administration. The President gave a few State dinners each year, such
as were required of his official position, held a few public receptions
to gratify the curiosity of the Washington people and strangers in
the city, and gave one ball which excited much criticism from the
religious press and from unfriendly sources. It was represented as a
heartless exhibition of frivolity in the midst of dying soldiers and a
grief-stricken country, and some people even went so far as to declare
the death of Willie Lincoln, about two weeks later, to be a judgment
of God upon the President and Mrs. Lincoln for indulging in worldly
amusements. These thoughtless writers did not know that during the
reception, which was in honor of the diplomatic corps, the President
and Mrs. Lincoln both slipped away from their guests to spend a moment
at the bedside of their child, who was so ill that the postponement of
the entertainment was proposed, but vetoed by the President. The death
of this lad was the greatest sorrow that ever fell upon the President's
heart.
There was little opportunity for home life at the White House because of
the confusion and distraction caused by the war. The President's labors
were unceasing. He seldom took exercise or indulged in amusements.
Occasionally he attended the theatre when distinguished performers
happened to be in Washington, and usually invited them to his box to
express his thanks for the pleasure they had afforded him and to ask
questions about the play. He was particularly fond of Shakespeare, and
attended the presentation of his plays as frequently as his official
cares would permit; he found great diversion in their study, and could
repeat many passages that he learned from the first copy he had ever
seen while yet a clerk in Denton Offutt's store at New Salem. He had
his own theories regarding Shakespeare, and when a prominent actor or
Shakespearian scholar came his way, invariably discussed with him the
Shakespearian mysteries and the original construction of the plays, with
which he was very familiar.
He found diversion in comedies, and used to enjoy clever farces as much
as any child. He often took his children to performances at the theatre,
and their presence doubled his own enjoyment. This was practically his
only recreation, except reading Burns, Petroleum V. Nasby, Artemas Ward,
Josh Billings, and other comic writers who appealed to his keen sense
of the ridiculous and diverted his attention from the cares of state
when they were wearing upon him. He was not fond of games, although
he sometimes played backgammon with his boys. For a time he practised
basket-ball for exercise, but did not enjoy it. He had little out-door
life; it was limited to a daily drive to and from the Soldiers' Home
or to some military camp. He enjoyed the saddle and was a good rider,
although in the long-tailed coat and tall silk hat which he always wore
he made a grotesque figure on horseback. He had no taste for hunting or
fishing, never smoked, and was very temperate in his habits. He yearned
for rest, although his physical strength and endurance were beyond
comparison with those of other public men. His labors and sleepless
nights would have broken down any other constitution, and he was often
weary. One day, during an especially trying period, he lifted his tired
eyes from his desk and remarked to his secretary,--
"I wish George Washington or some other old patriot were here to take my
place for a while, so that I could have a little rest."
If Lincoln had accepted the advice of his secretaries and his associates
he might have spared himself a great deal of labor and annoyance. But
he never excused himself from callers in the busiest period of the war;
even when hundreds of important duties were pressing upon him, he never
denied an attentive ear and a cheerful word. He was a genuine democrat
in his feelings and practices, and, regardless of public affairs,
listened patiently and considerately to the humblest citizen who called
at the White House. One day, when his anteroom was crowded with men and
women seeking admission to his presence and he was unusually perplexed
by official problems, a friend remarked,--
"Mr. President, you had better send that throng away. You are too tired
to see any more people this afternoon. Have them sent away, for you will
wear yourself out listening to them."
"They don't want much and they get very little," he replied. "Each one
considers his business of great importance, and I must gratify them. I
know how I would feel if I were in their place."
At the opening of the administration he was overwhelmed with persistent
office-seekers, and so much of his time was occupied in listening to
their demands and trying to gratify them that he felt that he was not
attending to military affairs and matters of public policy as closely as
he should. He compared himself to a man who was so busy letting rooms
at one end of his house that he had no time to put out a fire that was
destroying the other end. And when he was attacked with the varioloid in
1861 he said to his usher,--
"Tell all the office-seekers to come and see me, for now I have
something that I can give them."
He had a remarkable capacity for work and for despatching business.
