for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, he visited Baltimore
expressly for the purpose of inspecting the old jail in which he was
confined for several weeks for being an abolitionist, but, much to
his disappointment, the police in charge would not admit him. During
his interview with the President he complained of this, and Lincoln
remarked,--
"You have had hard luck in Baltimore, haven't you, Garrison? The first
time you couldn't get out of prison and the second time you couldn't get
in."
A woman called at the White House one day to ask the release from prison
of a relative whom she declared was suffering from great injustice. She
was very handsome and attractive and endeavored to use her attractions
upon the President. After listening to her a little while, he concluded,
as he afterwards explained, that he was "too soft" to deal with her, and
sent her over to the War Department with a sealed envelope containing a
card upon which he had written,--
"This woman, dear Stanton, is smarter than she looks to be."
Another woman came to the White House one day on an unusual errand which
the President suspected was a pretext, but he took her at her word and
gave her the following note to Major Ramsey, of the Quartermaster's
Department.
"MY DEAR SIR:--The lady--bearer of this--says she has two
sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to
work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
A. LINCOLN."
A member of Congress from Ohio, and a famous man, by the way, once
entered the Executive Chamber in a state of intoxication,--just drunk
enough to be solemn,--and, as he dropped into a chair, exclaimed in
dramatic tones the first line of the President's favorite poem:
"'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?'"
"I see no reason whatever," retorted the President, in disgust.
A delegation of clergymen once called to recommend one of their number
for appointment as consul at the Hawaiian Islands, and, in addition to
urging his fitness for the place, appealed to the President's sympathy
on the ground that the candidate was in bad health, and a residence in
that climate would be of great benefit to him. Lincoln questioned the
man closely as to his symptoms, and then remarked,--
"I am sorry to disappoint you, but there are eight other men after this
place, and every one of them is sicker than you are."
A party of friends from Springfield called upon him one day and, as
a matter of gossip, told him of the death and burial of a certain
prominent Illinois politician who was noted for his vanity and love of
praise. After listening to the description of his funeral, the President
remarked,--
"If Jim had known he was to have that kind of a funeral, he would have
died long ago."
One of the telegraph operators at the War Department relates that the
President came over there at night during the war and remarked that he
had just been reading a little book which some one had given to his son
Tad. It was a story of a motherly hen who was struggling to raise her
brood and teach them to lead honest and useful lives, but in her efforts
she was greatly annoyed by a mischievous fox who made sad havoc with her
offspring. "I thought I would turn over to the finis and see how it came
out," said the President. "This is what it said: 'And the fox became a
good fox, and was appointed paymaster in the army.' I wonder who he is?"
To a deputation that waited upon him to criticise certain acts of his
administration, he made the following response:
"Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you
had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara River
on a rope; would you shake the cable and keep shouting out to him,
'Blondin, stand up a little straighter--Blondin, stoop a little more--go
a little faster--lean a little more to the north--lean a little more to
the south?' No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and
keep your hands off until he was safe over. The government is carrying
an immense weight. Untold treasures are in our hands. We are doing the
very best we can. Don't badger us. Keep quiet, and we will get you safe
across."
A multitude of authentic anecdotes are told to show Lincoln's kindness
of heart and his disposition to relieve the distress of those who came
to him with stories of wrong or sorrow. His readiness to pardon soldiers
who had been convicted by court-martial and sentenced to death caused
great dissatisfaction at the War Department and among the army officers,
who complained that his interference was destroying the discipline of
the service; but whenever an appeal was made to him he always endeavored
to find some reason, near or remote, for Executive clemency, and if that
was impossible, he invariably gave an order for the postponement of the
penalty until a further investigation could be made. A very flagrant
case was brought to him of a soldier who had demoralized his regiment
by throwing down his gun and running away in battle, and by trying to
shield his own cowardice by inducing others to imitate him. When tried
by court-martial there was no defence. It was shown that he was an
habitual thief, had robbed his comrades, and that he had no parents or
wife or child to excite sympathy. When Judge-Advocate-General Holt laid
the case before Lincoln, he expected him to approve the death-sentence
without hesitation. There was not the slightest excuse for clemency;
the record of the case did not contain a single item of evidence in
the man's favor. The President looked through the documents carefully,
but in vain, to find some reason why the coward should not die. Then,
running his long fingers through his hair, as he often did when puzzled,
he looked up and said,--
"The only thing I can do with this, judge, is to put it with my leg
cases."
