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

The boy advanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President’s chair, and, with a bowed head and timid accents, said: “Mr. President, I have been a drummer boy in a regiment for two years, and my colonel got angry with me and turned me off. I was taken sick and have been a long time in the hospital.”

The President discovered that the boy had no home, no father—he had died in the army—no mother.

“I have no father, no mother, no brothers, no sisters, and,” bursting into tears, “no friends—nobody cares for me.”

Lincoln’s eyes filled with tears, and the boy’s heart was soon made glad by a request to certain officials “to care for this poor boy.”

THE JURY ACQUITTED HIM

One of the most noted murder cases in which Lincoln defended the accused was tried in August, 1859. The victim, Crafton, was a student in his own law office, the defendant, “Peachy” Harrison, was a grandson of Rev. Peter Cartwright; both were connected with the best families in the county; they were brothers-in-law, and had always been friends.

Senator John M. Palmer and General John A. McClelland were on the side of the prosecution. Among those who represented the defendant were Lincoln and Senator Shelby M. Cullom. The two young men had engaged in a political quarrel, and Crafton was stabbed to death by Harrison. The tragic pathos of a case which involved the deepest affections of almost an entire community reached its climax in the appearance in court of the venerable Peter Cartwright. Lincoln had beaten him for Congress in 1846.

Eccentric and aggressive as he was, he was honored far and wide; and when he arose to take the witness stand, his white hair crowned with this cruel sorrow, the most indifferent spectator felt that his examination would be unbearable.

It fell to Lincoln to question Cartwright. With the rarest gentleness he began to put his questions.

“How long have you known the prisoner?”

Cartwright’s head dropped on his breast for a moment; then straightening himself, he passed his hand across his eyes and answered in a deep, quavering voice:

“I have known him since a babe, he laughed and cried on my knee.”

The examination ended by Lincoln drawing from the witness the story of how Crafton had said to him, just before his death: “I am dying; I will soon part with all I love on earth, and I want you to say to my slayer that I forgive him. I want to leave this earth with a forgiveness of all who have in any way injured me.”

This examination made a profound impression on the jury. Lincoln closed his argument by picturing the scene anew, appealing to the jury to practice the same forgiving spirit that the murdered man had shown on his deathbed. It was undoubtedly to his handling of the grandfather’s evidence that Harrison’s acquittal was due.

TOOK NOTHING BUT MONEY.

During the War Congress appropriated $10,000 to be expended by the President in defending United States Marshals in cases of arrests and seizures where the legality of their actions was tested in the courts. Previously the Marshals sought the assistance of the Attorney-General in defending them, but when they found that the President had a fund for that purpose they sought to control the money.

In speaking of these Marshals one day, Mr. Lincoln said:

“They are like a man in Illinois, whose cabin was burned down, and, according to the kindly custom of early days in the West, his neighbors all contributed something to start him again. In his case they had been so liberal that he soon found himself better off than before the fire, and he got proud. One day a neighbor brought him a bag of oats, but the fellow refused it with scorn.

“‘No,’ said he, ‘I’m not taking oats now. I take nothing but money.’”

NAUGHTY BOY HAD TO TAKE HIS MEDICINE.

The resistance to the military draft of 1863 by the City of New York, the result of which was the killing of several thousand persons, was illustrated on August 29th, 1863, by “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,” over the title of “The Naughty Boy, Gotham, Who Would Not Take the Draft.” Beneath was also the text:

MAMMY LINCOLN: “There now, you bad boy, acting that way, when your little sister Penn (State of Pennsylvania) takes hers like a lady!”

Horatio Seymour was then Governor of New York, and a prominent “the War is a failure” advocate. He was in Albany, the State capital, when the riots broke out in the City of New York, July 13th, and after the mob had burned the Colored Orphan Asylum and killed several hundred negroes, came to the city. He had only soft words for the rioters, promising them that the draft should be suspended. Then the Government sent several regiments of veterans, fresh from the field of Gettysburg, where they had assisted in defeating Lee. These troops made short work of the brutal ruffians, shooting down three thousand or so of them, and the rioting was subdued. The “Naughty Boy Gotham” had to take his medicine, after all, but as the spirit of opposition to the War was still rampant, the President issued a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus in all the States of the Union where the Government had control. This had a quieting effect upon those who were doing what they could in obstructing the Government.

WOULD BLOW THEM TO H–.

Mr. Lincoln had advised Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, commanding the United States Army, of the threats of violence on inauguration day, 1861. General Scott was sick in bed at Washington when Adjutant-General Thomas Mather, of Illinois, called upon him in President-elect Lincoln’s behalf, and the veteran commander was much wrought up. Said he to General Mather:

“Present my compliments to Mr. Lincoln when you return to Springfield, and tell him I expect him to come on to Washington as soon as he is ready; say to him that I will look after those Maryland and Virginia rangers myself. I will plant cannon at both ends of Pennsylvania avenue, and if any of them show their heads or raise a finger, I’ll blow them to h–.”

