The following is told by Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Indiana, who
was appointed minister to Chili by Lincoln:
Judge Abram Hammond, afterwards Governor of Indiana, and myself arranged
to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in a stage-coach.
As we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied
by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of
the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was
sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and
asked him if he had chartered the coach that day.
“Certainly not,” and he at once took the front seat, politely giving
us the place of honor and comfort. An odd-looking fellow he was, with
a twenty-five cent hat, without vest or cravat. Regarding him as a good
subject for merriment, we perpetrated several jokes.
He took them all with utmost innocence and good nature, and joined in
the laugh, although at his own expense.
After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics, the dazed and
bewildered stranger asked, “What will be the upshot of this comet
business?”
Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning’s
hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether.
We retired to our room to brush our clothes. In a few minutes I
descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow
traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were
Judges McLean and Huntington, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson,
who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I
inquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. “Abraham Lincoln, of
Illinois, a member of Congress,” was his response.
I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs and told
Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by
a back door, and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding
further contact with our distinguished fellow traveler.
Years afterward, when the President-elect was on his way to Washington,
I was in the same hotel looking over the distinguished party, when a
long arm reached to my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaimed, “Hello,
Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow the
darned thing off?” The words were my own in answer to his question in
the stage-coach. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln.