your Christian duty, and have done more than enough.' • Oh, no, father,' says the Indian, 'let me pray! I want to burn him down to the stump!"" Mr. Bleeker got the position.

"Mr. Lincoln," wrote one who knew him very well,* "was a good judge of men, and quickly learned the peculiar traits of character in those he had to deal with. He pointed out a marked trait in one of the Northern governors who was earnest, able, and untiring in keeping up the war spirit of his State, but was at times overbearing and exacting in his intercourse with the general government. Upon one occasion he complained and protested more bitterly than usual, and warned those in authority that the execution of their orders in his State would be beset by difficulties and dangers. The tone of his dispatches gave rise to an apprehension that he might not co-operate fully in the enterprise in hand. The Secretary of War, therefore, laid the dispatches before the President for advice or instructions. They did not disturb Mr. Lincoln in the least. In fact, they rather amused him. After reading all the papers, he said in a cheerful and reassuring tone: Never mind, those dispatches don't mean anything. Just go right ahead. The governor is like the boy I saw once at the launching of a ship. When everything was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him under the ship to knock away the trigger and let her go. At the critical moment everything depended on the boy. He had to do the job

* General Fry, in the New York "Tribune."

well by a direct, vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still while the ship slid over him. The boy did everything right; but he yelled as if he were being murdered, from the time he got under the keel until he got out. I thought the skin was all scraped off his back; but he was n't hurt at all. The master of the yard told me that this boy was always chosen for that job, that he did his work well, that he never had been hurt, but that he always squealed in that way. That's just the way with Governor Make up your minds that he is not hurt, and that he is doing his work right, and pay no attention to his squealing. He only wants to make you understand how hard his task is, and that he is on hand performing it.'"

Time proved that the President's estimation of the governor was correct.

Upon another occasion a Governor went to the office of the Adjutant-General bristling with complaints. The Adjutant, finding it impossible to satisfy his demands, accompanied him to the Secretary of War's office, whence, after a stormy interview with Secretary Stanton he went alone to see the President. The Adjutant-General expected important orders from the President or a summons to the White House for explanation. After some hours the Governor returned and said with a pleasant smile that he was going home by the next train and merely dropped in to say good-bye, making no allusion to the business upon which he came nor his interview with the President. As soon as the Adjutant-General could

see Mr. Lincoln he told him he was very anxious to learn how he disposed of Governor as he had started to see him in a towering rage, and said he supposed it was necessary to make large concessions to him as he seemed after leaving the President to be entirely satisfied. "O, no," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I did not concede anything. You know how that Illinois farmer managed the big log that lay in the middle of his field? To the inquiries of his neighbors one Sunday he announced that he had got rid of the big log. 'Got rid of it!' said they. 'How did you do it? It was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, and too wet and soggy to burn. What did you do?' 'Well, now, boys,' replied the farmer, ‘if you won't divulge the secret, I'll tell you how I got rid of it. I plowed around it.' Now," said Lincoln, "don't tell anybody, but that is the way I got rid of Governor

I plowed around him, but it took me three mortal hours to do it, and I was afraid every minute he would see what I was at."

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed telling of the youth who emigrated to the West and wrote back East to his father who was something of a politician: "Dear Dad,—I have settled at and like it first rate. Do come out here, for almighty mean men get office here."

Thurlow Weed tells of breakfasting with Lincoln and Judge Davis while in Springfield in December prior to Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration. Judge Davis remarked Mr. Weed's fondness for sausage and said, "You seem fond of our Chicago sausages." To which Mr. Weed

responded that he was, and thought the article might be relied on where pork was cheaper than dogs. "That," said Mr. Lincoln, " reminds me of what occurred down in Joliet, where a popular grocer supplied all the villagers with sausages. One Saturday evening, when his grocery was filled with customers, for whom he and his boys were busily engaged in weighing sausages, a neighbor with whom he had had a violent quarrel that day came into the grocery, made his way up to the counter, holding two enormous dead cats by the tail, which he deliberately threw onto the counter saying, “This makes seven to-day. I'll call round Monday and get my money for them."

Mr. Lincoln read men and women quickly, and was so keen a judge of their peculiarities that none escaped his observation.

Once a very attractive woman consumed a good deal of Mr. Lincoln's time. He finally dismissed her with a card directed to Secretary Stanton on which he had written: "This woman, dear Stanton, is a little smarter than she looks to be."

CHAPTER IX.

THE ANTIETAM EPISODE. LINCOLN'S LOVE OF SONG.

N the autumn of 1862 I chanced to be associated with

IN

Mr. Lincoln in a transaction which, though innocent and commonplace in itself, was blown by rumor and surmise into a revolting and deplorable scandal. A conjectural lie, although mean, misshapen, and very small at its birth, grew at length into a tempest of defamation, whose last echoes were not heard until its noble victim had yielded his life to a form of assassination only a trifle more deadly.

Mr. Lincoln was painted as the prime mover in a scene of fiendish levity more atrocious than the world had ever witnessed since human nature was shamed and degraded by the capers of Nero and Commodus. I refer to what is known as the Antietam song-singing; and I propose to show that the popular construction put upon that incident was wholly destitute of truth.

Mr. Lincoln persistently declined to read the harsh comments of the newspaper press and the fierce mouthings of platform orators; and under his advice I as persistently refused to make any public statement concerning that ill-judged affair. He believed with Sir Walter Scott, that, if a cause of action is good, it needs