“YANKEE” GOODNESS OF HEART.

One day, when the President was with the troops who were fighting at the front, the wounded, both Union and Confederate, began to pour in.

As one stretcher was passing Lincoln, he heard the voice of a lad calling to his mother in agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He forgot the crisis of the hour. Stopping the carriers, he knelt, and bending over him, asked: “What can I do for you, my poor child?”

“Oh, you will do nothing for me,” he replied. “You are a Yankee. I cannot hope that my message to my mother will ever reach her.”

Lincoln, in tears, his voice full of tenderest love, convinced the boy of his sincerity, and he gave his good-bye words without reserve.

The President directed them copied, and ordered that they be sent that night, with a flag of truce, into the enemy’s lines.

WALKED AS HE TALKED.

When Mr. Lincoln made his famous humorous speech in Congress ridiculing General Cass, he began to speak from notes, but, as he warmed up, he left his desk and his notes, to stride down the alley toward the Speaker’s chair.

Occasionally, as he would complete a sentence amid shouts of laughter, he would return up the alley to his desk, consult his notes, take a sip of water and start off again.

Mr. Lincoln received many congratulations at the close, Democrats joining the Whigs in their complimentary comments.

One Democrat, however (who had been nicknamed “Sausage” Sawyer), didn’t enthuse at all.

“Sawyer,” asked an Eastern Representative, “how did you like the lanky Illinoisan’s speech? Very able, wasn’t it?”

“Well,” replied Sawyer, “the speech was pretty good, but I hope he won’t charge mileage on his travels while delivering it.”

THE SONG DID THE BUSINESS.

The Virginia (Ill.) Enquirer, of March 1, 1879, tells this story:

“John McNamer was buried last Sunday, near Petersburg, Menard county. A long while ago he was Assessor and Treasurer of the County for several successive terms. Mr. McNamer was an early settler in that section, and, before the town of Petersburg was laid out, in business in Old Salem, a village that existed many years ago two miles south of the present site of Petersburg.

“‘Abe’ Lincoln was then postmaster of the place and sold whisky to its inhabitants. There are old-timers yet living in Menard who bought many a jug of corn-juice from ‘Old Abe’ when he lived at Salem. It was here that Anne Rutledge dwelt, and in whose grave Lincoln wrote that his heart was buried.

“As the story runs, the fair and gentle Anne was originally John McNamer’s sweetheart, but ‘Abe’ took a ‘shine’ to the young lady, and succeeded in heading off McNamer and won her affections. But Anne Rutledge died, and Lincoln went to Springfield, where he some time afterwards married.

“It is related that during the War a lady belonging to a prominent Kentucky family visited Washington to beg for her son’s pardon, who was then in prison under sentence of death for belonging to a band of guerrillas who had committed many murders and outrages.

“With the mother was her daughter, a beautiful young lady, who was an accomplished musician. Mr. Lincoln received the visitors in his usual kind manner, and the mother made known the object of her visit, accompanying her plea with tears and sobs and all the customary romantic incidents.

“There were probably extenuating circumstances in favor of the young rebel prisoner, and while the President seemed to be deeply pondering the young lady moved to a piano near by and taking a seat commenced to sing ‘Gentle Annie,’ a very sweet and pathetic ballad which, before the War, was a familiar song in almost every household in the Union, and is not yet entirely forgotten, for that matter.

“It is to be presumed that the young lady sang the song with more plaintiveness and effect than ‘Old Abe’ had ever heard it in Springfield. During its rendition, he arose from his seat, crossed the room to a window in the westward, through which he gazed for several minutes with a ‘sad, far-away look,’ which has so often been noted as one of his peculiarities.

“His memory, no doubt, went back to the days of his humble life on the Sangamon, and with visions of Old Salem and its rustic people, who once gathered in his primitive store, came a picture of the ‘Gentle Annie’ of his youth, whose ashes had rested for many long years under the wild flowers and brambles of the old rural burying-ground, but whose spirit then, perhaps, guided him to the side of mercy.

“Be that as it may, President Lincoln drew a large red silk handkerchief from his coatpocket, with which he wiped his face vigorously. Then he turned, advanced quickly to his desk, wrote a brief note, which he handed to the lady, and informed her that it was the pardon she sought.

“The scene was no doubt touching in a great degree and proves that a nice song, well sung, has often a powerful influence in recalling tender recollections. It proves, also, that Abraham Lincoln was a man of fine feelings, and that, if the occurrence was a put-up job on the lady’s part, it accomplished the purpose all the same.”

A “FREE FOR ALL.”

Lincoln made a political speech at Pappsville, Illinois, when a candidate for the Legislature the first time. A free-for-all fight began soon after the opening of the meeting, and Lincoln, noticing one of his friends about to succumb to the energetic attack of