The President had made arrangements to visit New York, and was told that
President Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, would be glad to
furnish a special train.
“I don’t doubt it a bit,” remarked the President, “for I know Mr.
Garrett, and like him very well, and if I believed--which I don’t, by
any means--all the things some people say about his ‘secesh’ principles,
he might say to you as was said by the Superintendent of a certain
railroad to a son of one my predecessors in office. Some two years after
the death of President Harrison, the son of his successor in this office
wanted to take his father on an excursion somewhere or other, and went
to the Superintendent’s office to order a special train.
“This Superintendent was a Whig of the most uncompromising sort, who
hated a Democrat more than all other things on the earth, and promptly
refused the young man’s request, his language being to the effect
that this particular railroad was not running special trains for the
accommodation of Presidents of the United States just at that season.
“The son of the President was much surprised and exceedingly annoyed.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘you have run special Presidential trains, and I know
it. Didn’t you furnish a special train for the funeral of President
Harrison?’
“‘Certainly we did,’ calmly replied the Superintendent, with no
relaxation of his features, ‘and if you will only bring your father here
in the same shape as General Harrison was, you shall have the best train
on the road.”’
When the laughter had subsided, the President said: “I shall take
pleasure in accepting Mr. Garrett’s offer, as I have no doubts whatever
as to his loyalty to the United States government or his respect for the
occupant of the Presidential office.”
“GOT DOWN TO THE RAISINS.”
A. B. Chandler, chief of the telegraph office at the War Department,
occupied three rooms, one of which was called “the President’s room,”
so much of his time did Mr. Lincoln spend there. Here he would read
over the telegrams received for the several heads of departments. Three
copies of all messages received were made--one for the President, one
for the War Department records and one for Secretary Stanton.
Mr. Chandler told a story as to the manner in which the President read
the despatches:
“President Lincoln’s copies were kept in what we called the ‘President’s
drawer’ of the ‘cipher desk.’ He would come in at any time of the night
or day, and go at once to this drawer, and take out a file of telegrams,
and begin at the top to read them. His position in running over these
telegrams was sometimes very curious.
“He had a habit of sitting frequently on the edge of his chair, with his
right knee dragged down to the floor. I remember a curious expression
of his when he got to the bottom of the new telegrams and began on those
that he had read before. It was, ‘Well, I guess I have got down to the
raisins.’
“The first two or three times he said this he made no explanation, and I
did not ask one. But one day, after he had made the remark, he looked up
under his eyebrows at me with a funny twinkle in his eyes, and said: ‘I
used to know a little girl out West who sometimes was inclined to eat
too much. One day she ate a good many more raisins than she ought to,
and followed them up with a quantity of other goodies. They made her
very sick. After a time the raisins began to come.
“She gasped and looked at her mother and said: ‘Well, I will be better
now I guess, for I have got down to the raisins.’”
“HONEST ABE” SWALLOWS HIS ENEMIES.
“‘Honest Abe’ Taking Them on the Half-Shell” was one of the cartoons
published in 1860 by one of the illustrated periodicals. As may be
seen, it represents Lincoln in a “Political Oyster House,” preparing to
swallow two of his Democratic opponents for the Presidency--Douglas
and Breckinridge. He performed the feat at the November election.
The Democratic party was hopelessly split in 1860 The Northern wing
nominated Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, as their candidate,
the Southern wing naming John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky; the
Constitutional Unionists (the old American of Know-Nothing party) placed
John Bell, of Tennessee, in the field, and against these was put Abraham
Lincoln, who received the support of the Abolitionists.
Lincoln made short work of his antagonists when the election came
around. He received a large majority in the Electoral College, while
nearly every Northern State voted majorities for him at the polls.
Douglas had but twelve votes in the Electoral College, while Bell had
thirty-nine. The votes of the Southern States, then preparing to secede,
were, for the most part, thrown for Breckinridge. The popular vote was:
Lincoln, 1,857,610; Douglas, 1,365,976; Breckinridge, 847,953; Bell,
590,631; total vote, 4,662,170. In the Electoral College Lincoln
received 180; Douglas, 12; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; Lincoln’s
majority over all, 57.