"Leg cases!" exclaimed Judge Holt, with a frown at this supposed levity
of the President in a case of life and death. "What do you mean by leg
cases, sir?"
"Do you see those papers stuffed into those pigeonholes?"
replied Lincoln. "They are the cases that you call
'cowardice-in-the-face-of-the-enemy,' but I call them 'leg cases' for
short; and I will put it to you; I leave it for you to decide for
yourself. If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can
he help their running away with him?"
One day an old man came to him with a sad tale of sorrow. His son had
been convicted of unpardonable crimes and sentenced to death, but he was
an only son, and Lincoln said, kindly,--
"I am sorry I can do nothing for you. Listen to this telegram I received
from General Butler yesterday:
"'President Lincoln, I pray you not to interfere with the
courts-martial of the army. You will destroy all discipline
among our soldiers.
B. F. BUTLER.'"
Lincoln watched the old man's grief for a minute, and then exclaimed,
"By jingo! Butler or no Butler, here goes!" Writing a few words he
handed the paper to the old man, reading,--
"Job Smith is not to be shot until further orders from me.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
"Why," said the old man, sadly, "I thought it was a pardon. You may
order him to be shot next week."
"My old friend," replied the President, "I see you are not very well
acquainted with me. If your son never dies till orders come from me to
shoot him, he will live to be a great deal older than Methuselah."
One of the most famous cases of pardon was that of William Scott, a
young boy from a Vermont farm, who, after marching forty-eight hours
without sleep, volunteered to stand guard duty for a sick comrade in
addition to his own. Nature overcame him, he was found asleep at his
post within gunshot of the enemy, tried, convicted, and sentenced to
be shot. A day or two before the execution Lincoln happened to visit
that division of the army, and, learning of the case, asked permission
to see the boy. He entered the tent that was used for a prison, talked
to him kindly, inquired about his home, his parents, his schoolmates,
and particularly about his mother, and how she looked. The boy had her
photograph in his pocket and showed it to him, and Lincoln was very much
affected. As he was leaving the tent, he put his hands on the lad's
shoulders and said, with a trembling voice,--
"My boy, you are not going to be shot to-morrow. I believe you when you
tell me that you could not keep awake. I am going to trust you and send
you back to the regiment. But I have been put to a great deal of trouble
on your account. I have had to come here from Washington when I had a
great deal to do. Now, what I want to know is, how are you going to pay
my bill?"
In relating the story afterwards, Scott said, "I could scarcely speak. I
had expected to die, you see, and had got kind of used to thinking that
way. To have it all changed in a minute! But I got it crowded down and
managed to say, 'I am grateful, Mr. Lincoln! I hope I am as grateful
as ever a man can be to you for saving my life. But it comes upon me
sudden and unexpected like. I didn't lay out for it at all; but there is
something to pay you, and I will find it after a little. There is the
bounty in the savings bank, and I guess we could borrow some money by a
mortgage on the farm. Then my pay is something, and if you would wait
until pay day I am sure the boys would help; so we could make it up if
it isn't more than five or six hundred dollars.' 'But it is a great deal
more than that,' he said. 'My bill is a very large one. Your friends
cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the farm, nor all your comrades!
There is only one man in all the world who can pay it, and his name is
William Scott! If from this day William Scott does his duty, so that,
when he comes to die, he can look me in the face as he does now, and
say, I have kept my promise, and I have done my duty as a soldier, then
my debt will be paid. Will you make that promise and try to keep it?'"
