In September, 1864, a New York paper printed the following brutal story:
“A few days after the battle of Antietam, the President was driving
over the field in an ambulance, accompanied by Marshal Lamon, General
McClellan and another officer. Heavy details of men were engaged in
the task of burying the dead. The ambulance had just reached the
neighborhood of the old stone bridge, where the dead were piled
highest, when Mr. Lincoln, suddenly slapping Marshal Lamon on the knee,
exclaimed: ‘Come, Lamon, give us that song about “Picayune Butler”;
McClellan has never heard it.’
“‘Not now, if you please,’ said General McClellan, with a shudder; ‘I
would prefer to hear it some other place and time.’”
President Lincoln refused to pay any attention to the story, would
not read the comments made upon it by the newspapers, and would permit
neither denial nor explanation to be made. The National election was
coming on, and the President’s friends appealed to him to settle the
matter for once and all. Marshal Lamon was particularly insistent, but
the President merely said:
“Let the thing alone. If I have not established character enough to
give the lie to this charge, I can only say that I am mistaken in my
own estimate of myself. In politics, every man must skin his own skunk.
These fellows are welcome to the hide of this one. Its body has already
given forth its unsavory odor.”
But Lamon would not “let the thing alone.” He submitted to Lincoln a
draft of what he conceived to be a suitable explanation, after reading
which the President said:
“Lamon, your ‘explanation’ is entirely too belligerent in tone for so
grave a matter. There is a heap of ‘cussedness’ mixed up with your usual
amiability, and you are at times too fond of a fight. If I were you, I
would simply state the facts as they were. I would give the statement as
you have here, without the pepper and salt. Let me try my hand at it.”
The President then took up a pen and wrote the following, which was
copied and sent out as Marshal Lamon’s refutation of the shameless
slander:
“The President has known me intimately for nearly twenty years, and has
often heard me sing little ditties. The battle of Antietam was fought on
the 17th day of September, 1862. On the first day of October, just
two weeks after the battle, the President, with some others, including
myself, started from Washington to visit the Army, reaching Harper’s
Ferry at noon of that day.
“In a short while General McClellan came from his headquarters near the
battleground, joined the President, and with him reviewed the troops
at Bolivar Heights that afternoon, and at night returned to his
headquarters, leaving the President at Harper’s Ferry.
“On the morning of the second, the President, with General Sumner,
reviewed the troops respectively at Loudon Heights and Maryland Heights,
and at about noon started to General McClellan’s headquarters, reaching
there only in time to see very little before night.
“On the morning of the third all started on a review of the Third Corps
and the cavalry, in the vicinity of the Antietam battle-ground. After
getting through with General Burnside’s corps, at the suggestion of
General McClellan, he and the President left their horses to be led, and
went into an ambulance to go to General Fitz John Porter’s corps, which
was two or three miles distant.
“I am not sure whether the President and General McClellan were in the
same ambulance, or in different ones; but myself and some others were
in the same with the President. On the way, and on no part of the
battleground, and on what suggestions I do not remember, the President
asked me to sing the little sad song that follows (“Twenty Years Ago,
Tom”), which he had often heard me sing, and had always seemed to like
very much.
“After it was over, some one of the party (I do not think it was the
President) asked me to sing something else; and I sang two or three
little comic things, of which ‘Picayune Butler’ was one. Porter’s corps
was reached and reviewed; then the battle-ground was passed over, and
the most noted parts examined; then, in succession, the cavalry and
Franklin’s corps were reviewed, and the President and party returned
to General McClellan’s headquarters at the end of a very hard, hot and
dusty day’s work.
“Next day (the 4th), the President and General McClellan visited such
of the wounded as still remained in the vicinity, including the
now lamented General Richardson; then proceeded to and examined the
South-Mountain battle-ground, at which point they parted, General
McClellan returning to his camp, and the President returning to
Washington, seeing, on the way, General Hartsoff, who lay wounded at
Frederick Town.
“This is the whole story of the singing and its surroundings. Neither
General McClellan nor any one else made any objections to the singing;
the place was not on the battle-field; the time was sixteen days after
the battle; no dead body was seen during the whole time the President
was absent from Washington, nor even a grave that had not been rained on
since the time it was made.”
“ONE WAR AT A TIME.”
Nothing in Lincoln’s entire career better illustrated the surprising
resources of his mind than his manner of dealing with “The Trent
Affair.” The readiness and ability with which he met this perilous
emergency, in a field entirely new to his experience, was worthy the
most accomplished diplomat and statesman. Admirable, also, was his cool
courage and self-reliance in following a course radically opposed to
the prevailing sentiment throughout the country and in Congress, and
contrary to the advice of his own Cabinet.
Secretary of the Navy Welles hastened to approve officially the act of
Captain Wilkes in apprehending the Confederate Commissioners Mason and
Slidell, Secretary Stanton publicly applauded, and even Secretary
of State Seward, whose long public career had made him especially
conservative, stated that he was opposed to any concession or surrender
of Mason and Slidell.
But Lincoln, with great sagacity, simply said, “One war at a time.”