''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories by Alexander Kelly McClure (english books to improve english TXT) 📕

his camps as contraband of war, and to employ their labor under fair compensation, and Secretary of War Stanton replied to him, in behalf of the President, approving his course, and saying, “You are not to interfere between master and slave on the one hand, nor surrender slaves who may come within your lines.”

This was a significant milestone of progress to the great end that was thereafter to be reached.

 

CONSCRIPTING DEAD MEN.

Mr. Lincoln being found fault with for making another “call,” said that if the country required it, he would continue to do so until the matter stood as described by a Western provost marshal, who says:

“I listened a short time since to a butternut-clad individual, who succeeded in making good his escape, expatiate most eloquently on the rigidness with which the conscription was enforced south of the Tennessee River. His response to a question propounded by a citizen ran somewhat in this wise:

“‘Do they conscript close over the river?’

“‘Stranger, I should think they did! They take every man who hasn’t been dead more than two days!’

“If this is correct, the Confederacy has at least a ghost of a chance left.”

And of another, a Methodist minister in Kansas, living on a small salary, who was greatly troubled to get his quarterly instalment. He at last told the non-paying trustees that he must have his money, as he was suffering for the necessaries of life.

“Money!” replied the trustees; “you preach for money? We thought you preached for the good of souls!”

“Souls!” responded the reverend; “I can’t eat souls; and if I could it would take a thousand such as yours to make a meal!”

“That soul is the point, sir,” said the President.

 

LINCOLN’S REJECTED MANUSCRIPT.

On February 5th, 1865, President Lincoln formulated a message to Congress, proposing the payment of $400,000,000 to the South as compensation for slaves lost by emancipation, and submitted it to his Cabinet, only to be unanimously rejected.

Lincoln sadly accepted the decision, and filed away the manuscript message, together with this indorsement thereon, to which his signature was added: “February 5, 1865. To-day these papers, which explain themselves, were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet unanimously disapproved by them.”

When the proposed message was disapproved, Lincoln soberly asked: “How long will the war last?”

To this none could make answer, and he added: “We are spending now, in carrying on the war, $3,000,000 a day, which will amount to all this money, besides all the lives.”

 

LINCOLN AS A STORY WRITER.

In his youth, Mr. Lincoln once got an idea for a thrilling, romantic story. One day, in Springfield, he was sitting with his feet on the window sill, chatting with an acquaintance, when he suddenly changed the drift of the conversation by saying: “Did you ever write out a story in your mind? I did when I was a little codger. One day a wagon with a lady and two girls and a man broke down near us, and while they were fixing up, they cooked in our kitchen. The woman had books and read us stories, and they were the first I had ever heard. I took a great fancy to one of the girls; and when they were gone I thought of her a great deal, and one day when I was sitting out in the sun by the house I wrote out a story in my mind. I thought I took my father’s horse and followed the wagon, and finally I found it, and they were surprised to see me. I talked with the girl, and persuaded her to elope with me; and that night I put her on my horse, and we started off across the prairie. After several hours we came to a camp; and when we rode up we found it was the one we had left a few hours before, and went in. The next night we tried again, and the same thing happened—the horse came back to the same place; and then we concluded that we ought not to elope. I stayed until I had persuaded her father to give her to me. I always meant to write that story out and publish it, and I began once; but I concluded that it was not much of a story. But I think that was the beginning of love with me.”

 

LINCOLN’S IDEAS ON CROSSING A RIVER WHEN HE GOT TO IT.

Lincoln’s reply to a Springfield (Illinois) clergyman, who asked him what was to be his policy on the slavery question was most apt:

“Well, your question is rather a cool one, but I will answer it by telling you a story:

“You know Father B., the old Methodist preacher? and you know Fox River and its freshets?

“Well, once in the presence of Father B., a young Methodist was worrying about Fox River, and expressing fears that he should be prevented from fulfilling some of his appointments by a freshet in the river.

“Father B. checked him in his gravest manner. Said he:

“‘Young man, I have always made it a rule in my life not to cross Fox River till I get to it.’

“And,” said the President, “I am not going to worry myself over the slavery question till I get to it.”

A few days afterward a Methodist minister called on the President, and on being presented to him, said, simply:

“Mr. President, I have come to tell you that I think we have got to Fox River!”

Lincoln thanked the clergyman, and laughed heartily.

 

PRESIDENT NOMINATED FIRST.

The day of Lincoln’s second nomination for the Presidency he forgot all about the Republican National Convention, sitting at Baltimore, and wandered over to the War Department. While there, a telegram came announcing the nomination of Johnson as Vice-President.

