Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 30

He put the greenback into his vest pocket, and walked the floor; after awhile he stopped, heaved a long breath and said: 'This thing frightens me!' He then rang for a messenger and told him to ask the Secretary of the Treasury to please come over to see him.

"Mr. Chase soon put in an appearance; President Lincoln stated the cause of his alarm, and asked Mr. Chase to explain in detail the operations, methods, system of checks, etc., in his office, and a lengthy discussion followed, President Lincoln contending there were not sufficient safeguards afforded in any degree in the money-making department, and Secretary Chase insisting that every protection was afforded he could devise."

Afterward the President called the attention of Congress to this important question, and devices were adopted whereby a check was put upon the issue of greenbacks that no spurious ones ever came out of the Treasury Department, at least. Counterfeiters were busy, though, but this was not the fault of the Treasury.

LINCOLN'S APOLOGY TO GRANT.

"General Grant is a copious worker and fighter," President Lincoln wrote to General Burnside in July, 1863, "but a meagre writer or telegrapher."

Grant never wrote a report until the battle was over.

President Lincoln wrote a letter to General Grant on July 13th, 1863, which indicated the strength of the hold the successful fighter had upon the man in the White House.

It ran as follows:

"I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.

"I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.

"I write to say a word further.

"When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did--march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pa.s.s expedition, and the like, could succeed.

"When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks; and when you turned northward, east of Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.

"I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong."

LINCOLN SAID "BY JING."

Lincoln never used profanity, except when he quoted it to ill.u.s.trate a point in a story. His favorite expressions when he spoke with emphasis were "By dear!" and "By jing!"

Just preceding the Civil War he sent Ward Lamon on a ticklish mission to South Carolina.

When the proposed trip was mentioned to Secretary Seward, he opposed it, saying, "Mr. President, I fear you are sending Lamon to his grave. I am afraid they will kill him in Charleston, where the people are excited and desperate. We can't spare Lamon, and we shall feel badly if anything happens to him."

Mr. Lincoln said in reply: "I have known Lamon to be in many a close place, and he has never, been in one that he didn't get out of, somehow.

By jing! I'll risk him. Go ahead, Lamon, and G.o.d bless you! If you can't bring back any good news, bring a palmetto." Lamon brought back a palmetto branch, but no promise of peace.

IT TICKLED THE LITTLE WOMAN.

Lincoln had been in the telegraph office at Springfield during the casting of the first and second ballots in the Republican National Convention at Chicago, and then left and went over to the office of the State Journal, where he was sitting conversing with friends while the third ballot was being taken.

In a few moments came across the wires the announcement of the result.

The superintendent of the telegraph company wrote on a sc.r.a.p of paper: "Mr. Lincoln, you are nominated on the third ballot," and a boy ran with the message to Lincoln.

He looked at it in silence, amid the shouts of those around him; then rising and putting it in his pocket, he said quietly: "There's a little woman down at our house would like to hear this; I'll go down and tell her."

"SHALL ALL FALL TOGETHER."

After Lincoln had finished that celebrated speech in "Egypt" (as a section of Southern Illinois was formerly designated), in the course of which he seized Congressman Ficklin by the coat collar and shook him fiercely, he apologized. In return, Ficklin said Lincoln had "nearly shaken the Democracy out of him." To this Lincoln replied:

"That reminds me of what Paul said to Agrippa, which, in language and substance, was about this: 'I would to G.o.d that such Democracy as you folks here in Egypt have were not only almost, but altogether, shaken out of, not only you, but all that heard me this day, and that you would all join in a.s.sisting in shaking off the shackles of the bondmen by all legitimate means, so that this country may be made free as the good Lord intended it.'"

Said Ficklin in rejoinder: "Lincoln, I remember of reading somewhere in the same book from which you get your Agrippa story, that Paul, whom you seem to desire to personate, admonished all servants (slaves) to be obedient to them that are their masters according to the flesh, in fear and trembling.

"It would seem that neither our Savior nor Paul saw the iniquity of slavery as you and your party do. But you must not think that where you fail by argument to convince an old friend like myself and win him over to your heterodox abolition opinions, you are justified in resorting to violence such as you practiced on me to-day.

"Why, I never had such a shaking up in the whole course of my life.

Recollect that that good old book that you quote from somewhere says in effect this: 'Woe be unto him who goeth to Egypt for help, for he shall fall. The holpen shall fall, and they shall all fall together.'"

DEAD DOG NO CURE.

Lincoln's quarrel with Shields was his last personal encounter. In later years it became his duty to give an official reprimand to a young officer who had been court-martialed for a quarrel with one of his a.s.sociates. The reprimand is probably the gentlest on record:

"Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own.

"Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite."

"THOROUGH" IS A GOOD WORD.

Some one came to the President with a story about a plot to accomplish some mischief in the Government. Lincoln listened to what was a very superficial and ill-formed story, and then said: "There is one thing that I have learned, and that you have not. It is only one word--'thorough.'"

Then, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump to emphasize his meaning, he added, "thorough!"

THE CABINET WAS A-SETTIN'.