The Lincoln Story Book Part 47

"GOING TO CANAAN!"

Although the South is a poetic country, no bard wrote any "Ma.r.s.eillaise Hymn" on that side. One of the few effusions bidding tolerably for publicity was "Lincoln Going to Canaan," a parody on the numerous negro camp-meeting lays in which Lincoln was hailed as the coming Moses. This burlesque was laid before Mr. Lincoln, he taking the grim relish in hits at him, caricatures and sallies, which great men never spurn.

"Going to Canaan," he (is reported to have) said. "Going to _cane 'em,_ I expect!"

THE FOX APPOINTED PAYMASTER.

The President came into the telegraph-office of the White House, laughing. He had picked up a child's book in his son "Tad's" room and looked at it. It was a story of a motherly hen, struggling to raise her brood to lead honest and useful lives; but in her efforts she was greatly annoyed by a mischievous fox. She had given him many lectures on his wicked ways, and--said the President: "I thought I would turn over to the finis, and see how they came out. This is what it said:

"'And the fox became a good fox, and was appointed paymaster in the army.' I think it very funny that I should have appointed him a paymaster. I wonder who he is?"

Such inability to distinguish one officer as "good" does not speak highly for the eradication of the soldiers' prejudice for the gentry.--(Superintendent Tinker.)

RISKING THE DICTATORs.h.i.+P.

Every one of the generals leading the Army of the Potomac was accused of the "longing for the Presidency," which placed the occupant in a peculiar predicament. Of General "Joe" Hooker, it was said in the press and in the Was.h.i.+ngton hotels that he was the "Man on Horseback,"

and would, at the final success of clearing out the rebel beleaguers, set up as dictator. Hence the letter which Lincoln wrote to him:

"I have heard in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command of the Army of the Potomac. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictators.h.i.+p!"

It was April, 1863, Hooker issued the stereotyped address full of confidence on taking command, advanced, and withdrew his army after the repulse by Lee. All he scored was the death of "Stonewall"

Jackson, Lee's right hand, and that was an accident. As Lee invaded Maryland, all hopes of Hooker's dictators.h.i.+p were dispersed in the battle smoke penetrating too far North to be pleasant incense to fallen heroes.

A STAGE IN THE CEASELESS MARCH ONWARD TO VICTORY.

Veterans will remember the peculiar effect, on a forced march, of the younger or less-enduring comrade falling asleep as to all but his eyes and the muscles employed, but stepping out and apparently sustained only by the touching of elbows in the lurching from the ruts in the obliterated road. On the night of the stunning news of the last conflict at Chancellorsville, Lincoln could derive no comfort from later intelligence. Late at night General Halleck, commanding the capital, and Secretary Stanton left him unconsoled. Then his secretary, as long as he stayed, heard the man on whom rested the national hopes--her very future--pace his room without pause save to turn. It was like the fisher on the banks who must keep awake for a chance at a grab at the chains of the s.h.i.+p that may burst through the fog and crush his smack like a coconut-sh.e.l.l. At midnight the chief may have stopped to write, for there was a pause--but a breathing-spell. Then the pacing again till the attache left at 3 A.M.

When he came in the morning, not unanxious himself, he found his chief eating breakfast alone in the unquitted room. On the table lay a sheet of written paper: instructions for General Hooker to renew fighting although it only brought the slap on the other cheek--at Winchester--and still Lee pressed on into Pennsylvania till Harrisburg was menaced! But Meade supplanted "Fighting Joe," and Gettysburg wiped out the shame of the later repulses.

(The private secretary was W. O. Stoddard.)

WORKING FOR A LIVING MAKES ONE PRACTICAL.

The year 1863 was black-lettered in the North by disaster. General Hooker had been badly beaten by General Lee. The Confederate advance into Pennsylvania shook the strongest faith in the triumph of the Federal arms, and the victory of Gettysburg was attained at a b.l.o.o.d.y cost. The draft riots in New York excited a fear that the discontent with the colossal strife was deep-rooted. General Thomas, at Chickamauga, saved the Union Army from destruction, but the call for 300,000 three-years' men denoted that the end was not even glimpsed.

Nevertheless, this latter feat of arms gladdened tremulous Was.h.i.+ngton, and among the exploits was cited to the President the desperate victualing of General Thomas' exhausted troops by General Garfield.

He performed a dangerous ride from Rosencrantz to the beleagured victor and brought him craved-for provisions.

"How is it," inquired President Lincoln of an officer, courier of the details, "that Garfield did in two weeks what would have taken one of your _West Pointers_ two months to accomplish?"

The recollection was perfectly well understood by the regular, who thought the amateur commander "meddled too much" with the operations of the field.

"Because he was not educated at West Point," was the reply, but half in jest.

"No, that was not the reason," corrected the questioner; "it was because, when a boy, he had to work for a living."

He rewarded "the purveyor-general" with the rank of major-general.

"HOLD ON AND CHAW!"

While in July, 1863, General Grant was held at Vicksburg by the siege which he successfully prosecuted, the New York draft riots broke out.

Without knowing from experience that a riot, however portentous, must cease when the mob are drunk or spent, the inevitable contingencies, in his alarm General Halleck, at Was.h.i.+ngton, begged General Grant to send reenforcements, that he might not weaken the capital defenses to any extent. The commander of the West declined and referred to the President. General Horace Porter was on Grant's staff and saw his smiles as he read the despatch from headquarters.

"The President has more nerve than any of his advisers," observed he to his officers, for Lincoln did not agree with his Cabinet, as to the revolution in the rear; and the message was sent by the staff:

"I have seen your despatch, expressing your unwillingness to break your hold. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and _chaw_ and choke as much as possible!"

THE GREAT NATIONAL JOB.

"The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.... The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's webfeet be forgotten. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bay, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been, and made their tracks! Thanks to all--for the great republic!"--(Letter by President Lincoln, regretting inability to attend a meeting of unconditional Union men at Springfield, Illinois; dated August 26, 1863, to J. C. Conkling.)

FOR FLAYING A MAN ALIVE.

A representative of Ohio, Alexander Long, proposed in the House a recognition of the Southern Confederacy. It must be borne in mind that, before the firing on the supply-steamer at Charleston, which was despatched surrept.i.tiously not "to offend the sympathizers'

susceptibilities," many good citizens, dwelling on the silence of the Const.i.tution as to secession, said openly that they did not see why the States chafing under the partners.h.i.+p all the original thirteen made, should not withdraw peacefully. Long was not solitary in his unseemly proposition, which, however, could never have been otherwise than untimely after the first shot.

General Garfield met the issue with indignation. He called the act "treason!" and denounced the author as a second Benedict Arnold. He entreated loyal representatives:

"Do not believe that another such growth on the soil of Ohio deformed the face of nature and darkened the light of G.o.d's day!"

When this speech met the President's eye, he hastened to thank General Garfield for having "flayed Long alive."