Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 13

"That reminds me of a little story. It came about that a lot of Confederate mail was captured by the Union forces, and, while it was not exactly the proper thing to do, some of our soldiers opened several letters written by the Southerners at the front to their people at home.

"In one of these missives the writer, in a postscript, jotted down this a.s.sertion:

"'We'll lick the Yanks termorrer, if G.o.ddlemity (G.o.d Almighty) spares our lives.'

"That fellow was in earnest, too, as the letter was written the day before the second battle of Mana.s.sas."

"FETCHED SEVERAL SHORT ONES."

"The first time I ever remember seeing 'Abe' Lincoln," is the testimony of one of his neighbors, "was when I was a small boy and had gone with my father to attend some kind of an election. One of the neighbors, James Larkins, was there.

"Larkins was a great hand to brag on anything he owned. This time it was his horse. He stepped up before 'Abe,' who was in a crowd, and commenced talking to him, boasting all the while of his animal.

"'I have got the best horse in the country,' he shouted to his young listener. 'I ran him nine miles in exactly three minutes, and he never fetched a long breath.'

"'I presume,' said 'Abe,' rather dryly, 'he fetched a good many short ones, though.'"

LINCOLN LUGS THE OLD MAN.

On May 3rd, 1862, "Frank Leslie's Ill.u.s.trated Newspaper" printed this cartoon, over the t.i.tle of "Sandbag Lincoln and the Old Man of the Sea, Secretary of the Navy Welles." It was intended to demonstrate that the head of the Navy Department was incompetent to manage the affairs of the Navy; also that the Navy was not doing as good work as it might.

When this cartoon was published, the United States Navy had cleared and had under control the Mississippi River as far south as Memphis; had blockaded all the cotton ports of the South; had a.s.sisted in the reduction of a number of Confederate forts; had aided Grant at Fort Donelson and the battle of Shiloh; the Monitor had whipped the ironclad terror, Merrimac (the Confederates called her the Virginia); Admiral Farragut's fleet had compelled the surrender of the city of New Orleans, the great forts which had defended it, and the Federal Government obtained control of the lower Mississippi.

"The Old Man of the Sea" was therefore, not a drag or a weight upon President Lincoln, and the Navy was not so far behind in making a good record as the picture would have the people of the world believe. It was not long after the Monitor's victory that the United States Navy was the finest that ever plowed the seas. The building of the Monitor also revolutionized naval warfare.

McCLELLAN WAS "INTRENCHING."

About a week after the Chicago Convention, a gentleman from New York called upon the President, in company with the a.s.sistant Secretary of War, Mr. Dana.

In the course of conversation, the gentleman said: "What do you think, Mr. President, is the reason General McClellan does not reply to the letter from the Chicago Convention?"

"Oh!" replied Mr. Lincoln, with a characteristic twinkle of the eye, "he is intrenching!"

MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT, ANYWAY.

From the day of his nomination by the Chicago convention, gifts poured in upon Lincoln. Many of these came in the form of wearing apparel. Mr.

George Lincoln, of Brooklyn, who brought to Springfield, in January, 1861, a handsome silk hat to the President-elect, the gift of a New York hatter, told some friends that in receiving the hat Lincoln laughed heartily over the gifts of clothing, and remarked to Mrs. Lincoln: "Well, wife, if nothing else comes out of this sc.r.a.pe, we are going to have some new clothes, are we not?"

VICIOUS OXEN HAVE SHORT HORNS.

In speaking of the many mean and petty acts of certain members of Congress, the President, while talking on the subject one day with friends, said:

"I have great sympathy for these men, because of their temper and their weakness; but I am thankful that the good Lord has given to the vicious ox short horns, for if their physical courage were equal to their vicious disposition, some of us in this neck of the woods would get hurt."

LINCOLN'S NAME FOR "WEEPING WATER."

"I was speaking one time to Mr. Lincoln," said Governor Saunders, "of Nebraska, of a little Nebraskan settlement on the Weeping Water, a stream in our State."

"'Weeping Water!' said he.

"Then with a twinkle in his eye, he continued.

"'I suppose the Indians out there call Minneboohoo, don't they? They ought to, if Laughing Water is Minnehaha in their language.'"

PETER CARTWRIGHT'S DESCRIPTION OF LINCOLN.

Peter Cartwright, the famous and eccentric old Methodist preacher, who used to ride a church circuit, as Mr. Lincoln and others did the court circuit, did not like Lincoln very well, probably because Mr. Lincoln was not a member of his flock, and once defeated the preacher for Congress. This was Cartwright's description of Lincoln: "This Lincoln is a man six feet four inches tall, but so angular that if you should drop a plummet from the center of his head it would cut him three times before it touched his feet."

NO DEATHS IN HIS HOUSE.

A gentleman was relating to the President how a friend of his had been driven away from New Orleans as a Unionist, and how, on his expulsion, when he asked to see the writ by which he was expelled, the deputation which called on him told him the Government would do nothing illegal, and so they had issued no illegal writs, and simply meant to make him go of his own free will.

"Well," said Mr. Lincoln, "that reminds me of a hotel-keeper down at St.

Louis, who boasted that he never had a death in his hotel, for whenever a guest was dying in his house he carried him out to die in the gutter."

PAINTED HIS PRINCIPLES.

The day following the adjournment of the Baltimore Convention, at which President Lincoln was renominated, various political organizations called to pay their respects to the President. While the Philadelphia delegation was being presented, the chairman of that body, in introducing one of the members, said:

"Mr. President, this is Mr. S., of the second district of our State,--a most active and earnest friend of yours and the cause. He has, among other things, been good enough to paint, and present to our league rooms, a most beautiful portrait of yourself."

President Lincoln took the gentleman's hand in his, and shaking it cordially said, with a merry voice, "I presume, sir, in painting your beautiful portrait, you took your idea of me from my principles and not from my person."