clothes, they were in fact the inevitable hangers-on of an army, the more in number as the escaped slaves were welcomed by the soldiers, as they made them do their dirty work. The commanding general explained that they were the cooks, the bottle-washers, and the nigger-waiters. They had come out to see the president. "'That review yonder,' returned Lincoln gently as he smiled, "'is about as big as ours.' By General O.O. Howard.
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53 308 - Rest! 0:29
L. WI. SITTING BEFORE HIS DESK IN HIS OFFICE, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, LINCOLN QUAINTLY UTTERED, I WISH GEORGE WASHINGTON OR SOME OF THESE OLD PATRIOTS WERE HERE IN MY PLACE, SO I COULD HAVE A LITTLE REST.
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54 309 - I Can Bear Censure, But Not Insult 1:12
Williams. I can bear censure, but not insult.
I can bear censure, but not insult. An army officer appeared before the president with a statement of his defense against a sentence of cashiering. He was told that his own paper did not warrant the superior interference, But he showed up twice more, repeating the plea and the version of his own preparation. At the continued repulse, he blurted out, I see, Mr. President, that you are not disposed to do me justice. If Lincoln was the embodiment of any one virtue, it was justice to all. At this slur, he sprang up, and put the fellow out of the door by a lift of his collar, saying, Never show yourself in this room again. I can bear censure, but not insult.
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55 310 - A Battle Of Roses 1:02
Williams, A Battle of Roses.
At every reverse to the Unionists, the more or less secret sympathizers with the seceders reiterated the cry that gentler measures should be used against our erring brothers. To one such pleader, the president severely but humorously responded in writing. Would you have me drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with Elder Stock Squirts charged with rosewater? Mr. Lincoln may or may not have said this and thus, but he certainly wrote it, for which we see his letter to C. Bullitt, July 28, 1862. Guns of Elder Squirts are mentioned by his dear Shakespeare.
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56 311 - Help Me Let Go! 4:12
Williams. Help Me Let Go. Read for LibriVox.org by Magdalena Cooke. Help me let go. The year, 1862, had its gold in the victories of Maffresborough and Perryville in the West, but in the neighborhood of the capital, General Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg, while his supporters counted on his justifying his superseding McClellan, Clouded all Washington. The staff officer, an account says it was Governor Curtin in person, who brought the painful news, saw that the President was so saddened that he faltered an apology for the nature of his mission. I wish, Mr. President, that I might be the bearer of good instead of bad news. I wish I brought the intelligence by which you could conquer or get rid of these rebellious states.
His hearer smiled at the essay to cheer him. who believed he would never sleep again, and related with a view to enliven him also, the story of Help Me Let Go. The version circulating Viva Vos ran as follows. That reminds me of the camp where a bear suddenly made his appearance and scattered the party. All save one shinned up trees or got behind rocks, and that one meeting the animal head on before he could turn Seas brunned by the ears, and held on like grim death to a dead nigger. Recovering from their fright, the hunters came out of ambush, and were unable to do anything but laugh at the fix their friend was in. "'You ain't mastered, are you?' asked they. "'Not licked, but I want you to help me let go.' Mr.
Lincoln expressed himself when he said he was so slow to learn, and slow to forget. The two qualities are redeemed by his wonderful ease and quickness in remembering. To quote well is good, but to quote fitly is better. His intimates noticed that he would re-echo a story, a smile or a tag, and so neatly apply it that it seemed fresh on the second use. He was an admirable actor, though not appreciated in that light, for he could reappear in the same part without Pauling. Hence, one often meets his stories, as, for instance, this one. His life-law partner Herndon, Telsett is used toward a petty judge in Illinois, of inferior ability to Lincoln's. It was a murder case, and this bully on the bench kept ruling against Herndon and Lincoln.
A material point was ruled adversely just at the refreshment recess. Lincoln withdrew sore, as he believed that the judge was personally controverting his positions. He avowed his own feelings and announced. I have determined to crowd the court to the wall and regain my position before night. As Judge Herndon was a bystander, his account of the further proceedings must be as faithful as veracious. At the resembling of court, Mr. Lincoln rose to read a few authorities in support of his position, keeping within the bounds of propriety just far enough to avoid reprimand. He characterized the continuous rulings against him as not only unjust but foolish, and figuratively speaking, peeled the court from head to foot.
Lincoln was alternately furious and eloquent, and after pursuing the court with broad facts and pointed inquiries in rapid succession, he made use of this homely incident to clinch his argument. The tale is given as about a wild boar. In either phrase, the point is that the judge was attached to his tartar and wanted to be let go. The prosecution tried in vain to break Lincoln down, concludes Mr. Herndon, and the judge, badgered effectually by Lincoln's masterly arraignment of law and fact, pretended to see the error of his former position, and finally reversed his decision in his tormentous favor. Lincoln saw his triumph, and surveyed a situation of which he was master.
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57 312 - Splitting The Difference 0:31
Williams. Splitting the Difference. Read for LibriVox.org. Upon the Western Virginia State Ship Bill passing in Congress, an opponent, Mr. Carlyle, ran to the President. He urged him to veto the bill. Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll split the difference and say nothing about it. Frank Moore.
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58 313 - In The Inca's Position 1:21
Williams. In the Incas Position. Read for LibriVox.org by Magdalena Cooke. In the Incas position, long after the president reconsidered his hasty surmise that the impending war was artificial crisis, Congress continued to waver. And no one put forward a definite or working policy for the head who avowed that he never had one. In his despondency and lonesomeness he welcomed an old friend from his state, who, however, like the rest, had his frets and rubs to seek solace for. You know better than any man living that from boyhood up my ambition was to be president. I am at least president of one part of the divided country. But look at me. With a fire in my front, and one in my rear to contend with, and not receiving that cordial cooperative support from Congress, reasonably expected, with an active and formidable enemy in the field threatening the very life-blood of the government.
My position is anything but on a bed of roses.
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59 314 - Blind Fortune 2:17
The End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End The president's carriage was coming along to the soldier's home from the mansion.
The coach alone would probably have not brought any casualty upon the unfortunate young invalid, but it was again surrounded by one of the cavalry detachments, which Lincoln insisted on being withdrawn, but it was replaced for the time. The soldier, hearing this double clatter of hooves, became bewildered, and stood still in the mid-road. Or, If anything, inclined toward the thundering danger. The cavalry chargers, trained to avoid hurting men, for a rider might be thrown, eluded contact, and the coachman neatly pulled aside. In the next moment, in a cloud of dust, the president, leaning out of the window to ascertain the cause of the abrupt stop, saw the poor young soldier by his side. Lincoln threw out a hand to seize him by the arm, and reassure him of safety by the vibrating clutch.
Then, perceiving the nature of the affair, he asked, in a voice trembling with emotion, about the man's regiment and disablement. The man was from the northwest, Michigan. Lumbermen, and they are of the woods woody out there, and Lincoln believed in the axe as the enlarger of our borders, Our brotherly. The next day, the soldier was commissioned lieutenant with perpetual leave, but full pay, by the veteran reservist, H. W. Knight, of the Escort.
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60 315 - Little David And The Stone For Goliath 2:32
The End of the Lincol, The Stone for Goliath. In the spring, 1862, spies and foreign officers who had seen the rebel ram Merrimack 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 Erickson'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 Merrimack 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 Merrimack 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 Merrimack.
