at Five Points. He was alone. The superintendent noticing his interest,
asked him to say a few words. The children were so pleased that when he
attempted to stop, they cried, "Go on, oh! do go on!" No one knew his
name, and on being asked who he was, he replied, "Abraham Lincoln of
Illinois." After visiting his son Robert at Harvard College, he returned
home.
When the Republican State Convention met, May 9, 1860, at Springfield,
Ill., Mr. Lincoln was invited to a seat on the platform, and as no way
could be made through the dense throng, he was carried over the people's
heads. Ten days later, at the National Convention at Chicago, though
William H. Seward of New York was a leading candidate, the West gained
the nomination, with their idolized Lincoln. Springfield was wild with
joy. When the news of his success was carried to him, he said quietly,
"Well, gentlemen, there's a little woman at our house who is probably
more interested in this dispatch than I am; and if you will excuse me, I
will take it up and let her see it."
The resulting canvass was one of the most remarkable in our history. The
South said, "War will result if he is elected." The North said, "The
time has come for decisive action." The popular vote for Abraham Lincoln
was nearly two millions (1,857,610), while Stephen A. Douglas received
something over a million (1,291,574). The country was in a fever of
excitement. The South made itself ready for war by seizing the forts.
Before the inauguration most of the Southern States had seceded.
Sad farewells were uttered as Mr. Lincoln left Springfield for
Washington. To his law partner he said, "You and I have been together
more than twenty years, and have never passed a word. Will you let my
name stay on the old sign till I come back from Washington?"
The tears came into Mr. Herndon's eyes, as he said, "I will never have
any other partner while you live," and he kept his word. Old Hannah
Armstrong told him that she should never see him again; that something
told her so; his enemies would assassinate him. He smiled and said,
"Hannah, if they do kill me, I shall never die another death."
He went away without fear, but feeling the awful responsibility of his
position. He found an empty treasury and the country drifting into the
blackness of war. He spoke few words, but the lines grew deeper on his
face, and his eyes grew sadder.
In his inaugural address he said, "In your hands, my dissatisfied
fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without
being yourselves the aggressors.... Physically speaking we cannot
separate."
The conflict began April 12, 1861, by the enemy firing on Fort Sumter.
That sound reverberated throughout the North. The President called for
seventy-five thousand men. The choicest from thousands of homes quickly
responded. Young men left their college-halls and men their places of
business. "The Union must and shall be preserved," was the eager cry.
Then came the call for forty-two thousand men for three years.
The President began to study war in earnest. He gathered military books,
sought out on maps every creek and hill and valley in the enemy's
country, and took scarcely time to eat or sleep. May 24, the brilliant
young Colonel Ellsworth had been shot at Alexandria by a hotel-keeper,
because he pulled down the secession flag. He was buried from the east
room in the White House, and the North was more aroused than ever. The
press and people were eager for battle, and July 21, 1861, the Union
army, under General McDowell, attacked the Confederates at Bull Run and
were defeated. The South was jubilant, and the North learned, once for
all, that the war was to be long and bloody. Congress, at the request of
the President, at once voted five hundred thousand men, and five hundred
million dollars to carry on the war.
Vast work was to be done. The Southern ports must be blockaded, and the
traffic on the Mississippi River discontinued. A great and brave army of
Southerners, fighting on their own soil, every foot of which they knew
so well, must be conquered if the nation remained intact. The burdens of
the President grew more and more heavy. Men at the North, who
sympathized with the South,--for we were bound together as one family
in a thousand ways,--said the President was going too far in his
authority; others said he moved too slowly, and was too lenient to the
slave power. The South gained strength from the sympathy of England, and
only by careful leadership was war avoided with that country.
General McClellan had fought some hard battles in Virginia--Fair Oaks,
Mechanicsville, Malvern Hill, and others--with varying success, losing
thousands of men in the Chickahominy swamps, and after the battle of
Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862, one of the severest of the war, when each side
lost over ten thousand men, he was relieved of his command, and
succeeded by General Burnside. There had been some successes at the West
under Grant, at Fort Donelson and Shiloh, and at the South under
Farragut, but the outlook for the country was not hopeful. Mr. Lincoln
had met with a severe affliction in his own household. His beautiful son
Willie had died in February. He used to walk the room in those dying
hours, saying sadly, "This is the hardest trial of my life; why is it?
why is it?"