Although deliberation was one of his strongest characteristics, he knew
when to act and acted quickly. His brain was as tough and as healthy as
his body. His appetite was always good and healthful. He ate sparingly
of plain, wholesome food, but had no taste for rich dishes. He was
temperate in every way except as concerned his labor, and in that he was
tireless. He had the rare and valuable faculty of laying out work for
others and being able to give instructions clearly and concisely. He
loaded his Cabinet and his secretaries to the limit of their strength,
but was always considerate and thoughtful of their comfort. Three of his
secretaries lived with him in the White House and usually worked far
into the night, and, even after their labors for the day had closed,
Lincoln would often wander around barefooted and in his night-shirt,
too wakeful to seek his own bed, and read poems from Burns, jokes from
Artemas Ward, and the letters of Petroleum V. Nasby to the members of
his household.
His sense of humor was his salvation. It was the safety-valve by which
his heart was relieved. He was melancholy by nature and inclined to be
morbid, and it was this keen enjoyment of the ridiculous that enabled
him to endure with patience his official trials and anxiety.
One of the visitors in the early days of the administration says, "He
walked into the corridor with us; and, as he bade us good-by and thanked
---- for what he had told him, he again brightened up for a moment and
asked him in an abrupt kind of way, laying his hand, as he spoke, with a
queer but not uncivil familiarity on his shoulder,--
"'You haven't such a thing as a postmaster in your pocket, have you?'
"---- stared at him in astonishment, and I thought a little in alarm, as
if he suspected a sudden attack of insanity. Then Mr. Lincoln went on,--
"'You see, it seems to me kind of unnatural that you shouldn't have at
least a postmaster in your pocket. Everybody I've seen for days past has
had foreign ministers and collectors and all kinds, and I thought you
couldn't have got in here without having at least a postmaster get into
your pocket.'"
His stories were usually suggested by the conversation or by the
situation in which he was placed; but often, in the company of congenial
friends, he used to sit back in his chair and indulge in what he called
"a good old time;" spinning yarns of his early experiences, describing
the characteristics of odd people he had known, and relating amusing
incidents that occurred daily, even under the shadows and among the
sorrows of war. This habit was the result of his early associations,
when the corner store was the club of the frontiersman and the forum
for intellectual combats as well as the stage for entertainments. There
Lincoln shone as the most brilliant planet that ever illuminated the
communities in which he lived, and there he developed the gift which was
to afford him so much pleasure and so great relief from oppressing care.
He was a poet by nature. He had a deep sentiment and a high appreciation
of the beautiful in literature as well as in life. His soul overflowed
with sympathy, and his great nature was so comprehensive that it could
touch every phase of human interest and meet every class and clan; but
he was a restless listener, and when in the mood for talking it was
difficult to interrupt him.
Chauncey M. Depew, relating his recollections of Lincoln says that once,
while he was at the White House, "the President threw himself on a
lounge and rattled off story after story. It was his method of relief,
without which he might have gone out of his mind, and certainly would
not have been able to have accomplished anything like the amount of work
which he did. It is the popular supposition that most of Mr. Lincoln's
stories were original, but he said, 'I have originated but two stories
in my life, but I tell tolerably well other people's stories.' Riding
the circuit for many years, and stopping at country taverns where were
gathered the lawyers, jurymen, witnesses, and clients, they would sit up
all night narrating to each other their life adventures; and the things
which happened to an original people, in a new country, surrounded by
novel conditions, and told with the descriptive power and exaggeration
which characterized such men, supplied him with an exhaustless fund of
anecdote which could be made applicable for enforcing or refuting an
argument better than all the invented stories of the world."
The humorous aspect of an appeal or an argument never failed to strike
him, and he enjoyed turning the point as much as telling a story. Once,
in the darkest days of the war, a delegation of prohibitionists came to
him and insisted that the reason the North did not win was because the
soldiers drank whiskey and thus brought down the curse of the Lord upon
them. There was a mischievous twinkle in Lincoln's eye when he replied
that he considered that very unfair on the part of the Lord, because the
Southerners drank a great deal worse whiskey and a great deal more of it
than the soldiers of the North.
