Lincoln wrote a letter on October 2d, 1862, in which he observed:
“I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is,
but it does not admit of holidays.”
“NEUTRALITY.”
Old John Bull got himself into a precious fine scrape when he went so
far as to “play double” with the North, as well as the South, during the
great American Civil War. In its issue of November 14th, 1863, London
“Punch” printed a rather clever cartoon illustrating the predicament
Bull had created for himself. John is being lectured by Mrs. North and
Mrs. South--both good talkers and eminently able to hold their own
in either social conversation, parliamentary debate or political
argument--but he bears it with the best grace possible. This is the way
the text underneath the picture runs:
MRS. NORTH. “How about the Alabama, you wicked old man?” MRS. SOUTH:
“Where’s my rams? Take back your precious consols--there!!” “Punch” had
a good deal of fun with old John before it was through with him, but,
as the Confederate privateer Alabama was sent beneath the waves of the
ocean at Cherbourg by the Kearsarge, and Mrs. South had no need for any
more rams, John got out of the difficulty without personal injury. It
was a tight squeeze, though, for Mrs. North was in a fighting humor, and
prepared to scratch or pull hair. The fact that the privateer Alabama,
built at an English shipyard and manned almost entirely by English
sailors, had managed to do about $10,000,000 worth of damage to United
States commerce, was enough to make any one angry.