This made him, perhaps, even more tender of the lives of others' sons. A
young sentinel had been sentenced to be shot for sleeping at his post;
but the President pardoned him, saying, "I could not think of going into
eternity with the blood of the poor young man on my skirts. It is not to
be wondered at that a boy raised on a farm, probably in the habit of
going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep, and I
cannot consent to shoot him for such an act." This youth was found among
the slain on the field of Fredericksburg, wearing next his heart a
photograph of his preserver, with the words, "God bless President
Lincoln."
An army officer once went to Washington to see about the execution of
twenty-four deserters, who had been sentenced by court-martial to be
shot. "Mr. President," said he, "unless these men are made an example
of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the
many."
"Mr. General," was the reply, "there are already too many weeping widows
in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number,
for I won't do it." At another time he said, "Well, I think the boy can
do us more good above ground than under ground."
A woman in a faded shawl and hood came to see the President, begging
that, as her husband and all her sons--three--had enlisted, and her
husband had been killed, he would release the oldest, that he might care
for his mother. Mr. Lincoln quickly consented. When the poor woman
reached the hospital where her boy was to be found, he was dead.
Returning sadly to Mr. Lincoln, he said, "I know what you wish me to do
now, and I shall do it without your asking; I shall release your second
son.... Now _you_ have one, and _I_ one of the other two left: that is
no more than right." Tears filled the eyes of both as she reverently
laid her hand on his head, saying, "The Lord bless you, Mr. President.
May you live a thousand years, and always be at the head of this great
nation!"
Through all these months it had become evident that slavery must be
destroyed, or we should live over again these dreadful war-scenes in
years to come. Mr. Lincoln had been waiting for the right time to free
the slaves. General McClellan had said, "A declaration of radical views,
especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies";
but Sept. 22, 1862, Mr. Lincoln told his Cabinet, "I have promised my
God that I will do it"; and he issued the immortal Emancipation
Proclamation, by which four million human beings stepped out from
bondage into freedom. He knew what he was doing. Two years afterward he
said, "It is the central act of my administration, and the great event
of the nineteenth century."
The following year, 1863, brought even deeper sorrows. The "Draft Act,"
by which men were obliged to enter the army when their names were drawn,
occasioned in July a riot in New York city, with the loss of many lives.
Grant had taken Vicksburg on July 4, and General Meade had won at the
dreadful three days' fight at Gettysburg, July 1-4, with a loss of more
than twenty thousand on either side; but the nation was being held
together at a fearful cost. When Mr. Lincoln announced to the people
the victory at Gettysburg, he expressed the desire that, in the
customary observance of the Fourth of July, "He whose will, not ours,
should everywhere be done, be everywhere reverenced with profoundest
gratitude." He reverenced God, himself, most devoutly. "I have been
driven many times upon my knees," he said, "by the overwhelming
conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all
about me seemed insufficient for that day."
On Nov. 19, of this year, this battle-field was dedicated, with solemn
ceremonies, as one of the national cemeteries. Mr. Lincoln made a very
brief address, in words that will last while America lasts, "The world
will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is, rather, for us to be here dedicated
to the great task remaining for us, that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people,
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Emerson says of these words, "This, and one other American speech, that
of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's
speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other, and no
fourth."
The next year, Feb. 29, 1864, the Hero of Vicksburg was called to the
Lieutenant-Generalship of the army, and for the first time Mr. Lincoln
felt somewhat a sense of relief from burdens. He said, "Wherever Grant
is, things move." He now called for five hundred thousand more men, and
the beginning of the end was seen. Sherman swept through to the sea.
Grant went below Richmond, where he said, "I propose to fight it out on
this line if it takes all summer."