After the internal revenue laws were enacted the United States marshals
were often sued for false arrest, and Congress appropriated one hundred
thousand dollars to pay the expenses of defending them. Previously
the officials brought into court on such charges appealed to the
Attorney-General to instruct the United States district attorneys to
defend them; but when this appropriation was made, with one accord, they
said that they would hire their own lawyers and applied for the cash;
which reminded the President of a man in Illinois whose cabin was burned
down, and, according to the kindly custom of early days in the West, his
neighbors all contributed something to start him again. In this case
they were so liberal that he soon found himself better off than he had
been before the fire, and got proud. One day a neighbor brought him a
bag of oats, but the fellow refused it with scorn. "No," said he, "I'm
not taking oats now. I take nothing but money."
One day, just after Lincoln's second inauguration, a Massachusetts
merchant, visiting Washington, noticed the great crowd of office-seekers
waiting for an audience with the President, and decided that he, too,
would like to see him. Writing his name on a card, he added the line,
"Holds no office and wants none." The card was taken to President
Lincoln, who, instantly jumping up, said to the attendant, "Show him
up; he is a curiosity." Passing the long line of office-seekers, the
merchant went up to the President, who said he was refreshed to meet a
man who did not want an office, and urged his stay. A long and pleasant
conversation followed.
Mrs. McCulloch went to the White House one Saturday afternoon to attend
Mrs. Lincoln's reception, accompanied by Mrs. William P. Dole, whose
husband was Commissioner of Indian Affairs. "There were crowds in and
out of the White House," said Mrs. McCulloch, "and during the reception
Mr. Lincoln slipped quietly into the room and stood back alone, looking
on as the people passed through. I suggested to Mrs. Dole that we should
go over and speak to him, which we did. Mr. Lincoln said, laughingly,--
"'I am always glad to see you, ladies, for I know you don't want
anything.'
"I replied, 'But, Mr. President, I do want something; I want you to do
something very much.'
"'Well, what is it?' he asked, adding, 'I hope it isn't anything I can't
do.'
"'I want you to suppress the _Chicago Times_, because it does nothing
but abuse the administration,' I replied.
"'Oh, tut, tut! We must not abridge the liberties of the press or the
people. But never mind the _Chicago Times_. The administration can stand
it if the _Times_ can.'"
On a certain occasion the President was induced by a committee of
gentlemen to examine a newly invented "repeating" gun, the peculiarity
of which was that it prevented the escape of gas. After due inspection,
he said,--
"Well, I believe this really does what it is represented to do. Now,
have any of you heard of any machine or invention for preventing the
escape of gas from newspaper establishments?"
However, Lincoln had great respect for the press. He was one day
complaining of the injustice of Mr. Greeley's criticisms and the false
light in which they put him before the country, when a friend, with
great earnestness, suggested,--
"Why don't you publish the facts in every newspaper in the United
States? The people will then understand your position and your
vindication will be complete."
"Yes, all the newspapers will publish my letter, and so will Greeley,"
Lincoln replied. "The next day he will comment upon it, and keep it up,
in that way, until at the end of three weeks I will be convicted out of
my own mouth of all the things he charges against me. No man, whether he
be private citizen or President of the United States, can successfully
carry on a controversy with a great newspaper and escape destruction,
unless he owns a newspaper equally great with a circulation in the same
neighborhood."
[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD"
From a photograph by Brady, now in the War Department Collection,
Washington, D. C.]
