The Lincoln Story Book Part 45

"BLIND" FORTUNE.

A soldier shot in the head so as to be deprived of sight in both eyes left the Carver Hospital, Was.h.i.+ngton, and blundered in crossing the avenue. At that very moment the President's carriage was coming along to the Soldiers' Home from the mansion. The coach alone would probably have not brought any casualty upon the unfortunate young invalid, but it was again surrounded by one of the cavalry detachments, which Lincoln insisted on being withdrawn, but it was replaced, for the time.

The soldier hearing this double clatter of hoofs became bewildered, and stood still in the midroad, or, if anything, inclined toward the thundering danger. The cavalry chargers, trained to avoid hurting men--for a rider might be thrown--eluded contact, and the coachman neatly pulled aside. In the next moment, in a cloud of dust, the President, leaning out of the window, to ascertain the cause of the abrupt stop, saw the poor young soldier by his side. Lincoln threw out a hand to seize him by the arm, and rea.s.sure him of safety by the vibrating clutch. Then, perceiving the nature of the affair, he asked in a voice trembling with emotion about the man's regiment and disablement. The man was from the Northwest--Michigan. Lumbermen--and they are of the woods woody out there--and Lincoln believed in "the ax as the enlarger of our borders"--are brotherly. The next day the soldier was commissioned lieutenant with perpetual leave, but full pay.--(By the veteran reservist, H. W. Knight, of the escort.)

LITTLE DAVID AND THE STONE FOR GOLIATH.

In the spring, 1862, spies and foreign officers who had seen the rebel ram _Merrimac_ being built at Norfolk, reported her as formidable. The United States _Galena_, our first ironclad, was a failure. There was no vessel of the kind to deal with the monster save Ericsson's floating battery, ready for sea in March, called the _Monitor_, as a warning to Great Britain, expected to interfere on behalf of the South and raise the blockade over the cotton ports.

This craft with a revolving turret was just as much of a new idea as its prototype.

On March 8, the _Merrimac_ came out of Norfolk and ran down the _c.u.mberland_ sloop of war; blew the _Congress_ to splinters, and compelled her being blown up to save her from the enemy; the _Minnesota_ was run aground to prevent being rammed. The victor returned to her dock to make ready for a fresh onslaught. The effect was profound; it seemed no exaggeration to suppose that the irresistible conqueror would pa.s.s through the United States fleet at Hampton Roads and, speeding along the coast, reduce New York to the most onerous terms or to ashes.

On Sunday, the ninth, the _Monitor_ arrived after a sea pa.s.sage, showing she rode too low for ocean navigation. Though in no fit state for battle, no time was allowed her, as the _Merrimac_ ran out to exult over the ruins of the encounter. The _Monitor_ threw herself in her way, bore her broadside without injury, and her shock with impunity, but on the other hand hurled her extremely heavy ball in, under her water-line. The ram backed out, and, wheeling and putting on full steam, returned to her haven. She was, it appears, too low to cross the bar to go up to Richmond, and was not ocean-going; she was blown up when Yorktown was evacuated by the Confederates in May, 1862.

The President had said of her defeater, to some naval officers: "I think she will be the veritable sling with the stone to smite the Philistine _Merrimac_."

LINCOLN'S CHEESE-BOX ON A RAFT.

There is a chapter yet to be published upon iron-clad war-s.h.i.+ps, as introduced practically in the Civil War. To the Southerners is due the innovation on a fair scale, though the experiments were not at all profitably demonstrative. Upon rumors that the enemy were building the novelties of iron-cased vessels, the Federal government responded by voting money--and throwing it away upon a fiasco. Meanwhile, the others had razeed a frigate, the _Merrimac_, and upon an angular roof laid railroad-iron to make her shot-proof. Stories of her likelihood to be a terror, especially as she was stated by spies to be seaworthy, inspired the Americanized Swedish naval engineer, Ericsson, to build a turret-s.h.i.+p. The Naval Construction Board unanimously rebuffed the innovator. Luckily, President Lincoln became interested as a flat-boat builder, in his youth. He took up the inventor and the design. He scoffed at the idea that the man had not planned thoroughly, saying, as to the weight of the armor sinking the hull:

"Out West, in boat-building, we figured out the carrying power to a nicety."

His champions.h.i.+p earned the _Monitor_ the name of Lincoln's "cheese-box on a raft."