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61 316 - Lincoln's Cheese-Box On A Raft 1:59
The Lincolns Cheese-Box on a Raft. There is a chapter yet to be published upon ironclad warships, 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-case vessels, the Federal Government responded by voting money, and throwing it away upon a fiasco. Meanwhile, the others had raised the frigate, the Merrimack, 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 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 Erickson, 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.
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62 317 - No Dutch Courage 0:50
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.
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63 318 - If I had As Much Money And Was As Badly Skeered---- 1:52
If I had as much money and was as badly scared. In March 1862, after her terrifying exploits, the Merrimack 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 the Merrimack. 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 scared 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 Sharla Colfax, afterward Vice President under General Grant, and by Judge Davis, who presented the delegation.
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64 319 - It Pleases Her, And It Don't Hurt Me. 2:04
It pleases her and it don't hurt me. Read for LibriVox.
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, wespy 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 it any longer.' Any man may stand for a bully ragging 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 slapped the interferer on the back with a leg of mutton fist, rejoined. Why, drop it! It pleases her, and it don't hurt me.
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65 320 - Let Him Squeal If He works 1:45
Williams. 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 dispatches 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 Veal, the President said, We cannot afford to quarrel with the governors of the loyal states about collateral issues. We want their soldiers.
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66 321 - Brigadiers Cheap--Chargers Costly. 0:44
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.
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67 322 - To Cure Singing In The Head. 2:02
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.
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 dissents 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-scent sort of 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.
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68 323 - Bowing To The Boy Of Battles 1:37
Bowing to the Boy of Battles.
Bowing to the Boy of Battles Congressman W. D. Kelly wished to procure the admittance of a youth into the Naval School. Though a lad had shown the mettle of a man on too 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 by Congressman W. D. Kelly. The person was Willie Bladen, USN.
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69 324 - When Washington Was All One Tavern 1:23
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. When Washington Was All One Tavern.
As men winning with Mars expect to sup with Pluto, the drinking at the Capitol 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 woman's temperance deputation, probably believing the caricaturist 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.
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70 325 - Break The Critter Where Slim! 1:01
Lincolns' 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 in 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?
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71 326 - How Get Him Out? 1:17
How Get Him Out?
During the avalanche of plans to conduct the suppression of the rebellion, a genius proposed where 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, "'offer 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 cask-making was a mystery.
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72 327 - A Pleasure To Preside, At Last! 2:01
Williams. A Pleasure to Preside at Last. On the Fourth 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 form 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 Soldiers 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.
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73 328 - On The Lord's Side 0:33
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 right. But it is my constant anxiety in prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.'"
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74 329 - To Canaan 0:59
Williams. Going to Canaan. Although the South is a poetic country, no bard wrote any Marcellus hymn on that side. One of the few effusions bidding tolerably for public 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 spun. Going to Canaan, he is reported to have said, going to Canaan, I expect.
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75 330 - Going To Canaan! 0:54
Williams. Going to Canaan. Although the South is a poetic country, no bard ever wrote any Marseillais 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 Caneum, I expect.
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76 331 - The Fox Appointed Paymaster. 1:38
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 the story of a motherly hen, struggling to raise her brood to live 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 wheeze, and, said the president, I thought I would turn over to see the finis, to 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 soldier's prejudice for the gentry.
Superintendent Tinker.
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77 332 - Risking The Dictatorship 1:24
Williams. 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 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.
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78 333 - A Stage In The Ceaseless March Onward To Victory 1:59
A stage in the ceaseless march onward to victory. A stage in the ceaseless march onward to victory. Veterans will remember the peculiar effort 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 Capitol, 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's room without pause, save to turn.
It was like the fisher on the banks who must keep awake for a chance at a grab of 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 attaché left at three a.m. When he came in 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 the Gettysburg wiped out the shame of the later repulses. The private secretary was W.O. Stoddard.
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79 334 - Working For A Living Makes One Practical. 2:15
Williams. Working for a living makes one practical. Read for LibriVox.org by Rebecca Case. 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 at 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 Chekmauga, 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 victualling of General Thomas' exhausted troops by General Garfield.
He performed a dangerous ride from Rosencrantz to the beleaguered 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.
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80 335 - Hold On And Chaw! 1:24
Williams, hold on and cha while in July 1863, General Grant was held at Vicksburg by a 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 reinforcements 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 dispatch 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 dispatch 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.
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81 336 - The Great National Job 1:12
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 web feet 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.
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82 337 - For Flaying A Man Alive 1:24
The End 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 dispatched surreptitiously, not to offend the sympathizer's susceptibilities, many good citizens, dwelling on the silence of the Constitution as to succession, said openly that they did not see why the state 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. General Garfield met the issue with indignation.
He called the act treason, and denounced the author as a second Benedict Arnold. He entreated loyal representatives. Do not believe that another such growth on the soil of Ohio deformed the face of nature and darkened the light of God's day. When this speech met the President's eye, he hastened to thank General Garfield for having flayed long alive.
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83 338 - One On 'em Not Dead Yet! 1:31
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. One on em, not dead yet.
As communications were cut off with the North, intense anxiety was occasioned there by the situation in November, 1863, of General Burnside, packed in Knoxville, Tennessee, by Longstreet's dreaded veterans. At last, a telegram reached the War Department, vaguely telling a firing heard in the direction of Knoxville. The president reading expressed gladness in spite of the remaining uncertainty. said he to the group of officers and officials. It reminds me of a neighbor of ours in Indiana, in the brush, who had a numerous family of young ones. They were all the time wandering off into the scrub, but she was relieved as to their being lost by a squall every now and then. She would say, "'Thank the laws!
There is one still alive!' That is, I hope one of our generals is in the thicket, but still alive and kicking." Indeed, Burnside resisted a night-storming party, and Longstreet was not a lane that knew no turning, but turned and retreated.
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84 339 - The South Like An Ash-Cake 2:06
The South Like an Ash Cake. At the end of 1864, the Confederacy was scotched, if not quite killed. Sherman had halved it by striking into Savannah. East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia were cut by stonemen. Alabama and Mississippi were traversed by Grierson and Wilson. In sum, the new map resembled that of a territory charted off into sections. President Lincoln said that its face put him in mind of a weary traveler in the West, who came at night to a small log cabin. The homesteader and his wife said they would put him up, but had not a bite of victuals to offer him. He accepted the truss of litter and was soon asleep. But he was awakened by whispers letting out that in the fire ashes a hoecake was baking.
The woman and her mate were merry over how they had defrauded the stranger of the food. Feeling mad at having been sent to bed supperless, uncommon mean in that part, he pretended to wake up and came forth to sit at the dying fire. He pretended, too, that he was ill from worry. The fact is, my father, when he died, left me a large farm. But I had no sooner taken possession of it than mortgages began to appear. My farm was situated like this. He took up the loggerhead poker to illustrate, drawing lines in the ashes so as to enclose the ash cake. First one man got so much of it at one side. He cut off a side of the hidden dough. Then another brought in a mortgage and took off another piece there.
Then another here, and another there, and here, and there, drawing the poker through the ashes to make the figure plain, until, he said, there was nothing of the farm left for anybody, which I presume is the case with your cake. And I reckon, concluded Mr. Lincoln, that the prospect is now very good of the South being as cut up as the ash-cake. Telegraph Manager, A. Chandler.