Colonel John Hay, who resided in the White House during the entire
administration of Lincoln, has given us this graphic picture of the
President's home life and habits:
"The President rose early, as his sleep was light and capricious. In
the summer, when he lived at the Soldiers' Home, he would take his
frugal breakfast and ride into town in time to be at his desk at eight
o'clock. He began to receive visits nominally at ten o'clock, but long
before that hour struck the doors were besieged by anxious crowds,
through whom the people of importance, Senators and members of Congress,
elbowed their way after the fashion which still survives. On days when
the Cabinet met--Tuesdays and Fridays--the hour of noon closed the
interviews of the morning. On other days it was the President's custom,
at about that hour, to order the doors to be opened and all who were
waiting to be admitted. The crowd would rush in, throng in the narrow
room, and one by one would make their wants known. Some came merely to
shake hands, to wish him Godspeed; their errand was soon done. Others
came asking help or mercy; they usually pressed forward, careless in
their pain as to what ears should overhear their prayer. But there
were many who lingered in the rear and leaned against the wall, hoping
each to be the last, that they might in _tête-à-tête_ unfold their
schemes for their own advantage or their neighbor's hurt. These were
often disconcerted by the President's loud and hearty, 'Well, friend,
what can I do for you?' which compelled them to speak, or retire and
wait for a more convenient season. The inventors were more a source of
amusement than of annoyance. They were usually men of some originality
of character, not infrequently carried to eccentricity. Lincoln had a
quick comprehension of mechanical principles, and often detected a flaw
in an invention which the contriver had overlooked. He would sometimes
go out into the waste fields that then lay south of the Executive
Mansion to test an experimental gun or torpedo. He used to quote with
much merriment the solemn dictum of one rural inventor that 'a gun ought
not to rekyle; if it rekyles at all, it ought to rekyle a little forrid.'
"At luncheon time he had literally to run the gauntlet through the
crowds that filled the corridors between his office and the rooms at the
west end of the house occupied by the family. The afternoon wore away in
much the same manner as the morning; late in the day he usually drove
out for an hour's airing; at six o'clock he dined. He was one of the
most abstemious of men; the pleasures of the table had few attractions
for him. His breakfast was an egg and a cup of coffee; at luncheon he
rarely took more than a biscuit and a glass of milk, a plate of fruit
in its season; at dinner he ate sparingly of one or two courses. He
drank little or no wine; not that he remained on principle a total
abstainer, as he was during a part of his early life in the fervor of
the 'Washingtonian' reform; but he never cared for wine or liquors of
any sort and never used tobacco.
"There was little gayety in the Executive House during his time. It was
an epoch, if not of gloom, at least of a seriousness too intense to
leave room for much mirth. There were the usual formal entertainments,
the traditional state dinners and receptions, conducted very much as
they have been ever since. The great public receptions, with their vast,
rushing multitudes pouring past him to shake hands, he rather enjoyed;
they were not a disagreeable task to him, and he seemed surprised when
people commiserated him upon them. He would shake hands with thousands
of people, seemingly unconscious of what he was doing, murmuring some
monotonous salutation as they went by, his eye dim, his thoughts far
withdrawn; then suddenly he would see some familiar face,--his memory
for faces was very good,--and his eye would brighten and his whole form
grow attentive; he would greet the visitor with a hearty grasp and a
ringing word and dismiss him with a cheery laugh that filled the Blue
Room with infectious good-nature. Many people armed themselves with an
appropriate speech to be delivered on these occasions, but unless it was
compressed into the smallest possible space, it never was uttered; the
crowd would jostle the peroration out of shape. If it were brief enough,
and hit the President's fancy, it generally received a swift answer.
One night an elderly gentleman from Buffalo said, 'Up our way we believe
in God and Abraham Lincoln,' to which the President replied, shoving him
along the line, 'My friend, you are more than half right.'
"During the first year of the administration the house was made lively
by the games and pranks of Mr. Lincoln's two younger children, William
and Thomas: Robert, the eldest, was away at Harvard, only coming home
for short vacations. The two little boys, aged eight and ten, with
their Western independence and enterprise, kept the house in an uproar.