The a.s.sistant secretary of the navy, knowing all the facts, observes:

"I withhold no credit from Captain John Ericsson, her inventor, but _I know_ the country is princ.i.p.ally indebted to President Lincoln for the construction of this vessel, and for the success of the trial to Captain Worden."--(Captain Fox, Ericsson's adviser, confirms this credit.)

NO "DUTCH COURAGE."

After the miraculous intervention of the Ericsson _Monitor_, the President took a party aboard to inspect the little champion which had saved the fleet and, perhaps, the capital, where the captain received them. He apologized for the limited accommodation, and for the lack of the traditional lemon and necessary attributes for a presidential visit. But the teetotaler chief merrily replied:

"Some uncharitable persons say that old Bourbon valor inspires our generals in the field, but it is plain that _Dutch courage_ was not needed on board of the _Monitor!_"

"IF I HAD AS MUCH MONEY AND WAS AS BADLY SKEERED----"

In March, 1862, after her terrifying exploits, the _Merrimac_ ram was reported to have escaped to sea and was seeking fresh prey to devour. The Eastern seaports were in a panic. A deputation of New York's merchant princes, bullion barons, and plutocrats generally, representing "a hundred millions," was the rumor heralding their "rush" visit to the capital, arrived at the White House.

The spokesman faltered that the great metropolis was in peril, that treasures were involved by the apprehension, and that, in brief, the government ought to take measures to defend the Empire City from the spite of this irresistible ocean-terror.

At the conclusion, the patient hearer responded:

"Well, gentlemen, the government has at present no vessel which can sink this _Merrimac_. (They were not, for state reasons, to know what the sly fox had up his sleeve.) The government is pretty poor; its credit is not good; its legal-tender notes are worth only forty cents on your Wall Street; and we have to pay you a high rate of interest on our loans. Now, if I were in your place, and had as much money as you represent, and was as badly _skeered_ as you say you are--I'd go right back to New York and build some war-vessels and present them to the government."--(Authenticated by Schuyler Colfax, afterward vice-president under General Grant; and by Judge Davis, who presented the delegation.)

"IT PLEASES HER, AND IT DON'T HURT ME."

April, 1862, closed brilliantly for the Union, as New Orleans was captured. General Porter Phelps issued a proclamation which freed the slaves. As on previous occasions, when this bomb was brought out, the President had directed its being stifled and reserved for _his_ occasion, there was wonder that he took no official notice of the premature flash. Taken to task by a friendly critic for his odd omission, he deigned to reply:

"Well, I feel about it a good deal like that big, burly, good-natured ca.n.a.l laborer who had a little waspy bit of a wife, in the habit of beating him. One day she put him out of the house and switched him up and down the street. A friend met him a day or two after, and rebuked him with the words:

"'Tom, as you know, I have always stood up for you, but I am not going to do so any longer. Any man may stand for a bullyragging by his wife, but when he takes a switching from her right out on the public highway, he deserves to be horsewhipped.'

"Tom looked up with a wink on his broad face, and, slapping the interferer on the back with a leg-of-mutton fist, rejoined:

"'Why, drop it! It pleases her and it don't hurt me!'"

"LET HIM SQUEAL IF HE WORKS."

One of the Northern war governors was admirably loyal and devoted to the reunion, but he was set on doing things his own way, and protested every time he was called on for men or material. Lincoln saw that he was willing, and was only like the lady who "methinks protests too much." So he told Secretary Stanton, who laid before him the objections:

"Never mind! These despatches do not mean anything. Go right ahead.

The governor reminds me of a boy I knew at a launching. He was a small boy, chosen to fit the hollow in the midst of the ways where he should lie down, after knocking out the king-dog, which holds the s.h.i.+p on the stocks, when all other checks are removed. The boy did everything right, but yelled as if he was being murdered every time the keel rushed over him in the channel. I thought the hide was being peeled from his back, but he wasn't hurt a mite.

"The s.h.i.+pyard-master told me that the boy was always chosen for the job, doing his work well and never being hurt, but that he _always_ squealed in that way.

"Now, that's the way with our governor; make up your mind that he is not hurt and that he is doing the work all right, and pay no attention to his squealing."

To his confidant, General Viele, the President said:

"We cannot afford to quarrel with the governors of the loyal States about collateral issues. We want their soldiers."