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85 340 - I Count For Something! 1:27
The true lovers of the South were sorely wrung in 1864 by the Emperor Napoleon taking advantage of the lock-up of the United States to set a puppet in the Austrian Archduke Maximilian on the imperial throne, so called, of Mexico. It was said that the cabinet of Lincoln were divided on the subject, Whereon the Marquis of Chambrun, having the ear of the executive, called on him and inquired on the real state, would the United States intervene, if only by winking at a filibustering expedition from the South, with Northern Volunteers accessory, to assist the natives against the usurper. There has been war enough, was his rejoinder, with that sadness which Secretary Boutwell declares inseparable from him, but not due to the depression of public affairs.
I know what the American people want, but, thank God, I count for something, and during my second term there will be no more fighting. It was left for his successor, with the two armies disbanded but still wedded for slaughter, to expel the French by the mere threat of their union to restore the Republic.
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86 341 - A Pass is no Good for Richmond 0:33
Williams.
Passes no good for Richmond. A person solicited the President for a pass to Richmond, but the other replied caustically, I should be happy to oblige you if my passes thither were respected, but I have issued two hundred and fifty thousand to go to Richmond, and not one man has gone there yet.
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87 342 - The Mayor Is The Better Horse 1:40
The Mayor is the Better Horse.
The mare is the better horse.
The Lowell Citizen Editor participated in a presidential reception in 1864, just before the fall of Richmond. The usher giving intimation that the president would see his audience at once, all were ushered into the inner room. Abraham Lincoln's countenance bore that open, benignant outline expected, but what struck us especially was its cheerful, wide-awake expressiveness, never met with in the pictures of our beloved chief. The secret may have been that the Secretary Stanton, middle-aged, well-built, stern-visaged man, had brought in his budget good news from Grant. After saluting his little circle of callers, they were seated and attended to in turn. First in order was a citizen of Washington, praying for pardon in the case of a deserter.
"'Well,' said the President, after carefully reading the petition, "'it is only natural for one to want a pardon, but I must in that case have a responsible name that I know. I don't know you. Do you live in the city?' "'Yes.' "'Do you know him, the mayor?' "'Yes.' Well, the mare is the better horse. Bring me his name, and I will let the boy off. The soldier was pardoned.
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88 343 - The Real Thing Superior To The Sham Battle 1:21
The Real Superior Thing to the Sham Battle.
On the 25th of March, 1864, in honor of the President's renewal of office, a grand review had been fixed at City Point, outside the Capitol. Whatever the opinion of the old military, the volunteers gave the civilian commander the soldiers' vote. In imitation of the French soldiers dubbing Bonaparte the little corporal after his Italian victories, the Americans promoted Lincoln to be their captain, as Walt Whitman worded it, after his repeated reinstatement. He was rapturously greeted by his boys in blue. But the arrangements made at Washington in the undisturbed council were upset by General Lee. On that very morning he had attacked, and had taken, Fort Stedman. To drive him out required a veritable action, not terminating for several hours.
Lincoln visited the scene of the restoration after the carnage, and on hearing regrets that the Review, the chief recreation of the Washingtonians,
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89 344 - The Tool Turned on the Handle 3:38
The Tool Turned on the Handle. The scales having fallen from our sight, and the figure of the greatest American standing out colossal and clean-cut for posterity to worship is without a blemish. It is hard to measure the conceit of the clique of politicians, Pettifoggers and office-seekers, certainly assisting in the advancement of Abraham Lincoln from confined obscurity in the West to the choice of the Northern Nation. That was not enough, but still gauging him with their tape, they withheld justice from him, after he displayed his worth in meeting the impending crisis. When on the heels of the call for three hundred thousand men in 1863, Came in spring, 1864, another for five hundred thousand, to fortify General Grant in his finishing maneuvers, a murmur was heard.
Chicago, gallantly having done her part, thought it was pumping at a void. A deputation from Cook County, headed by Lincolnites, departed for the capital to object to the summons. It was thought by his friends and long supporters that, their own elect, could not resist their plea, or turn it off with a joke. This deputation fined down to three persons, as it was not a patriotic quest. One of them also wished to balk, being Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune. As a matter of course, Secretary of War Stanton refused the indulgence, obdurate as he was. The president was likewise averse. But he did consent to go over the matter with Stanton. The result was the same. All was left solely to Lincoln, since the personal argument was implied by the mediums selected.
"'Ay,' said Medill to Miss Tarbell, "'I shall never forget how Mr. Lincoln suddenly lifted his head and turned on us a black and frowning face. Gentlemen,' said he, in a voice full of bitterness, "'after Boston,' Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing this war on the country. The Northwest has opposed the South, as New England opposed the South. It was you who were largely responsible for causing the blood to flow as it has. You called for war until we had it. You called for emancipation, and I have given it to you. Whatever you have asked, you have had. Now you come here. begging to be let off from the call for men which I have made to carry out the war you demanded. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
I have a right to expect better things of you. Go home and raise your six thousand extra men, the Cook County rate. And you, Medill, you are acting like a coward. You and your tribune have had more influence than any paper in the Northwest in making this war. Go home, and send us those men. They went home, and they raised and sent those men.
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90 345 - Sooner The Fowl By Hatching The Egg Than Smashing It. 0:56
Williams. Sooner the fowl by hatching the egg than smashing it. Still the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse? Concede that the new government is to what it should be as the egg to the fowl. We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it. Laughter. Speech by A. Lincoln, his last, in answer to a serenade at the White House, 11th April, 1865, amid illuminations for the victories.
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91 346 - Too Busy To Go Into Another Business 1:15
The New York Times was a very small business, and he was a very small business. There came into the presidential hearing a man of French accent from New Orleans. He was evidently a diffident person, not knowing how precisely to state his case. But the burden of it was that he was a real estate holder in New Orleans, and since the advent of military rulers there he could not collect his rents, his living. "'Your case, my friend,' said the president, "'may be a hard one, but it might be worse. If, with your musket, you had taken your chances with the boys before Richmond, you might have found your bed and board before now. But the point is, what would you have me do for you? I have much to do, and the courts have been open to relieve me in this regard.' The applicant, still embarrassed, said, "'I am not in the habit of appearing before big men.' And for that matter, it was quickly responded, you have no need to change your habit, for you are not before very big men now, playfully adding, I am too busy to go into the rent-collection business.
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92 347 - The Scale Of Rebels. 0:44
The Scale of Rebels.
When, at the finale, Lincoln reproved his own wife for using the hackneyed expression of rebels, suggesting Confederates, as officially accepted on both sides, a wit commented, "'The southerners will be like the Jews. As a poor one is simply a Jew, A rich one, a Hebrew, and a Rothschild, an Israelite. So it will be rebels, confederates, and our southern brothers anew.
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93 348 - One War At A Time. 1:32
One War at a Time. When the Austrian Archduke, Maximilian, was foisted upon Mexico as its emperor by Napoleon III, the Southerners, who did not have their belly full of fighting, by 1864, more than hinted that they would range shoulder to shoulder with the Federals to try to expel him and the mercenary Marshal Bazaine. But the President returned sagaciously, one war at a time. It was under his successor, Johnson, that the expulsion was effected, and the upstart executed by the exasperated Mexicans themselves. This was undoubtedly said, but Mr. Henry Watterson, in his lecture on Lincoln, dates it as at the commencement of the war, when Secretary Seward, to forestall possible European alliances in favour of the Confederate states, proposed waging war against France and Spain, already allied, and challenging Russia and England to follow.