They drove their tutor wild with their good-natured disobedience; they
organized a minstrel show in the attic; they made acquaintance with the
office-seekers and became the hot champions of the distressed. William
was, with all his boyish frolic, a child of great promise, capable of
close application and study. He had a fancy for drawing up railway
time-tables, and would conduct an imaginary train from Chicago to New
York with perfect precision. He wrote childish verses, which sometimes
attained the unmerited honors of print. But this bright, gentle, and
studious child sickened and died in February, 1862. His father was
profoundly moved by his death, though he gave no outward sign of his
trouble, but kept about his work the same as ever. His bereaved heart
seemed afterwards to pour out its fulness on his youngest child. 'Tad'
was a merry, warm-blooded, kindly little boy, perfectly lawless, and
full of odd fancies and inventions, the 'chartered libertine' of the
Executive Mansion. He ran continually in and out of his father's
cabinet, interrupting his gravest labors and conversations with his
bright, rapid, and very imperfect speech,--for he had an impediment
which made his articulation almost unintelligible until he was nearly
grown. He would perch upon his father's knee, and sometimes even on his
shoulder, while the most weighty conferences were going on. Sometimes,
escaping from the domestic authorities, he would take refuge in that
sanctuary for the whole evening, dropping to sleep at last on the floor,
when the President would pick him up and carry him tenderly to bed.
"Mr. Lincoln spent most of his evenings in his office, though
occasionally he remained in the drawing-room after dinner, conversing
with visitors or listening to music, for which he had an especial
liking, though he was not versed in the science, and preferred simple
ballads to more elaborate compositions. In his office he was not often
suffered to be alone; he frequently passed the evening there with a few
friends in frank and free conversation. If the company was all of one
sort he was at his best; his wit and rich humor had full play; he was
once more the Lincoln of the Eighth Circuit, the cheeriest of talkers,
the riskiest of story-tellers; but if a stranger came in he put on in
an instant his whole armor of dignity and reserve. He had a singular
discernment of men; he would talk of the most important political and
military concerns with a freedom which often amazed his intimates, but
we do not recall an instance in which this confidence was misplaced.
"Where only one or two were present he was fond of reading aloud. He
passed many of the summer evenings in this way when occupying his
cottage at the Soldiers' Home.
"He read Shakespeare more than all other writers together. He made no
attempt to keep pace with the ordinary literature of the day. Sometimes
he read a scientific work with keen appreciation, but he pursued no
systematic course. He owed less to reading than most men. He delighted
in Burns; of Thomas Hood he was also excessively fond. He often read
aloud 'The Haunted House.' He would go to bed with a volume of Hood
in his hands, and would sometimes rise at midnight and, traversing
the long halls of the Executive Mansion in his night-clothes, would
come to his secretary's room and read aloud something that especially
pleased him. He wanted to share his enjoyment of the writer; it was
dull pleasure for him to laugh alone. He read Bryant and Whittier with
appreciation; there were many poems of Holmes that he read with intense
relish. 'The Last Leaf' was one of his favorites; he knew it by heart,
and used often to repeat it with deep feeling."
Ben: Perley Poore, in his reminiscences, says, "The White House, while
Mr. Lincoln occupied it, was a fertile field for news, which he was
always ready to give those correspondents in whom he had confidence, but
the surveillance of the press--first by Secretary Seward and then by
Secretary Stanton--was as annoying as it was inefficient. A censorship
of all matter filed at the Washington office of the telegraph, for
transmission to different Northern cities, was exercised by a succession
of ignorant individuals, some of whom had to be hunted up at whiskey
shops when their signature of approval was desired. A Congressional
investigation showed how stupidly the censors performed their duty.
Innocent sentences which were supposed to have a hidden meaning were
stricken from paragraphs, which were thus rendered nonsensical, and
information was rejected that was clipped in print from the Washington
papers, which it was known regularly found their way into 'Dixie.'
"When irate correspondents appealed to Mr. Lincoln, he would
good-naturedly declare that he had no control over his secretaries,
and would endeavor to mollify their wrath by telling them a story. One
morning in the winter of 1862, when two angry journalists had undertaken
to explain the annoyances of the censorship, Mr. Lincoln, who had
listened in his dreamy way, finally said,--
"'I don't know much about this censorship, but come downstairs and I
will show you the origin of one of the pet phrases of you newspaper
fellows.'
"Leading the way down into the basement, he opened the door of a larder
and solemnly pointed to the hanging carcass of a gigantic sheep.
"'There,' said he; 'now you know what "_Revenons à nos moutons_" means.
It was raised by Deacon Buffum at Manchester, up in New Hampshire. Who
can say, after looking at it, that New Hampshire's only product is
granite?'"