The Lincoln Story Book Part 43

"We shall beat them, my son! we shall beat them!"

"LITTLE FOR SO BIG A BUSINESS."

Before the war the museums of the Eastern States were regaled by an "Infant Drummer." This lad, Harry W. Stowman, at the age of seven or eight, was a proficient on the drum. He was seen by this editor, executing solos of great difficulty, and accompanying the orchestra with variations on his unpromising instrument, which musicians praised and in which he avoided monotony with precocious talent. Grown up, still a rare drummer, he was attached to the Germantown Hospital as post drummer. At the first inauguration he was with the band and noticed by the President. With his habit of applauding the young, the latter spoke to him, commended his playing, and remarked:

"You are a very little man to be in this big business!" He took him up, kissed him, and paternally set him down, drum and all.

Mr. Stowman lived to the age of forty with this pretty memory.

NOT "SHOULDER-STRAPS," BUT HARDTACK.

At a military function when Lincoln presented a new commander to a legion, one of the soldiers burst out with that irreverence distinguis.h.i.+ng the American volunteer:

"It is not shoulder-straps (the officers' insignia), but hardtack that we want!"

Hardtack was the nickname for the disused s.h.i.+p bread turned over to the army by remorseless contractors.

"MARYLAND A GOOD STATE TO MOVE FROM!"

Thurlow Weed, prominent "wire-puller," presented as a preferable puppet to Montgomery Blair his choice, Henry Winter Davis, upon which the President said:

"Davis? Judge David Davis put you up to this. He has Davis on the brain. A Maryland man who wants to get out! Maryland must be a good State to move from. Weed, did you ever hear, in this connection, of the witness in court asked to state his age? He said sixty. As he was on the face of it much older, but persisted, the court admonished him, saying:

"'The court knows you to be older than sixty!'

"'Oh, I understand now,' owned up the old fellow. 'You are thinking of the ten years I spent in Maryland; that was so much time lost and did not count!'"

DON'T SWAP HORSES CROSSING A STREAM.

The setting up and the bowling over of the generals commanding the army defending Was.h.i.+ngton from McDowell at Bull Run to Meade at Gettysburg, resembles a grim game at tenpins. The President, who tried to find a professional captain to relieve him of his responsibility as nominally war-chief of the national forces, therefore smiled sarcastically when the ninety-ninth deputation came to suggest still another aspirant to be the new Napoleon, and said to it:

"Gentlemen, your request and proposition remind me of two gentlemen in Kentucky.

"The flat lands there bordering on the rivers are subject to inundations, so the fordable creek becomes in an instant a broad lake, deep and rapidly running. These two riders were talking the common topic--in that famous Blue Gra.s.s region where fillies and _fill-es_, as the _voyageur_ from Canada said in his broken English, are unsurpa.s.sable for grace and beauty. Each fell to expatiating upon the good qualities of his steed, and this dialogue was so animated and engrossing they approached a ford without being conscious of outer matters. There was heavy rain in the highlands and an ominous sound in the dampening air. They entered the water still arguing. Then, at midway, while they came to the agreement to exchange horses, with no 'boot,' since each conceded the value of the animals, the river rose. In a twinkling the two horses were floundering, and the riders, taken for once off their balance, lost stirrup and seat, and the four creatures, separated, were struggling for a footing in the boiling stream. Away streaked the horses, buried in foam, three or four miles down, while the men scrambled out upon the new edge.

"Gentlemen," concluded the President, drawing his moral with his provoking imperturbability, "those men looked at each other, as they dripped, and said with the one voice: 'Ain't this a lesson? Don't swap horses crossing a stream!'"--(Heard by Superintendent Tinker, war telegrapher.)

"NO PLACING THORNS IN THE SIDE OF MY WORST ENEMY!"

The Free Const.i.tution of Maryland was the work of Lincoln. His and its supporters made a party to go to Was.h.i.+ngton and congratulate the President on the victory. They had a band and serenaded him in the White House until he came forth. But he said, to the dampening of their ardor, when the cheering had subsided:

"My friends, I appreciate this honor very highly, but I am very sorry to see you rejoice over the defeat of those opposed to us. It is furthest from my desire to place a thorn in any one's side, though he be my worst enemy."--(Recited by Mr. Hy. G. Willis, Baltimore, in the _Sun_ of that city.)

THE LINCOLN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

This historical doc.u.ment promised at one time to be a problem like the Sibilline Leaves or Czar Peter's will. But Secretary H. C. Whitney declares that it existed as he had it laid before him by the strategist.

"Running his long forefinger down the map of Virginia, he said: 'We must drive them away from here (Mana.s.sas Gap, where indeed were fights over the keystone), and clear them out of this part of the State, so that they cannot threaten them here (Was.h.i.+ngton) and get into Maryland.' (Unfortunately, the rebels did threaten Was.h.i.+ngton right on and entered Maryland and Pennsylvania, as late as July, 1863, and by a cavalry raid, a year later.)

"'We must keep up a good and thorough blockade of their ports. We must march an army into East Tennessee and liberate the Union sentiment there. (This was not finally done till the end of 1864.)

"'Finally, we must rely on the (Southern) people growing tired, and saying to their leaders: "We have had enough of this thing, and will bear it no longer."'"

In 1862, a year after, Lincoln says to McClellan: "We have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac: yours to be down the Chesapeake, etc.; mine, to move directly to the point on the railroads southwest of Mana.s.sas. (He hugs his original idea.)... In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine?" You see the prudence in him esteemed ignorant and consequently blindly rash. All this amounted to nothing when the President trusted fully to Grant as his lieutenant.

THE COMMANDER SHOULD OBEY ORDERS.

The President at Fort Stevens was the mark for a rebel battery.

A colonel in command was diffident about ordering the superior about, but he was averse to letting the "dare" bring on a fatality, as the sharpshooters had an easy b.u.t.t in the Lincoln exceptional figure.

So he took the advice of Mr. Registrar Chittenden, on the staff, and bade the President retire, or he would move him by a file of men.

"And you would do quite right, my boy!" acquiesced the chief.

"I should be the last man to set an example of disobedience."

THE IDLERS EQUALED THE EFFECTIVES.

During a review of General Howard's corps on the Rappahannock, in April, 1863, President Lincoln noticed, whether his eyes were "unmilitary or not," that a very numerous ma.s.s of men were spectators, though wearing a semisoldierly look and clothes. They were, in fact, the inevitable hangers-on of an army, the more in number, as the escaped slaves were welcomed by the soldiers, as they made them do their dirty work. The commanding general explained that they were "the cooks, the bottle-washers, and the n.i.g.g.e.r waiters." They had come out to see the President.