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94 349 - Agin' The Government. 2:19
Williams. Again the government. Read for LibriVox.org by Andrew from Inverarne, Scotland.
In the summer of 1864, the Governor-General of Canada paid the President a visit with a numerous escort. During the late unpleasant As much comfort as possible under the Neutrality Act was believed to have been given the raiders in the border towns, as witness the St. Albans Banksteel, and the outfitting of blockade runners. But they were treated at Washington with perfect courtesy. The head of the British Party, at the conclusion, said with some sarcasm in his genial tone, I understand, Mr. President, that everybody is entitled to a vote in this country. If we remain until November, can we vote?"
You would have to make a longer residence, which I could desire, politely replied the host. Only, I fear, we should not gain much by that. For there was a countryman of your excellency, from the sister kingdom of Ireland, though who came here And on landing wanted to exercise the privilege you seek, to vote early and often. But the officials at Castle Garden Landing Stage laughed at him, saying that he knew nothing about parties. To which he replied, "'Bother the parties. It is the same here with me as in the old country. I am again the government.' You see, he wanted to vote on the side of the rebellion. Your Excellency would then be no more at a loss to decide on which side.
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95 350 - Plowing Around A Log 1:22
A state governor came to Washington, furious at the number of troops headquarters commanded of him and the mode of collecting them. Irate as he was, General Fry saw him bidding good-bye to the capital with a placid, even pleased, mien. The general inquired of Lincoln himself how he had been so miraculously mollified. I suppose you had to make large concessions to him, as he returns from you entirely satisfied, suggested the general. Oh, no, replied the president. I did not concede anything. You know how that Illinois farmer managed the big log that lay in the middle of his field? To the inquiries of his neighbors, he announced he had gotten rid of it. How did you do it? they asked. It was too big to haul away, too knotty to split, too wet and soggy to burn.
Whatever did you do? Well now, boys, if you won't tell the secret, I'll tell you how. I just plowed round it. Now, Fry, don't tell anybody, but I just plowed around the governor. On the authority of General James B. Fry.
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96 351 - Not The Right 0:58
In 1864, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and a great authority among the farming class and the extremists, consented to attend an abortive peace consultation with Southern representatives, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, and Clement C. Clay at Niagara Falls. Clay was so set upon Jefferson Davis being still left as a ruler in some high degree, which would condone his action as President of the Succeeded States, the project, like others, was a fizzle, as Lincoln would have said. To our President, Henry Clay was the beau-ideal of a statesman, but it was clear that his namesake was not of the Clay to cement a new union.
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97 352 - The Man Down South. 2:26
The Man Down South. In August 1864, a painful absorption was noticed in the President's manner, Growing more and more strained and depressed, the ancient smile was fainter when it flitted over the long-drawn features, and the eyes seemed to bury themselves out of light in the cavernous sockets, too dry for tears. These withdrawing fits were not uncommon, but they had become frequent this summer, and at the reception he had mechanically passed the welcome and given the handshake. But then the abstraction became so dense that he let an old friend stand before him without a glance, much less the usual hearty greeting expected. The new-comer, alarmed, ventured to arouse him. He shook off his absence of mind, seized the hand proffered him, and, while grasping it, exclaimed as though no others were by, also staring in pain.
Excuse me. I was thinking—thinking of a man down south.
He was thinking of Sherman, that military genius who burned his ships and penetrated a hostile country like Cortes, and from whom no reliable news had been received while he was investing Savannah. Lincoln had in his mind been accompanying his captain on that forlorn march, smashing things to the sea.
End of section three hundred and fifty two.
This recording is in the public domain.
W. S.
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98 353 - The Dismembered 2:38
The Dismembered Yellow Dog. Toward the end of December, 1864, the news trickled in of the utter discomfiture of Confederate General Hood's army at Nashville by General Thomas. An enthusiastic friend of the president said to him, "'There is not enough left of Hood to make a dishrag, is there?' Well, no, Medill. I think Hood's army is in about the identical fix of Bill Sykes's dog. The application from Dickens is noticeably as showing Lincoln's eclectic reading. Down in Sangamon County. Did you never hear it? As a Chicago man, Mr. Medill might be allowed to be ignorant of Sangamon Valley incidents. Well, this Bill Sykes had a long, hungry yellow dog, forever getting into the neighbors' meat smokehouses and chicken coops and the like.
They had tried to kill it a hundred odd times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a Coon's innards, and filled it up with gunpowder, and tied a piece of punk in the nozzle. When he sees this dog a-coming around, he fired this punk, split open a corn-cake, and squozed the intestine inside, all nice and slab, and throughout the lot. The dog was always ravenous, and swallowed the heap. Ka-chunk! Pretty soon along came an explosion, so the man said. The head of the animal lit on the stoop, the forelegs caught a straddle off the fence, the hind legs kicked in the ditch, and the rest of the critter lay around loose. Pretty soon who should come along but Bill, and he was looking for his dog when he heard the supposed gun go off.
The neighbor said innocent-like, "'William, I guess that there is not much of that dog left to catch anybody's fowls.' "'Well, no,' admitted Sykes. "'I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog, as a dog,' Ain't of much account. Just so, Medill. There may be fragments of Hood's army around, but I guess that army, as an army, ain't of much more account. Joseph Medill was editor of the Chicago Tribune, who was one of the criteria who claimed to have discovered Abraham Lincoln, and surely added propulsion to the wave carrying him to Washington. Another version of this anecdote is applied to the breaking up of General Early's rashly advanced army in July. But it would seem, by Mr. Medill's name, that this is the genuine.
The other is not told in the Western vernacular of Mr. William Sykes.
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99 354 - The Meteorological Omen 0:44
The second inauguration day was amid the usual March weather in the District of Columbia, like the fickle April in unkinder latitudes, smile and scowl. But as the president kissed the book, there was a sudden parting of the clouds, and a sunburst broke in all its splendor. This is testified to by the newspaper correspondents, Frank Moore, Noah Brooks, and others. The President said next day, Did you notice the sunburst? It made me jump.
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100 355 - Did She Take The Wink To Herself? 0:56
Williams. Did she take the wink to herself? Miss Anna Dickinson, lecturing by invitation in the House of Representatives Hall, alluded to the sunburst which came upon the president on inauguration day, just as he took the oath of office. The illustrious auditor sat directly in front of the lady, so that he also faced the reporters' gallery behind her. Lincoln amiably glanced over her head, caught sight of an acquaintance among the newspaper men, and winked to him as she made the reference to the so esteemed omen. Next day he said to this gentleman, Noah Brooks, I wonder if Miss Dickinson saw me wink at you.
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101 356 - Going Down With Colors Flying. 2:45
Williams. Going down with Colors Fly. Read for LibriVox. Org by Cagliostro. All the wire pulling of the many contestants for the presidential chair failed to get the prize upon it. It was held that there must be, in excelsis, no swapping of horses in crossing the stream, still turbid and dangerous, So the National Convention, held at Baltimore, purged by this time of its former treasonable activity, and the soldiers' fair held there, the President had alluded to the time when he had to be whisked through as past the bed of vipers, and said, Blessings on the men who have wrought these changes. All the states voted for their incumbents save Missouri, which stood for the General Grant, but the votes transferred to Lincoln.