“What,” said Lincoln to the operator, “do they nominate a Vice-President before they do a President?”

“Why,” replied the astonished official, “have you not heard of your own nomination? It was sent to the White House two hours ago.”

“It is all right,” replied the President; “I shall probably find it on my return.”

 

“THEM GILLITEENS.”

The illustrated newspapers of the United States and England had a good deal of fun, not only with President Lincoln, but the latter’s Cabinet officers and military commanders as well. It was said by these funny publications that the President had set up a guillotine in his “back-yard,” where all those who offended were beheaded with both neatness, and despatch. “Harper’s Weekly” of January 3rd, 1863, contained a cartoon labeled “Those Guillotines; a Little Incident at the White House,” the personages figuring in the “incident” being Secretary of War Stanton and a Union general who had been unfortunate enough to lose a battle to the Confederates. Beneath the cartoon was the following dialogue:

SERVANT: “If ye plase, sir, them Gilliteens has arrove.” MR. LINCOLN: “All right, Michael. Now, gentlemen, will you be kind enough to step out in the back-yard?”

The hair and whiskers of Secretary of War Stanton are ruffled and awry, and his features are not calm and undisturbed, indicating that he has an idea of what’s the matter in that back-yard; the countenance of the officer in the rear of the Secretary of War wears rather an anxious, or worried, look, and his hair isn’t combed smoothly, either.

President Lincoln’s frequent changes among army commanders—before he found Grant, Sherman and Sheridan—afforded an opportunity the caricaturists did not neglect, and some very clever cartoons were the consequence.

 

“CONSIDER THE SYMPATHY OF LINCOLN.”

Consider the sympathy of Abraham Lincoln. Do you know the story of William Scott, private? He was a boy from a Vermont farm.

There had been a long march, and the night succeeding it he had stood on picket. The next day there had been another long march, and that night William Scott had volunteered to stand guard in the place of a sick comrade who had been drawn for the duty.

It was too much for William Scott. He was too tired. He had been found sleeping on his beat.

The army was at Chain Bridge. It was in a dangerous neighborhood. Discipline must be kept.

William Scott was apprehended, tried by court-martial, sentenced to be shot. News of the case was carried to Lincoln. William Scott was a prisoner in his tent, expecting to be shot next day.

But the flaps of his tent were parted, and Lincoln stood before him. Scott said:

“The President was the kindest man I had ever seen; I knew him at once by a Lincoln medal I had long worn.

“I was scared at first, for I had never before talked with a great man; but Mr. Lincoln was so easy with me, so gentle, that I soon forgot my fright.

“He asked me all about the people at home, the neighbors, the farm, and where I went to school, and who my schoolmates were. Then he asked me about mother and how she looked; and I was glad I could take her photograph from my bosom and show it to him.

“He said how thankful I ought to be that my mother still lived, and how, if he were in my place, he would try to make her a proud mother, and never cause her a sorrow or a tear.

“I cannot remember it all, but every word was so kind.

“He had said nothing yet about that dreadful next morning; I thought it must be that he was so kind-hearted that he didn’t like to speak of it.

“But why did he say so much about my mother, and my not causing her a sorrow or a tear, when I knew that I must die the next morning?

“But I supposed that was something that would have to go unexplained; and so I determined to brace up and tell him that I did not feel a bit guilty, and ask him wouldn’t he fix it so that the firing party would not be from our regiment.

“That was going to be the hardest of all—to die by the hands of my comrades.

“Just as I was going to ask him this favor, he stood up, and he says to me:

“‘My boy, stand up here and look me in the face.’

“I did as he bade me.

“‘My boy,’ he said, ‘you are not going to be shot tomorrow. I believe you when you tell me that you could not keep awake.

“‘I am going to trust you, and send you back to your regiment.

“‘But I have been put to a good deal of trouble on your account.

“‘I have had to come up here from Washington when I have got a great deal to do; and what I want to know is, how are you going to pay my bill?’

“There was a big lump in my throat; I could scarcely speak. I had expected to die, you see, and had kind of got used to thinking that way.

“To have it all changed in a minute! But I got it crowded down, and managed to say:

“‘I am grateful, Mr. Lincoln! I hope I am as grateful as ever a man can be to you for saving my life.

“‘But it comes upon me sudden and unexpected like. I didn’t lay out for it at all; but there is some way to pay you, and I will find it after a little.

“‘There is the bounty in the savings bank; I guess we could borrow some money on the mortgage of the farm.’

“‘There was my pay was something, and if he would wait until pay-day I was sure the boys would help; so I thought we could make it up if it wasn’t more than five or six hundred dollars.

“‘But it is a great deal more than that,’ he said.

“Then I