The promise was gratefully given. It is too long a story to tell of the
effect of this sympathetic kindness on Private William Scott. After
one of the battles of the Peninsula he was found shot to pieces. He
said, "Boys, I have tried to do the right thing! If any of you have
the chance, I wish you would tell President Lincoln that I have never
forgotten the kind words he said to me at the Chain Bridge; that I have
tried to be a good soldier and true to the flag; that I should have
paid my whole debt to him if I had lived; and that now, when I know I am
dying, I think of his kind face, and thank him again, because he gave me
the chance to fall like a soldier in battle and not like a coward by the
hands of my comrades."
When Francis Kernan was a member of Congress during the war, a woman
came to him one day and said that her husband had been captured as a
deserter. The next morning he called at the White House and gave the
President the facts. The man had been absent a year from his family,
and, without leave, had gone home to see them. On his way back to
the army he was arrested as a deserter and sentenced to be shot. The
sentence was to be carried out that very day.
The President listened attentively, becoming more and more interested in
the story. Finally he said, "Why, Kernan, of course this man wanted to
see his family, and they ought not to shoot him for that." So he called
his secretary and sent a telegram suspending the sentence. He exclaimed,
"Get off that just as soon as you can, or they will shoot the man in
spite of me!" The result was the man got his pardon and took his place
again in the army.
A Congressman who had failed to move Secretary Stanton to grant a
pardon, went to the White House late at night, after the President had
retired, forced the way to his bedroom, and earnestly besought his
interference, exclaiming, earnestly,--
"This man must not be shot, Mr. Lincoln."
"Well," said the President, coolly, "I do not believe shooting will do
him any good," and the pardon was granted.
The late Governor Rice, of Massachusetts, says, "It happened at one time
that Senator Henry Wilson and myself called to see President Lincoln
on a joint errand. As the door to Mr. Lincoln's room opened, a small
boy, perhaps twelve years old, slipped in between the Senator and
myself. The President appeared to be attracted to the lad, and asked,
'And who is the little boy?' an inquiry which neither the Senator nor
myself could answer. The lad, however, immediately replied that he had
come to Washington in the hope of obtaining a situation as page in the
House of Representatives. The President began to say that he must go to
Captain Goodnow, the head door-keeper of the House, as he had nothing
to do with such an appointment; upon which the lad pulled from his
pockets a recommendation from the supervisors of the town, the minister
of the parish, and others, stating also that his mother was a widow,
and pleading the necessities of the family. The President called the
boy nearer to him, took his recommendation, and wrote upon the back as
follows:
"'If Captain Goodnow can give this good little boy a place
he will oblige
A. LINCOLN.'"
Mr. Titian J. Coffey, who was Assistant Attorney-General, relates that
"in the spring of 1863 a very handsome and attractive young lady from
Philadelphia came to my office with a note from a friend, asking me
to assist her in obtaining an interview with the President. Some time
before she had been married to a young man who was a lieutenant in a
Pennsylvania regiment. He had been compelled to leave her the day after
the wedding to rejoin his command in the Army of the Potomac. After
some time he obtained leave of absence, returned to Philadelphia, and
started on a brief honeymoon journey with his bride. A movement of
the army being imminent, the War Department issued a peremptory order
requiring all absent officers to rejoin their regiments by a certain
day, on penalty of dismissal in case of disobedience. The bride and
groom, away on their hurried wedding-tour, failed to see the order,
and on their return he was met by a notice of his dismissal from the
service. The young fellow was completely prostrated by the disgrace,
and his wife hurried to Washington to get him restored. I obtained for
her an interview with the President. She told her story with simple and
pathetic eloquence, and wound up by saying,--
"'Mr. Lincoln, won't you help us? I promise you, if you will restore
him, he will be faithful to his duty.'
"The President had listened to her with evident sympathy and a
half-amused smile at her earnestness, and as she closed her appeal he
said, with parental kindness,--
"'And you say, my child, that Fred was compelled to leave you the day
after the wedding? Poor fellow, I don't wonder at his anxiety to get
back, and if he stayed a little longer than he ought to have done we'll
have to overlook his fault this time. Take this card to the Secretary of
War and he will restore your husband.'