The opinion was unanimous. Within two months he was driven by circumstances to call out five hundred thousand men. His partisans regretted the necessity, and on the old story that the people were tired of the war declared it would prove injurious to his re-election. But it is undisputed that about half of the levies never reached their mustering point. The arts and wiles of the Marplots were equalled only by the prodigality and persistency of the parents to save their sons from the evils of camp-life. It is but fair to the Puritans to accept their plea that the loss of them fighting the country's battle did not so distress them. Lincoln replied to the political argument nobly. Gentlemen, It is not necessity that I should be re-elected, but it is necessary that our brave boys in the front should be supported and the country saved.
The hackneyed phrase had led to his party being nicknamed the Union Saver. I shall call out the five hundred thousand more men, and if I go down under the measure, I will go down like the Cumberland, with my colors flying.
On the 8th of March, 1862, the Confederate island-clad ram Merrimack ran into and sank the Union's loop of war, Cumberland, nearly half of the latter's company perishing. Acting Captain Morris refused to strike his flag.
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102 357 - There Must Be The Bell-Mule 1:03
The Lincoln storybook by Henry L. Williams. There must be the Bale Mule.
President Lincoln formally disavowed the desire erroneously attributed to him by military critics that he wished to die with soldier's harness on his back. To quote General Grant, to whom he said in their first interview, when the victor of the West was summoned to Washington to be made lieutenant-general, and given full command over all the national forces, Mr. Lincoln stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man, or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere with them, but that procrastination on the part of his commanders, and the pressure of people at the North, and of Congress, had forced him into issuing the executive orders. He did not know but that they were all wrong, and did not know that some of them were.
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103 358 - Root, Hog, or Die! 4:43
Williams, Root, Hogg, or Die. Read for LibriVox. Org by Jennifer Thirteen, Chicago, Illinois. Root, Hogg, or Die. In February, 1865, permission was requested from the National Government for three appointees on a peace commission to confer with the executive. It was granted, but the parties were not allowed to enter Washington as they wanted to do, to give more luster to the course. The interview of the President, Mr. Seward, the bottle holder, as it was facetiously said about this barring match for breath, was with Alexander Stevens, Hunter, and Campbell, of Alabama, on board of the River Queen, off Fort Monroe. The discussion lasted four hours, But, though on friendly terms, as between gentlemen, resulted in nothing, for the President held that the first step which must be taken was the recognition of the Union.
As was his habit, he rounded off the parley with one of his stories apropos. Mr. Hunter, a Virginian, had assumed that, if the South consented to peace on the basis of the Emancipation Proclamation, the slaves would precipitate ruin on not only themselves, but the entire Southern society. Mr. Lincoln said to Henry J. Raymond of the Times, New York, that, "'I waited for Seward to answer that argument, but, as he was silent, I at length said,' Mr. Hunter, You ought to know a great deal better about that than I, for you have always lived under the slave system. I can only say in reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois by the name of Case, who undertook to raise a very large herd of hogs.
It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit upon a plan of planting a great field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, turned the whole herd into the field and let them have full swing, thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but also that of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along. "'Well, well,' said he. "'This is all very fine, Mr. Case. Your hogs are doing very well just now. But, you know, out here in Illinois, the frost comes early, and the ground freezes for a foot deep. Then what are you going to do?' This was a view of the matter Mr.
Case had not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was way on in December or January. He scratched his head. and at length stammered, "'Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don't see but it will be Root Hog or Die.'" The speaker had no need to draw this moral as to the fate of the South after the war for Black or White from a case in Illinois. The Negro minstrel song was current then, which supplied the apt illusion, and was called Root Hog or Die. It may well be that the sailors conveying the baffled commissioners to Richmond, or the soldiers about the other government, were chanting the instructive and prophetic chorus. It don't make a bit of difference to either you or I, but big pig or little pig, it is root hog or die.
Mr. Raymond, in chronicling this anecdote, tells of the New York Herald giving the story in a mangled and pointless copy. But it was current in conversation. Mr. Lincoln was in hopes that, it would not leak out lest some over-sensitive people should imagine there was a degree of levity in the intercourse between us. Quite otherwise, for the majority thought the illustration as good as any argument, and would have deemed the Speaker profit if they could have foreseen that the South would have to buckle down to hard work to redeem the losses.
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104 359 - The Grant Brand Of Whisky 1:49
The Grant Brand of Whiskey. Although a Kentuckian, orthodox jest, Lincoln was so known for his rare temperance convictions that no one carped at the buffet at his official house, being clear of the decanters characterizing it in previous administrations. The total abstinence societies, therefore, hailed him as an apostle of their creed. Consequently, they had been pleased, on certain occasions, at his espousing and cheering their counsel. When General Grant was elevating himself by his string of solid victories in the West, it was an object of cavilling by the adherents of the generals eclipsed and foreseeing his becoming lieutenant-general, and the slander circulated that Philip Sober got the credit of Philip Drunk, perpetrating his plans with the dram-bottle at his elbow.
Lincoln heard out this spiteful diatribe with his habitual patience, when, calmly looking at the chairman, he responded, "'Gentlemen, since you are so familiar with the general's habits, would you oblige me with the name of General Grant's favorite brand of whiskey? I want so to send some barrels of it to my other generals.' The deputation withdrew in poor order. Major Eckert says that Mr. Lincoln told him he had heard this story. It was good, and would be very good if he had told it, but he had not. He supposed it was charged to him to give it currency. He went on to say, "'The original is back in King George's time. Bitter complaints were made against General Wolfe that he was mad. The King, who could be more justly accused of that, replied, "'I wish he would bite some of my other generals.'"
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105 360 - A General, At Last! 1:10
The Lincolian General, a General at Last. Without disparaging the Lincoln Generals, it may be said that they will never occupy a niche in Walhalla besides Napoleon's Marshals and Washington's Commanders. But Washington Society liked them one with another for affording opportunities of outings to the grand reviews and parades. One, that to bull run, turned out a failure, and the southerners chasing the fugitives had the pickings of the iced wines, game pies, and cold chicken, which Brick Pomeroy saw strewing the road back. Grant's negligent and war-worn uniform did not remind anyone of the gay and brilliant period of old fuss and feathers, the veteran Scot. But Grant and the other westerner, Lincoln, mutually pleased at their first meeting, The latter emerged from the interview exclaiming with joy, At last we have a general.
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106 361 - A Fizzle Anyhow! 1:50
Williams. A Fizzle Anyhow. Read for LibriVox.org by Cagliostro. American Dash was, in military matters as in others, opposed to the engineering schemes dear to the scientific offices fresh from West Point Academy. Among their projects was the Dutch Gap Canal at City Point. When Grant As his lieutenant general was conducted by the president to see the forces and their positions, the guide made known his opinion of the undertaking in his frank manner, consonant with the new commander's bluntness. Grant. Do you know what this reminds me of? In the outskirts of our Springfield, there was a blacksmith of an ingenious turn who could make something of pretty nigh anything in his line. But he got hold of a bit of iron one day that he attempted to make into a corn knife.
But the stuff would not hold an edge, so he reasoned it would be a claw hammer. But that would be a loss of overplus, and he tried to make an axe head. That did not come out a five-pounder, and, getting disgusted, he blew the fire to a white heat around a metal mass when Yanking it out with his tongs, he flung it into the water-tub hard by and cried out, Well, if I can't make anything of you, I'll make a fizzle anyhow. Well, General, I am afear that that's what we'll make of the Dutch Gap Canal.
