The President took a lively interest in all new firearm improvements and
inventions, and it sometimes happened that, when an inventor could get
nobody else in the Government to listen to him, the President would
personally test his gun. A former clerk in the Navy Department tells an
incident illustrative.
He had stayed late one night at his desk, when he heard some one
striding up and down the hall muttering: “I do wonder if they have gone
already and left the building all alone.” Looking out, the clerk was
surprised to see the President.
“Good evening,” said Mr. Lincoln. “I was just looking for that man who
goes shooting with me sometimes.”
The clerk knew Mr. Lincoln referred to a certain messenger of the
Ordnance Department who had been accustomed to going with him to test
weapons, but as this man had gone home, the clerk offered his services.
Together they went to the lawn south of the White House, where Mr.
Lincoln fixed up a target cut from a sheet of white Congressional
notepaper.
“Then pacing off a distance of about eighty or a hundred feet,” writes
the clerk, “he raised the rifle to a level, took a quick aim, and drove
the round of seven shots in quick succession, the bullets shooting all
around the target like a Gatling gun and one striking near the center.
“‘I believe I can make this gun shoot better,’ said Mr. Lincoln, after
we had looked at the result of the first fire. With this he took from
his vest pocket a small wooden sight which he had whittled from a pine
stick, and adjusted it over the sight of the carbine. He then shot two
rounds, and of the fourteen bullets nearly a dozen hit the paper!”
LENIENT WITH McCLELLAN.
General McClellan, aside from his lack of aggressiveness, fretted
the President greatly with his complaints about military matters, his
obtrusive criticism regarding political matters, and especially at his
insulting declaration to the Secretary of War, dated June 28th, 1862,
just after his retreat to the James River.
General Halleck was made Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces in July,
1862, and September 1st McClellan was called to Washington. The day
before he had written his wife that “as a matter of self-respect,
I cannot go there.” President Lincoln and General Halleck called at
McClellan’s house, and the President said: “As a favor to me, I wish
you would take command of the fortifications of Washington and all the
troops for the defense of the capital.”
Lincoln thought highly of McClellan’s ability as an organizer and
his strength in defense, yet any other President would have had him
court-martialed for using this language, which appeared in McClellan’s
letter of June 28th:
“If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to
you or to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to
sacrifice this army.”
This letter, although addressed to the Secretary of War, distinctly
embraced the President in the grave charge of conspiracy to defeat
McClellan’s army and sacrifice thousands of the lives of his soldiers.