"She went to the War Department, saw the Secretary, who rebuked her
for troubling the President and dismissed her somewhat curtly. As it
happened, on her way down the War Department stairs, her hopes chilled
by the Secretary's abrupt manner, she met the President ascending. He
recognized her, and, with a pleasant smile, said,--
"'Well, my dear, have you seen the Secretary?'
"'Yes, Mr. Lincoln,' she replied, 'and he seemed very angry with me for
going to you. Won't you speak to him for me?'
"'Give yourself no trouble,' said he. 'I will see that the order is
issued.'
"And in a few days her husband was remanded to his regiment. I am sorry
to add that, not long after, he was killed at the battle of Gettysburg,
thus sealing with his blood her pledge that he should be faithful to his
duty."
Attorney-General Bates, a Virginian by birth, who had many relatives in
that State, one day heard that the son of one of his old friends was a
prisoner of war and not in good health. Knowing the boy's father to be
a Union man, Mr. Bates conceived the idea of having the son paroled and
sent home, of course under promise not to return to the army. He went to
see the President and said,--
"I have a personal favor to ask. I want you to give me a prisoner." And
he told him of the case. The President said, "Bates, I have an almost
parallel case. The son of an old friend of mine in Illinois ran off and
entered the rebel army. The young fool has been captured, is a prisoner
of war, and his old broken-hearted father has asked me to send him home,
promising, of course, to keep him there. I have not seen my way clear to
do it, but if you and I unite our influence with this administration I
believe we can manage it together and make two loyal fathers happy. Let
us make them our prisoners."
Lincoln's reputation for kindness of heart extended even among the
officials of the Confederacy. Mr. Usher, Secretary of the Interior, says
that when he returned from the Peace Conference on the James, in 1864,
where he met Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, he related some of
his conversations with them. He said that at the conclusion of one of
his discourses, detailing what he considered to be the position in which
the insurgents were placed by the law, they replied,--
"Well, according to your view of the case, we are all guilty of treason
and liable to be hanged."
Lincoln replied, "Yes, that is so." And Mr. Stephens retorted,--
"Well, we supposed that would necessarily be your view of our case, but
we never had much fear of being hanged while you are President."
From his manner in repeating this scene he seemed to appreciate the
compliment highly. There is no evidence that he ever contemplated
executing any of the insurgents for their treason. There is no evidence
that he desired any of them to leave the country, with the exception
of Mr. Davis. His great, and apparently his only, object was to have a
restored Union.
A short time before the capitulation of General Lee, General Grant had
told him that the war must necessarily soon come to an end, and wanted
to know whether he should try to capture Jeff Davis or let him escape
from the country if he would. Mr. Lincoln said,--
"About that, I told him the story of an Irishman who had taken the
pledge of Father Mathew. He became terribly thirsty, applied to a
bar-tender for a lemonade, and while it was being prepared whispered
to him, 'And couldn't ye put a little brandy in it all unbeknown to
meself?' I told Grant if he could let Jeff Davis escape all unbeknown to
himself, to let him go. I didn't want him."
Near the close of the war his old friend, Thomas Gillespie, asked him
what was to be done with the rebels. He answered, after referring to the
vehement demand prevalent in certain quarters for exemplary punishment,
by quoting the words of David to his nephews, who were asking for
vengeance on Shimei because "he cursed the Lord's anointed:" "What
have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be
adversaries unto me? shall there any man be put to death this day in
Israel?"
But the President could be very stern and determined when he considered
it necessary, although, when compelled by his sense of duty to withhold
a pardon, he usually gave reasons which could not be set aside and
accompanied them by a lesson of value. An officer once complained to
him, with great indignation, that General Sherman was a tyrant and a
bully and unfit to command troops. Lincoln listened attentively until
he had exhausted his wrath, and then inquired quietly if he had any
personal grievance against General Sherman.
The officer replied that General Sherman had accused him of some
misconduct and threatened to shoot him if it occurred again.
"If I were in your place," remarked the President, in a confidential
whisper, "I wouldn't repeat that offence, because Sherman is a man of
his word."
