Part 116

“‘It’s worth more to me, sa.’

“‘Then you must value it very highly?’

“‘Yes, sa, I does, more dan all dis wuld, more dan a million ob dollars, sa, for what would dat be wuth to a man wid de bref out ob him? Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me.’

“‘But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?’

“‘Different men set different values on their lives; mine is not in de market.’

“‘But if you lost it you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you died for your country.’

“‘Dat no satisfaction when feelin’s gone.’

“‘Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?’

“‘Nufin whatever, sat--I regard them as among the vanities.’

“‘If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the government without resistance.’

“‘Yes, sa, dar would hab been no help for it. I wouldn’t put my life in de scale ‘g’inst any gobernment dat eber existed, for no gobernment could replace de loss to me.’

“‘Do you think any of your company would have missed you if you had been killed?’

“‘Maybe not, sa--a dead white man ain’t much to dese sogers, let alone a dead nigga--but I’d a missed myse’f, and dat was de p’int wid me.’

“I only tell this story,” concluded the President, “in order to illustrate the result of the tactics of some of the Union generals who would be sadly ‘missed’ by themselves, if no one else, if they ever got out of the Army.”

IT ALL “DEPENDED” UPON THE EFFECT.

President Lincoln and some members of his Cabinet were with a part of the Army some distance south of the National Capital at one time, when Secretary of War Stanton remarked that just before he left Washington he had received a telegram from General Mitchell, in Alabama. General Mitchell asked instructions in regard to a certain emergency that had arisen.

The Secretary said he did not precisely understand the emergency as explained by General Mitchell, but had answered back, “All right; go ahead.”

“Now,” he said, as he turned to Mr. Lincoln, “Mr. President, if I have made an error in not understanding him correctly, I will have to get you to countermand the order.”

“Well,” exclaimed President Lincoln, “that is very much like the happening on the occasion of a certain horse sale I remember that took place at the cross-roads down in Kentucky, when I was a boy.

“A particularly fine horse was to be sold, and the people in large numbers had gathered together. They had a small boy to ride the horse up and down while the spectators examined the horse’s points.

“At last one man whispered to the boy as he went by: ‘Look here, boy, hain’t that horse got the splints?’

“The boy replied: ‘Mister, I don’t know what the splints is, but if it’s good for him, he has got it; if it ain’t good for him, he ain’t got it.’

“Now,” said President Lincoln, “if this was good for Mitchell, it was all right; but if it was not, I have got to countermand it.”

TOO SWIFT TO STAY IN THE ARMY.

There were strange, queer, odd things and happenings in the Army at times, but, as a rule, the President did not allow them to worry him. He had enough to bother about.

A quartermaster having neglected to present his accounts in proper shape, and the matter being deemed of sufficient importance to bring it to the attention of the President, the latter remarked:

“Now this instance reminds me of a little story I heard only a short time ago. A certain general’s purse was getting low, and he said it was probable he might be obliged to draw on his banker for some money.

“‘How much do you want, father?’ asked his son, who had been with him a few days.