“Do you know General A--?” queried the President one day to a friend who
had “dropped in” at the White House.
“Certainly; but you are not wasting any time thinking about him, are
you?” was the rejoinder.
“You wrong him,” responded the President, “he is a really great man, a
philosopher.”
“How do you make that out? He isn’t worth the powder and ball necessary
to kill him so I have heard military men say,” the friend remarked.
“He is a mighty thinker,” the President returned, “because he has
mastered that ancient and wise admonition, ‘Know thyself;’ he has formed
an intimate acquaintance with himself, knows as well for what he is
fitted and unfitted as any man living. Without doubt he is a remarkable
man. This War has not produced another like him.”
“How is it you are so highly pleased with General A---- all at once?”
“For the reason,” replied Mr. Lincoln, with a merry twinkle of the
eye, “greatly to my relief, and to the interests of the country, he has
resigned. The country should express its gratitude in some substantial
way.”
“SHRUNK UP NORTH.”
There was no member of the Cabinet from the South when Attorney-General
Bates handed in his resignation, and President Lincoln had a great deal
of trouble in making a selection. Finally Titian F. Coffey consented to
fill the vacant place for a time, and did so until the appointment of
Mr. Speed.
In conversation with Mr. Coffey the President quaintly remarked:
“My Cabinet has shrunk up North, and I must find a Southern man. I
suppose if the twelve Apostles were to be chosen nowadays, the shrieks
of locality would have to be heeded.”