How We Elected Lincoln by Dittenhoefer Abram J.;Jamieson Kathleen Hall;

Author:Dittenhoefer, Abram J.;Jamieson, Kathleen Hall;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

VI

Stories and Incidents

Apparently the world is never weary of asking what was the true Abraham Lincoln, and every side-light upon his character is significant.

A man whom I knew well discovered the President at his office counting greenbacks and inclosing them in an envelope. He asked Mr. Lincoln how he could spare the time for such a task in the midst of the important duties that were pressing upon him.

Lincoln replied: ‘‘The President of the United States has a multiplicity of duties not specified in the Constitution of the laws. This is one of them. It is money which belongs to a negro porter from the Treasury Department. He is now in the hospital, too sick to sign his name, and according to his wish I am putting a part of it aside in an envelope, properly labeled, to save it for him.’’

An eye-witness relates that one day while walking along a shaded path from the Executive Mansion to the War Office, he saw the tall form of the President seated on the grass. He afterward learned that a wounded soldier, while on his way to the White House seeking back pay and a pension, had met the President and had asked his assistance. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln sat down, looked over the soldier’s papers, and advised him what to do; he ended by giving him a note directing him to the proper place to secure attention.

Driving up to a hospital one day he saw one of the patients walking directly in the path of his team. The horses were checked none too soon; then Mr. Lincoln saw that he was nothing but a boy and had been wounded in both eyes. He got out of the carriage and questioned the poor fellow, asking him his name, his service, and his residence. ‘‘I am Abraham Lincoln,’’ he said, upon leaving; and the sightless face lighted at the President’s words of sympathy. The following day the chief of the hospital delivered to the boy a commission in the Army of the United States as first lieutenant. The papers bore the President’s signature and were accompanied by an order retiring him on three-quarters pay for the years of helplessness that lay before him.

‘‘Some of my generals complain that I impair discipline in the Army by my pardons and respites,’’ Lincoln once said. ‘‘But it rests me, after a hard day’s work, if I can find some excuse for saving a man’s life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.’’

I once heard Mr. Lincoln telling a number of Congressmen in the anteroom of the White House that in the distribution of patronage care should be taken of the disabled soldiers and the widows and orphans of deceased soldiers, and these views were subsequently conveyed to the Senate in a message which contained the following language:

Yesterday a little endorsement of mine went to you in two cases of postmasterships sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in the battles of the war.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.