The Lincoln Story Book Part 39

THINGS WERE TOPSY-TURVY ALOFT, TOO.

One evening, when Mr. Hall, astronomer, was working in the Naval Observatory, Washington, on the great equatorial telescope, he was startled to have his sanctum invaded by the gaunt, extenuated figure of the President. He was made welcome, of course, and the varied mechanism explained to him. As the crowning "treat," he was given a peer through the celebrated instrument. It was leveled at the moon, or, rather, arranged to have that orb in its focus at the time. The visitor was appalled, as well as wondering at the view, and slowly withdrew by the trap-door. But when the astronomer resumed his observations and calculations he was interrupted by the same sedate and absorbed caller. He returned, perplexed, as, on glancing up at the moon with unhindered vision, he saw it in another position to that presented in the spy-gla.s.s.

Mr. Hall made it clear to him that, as the telescope was pointed, not at the satellite but at its image in a mirror, he saw its reflection and consequently the reverse of the face we observe. The President went away with the satisfaction of a man wanting every novelty demonstrated.

HITCHING TO THE MOON.

Lincoln came to Washington, To view the situation; And found the world all upside down, A rumpus in the nation.

(_Topical song,_ 1860.)

A RED FLAG TO HIM.

A most remarkable prelude to the war was the performance through the Northern States of the Chicago Zouaves. The name came from the irregular regiment in the French Algerian service, composed of men worthy of being drummed out of the regular corps; they dressed like the Arabs in the small bolero jacket and baggy red, trousers familiar since. They drilled gymnastically, not to say theatrically. Ellsworth, a clerk in the Lincoln & Herndon law office, had a martial turn, and hearing daily in that quasi-political vortex of the impending crisis, determined to be forearmed in case of the differences coming to blows.

He raised, uniformed _a la Zou-zou_, a score of young men like himself and proceeded to give exhibitions at home and then in the East. The writer retains a vivid memory of the odd and fantastic show, which, however, was regarded as "not war, though magnificent." But Captain Ellsworth was in earnest. Mustered in with his company, he started the Zouave movement which led to two or more regiments being formed. His being the first volunteers at the fore, he claimed the right of the reconnoitering force sent out in May, against Alexandria, to break up railroads held by the rebels. Seeing a rebel flag on a hotel top, he entered the building, and was shot by the landlord in coming down from cutting it away. He was slain instantly, and the like fate befell the murderer, the host, from Ellsworth's guard. Apart from four men killed at Sumter and two in the Baltimore riots, the Chicago Zouave was the first victim of the rebellion. But the position was regained by the secessionists, and the rebel flag replaced the removed one, to the grief of President Lincoln. He could see it from his residence, and Murat Halstead, without knowing the melancholy a.s.sociation of the young officer, being a familiar in his office, reports seeing him dwell with spygla.s.s bent on the flag, for hours.

Elmer Ellsworth, in his last speech, made to the men he was leading out to the front, proves that he imbibed Lincoln's humanity with legal precepts in the office: "Show the enemy that I want to kill them with kindness."

"FLY AWAY, JACK!"

At the end of 1860, South Carolina took the lead in seceding, and in the opening of the next year six other Southern States allied themselves with her. The timid feared hasty acting would precipitate the marshaling of the waverers under the same flag. To a committee urging a pause to see "how the cats would jump," the President observed:

"If there be three pigeons on the fence, and you fire and kill one, how many will there be left?"

The voices said: "Two."

"Oh, no," he corrected; "there would be none left; for the other two, frightened by the shot, would have flown away."

As a truth, the firing on Fort Sumter welded the seceders into their Union; at the same time as it likewise fused the Northerners into consistency.

The President said to General Viele: "We want to keep all that we have of the Border States--those that have not seceded and the portions we have occupied."

HIS _PEN_ WANTED TO KEEP THEIR HOGS SAFE.

Just after the call for seventy-five thousand ninety-day men to subdue the outbreak after Sumter was cannonaded, a deputation of loyal Virginians waited upon the President. They expounded on this levy that the fair fields of the South would be overrun by the ragam.u.f.fins of the Northern cities, and the hen-roosts and pig-houses ravished, etc.

"But what would you have me do?" asked Lincoln, who did not then foresee his having to conduct the military movements.

"Mr. President, if you would only lend us your pen a moment--"

meaning, of course, that he should write a line to calm the rising storm.

But the other pretended to misunderstand him, saying: "Lend my pen!

my _pen_? What would you do with that?--keep your hogs safe with that?"

"HURRAH FOR YOU!"

At the Chicago reception, a little boy came into the room, with his father. No doubt he had been instructed to behave with decorum in the august presence; but he no sooner saw the tall, prominent figure than he shouted: "Hurrah for Mist' Lincoln!"

The crowd laughed, and still the more as the object of the ovation caught up the little fellow, gave him a toss to the ceiling, and, while he was in the air, shouted out l.u.s.tily:

"Hurrah for Mister You!" and, catching him, lowered him, red and panting, to the floor.

"PUT YOUR FEET RIGHT AND STAND FIRM!"

Giving a lift in his carriage to two ladies, to the Soldiers' Home, the horses were splashing and sliding after a shower in the mire, when Mr. Lincoln a.s.sisted the frightened women to alight. He set three stones for stepping-stones in the mud, and a.s.sisted them to firm ground. He had cautioned them in making the pa.s.sage:

"All through life be sure you put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm!"

Looking down on his muddy boots (Lincoln as a Westerner always stuck to leg-boots, and was never seen in the effeminate "Congress gaiters,"

by the bye), he added: "I have always heard of 'Washington mud,' and now I shall take home some as a sample!"

GET THEIR GRAVES READY!

In April, 1861, a deputation of sympathizers with secession had the boldness to call on President Lincoln and demand a cessation of hostilities until convening of Congress, threatening that seventy-five thousand Marylanders would contest the pa.s.sage of troops over their soil.

"I presume," quietly replied Mr. Lincoln, "that there is room enough in her soil for seventy-five thousand graves?"--(Peterson's "Life of Lincoln.")