''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, Alexander Kelly McClure [suggested reading TXT] 📗

voluminous documents. Pushing everything aside, he said to one of the party:

“‘Have you seen the Nasby papers?’

“‘No, I have not,’ was the reply; ‘who is Nasby?’

“‘There is a chap out in Ohio,’ returned the President, ‘who has been writing a series of letters in the newspapers over the signature of Petroleum V. Nasby. Some one sent me a pamphlet collection of them the other day. I am going to write to “Petroleum” to come down here, and I intend to tell him if he will communicate his talent to me, I will swap places with him!’

“Thereupon he arose, went to a drawer in his desk, and, taking out the ‘Letters,’ sat down and read one to the company, finding in their enjoyment of it the temporary excitement and relief which another man would have found in a glass of wine. The instant he had ceased, the book was thrown aside, his countenance relapsed into its habitual serious expression, and the business was entered upon with the utmost earnestness.”

 

LONG AND SHORT OF IT.

On the occasion of a serenade, the President was called for by the crowd assembled. He appeared at a window with his wife (who was somewhat below the medium height), and made the following “brief remarks”:

“Here I am, and here is Mrs. Lincoln. That’s the long and the short of it.”

 

MORE PEGS THAN HOLES.

Some gentlemen were once finding fault with the President because certain generals were not given commands.

“The fact is,” replied President Lincoln, “I have got more pegs than I have holes to put them in.”

 

“WEBSTER COULDN’T HAVE DONE MORE.”

Lincoln “got even” with the Illinois Central Railroad Company, in 1855, in a most substantial way, at the same time secured sweet revenge for an insult, unwarranted in every way, put upon him by one of the officials of that corporation.

Lincoln and Herndon defended the Illinois Central Railroad in an action brought by McLean County, Illinois, in August, 1853, to recover taxes alleged to be due the county from the road. The Legislature had granted the road immunity from taxation, and this was a case intended to test the constitutionality of the law. The road sent a retainer fee of $250.

In the lower court the case was decided in favor of the railroad. An appeal to the Supreme Court followed, was argued twice, and finally decided in favor of the road. This last decision was rendered some time in 1855. Lincoln then went to Chicago and presented the bill for legal services. Lincoln and Herndon only asked for $2,000 more.

The official to whom he was referred, after looking at the bill, expressed great surprise.

“Why, sir,” he exclaimed, “this is as much as Daniel Webster himself would have charged. We cannot allow such a claim.”

“Why not?” asked Lincoln.

“We could have hired first-class lawyers at that figure,” was the response.

“We won the case, didn’t we?” queried Lincoln.

“Certainly,” replied the official.

“Daniel Webster, then,” retorted Lincoln in no amiable tone, “couldn’t have done more,” and “Abe” walked out of the official’s office.

Lincoln withdrew the bill, and started for home. On the way he stopped at Bloomington, where he met Grant Goodrich, Archibald Williams, Norman B. Judd, O. H. Browning, and other attorneys, who, on learning of his modest charge for the valuable services rendered the railroad, induced him to increase the demand to $5,000, and to bring suit for that sum.

This was done at once. On the trial six lawyers certified that the bill was reasonable, and judgment for that sum went by default; the judgment was promptly paid, and, of course, his partner, Herndon, got “your half Billy,” without delay.

 

LINCOLN MET CLAY.

When a member of Congress, Lincoln went to Lexington, Kentucky, to hear Henry Clay speak. The Westerner, a Kentuckian by birth, and destined to reach the great goal Clay had so often sought, wanted to meet the “Millboy of the Slashes.” The address was a tame affair, as was the personal greeting when Lincoln made himself known. Clay was courteous, but cold. He may never have heard of the man, then in his presence, who was to secure, without solicitation, the prize which he for many years had unsuccessfully sought. Lincoln was disenchanted; his ideal was shattered. One reason why Clay had not realized his ambition had become apparent.

Clay was cool and dignified; Lincoln was cordial and hearty. Clay’s hand was bloodless and frosty, with no vigorous grip in it; Lincoln’s was warm, and its clasp was expressive of kindliness and sympathy.

 

REMINDED “ABE” OF A LITTLE JOKE.

President Lincoln had a little joke at the expense of General George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in opposition to the Westerner in 1864. McClellan was nominated by the Democratic National Convention, which assembled at Chicago, but after he had been named, and also during the campaign, the military candidate was characteristically slow in coming to the front.

President Lincoln had his eye upon every move made by General McClellan during the campaign, and when reference was made one day, in his presence, to the deliberation and caution of the New Jerseyite, Mr. Lincoln remarked, with a twinkle in his eye, “Perhaps he is intrenching.”

