Part 92

“After the Civil War began, Lincoln’s tenacity of purpose paralleled his former immobility; I believe he would have been nearly the last, if not the very last, man in America to recognize the Southern Confederacy had its armies been triumphant. He would have preferred death.”

“PUNCH” AND HIS LITTLE PICTURE.

London “Punch” was not satisfied with anything President Lincoln did. On December 3rd, 1864, after Mr. Lincoln’s re-election to the Presidency, a cartoon appeared in one of the pages of that genial publication, the reproduction being printed here, labeled “The Federal Phoenix.” It attracted great attention at the time, and was particularly pleasing to the enemies of the United States, as it showed Lincoln as the Phoenix arising from the ashes of the Federal Constitution, the Public Credit, the Freedom of the Press, State Rights and the Commerce of the North American Republic.

President Lincoln’s endorsement by the people of the United States meant that the Confederacy was to be crushed, no matter what the cost; that the Union of States was to be preserved, and that State Rights was a thing of the past. “Punch” wished to create the impression that President Lincoln’s re-election was a personal victory; that he would set up a despotism, with himself at its head, and trample upon the Constitution of the United States and all the rights the citizens of the Republic ever possessed.

The result showed that “Punch” was suffering from an acute attack of needless alarm.

FASCINATED By THE WONDERFUL

Lincoln was particularly fascinated by the wonderful happenings recorded in history. He loved to read of those mighty events which had been foretold, and often brooded upon these subjects. His early convictions upon occult matters led him to read all books tending’ to strengthen these convictions.

The following lines, in Byron’s “Dream,” were frequently quoted by him:

“Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world And a wide realm of wild reality. And dreams in their development have breath, And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being.”

Those with whom he was associated in his early youth and young manhood, and with whom he was always in cordial sympathy, were thorough believers in presentiments and dreams; and so Lincoln drifted on through years of toil and exceptional hardship--meditative, aspiring, certain of his star, but appalled at times by its malignant aspect. Many times prior to his first election to the Presidency he was both elated and alarmed by what seemed to him a rent in the veil which hides from mortal view what the future holds.

He saw, or thought he saw, a vision of glory and of blood, himself the central figure in a scene which his fancy transformed from giddy enchantment to the most appalling tragedy.

“WHY DON’T THEY COME!”

The suspense of the days when the capital was isolated, the expected troops not arriving, and an hourly attack feared, wore on Mr. Lincoln greatly.

“I begin to believe,” he said bitterly, one day, to some Massachusetts soldiers, “that there is no North. The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode Island is another. You are the only real thing.”

And again, after pacing the floor of his deserted office for a half-hour, he was heard to exclaim to himself, in an anguished tone: “Why don’t they come! Why don’t they come!”

GRANT’S BRAND OF WHISKEY.

Lincoln was not a man of impulse, and did nothing upon the spur of the moment; action with him was the result of deliberation and study. He took nothing for granted; he judged men by their performances and not their speech.

If a general lost battles, Lincoln lost confidence in him; if a commander was successful, Lincoln put him where he would be of the most service to the country.

“Grant is a drunkard,” asserted powerful and influential politicians to the President at the White House time after time; “he is not himself half the time; he can’t be relied upon, and it is a shame to have such a man in command of an army.”

“So Grant gets drunk, does he?” queried Lincoln, addressing himself to one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier, who, at that period, was inflicting heavy damage upon the Confederates.

“Yes, he does, and I can prove it,” was the reply.

“Well,” returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, “you needn’t waste your time getting proof; you just find out, to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send a barrel of it to each one of my generals.”

That ended the crusade against Grant, so far as the question of drinking was concerned.

HIS FINANCIAL STANDING.

A New York firm applied to Abraham Lincoln, some years before he became President, for information as to the financial standing of one of his neighbors. Mr. Lincoln replied:

“I am well acquainted with Mr.---- and know his circumstances. First of all, he has a wife and baby; together they ought to be worth $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50 and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all, there is in one corner a large rat hole, which will bear looking into. Respectfully, A. Lincoln.”

THE DANDY AND THE BOYS.

President Lincoln appointed as consul to a South American country a young man from Ohio who was a dandy. A wag met the new appointee on his way to the White House to thank the President. He was dressed in the most extravagant style. The wag horrified him by telling him that the country to which he was assigned was noted chiefly for the bugs that abounded there and made life unbearable.