Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 74

Hill was insulting in his language to Lincoln who never lost his temper.

When he saw his chance to edge a word in, Lincoln denied emphatically using the language or anything like that attributed to him.

He entertained, he insisted, a high regard for Mrs. Hill, and the only thing he knew to her discredit was the fact that she was Major Hill's wife.

THE OLD LADY'S PROPHECY.

Among those who called to congratulate Mr. Lincoln upon his nomination for President was an old lady, very plainly dressed. She knew Mr.

Lincoln, but Mr. Lincoln did not at first recognize her. Then she undertook to recall to his memory certain incidents connected with his ride upon the circuit--especially his dining at her house upon the road at different times. Then he remembered her and her home.

Having fixed her own place in his recollection, she tried to recall to him a certain scanty dinner of bread and milk that he once ate at her house. He could not remember it--on the contrary, he only remembered that he had always fared well at her house.

"Well," she said, "one day you came along after we had got through dinner, and we had eaten up everything, and I could give you nothing but a bowl of bread and milk, and you ate it; and when you got up you said it was good enough for the President of the United States!"

The good woman had come in from the country, making a journey of eight or ten miles, to relate to Mr. Lincoln this incident, which, in her mind, had doubtless taken the form of a prophecy. Mr. Lincoln placed the honest creature at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy frame of mind.

HOW THE TOWN OF LINCOLN, ILL., WAS NAMED.

The story of naming the town of Lincoln, the county seat of Logan county, Illinois, is thus given on good authority:

The first railroad had been built through the county, and a station was about to be located there. Lincoln, Virgil Hitchc.o.c.k, Colonel R.

B. Latham and several others were sitting on a pile of ties and talking about moving a county seat from Mount Pulaski. Mr. Lincoln rose and started to walk away, when Colonel Latham said: "Lincoln, if you will help us to get the county seat here, we will call the place Lincoln."

"All right, Latham," he replied.

Colonel Latham then deeded him a lot on the west side of the courthouse, and he owned it at the time he was elected President.

"OLD JEFF'S" BIG NIGHTMARE.

"Jeff" Davis had a large and threatening nightmare in November, 1864, and what he saw in his troubled dreams was the long and lanky figure of Abraham Lincoln, who had just been endorsed by the people of the United States for another term in the White House at Was.h.i.+ngton. The cartoon reproduced here is from the issue of "Frank Leslie's Ill.u.s.trated Newspaper" of December 3rd, 1864, it being ent.i.tled "Jeff Davis'

November Nightmare."

Davis had been told that McClellan, "the War is a failure" candidate for the Presidency, would have no difficulty whatever in defeating Lincoln; that negotiations with the Confederate officials for the cessation of hostilities would be entered into as soon as McClellan was seated in the Chief Executive's chair; that the Confederacy would, in all probability, be recognized as an independent government by the Was.h.i.+ngton Administration; that the "sacred inst.i.tution" of slavery would continue to do business at the old stand; that the Confederacy would be one of the great nations of the world, and have all the "State Rights" and other things it wanted, with absolutely no interference whatever upon the part of the North.

Therefore, Lincoln's re-election was a rough, rude shock to Davis, who had not prepared himself for such an event. Six months from the date of that nightmare-dream he was a prisoner in the hands of the Union forces, and the Confederacy was a thing of the past.

LINCOLN'S LAST OFFICIAL ACT.

Probably the last official act of President Lincoln's life was the signing of the commission reappointing Alvin Saunders Governor of Nebraska.

"I saw Mr. Lincoln regarding the matter," said Governor Saunders, "and he told me to go home; that he would attend to it all right. I left Was.h.i.+ngton on the morning of the 14th, and while en route the news of the a.s.sa.s.sination on the evening of the same day reached me. I immediately wired back to find out what had become of my commission, and was told that the room had not been opened. When it was opened, the doc.u.ment was found lying on the desk.

"Mr. Lincoln signed it just before leaving for the theater that fatal evening, and left it lying there, unfolded.

"A note was found below the doc.u.ment as follows: 'Rather a lengthy commission, bestowing upon Mr. Alvin Saunders the official authority of Governor of the Territory of Nebraska.' Then came Lincoln's signature, which, with one exception, that of a penciled message on the back of a card sent up by a friend as Mr. Lincoln was dressing for the theater, was the very last signature of the martyred President."

THE LAD NEEDED THE SLEEP.

A personal friend of President Lincoln is authority for this:

"I called on him one day in the early part of the War. He had just written a pardon for a young man who had been sentenced to be shot for sleeping at his post. He remarked as he read it to me:

"'I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor young man on my skirts.' Then he added:

"'It is not to be wondered at that a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep; and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act.'"

"Ma.s.sA LINk.u.m LIKE DE LORD!"

By the Act of Emanc.i.p.ation President Lincoln built for himself forever the first place in the affections of the African race in this country.

The love and reverence manifested for him by many of these people has, on some occasions, almost reached adoration. One day Colonel McKaye, of New York, who had been one of a committee to investigate the condition of the freedmen, upon his return from Hilton Head and Beaufort called upon the President, and in the course of the interview said that up to the time of the arrival among them in the South of the Union forces they had no knowledge of any other power. Their masters fled upon the approach of our soldiers, and this gave the slaves the conception of a power greater than their masters exercised. This power they called "Ma.s.sa Link.u.m."

Colonel McKaye said their place of wors.h.i.+p was a large building they called "the praise house," and the leader of the "meeting," a venerable black man, was known as "the praise man."

On a certain day, when there was quite a large gathering of the people, considerable confusion was created by different persons attempting to tell who and what "Ma.s.sa Link.u.m" was. In the midst of the excitement the white-headed leader commanded silence. "Brederen," said he, "you don't know nosen' what you'se talkin' 'bout. Now, you just listen to me. Ma.s.sa Link.u.m, he ebery whar. He know ebery ting."

Then, solemnly looking up, he added: "He walk de earf like de Lord!"

HOW LINCOLN TOOK THE NEWS.

One of Lincoln's most dearly loved friends, United States Senator Edward D. Baker, of Oregon, Colonel of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania, a former townsman of Mr. Lincoln, was killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff, in October, 1861. The President went to General McClellan's headquarters to hear the news, and a friend thus described the effect it had upon him:

"We could hear the click of the telegraph in the adjoining room and low conversation between the President and General McClellan, succeeded by silence, excepting the click, click of the instrument, which went on with its tale of disaster.

"Five minutes pa.s.sed, and then Mr. Lincoln, unattended, with bowed head and tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks, his face pale and wan, his breast heaving with emotion, pa.s.sed through the room. He almost fell as he stepped into the street. We sprang involuntarily from our seats to render a.s.sistance, but he did not fall.

"With both hands pressed upon his heart, he walked down the street, not returning the salute of the sentinel pacing his beat before the door."