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107 362 - Forget Over A Grave! 0:42
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. Forget Over a Grave. Read for LibriVox. When the Chronicle of Washington had the noble courage to speak well of Stonewall Jackson, accidentally shot as a brave soldier, however mistaken as an American, Lincoln wrote to the editor, "'I honor you for your generosity to one who, though contending against us in a guilty cause, was nevertheless a gallant man.' Let us forget his sins over a fresh-made grave.
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108 363 - If He Felt That Way - Start! 1:51
Williams. If he felt that way, start. Although Colonel Dana of the private branch of the War Office Intelligence Department might have claimed exemption from active service, he never spared himself Though such a messenger ran not only the common military dangers, but of the Johnnies treating him as a spy. During the battles of the Wilderness, acute was a trepidation in Washington, where no news had come since a couple of days, Grant having cut loose and buried himself in the midst of the foes. Nevertheless, Dana had a train at Maryland Avenue to take him to the front, and a horse and escort to see him farther. He came to take the president's last orders, but the other had been reflecting on the perils into which he would be sending his favorite dispatch-bearer.
You can't tell where Lee is or what he is doing. Jeb Stuart is on the rampage pretty lively between the Rappahannock and the Rapidin. It is considerable risk, and I do not like to expose you to it. But I am ready, and we are equipped, if it comes to the worst, to run. Well now, if you feel that way, start. E. P. Mitchell from Dana End of section three six three this recording is in the public domain recording by david lawrence December twenty ninth two thousand and eight in Brampton, Ontario.
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109 364 - Figures Will Prove Anything 1:07
The End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End Every time a Union commander gets licked, he says the enemy outnumbered him three or four times.
We have three or four hundred thousand, so, logic is logic, they are three times that, say, one million, two hundred thousand. As a fact, at the Grand Review before President Johnson, the two armies of Grant and Sherman, May, 1865, 200,000 veterans filed past. Lincoln should have lived to see that glorious march passed.
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110 365 - I Don't Want To--But That's It If I Must Die! 1:05
In the ferment, as the term of Lincoln's first office-holding was terminating, the old war fever returned by which Little Mac McClellan, idol of the army, was hailed as the hope of the country. Only this time the presage was that General Grant had only to secure that phantasm, the capture of Richmond, to be nominated and elected. This reached the president's ears through the hanged good-natured friend, as Sheridan, the wit, not the general, calls the stinging tongue. Well, drawled Mr. Lincoln, I feel very much like the man who said he did not particularly want to die, but if he had got to die, it was precisely the disease he wanted to die of.
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111 366 - Best Let An Elephant Go! 1:23
The End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End Brevet-General Dana, confidential officer to the War Department and the President, inquired if the fugitive was to be detained at Portland, where the provost-marshal thought he could capture him.
Secretary Stanton wanted him apprehended. "'Hm'," said Lincoln, who was being shaved. "'I don't know as I have any apprehension in that quarter. "'When you have an elephant on your hands and he wants to run away, better let him run.'" The unbeknownst story has been applied to this tolerated escape.
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112 367 - History Repeats. 0:38
There is a double echo in the Lincolnian saying, No surrender, though at the end of one or a hundred defeats, from General President Taylor's reply at Buena Vista, General Taylor never surrenders, to its antecedent, not so well authenticated, of General Cambrone at Waterloo, the old guard dies, but does not surrender.
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113 368 - Not The President, But The Old Friend. 2:57
Williams. Not the President, but the old friend. Read for LibriVox.org by Cagliostro. In February 1865, General Grant's plans were so well shaped that, with the reinforcement of General Sherman returned from his march to Savannah, he could count on crushing up Richmond as an egg under trip-hammers. Before this the doom was registered, for the Southerners were at the end of their men, as before they had been at that of their means. Bridges burned or blown up, the rebel army was pouring out of their capital with the fear that their one or two ways of flight were already blocked by Sheridan or Sherman. The desperate attempt to arm slaves against their coming deliverer was the last kick. Lee clung to Richmond in hope that his lieutenant Johnston would check the oncomer, but he was compelled to notify his president and colleagues that flights were their only resource, when he could no longer fight.
Lincoln was at Petersburg at Grant's headquarters when, a few miles off, Davis received fatal intelligence that Lee was being deserted so freely that there would not be a bodyguard left him. He fled to be ignominiously captured in female disguise. His lair was hot when Lincoln entered it, and made it his closet, whence he issued his orders. Soon after this occupation, the victor heard the name of Pickett announced to him. The Southern General, George Pickett, was a protg of his, as he smoothed his entry upon the West Point Military Academy book when he was a congressman. Without even knowing it, the hero was lying dead on a hard-fought field close by. But Lincoln ordered her admittance. She was accompanied by her little son.
This alone would have prevailed over the president, but as she formally addressed him as the authority, he interrupted. "'Not the president, but George's old friend.' And beckoning the wandering boy to him with the irresistible attraction of men who love the young, and are intuitively loved by them, he said, "'Tell your father, rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of your mother's smile and your own bright eyes.' This reconciliation on the fall of this word was a token of the forgivingness of the North toward the chastened foes."
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114 369 - Close Your Eyes 0:42
Williams.
Close your eyes. The Marquis of Chambron, a French volunteer who entered the Lincoln Circle, relates in a more elegant strain the above incident. He states that Thompson and Sanders were informed upon, and Stanton repeated the information to the President with a view of having them intercepted, but the other in his tender voice responded, Let us close our eyes and leave them pass unnoticed.
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115 370 - Don't Judge By Appearances 1:30
The president's recklessness seems incredible as to going about the capital, as far as he knew and wished, without escort, but his browsing, to use his word, about the perilous front while the concluding actions were enveloping Petersburg preliminarily to the rush at Richmond, partake of the nature of a fanatic's daring. This is the support to the otherwise taxing story told by Dr. J. E. Burris of New York, then a volunteer soldier at the place. He states that Lincoln, so shabbily dressed as to be taken for a farmer or a planter, was so treated by soldiery before a tobacco warehouse under guard. They wanted tobacco, and begged him to allow some to be turned out. He approached a young lieutenant commanding the post, But the latter was insolent to the old southerner.
The latter sent a soldier to General Grant, who himself rode up, post-haste, at the summons. The soldiers were given some of the Indian weed, and the donor, turning to the impertinent officer, who had thought him a converted reb, said, Young sir, do not judge by appearances, and for the future treat your elders with more respect.
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116 371 - Nothing Can Touch Him Further. 0:45
The End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End of the End Foreign levy.
Nothing can touch him further.
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117 372 - Went And Returned! 1:36
The last days of March 1865 contained the three battles, closing with that of Five Forks, signalizing the collapse of the Confederacy at Richmond. The President at the front sent the news of victories to the Cabinet at home. After the battles, the advance of the triumphing Unionists, On Monday morning, Lincoln was enabled to telegraph the talismanic words so often dreamed of in the last agonizing years of fluctuating hope. Richmond has fallen. I am about to enter. Secretary Staunton of the War Office immediately implored, Do not peril your life. But in the morning he received this line from the most independent president known since Jackson. Received your dispatch, went to Richmond, and returned this morning.