Mr. Lincoln had been re-elected to the Presidency for a second term,
giving that beautiful inaugural address to the people, "With malice
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are
in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne
the battle, and for his widows and orphans; to do all which may achieve
and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations." On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, and
the long war was ended. The people gathered in their churches to praise
God amid their tears. Abraham Lincoln's name was on every lip. The
colored people said of their deliverer, "He is eberywhere. He is like de
bressed Lord; he walks de waters and de land."
An old colored woman came to the door of the White House and met the
President as he was coming out, and said she wanted to see "Abraham the
Second."
"And who was Abraham the First?" asked the good man.
"Why, Lor' bless you, we read about Abraham de First in de Bible, and
Abraham de Second is de President."
"Here he is!" said the President, turning away to hide his tears.
Well did the noble-hearted man say, "I have never willingly planted a
thorn in any man's bosom."
Five days after the surrender of General Lee, Mr. Lincoln went to Ford's
Theatre, because it would rest him and please the people to see him. He
used to say, "The tired part of me is inside and out of reach.... I feel
a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over,
my work will be done."
While Mr. Lincoln was enjoying the play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor,
came into the box behind him and fired a bullet into his brain; then
sprang upon the stage, shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is
avenged!" The President scarcely moved in his chair, and, unconscious,
was taken to a house near by, where he died at twenty-two minutes past
seven, April 15, 1865. Booth was caught twelve days later, and shot in a
burning barn.
The nation seemed as though struck dumb; and then, from the Old World
as well as the New, came an agonizing wail of sorrow. Death only showed
to their view how sublime was the character of him who had carried them
through the war. While the body, embalmed, lay in state in the east room
of the White House tens of thousands crowded about it. And then,
accompanied by the casket of little Willie, the body of Abraham Lincoln
took its long journey of fifteen hundred miles, to the home of his early
life, for burial. Nothing in this country like that funeral pageant has
ever been witnessed. In New York, in Philadelphia, and in every other
city along the way, houses were trimmed with mourning, bells tolled,
funeral marches were played, and the rooms where the body rested were
filled with flowers. Hundreds of thousands looked upon the tired, noble
face of the martyred President.
In Oak Ridge Cemetery, at Springfield, Illinois, in the midst of a dense
multitude, a choir of two hundred and fifty singing by the open grave of
him who dearly loved music,
"Children of the Heavenly King,"
Abraham Lincoln was buried, Bishop Simpson, now dead, spoke eloquently,
quoting Mr. Lincoln's words, "Before high Heaven and in the face of the
world I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the
land of my life, my liberty, and my love."
Charles Sumner said, "There are no accidents in the Providence of God."
Such lives as that of Abraham Lincoln are not accidents in American
history. They are rather the great books from whose pages we catch
inspiration, and in which we read God's purposes for the progress of the
human race.
* * * * *
BOOKS BY SARAH K. BOLTON.
"_Mrs. Bolton never fails to interest and instruct her
readers._"--CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN.
POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS
GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS
FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE
FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN
FAMOUS ENGLISH STATESMEN
FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS
FAMOUS ENGLISH AUTHORS
FAMOUS EUROPEAN ARTISTS
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD
FAMOUS VOYAGERS AND EXPLORERS
FAMOUS LEADERS AMONG MEN
FAMOUS LEADERS AMONG WOMEN
FAMOUS GIVERS AND THEIR GIFTS
EMERSON
RAPHAEL
FROM HEART AND NATURE (Poems)
THE INEVITABLE (Poems)
_For Sale by all Booksellers. Send for Catalogue._
NEW YORK:
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Punctuation has been standardised.
Minor printer errors (e.g. omitted, superfluous & transposed characters)
have been fixed.
Page 72, "Amodeus" changed to "Amadeus" (Amadeus Mozart was)
Page 134, "tamborine" changed to "tambourine" (beating the tambourine)
Page 186, "capitol" changed to "capital" (capital of united Italy)
Page 241, "enterprizing" changed to "enterprising" (enterprising young)
Page 273, "sadler" changed to "saddler" (a saddler was found)