The cartoon we reproduce appeared in “Harper’s Weekly,” September 17th, 1864, and shows General McClellan, with his little spade in hand, being subjected to the scrutiny of the President—the man who gave McClellan, when the latter was Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, every opportunity in the world to distinguish himself. There is a smile on the face of “Honest Abe,” which shows conclusively that he does not regard his political opponent as likely to prove formidable in any way. President Lincoln “sized up” McClellan in 1861-2, and knew, to a fraction, how much of a man he was, what he could do, and how he went about doing it. McClellan was no politician, while the President was the shrewdest of political diplomats.

 

HIS DIGNITY SAVED HIM.

When Washington had become an armed camp, and full of soldiers, President Lincoln and his Cabinet officers drove daily to one or another of these camps. Very often his outing for the day was attending some ceremony incident to camp life: a military funeral, a camp wedding, a review, a flag-raising. He did not often make speeches. “I have made a great many poor speeches,” he said one day, in excusing himself, “and I now feel relieved that my dignity does not permit me to be a public speaker.”

 

THE MAN HE WAS LOOKING FOR

Judge Kelly, of Pennsylvania, who was one of the committee to advise Lincoln of his nomination, and who was himself a great many feet high, had been eyeing Lincoln’s lofty form with a mixture of admiration and possibly jealousy.

This had not escaped Lincoln, and as he shook hands with the judge he inquired, “What is your height?”

“Six feet three. What is yours, Mr. Lincoln?”

“Six feet four.”

“Then,” said the judge, “Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for years my heart has been aching for a President that I could look up to, and I’ve at last found him.”

 

HIS CABINET CHANCES POOR.

Mr. Jeriah Bonham, in describing a visit he paid Lincoln at his room in the State House at Springfield, where he found him quite alone, except that two of his children, one of whom was “Tad,” were with him.

“The door was open.

“We walked in and were at once recognized and seated—the two boys still continuing their play about the room. “Tad” was spinning his top; and Lincoln, as we entered, had just finished adjusting the string for him so as to give the top the greatest degree of force. He remarked that he was having a little fun with the boys.”

At another time, at Lincoln’s residence, “Tad” came into the room, and, putting his hand to his mouth, and his mouth to his father’s ear, said, in a boy’s whisper: “Ma says come to supper.”

All heard the announcement; and Lincoln, perceiving this, said: “You have heard, gentlemen, the announcement concerning the interesting state of things in the dining-room. It will never do for me, if elected, to make this young man a member of my Cabinet, for it is plain he cannot be trusted with secrets of state.”

THE GENERAL WAS “HEADED IN”

A Union general, operating with his command in West Virginia, allowed himself and his men to be trapped, and it was feared his force would be captured by the Confederates. The President heard the report read by the operator, as it came over the wire, and remarked:

“Once there was a man out West who was ‘heading’ a barrel, as they used to call it. He worked like a good fellow in driving down the hoops, but just about the time he thought he had the job done, the head would fall in. Then he had to do the work all over again.

“All at once a bright idea entered his brain, and he wondered how it was he hadn’t figured it out before. His boy, a bright, smart lad, was standing by, very much interested in the business, and, lifting the young one up, he put him inside the barrel, telling him to hold the head in its proper place, while he pounded down the hoops on the sides. This worked like a charm, and he soon had the ‘heading’ done.

“Then he realized that his boy was inside the barrel, and how to get him out he couldn’t for his life figure out. General Blank is now inside the barrel, ‘headed in,’ and the job now is to get him out.”

 

SUGAR-COATED.

Government Printer Defrees, when one of the President’s messages was being printed, was a good deal disturbed by the use of the term “sugar-coated,” and finally went to Mr. Lincoln about it.

Their relations to each other being of the most intimate character, he told the President frankly that he ought to remember that a message to Congress was a different affair from a speech at a mass meeting in Illinois; that the messages became a part of history, and should be written accordingly.

“What is the matter now?” inquired the President.

“Why,” said Defrees, “you have used an undignified expression in the message”; and, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, “I would alter the structure of that, if I were you.”

“Defrees,” replied the President, “that word expresses exactly my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when people won’t know exactly what ‘sugar-coated’ means.”

 

COULD MAKE “RABBIT-TRACKS.”

When a grocery clerk at New Salem, the annual election came around. A Mr. Graham was clerk, but his assistant was absent, and it was necessary to find a man to fill his place. Lincoln, a “tall young man,” had already concentrated on himself the attention of the people of the town, and Graham easily discovered him. Asking him if he could write, “Abe” modestly replied, “I can make a few rabbit-tracks.” His rabbit-tracks proving to be legible and even graceful, he was employed.

The voters soon discovered that the new assistant clerk was honest and fair, and performed his duties satisfactorily, and when, the work done, he began to “entertain them with stories,” they found that their town had made a valuable personal and social acquisition.

 

LINCOLN PROTECTED CURRENCY ISSUES.

Marshal Ward Lamon was in President Lincoln’s office in the White House one day, and casually asked the President if he knew how the currency of the country was made. Greenbacks were then under full headway of circulation, these bits of paper being the representatives of United State money.

“Our currency,” was the President’s answer, “is made, as the lawyers would put it, in their legal way, in the following