Expostulated with by Speaker Colfax on the apparent rashness, for he had completed the foolhardy act by occupying President Jefferson Davis's vacated house, he replied with the calm of a man of destiny, I should have been alarmed myself, if any other person had been President and gone there, but I did not feel in any danger whatever. Mark the analogy in great men. General Grant says of his first emotions in war, The Mexican. If some one else had been Colonel and I had been Lieutenant Colonel, I do not think I would have felt any trepidation.
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118 373 - The Clear Foresight. 1:18
The Clear Forsyte.
The Clear Forsyte.
On the second of April, 1865, the president was at City Point, Grant's headquarters, until he started forth for the culminating series of Ceaseless Strokes. That morning, Attack along the whole line had been commanded, and the president telegraphed to his wife at the capital during the raging battle. He knew that already the hostile lines had been pierced in one or more places, and that Sheridan's cavalry rush was supported by a division of infantry. He concludes foreseeing that at length pegging away was over, and slugging begun. All is now favorable. In truth, on that same day, The rebel government at Richmond faded thence like a mirage, and within one week, General Lee surrendered his enfeebled relic of a grand army.
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119 374 - Do It Unbeknownst. 2:16
The Lincol story-book by Henry L. Williams. Do it unbeknownst. On April 7th, 1865, General Grant had enveloped the enemy so that he could be assured that the rebel government, if it remained in Richmond as the last ditch, would be trapped. He noted by the President close by at Petersburg, and asked what should be done in the event of the game being bagged. The plan was, it seems, to have slain the ex-president and his cabinet officers in a route, and the charge had been described as a massacre abroad. The arbiter on this point of anguish replied in his characteristic manner. I will tell you a story. There was once an Irishman who signed the Father Matthews Temperance Pledge. But a few days afterward, he became terribly thirsty, and finally went into a familiar resort, where the bar-keeper was, at first, startled to hear him call for a straight soda.
He related that he had taken the pledge. So he hinted, with an Irishman's broadness of hint, you might put in some spirits, unbeknownst to me. Note, another and later version, For the above was limitedly repeated at the time with gusto and appreciation of the subtlety, makes the hero a temperance lecturer at Lincoln's father's house. This is stupid, for Lincoln, a fervent temperance advocate, would not have decried the apostles the doctrine for which he was also a sufferer. In course of time, doubt has been cast on this anecdote, by reason that the president would not have gestured at such a juncture. But abundant confirmation was forthcoming at the time. Besides, we have so grave a general as Sherman alluding to the unbeknownst in an official document.
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120 375 - One Cannot Die Twice 0:35
In Lincol's last interview with his rustic friends, Mrs. Armstrong repeated the fears many apprehended of evil being visited on the president-elect on his way to be inaugurated. "'Hannah, if they do kill me, I shall never die another death,' and laughed at her."
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121 376 - No More Invidious Name-Calling. 0:53
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. No more invidious name-calling.
On returning from a carriage-drive into Washington, Mrs. Lincoln, who was not the Southern sympathizer the scandalous hinted, glanced at the city, and said aloud with bitterness, "'That city is full of our enemies!' Had she a premonition on the fatal eve? Right before the Marquise of Chambron, their companion, the President serenely said, Enemies! Mary! Never speak of that. No wonder, when the dastardly taking off was brooded through the beaten but ever-gallant South, they knew that they had lost their best friend, as General Pickett styled Lincoln.
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122 377 - The United States Of America The Treasury Of The World. 1:09
The United States of America, the Treasury of the World. As Schuyler Colfax was going west, Lincoln, in bidding him the last farewell, said foresightedly, I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our nation. Now that the rebellion is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the amount of our national debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make the payment of that debt the easier. Tell the miners from me that I shall promote their interests to the best of my ability, because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation, and we shall prove in a few years that we are the Treasury of the World.
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123 378 - Hang On--Not Hang! 1:14
Williams. Hang on. Not hang. Read for LibriVox. On April Eleventh, 1865, Mr. Lincoln spoke out of his study window to an immense and joyous crowd. There were rockets and port-fire and a huge bonfire while the president was serenaded. The finish of the rebellion delighted all persons. His off-hand speech was full of compassion and brotherly love. Louisiana was already being reconstructed. Mr. Harlan, who followed the chief, touched the major key. "'What shall we do with the rebels?' to which the mob responded hoarsely, "'Hang them!' Lincoln's little son, Tad, was in the room, playing with the quills on the table where his father made his notes. He looked at his father and said, as one whose intimacy made him familiar with his inmost thoughts, "'No, papa, not hang them, but hang on to them!' The president triumphantly repeated, "'We must hang on to them.
"'Tad's got it.' "'By Mrs. H.
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124 379 - Lincoln's Last Wish. 0:39
Lincolns Last Wish Lincolns Last Wish Lincolns Last Wish How happy four years hence will I be, to return there in peace and tranquillity. To the Marquise of Chamborne, April 1865.
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125 380 - Assassination 1:13
Williams. Assassination. At Springfield, immediately upon the election for president, Lincoln began to receive letters with lethal menaces. His friends took them as serious, and two or more carried weapons, and escorted him closely that no one with the dagger might reach his side. Calling on his stepmother for the farewell, She reiterated the general, and rising, fears. At Philadelphia, detectives and others whispered of a plot matured at Baltimore, and in his speech at raising the flag over Independence Hall, he said pointedly, If this country cannot be saved without giving up this principle, liberty to the world, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it.
I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.
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126 381 - A President, Not An Emperor. 0:54
A President, not an Emperor. The President said to Colonel Halpin, as respected the life-guards, which he soon dispensed with around his person, often going out unaware so as to dodge the escort in waiting. It will never do for the president of a republic to have guards with drawn swords at his door, as if he fancied he were, or were trying to be, or were assuming to be an emperor.
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127 382 - The Plot To Waylay The President (1860). 2:16
The Plot to Waylay the President.
Steve Eberhardt. The dispute as to whether there was a foundation to the supposed plot to waylay and sequester President-elect Lincoln between Philadelphia and Washington is notable. From the later light, and a letter from Wilkes Booth to his brother-in-law, Sleeper Clark, the comedian, no doubt is left that to kidnap him was a plot dated very early, when the four-sided slaveholders were certain that he was a greater enemy from consistency than the louder-voiced and openly violent abolitionists. While Colonel Lehman doubted, and wished he had not been beguiled into aiding the ignominious flight in disguise and secretly by train, Secretary Seward and General Scott gave it credence. The foreboding had touched Lincoln before he left his Illinois home.
At Springfield his farewell speech is tinged with shade. At Philadelphia and Harrisburg he spoke of blood-spilling and used the word assassination at the former. He took up the matter like a reasoner. Already the detective brothers, Pinkerton, had an inkling of the doings of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or some such secret society designing regicide. So, as the concordance is held as a proof from the variance of the witnesses to scenes, he argued that the story was founded. Otherwise he would not have heard of the criminal attempt from all sides. That was what made him yield his dignity to the safety of a person whom he felt was chosen for the crisis. The next morning he had concluded to pass through Baltimore, at another than the arranged hour to foil the plot.
