As the President considered it his duty to keep in touch with all the
improvements in the armament of the vessels belonging to the United
States Navy, he was necessarily interested in the various types of these
floating fortresses. Not only was it required of the Navy Department to
furnish seagoing warships, deep-draught vessels for the great rivers and
the lakes, but this Department also found use for little gunboats which
could creep along in the shallowest of water and attack the Confederates
in by-places and swamps.
The consequence of the interest taken by Mr. Lincoln in the Navy was
that he was besieged, day and night, by steamboat contractors, each one
eager to sell his product to the Washington Government. All sorts of
experiments were tried, some being dire failures, while others were more
than fairly successful. More than once had these tiny war vessels proved
themselves of great service, and the United States Government had a
large number of them built.
There was one particular contractor who bothered the President more
than all the others put together. He was constantly impressing upon Mr.
Lincoln the great superiority of his boats, because they would run in
such shallow water.
“Oh, yes,” replied the President, “I’ve no doubt they’ll run anywhere
where the ground is a little moist!”
“HOW DO YOU GET OUT OF THIS PLACE?”
“It seems to me,” remarked the President one day while reading, over
some of the appealing telegrams sent to the War Department by General
McClellan, “that McClellan has been wandering around and has sort of
got lost. He’s been hollering for help ever since he went South--wants
somebody to come to his deliverance and get him out of the place he’s
got into.
“He reminds me of the story of a man out in Illinois who, in company
with a number of friends, visited the State penitentiary. They wandered
all through the institution and saw everything, but just about the time
to depart this particular man became separated from his friends and
couldn’t find his way out.
“He roamed up and down one corridor after another, becoming more
desperate all the time, when, at last, he came across a convict who was
looking out from between the bars of his cell-door. Here was salvation
at last. Hurrying up to the prisoner he hastily asked,
“‘Say! How do you get out of this place?”
“TAD” INTRODUCES “OUR FRIENDS.”
President Lincoln often avoided interviews with delegations representing
various States, especially when he knew the objects of their errands,
and was aware he could not grant their requests. This was the case with
several commissioners from Kentucky, who were put off from day to day.
They were about to give up in despair, and were leaving the White House
lobby, their speech being interspersed with vehement and uncomplimentary
terms concerning “Old Abe,” when “Tad” happened along. He caught at
these words, and asked one of them if they wanted to see “Old Abe,”
laughing at the same time.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Wait a minute,” said “Tad,” and rushed into his father’s office. Said
he, “Papa, may I introduce some friends to you?”
His father, always indulgent and ready to make him happy, kindly said,
“Yes, my son, I will see your friends.”
“Tad” went to the Kentuckians again, and asked a very dignified looking
gentleman of the party his name. He was told his name. He then said,
“Come, gentlemen,” and they followed him.
Leading them up to the President, “Tad,” with much dignity, said, “Papa,
let me introduce to you Judge ----, of Kentucky;” and quickly added,
“Now Judge, you introduce the other gentlemen.”
The introductions were gone through with, and they turned out to be the
gentlemen Mr. Lincoln had been avoiding for a week. Mr. Lincoln reached
for the boy, took him in his lap, kissed him, and told him it was all
right, and that he had introduced his friend like a little gentleman as
he was. Tad was eleven years old at this time.
The President was pleased with Tad’s diplomacy, and often laughed at the
incident as he told others of it. One day while caressing the boy, he
asked him why he called those gentlemen “his friends.” “Well,” said Tad,
“I had seen them so often, and they looked so good and sorry, and said
they were from Kentucky, that I thought they must be our friends.” “That
is right, my son,” said Mr. Lincoln; “I would have the whole human race
your friends and mine, if it were possible.”