PERSONAL REMINISENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 73, 31 August 1865, Page 8

PERSONAL REMINISENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

(From 'The Field,, the Dungeon,: and the Escape/ By AJdert EL Richardson.) When next I saw the President he had been at the White House for more than, a month. In; the secret service of the Iry-, bune I had been reporting the Secession Conventions of Mississipi: and Louisiana. The fall of Sumter, and the exasperation which followed^ Mr Lincoln's, call for troops, warned me to flee from the wrath to come. •■■<- *■•■ -I> reached Washington on the 'historic 19th of April. Just after my arrival the Baltimore' streets were stained with Massachusetts blood, railroads torn up, telegraph wires cut, and the panic-stricken city virtually blockaded. . As I was the last man from the South, two senators insisted upon taking me to the White House. The President received us with great kindness, but his countenance was almost ghastly with care. ' Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, t though it be only, the chaplet of a republic. This man had filled the measure of American ambition. There, was the same geniality, the same, tendency ;to "anecdote, but the .old. ringing laugh was dull and mechanical ', the remembered brightness of the face was gone, and his blushing honours seemed pallid and ashen. He questioned me very minutely about the resources and immediate designs of the rebels, the public temper in the South, and the probabilities of the hour. ' Douglas,' said he ' spent three hours with me this morning. For several days he had been ill, unable, to attend to business. So he had been studying* the points until he understands the military situation, I think, better than any of the rest of us. By the way ' (with his peculiar twinkle of theeye), 'he- talked a little about the old subject in a mew tone. . 'You know,' said Douglas, ' I have ; always been very sound on thenegro question. I have believed in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law in all instances with its true intent and meaning* ; but, after careful study I have about concluded that , a slave insurrection would be a case to which it does not apply ! ' Rousseau had .an interview with the President and Secretaries Cameron and Seward. The weather was very hot, "and Cameron iSat with his coat' off during" the conversation. Asnusual before proceeding to business,' Mr Lincoln had his 'little tosy ' to en j oy. He shoo 1 ' han ds cordially with his visitor, and said in great glee — 'Rousseau, where did you get that joke about Senator Johnston ? ' 'The jjke, Mr President, was too good to keep ; Jonnstone told" it himself.' It was this — Dr. John M. Johnston, State Senator from Padauch, wrote to Mr Lincoln a rhetorical document, in the usual style of the rebels. . In behalf" of his so-? vjreign State, ,he .entered a solemn and emphatic protest against the planting of cannon at Cairo, declaring that the guns actually, pointed; in the direction of the sacred soil of Kentucky ! , In an exquisitely pithy autograph letter, Mr Lincoln^ replied^ if he had known earlier that Cairo, Illinois, was in ■■ Dr. Johnson's; Kentucky. Senatoria^District, he certainly :should ; not have established either the guns or. the, troops there t Singularly enoughr-for a keen sense of . humour was very rare- among our ' erring brethren — • Johnston appreciated the jest. ' ■■• , WJhile Rousseau was urging the necessity of enlisting trcops, he remarked-^— 'I have half pretencLed to submit to Kentucky neutrality, but in discussing the , matter ■ before, the people, while apparently standing upon the line, . I have almost always poked.' I This word was not in the Cabinet vocabulary. Cameron looked inquiringly at Mr Lincoln, who was supposed to be familiar with the dialect of his native State. 'General,' said che President, 'you don't know what poke means? Why, when you play marbles, you are required to shoot from a mark on the ground, when you reach over with your hand beyond the line, that is poking /' Cameron favored enlistments in Kentucky without delay. 'Don't be too hasty; we should act with caution.' Rousseau explained;-- ''The masses in Kentucky are loyal. I can get as many soldiers there "as 1 are wanted ; but it the rebels raise troops,- while we do not; pur young men will go ilto their army, taking

the sympathies of kindred and friends, and may finally cause the State to secede. It is of vital importance that we give loyal direction to the sentiment of our people.' One in company with Mr X M. Winchell, of the ' New York Times,' and the Hon. H. P. Bennett, Delegate from Colorada, I called upon the President to present a paper. : ' After .General Sigel 'and Representative John B.Steelehad left, he chanced to be quite at liberty. Upon my introduction, he remarked: .:■■■:. ,■ Oh yes, I remember you particularly well j you were out on the prairies with me on' that winter day when we almost froze to death ;i you were then correspondent of the ' Boston Journal.' That German from Leavenworth was also with us — -what whs his nanie ?' ' Hattersch-ait V I suggested. ' Yes, Hatterscheit I By the way (motioning 1 us to seats, and settling down into his chair, with one leg" thrown over the arm) ' that reminds me of a. little, story which Hatterscheit told me during the trip. He bought a pony of an Indian, who could, not speak much English, but who, when the bargain was completed, said, ' Oats — no ! Hay — no! Corn— no ! Cottonwood — yes! very much ! Hatfcerscheit thought this was mere drunken maundering, but a few nights after, he tied his horse in a stable | built of cottonwood logs, fed him with hay and corn, and went quickly to bed. The next,- morning he found the grain and fodder untouched, but the barn was quite empty, with a hole in one side, which the pony had gnawed his way through ! Then he comprehended the old Indian's fragmentary English. This suggested another reminiscence of the same Western trip. Somewhere in Nebraska the party came to a little creek, the Indian name of which signified weeping- water. Mr Lincoln remarked with a g-ood deal of aptness, that, as laughing* water according' to Long-fellow, was 'Minnehaha,' the name of the rivulet should evidently be ' Minneboohoo !' The Army of the Potomac was next spoken of. The great Fredericksburg disaster was recent, and the public heart was heavy. In regard to General M'Clellan | the President spoke with discriminating ! justice : — ~ 'I do not, as some do, regard M'Clellah either as a traitor or an officer without capacity. He sometimes had bad counsellors; but he is loyal, and he has some fine military qualities. " I adhered to him after, nearly all my constitutional advisers had lost faith in him. But do you want to know when I gave him up ? It was after the battle of Antietam. The Blue Ridge was then between, our Army, and Lee's, We enjoyed the great advantage, over them which they usually had over us— we had the short line and they the long* one tp the rebel ; capital. I directed M'Glellan, peremptorily, to move on Richmond at once. It was eleven days before he crossed his first man over the Potomac : it was eleven days after that before he crossed the last man. Thus, he was twentytwo days in passing the fiver at & much easier and more practicable ford than that where Lee crossed his entire army between dark one night and daylight , the next morning. That was the last grain of sand that broke the camel's back. I relieved M'Clellan at once. As for Hooker, I have told. him. forty times that I fear he may err just as much one way as M'Clejlan does the other— may be as over- daring* as M|Glellari is over-cautious.' • 'We. enquired about the progress of the Vicksßurg campaign. Our : armies were on a long expedition ' up the Yazoo river, designing, by cutting canals and threading bayous, to get in the rear of the city and cut off its supplies. Mr Lincoln said :— - ' Of course, men who are in command and on the spot, know a great deal more than I do. But immediately in front of Vicksburg, where the river is a mile wide, the rebels plant batteries, which absolutely stop our entire fleets ; therefore it does seem to me that upon narrow streams like the Yazoo, Kahabusa, and ' Tallahatchie, not wide enough for a long boat to turn around in, if any of our steamers which go there ever come back there must be some mistake about it, If the enemy permits them to survive, it must be either through lack of enterprise or lack of sense.' „ '..-•" A few" months later, Mr Lincoln was able to announce to the nation— -' The

Father of Waters again flows, un vexed to the sea.' Our interview left no grotesque recollec.tions of the. President's lounging*, his huge hands and feet, great mouth, or angular features. We remembered rather the ineffable tenderness which shone through his gentle eyes, his childlike ingenuousness his utter integrity, and his absorbing* love of country. ; Ignorant of etiquete and convention-, alittes, without the graces of form or of manner, his. great reluctance to give pain, his beautiful regard for the feelings of others, made him '. . : Worthy to bear without reproach, The grand old name of gentleman.