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128 383 - I Don't Believe There Is Any Danger 1:32
Williams. I Don't Believe There Is Any Danger. Read for LibriVox. By Christine. I Don't Believe There Is Any Danger. One night the president had been very late with the secretary of war at the latter's department, but just the same he insisted on his getting home by the shortcut, a footpath, lined and embowered by trees, then leading from the war office to the White House. But Stanton stopped him. "'You ought not to go that way. It's dangerous for you in the daytime.' It did lend itself to an ambusted, and persons who knew Wilkes Booth assert having seen him prowling around. It's worse at night.' "'I do not believe there is any danger there, night or day,' responded the president, with Malcolm's confidence that he stood In the great hand of God.
"'Well, Mr. President,' continued Stanton, a stubborn man himself, "'you shall not be killed returning from my department by that dark way while I am in it.' And he forced him to enter his carriage to return by the well-lighted avenue. Lincoln had previously consented to carry a cane.
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129 384 - Worry Till You Get Rid Of Things. 1:30
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. Worry till you get rid of things.
On Colonel Halpine trying to make the chief see that even indoors there was danger, he debated about the two menaces, violence of cranks and of a political fanatic. He thought too well of the sense of the people at Richmond, some of whom had been colleagues of his in his first stay at Washington as congressmen. Do you think they would like to have Hannibal Hamlin, his first vice-president, here any better than myself? The story is repeated, with his second vice substituted for the first, with the more justification as Andy Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way, "'As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances, the most crazy people being, I fear, some of my own two zealous adherents.' He had the same idea as in an ancient Chinese proverb.
You may steal the captain out of his castle, but you cannot steal the castle. I am but a single individual, and it would not help their cause, or make the least difference in the progress of the war. He might have said, as truly as his predecessor, John Tyler, reproached also for going about unguarded, my bodyguard is the people who elected me. Cited by F. B. Carpenter.
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130 385 - The Fearlessness Of The God-Fearing. 2:17
The Fearlessness of the God-fearing.
The Fearlessness of the God-fearing. Lincolne said that by the death of his son Willi he was touched, by the victory of Gettysburg made a believer. It is plain that, after this, A fortitude replaced the despondency stamping him. It may be due to this conviction of being one of the chosen, like Cromwell and Gordon, soldiers of Christ, that he met all adjurations for him to take care of his precious life with fanatical unconcern. He communicated to the cabinet, at the close of the conflict, how he had appointed to confer alone and without guards to terrify the emissary A noted confederate. They were to discuss peace, and by that word Lincoln was drawn to any one. He answered the cautions with a simple saying, "'I am but an individual, and my removal will not in any way advance the other folks in their endeavors.'" In fact, it was so.
The misdeed was a double-edged blade, which cut both ways. It will never be known, probably, How near a massacre followed the explosion of indignation at that maniac's murder of the emancipator. Fortunately, for the unsullied robe of Columbia, a hundred advocates of leaving retribution to heaven, echoed Garfield's appeasing address. Lincolne met the intermediator, but the ultimate negotiation fell through, like the others all. He came home from City Point with sadness, But from his seat has outcome the Universal Peace Tribunal of the Hague. Professor Martins based his original plea of the Tsars on the Lincolnian Guide for the Soldiers in our War.
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131 386 - The Poisoning Plot 1:13
The Poisoning Plot. A servant at the White House testifies that he was approached by emissaries who offered him a sum almost preposterously large to put a powder in the milk for the lincoln's family table. The agents knew that they were temperance followers, milk being as common as wine at previous tenants' table. This was laughed at before the shadow of Booth's patricide was cast ahead. But the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher publicly declares, and he was in the state secrets as deeply as any layman, that President-General Harrison, Tippecanoe, was poisoned that Tyler might fulfill the plan to annex Texas as a slave state. With even stronger convictions is it affirmed that President-General Taylor was poisoned, that a less stern successor might give a suppler instrument to manage.
Who doubts now that it was attempted Breckinridge in his room?
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132 387 - Nothing Like Getting Used To Things! 1:21
Williams. Nothing Like Getting Used to Things.
Nothing Like Getting Used to Things. The more evident it grew that the president, at whom the stupid jeers persisted through incurable density of his enemies, was the vital motor of the Union cause, Then threats of violently removing him were continually sent him. So many such letters accumulated that he grimly packaged them together and labelled the mass assassination papers. It was a democlesian dagger of which he spoke lightly, because fear of death never awed him. When a man walks in the manifest path, traced out for him by heaven, he does not tremble. But friends, More concerned by the strain in watching over his safety, expressing surprise at his indifference, he tried to reassure them.
Oh, there is nothing like getting used to things.
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133 388 - Most Afraid Of A Friendly Shot 0:57
The Lincolns Story Book by Henry L. Williams. Most Afraid of a Friendly Shot.
General Wadsworth, in his anxiety about the President's safety in Washington, swarming with insurgent agents, set a cavalry guard over the President's carriage. He went and complained to General Halleck, in charge of the Capitol, saying only partly facetiously, "'Why, Mrs. Lincoln and I cannot hear ourselves talk for the clatter of their sabres and spurs, And some of them appear to be new hands and very awkward, so that I am afraid of being shot by the accidental discharge of a carbine or revolver than any attempt upon my life by a roving squad of Jeb Stuart's cavalry. Since Stuart came twenty miles within the Union lines, he was the criterion of rebel raiders possibilities.
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134 389 - The One Word He Had Learned. 0:57
The One Word He Had Learned The One Word He Had Learned A tale-bearer came to the president with a plot against him and the government, which was a cock-and-bull without any adherence, and all superficial. Lincolne heard him out, but then sharply returned. There is one thing that I have learned, and that you have not. It is only one word, thorough. Then, bringing his huge hand down on the table-desk to emphasize his meaning, he repeated, thorough.
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135 390 - Not To Disappoint The People 1:00
Williams. Not to Disappoint the People. Read for LibriVox.org by Bill Elliott at Vocability.com. The Strictly Religious went so far as to call the Lincoln assassination a judgment as it happened in a playhouse on a Good Friday. It appears that the president had compunctions, and at the last minute was disinclined to go. Though a party had been made up to oblige a young espoused couple, but General Grant, who was to be a feature of the command performance, was called away, no doubt escaping the knife the murderer had in reserve to his pistol. The President said that he must go, not to disappoint the people on this gala night, as the rejoicing was wide over the dissolution of the Confederacy.
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136 391 - Nothing Like Prayer--But Praise. 1:51
Williams. Nothing like prayer but praise. Read for LibriVox. Dot org by Esther. Nothing like prayer but praise. In 1862, the president suffered an affliction harder to bear than the war. His son, Willie, William, next to the one that died in infancy, was carried off by typhoid fever under the presidential roof. And another, Tad, Thomas, who actually lived to be twenty and passed away in Illinois, was given up by the physicians. At this crisis, Miss Dix, daughter of the general, famous for his order, if anyone offers to pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot. Recommended an army nurse, Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomeroy. She was a born succorer, pious and fortifying. She came reluctantly to the important errand, as she had to leave a wardful of wounded soldiers.
She had lost many of her family, and was able to comfort from gauging the affectionate father's grief. She led him to pray in his double racking of bad war news and the domestic distress. On next seeing him, and that he was less grieved, For news of the Fort Donaldson's surrender to General Grant arrived in the meantime, she hastened to say, "'There is nothing like prayer, Mr. President.' "'Yes, there is. Praise. Prayer and praise must go together.'" The End End of Section 391 End of the Lincoln Storybook by Henry L. Williams.