One day Mr. Nicolay brought the President a telegram from Philadelphia,
stating that a man had been arrested in that city for an attempt to
obtain fifteen hundred dollars on Lincoln's draft.
"I have given no authority for such a draft; and if I had," he added,
humorously, "it is surprising that any man could get the money."
After a moment's reflection, Mr. Nicolay thought he knew the accused
party.
"Do you remember, Mr. President, a request from a stranger a few
days since for your autograph? You gave it to him upon a half-sheet
of note-paper. The scoundrel doubtless forged an order above your
signature, and has attempted to swindle somebody."
"Oh, that's the trick, is it?" said the President.
"What shall be done with him?" inquired Mr. Nicolay. "Have you any
orders?"
"Well," replied Mr. Lincoln, pausing between the words, "I don't see but
that he will have to sit upon the blister bench."
In 1861 E. Delafield Smith was United States District Attorney for the
Southern District of New York. One of the first and most important
of his trials was that of William Gordon for slave-trading. Gordon
was convicted--the first conviction under the slave law that was ever
had in the United States either North or South--and sentenced to be
hanged. An extraordinary effort was made to have Lincoln pardon him.
Mr. Smith deemed it his duty to go to Washington and protest against
clemency. Lincoln took from his desk a reprieve already prepared and
laid it before him. He picked up a pen, and held it in his hand while
he listened to the argument of Mr. Smith on the imperative necessity
of making an example of Gordon, in order to terrorize those who were
engaged in the slave-trade. Then he threw down the pen and remarked,--
"Mr. Smith, you do not know how hard it is to have a human being die
when you feel that a stroke of your pen will save him."
Gordon was executed in New York.
A volunteer major who had been wounded at Petersburg found himself
mustered out of his regiment on that account, _nolens volens_, and
appealed to the President for an appointment on staff duty, so that
he could still continue to perform service regardless of his physical
incapacity.
The President took down a large volume of the laws of Congress, opened
to the page and section of the act, put his finger on the line, and read
aloud the words which authorized him to make staff appointments only
on the request of a general commanding a brigade, division, or corps.
The major admitted that he had not brought such an application, for he
had not thought it necessary. "It cannot be done," said the President,
"without such a request. I have no more power to appoint you, in the
absence of such a request, than I would have to marry a woman to any man
she might want for her husband without his consent. Bring me such an
application and I will make it at once, for I see you deserve it."
The late Governor Rice, of Massachusetts, said, "A mercantile firm in
Boston had an office boy whose duty, among other things, was to take the
mail to and from the post-office. This boy was fresh from the country,
and, seeing his opportunity to get money from the letters intrusted
to him, yielded to the temptation, was detected, convicted, and
imprisoned; but the employers and the jury joined with the boy's father
to obtain his pardon. The father appeared in Washington with a petition
numerously signed. I introduced him to the President, to whom I also
handed the petition. Mr. Lincoln put on his spectacles, threw himself
back in his chair and stretched his long legs and read the document.
When finished, he turned to me and asked if I met a man on the stairs.
'Well,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'his errand was to get a man pardoned, and now
you come to get a boy out of jail. But I am a little encouraged by your
visit. They are after me on the men, but appear to be roping you in on
the boys. The trouble appears to come from the courts. It seems as if
the courts ought to be abolished, anyway; for they appear to pick out
the very best men in the community and send them to the penitentiary,
and now they are after the same kind of boys.'"
Once he received a message from a zealous Irish soldier with more
courage than brains (or he would not have telegraphed direct to the
President), who had been left behind in the retreat of the army across
the Potomac before the advancing columns of Lee's army, with one gun
of his battery on the bank of the river below Edwards Ferry. It read
about thus: "I have the whole rebel army in my front. Send me another
gun and I assure your honor they shall not come over." This pleased the
President greatly, and he sent him an encouraging reply, suggesting that
he report his situation to his superior officer.
A rebel raid on Falls Church, a little hamlet a dozen miles
from Washington, had resulted in the surprise and capture of a
brigadier-general and twelve army mules. When Lincoln heard of it he
exclaimed,--