The President’s friend, the Hon. H. C. Deming of Connecticut, once
ventured to ask him “if he had ever despaired of the country?” “When
the Peninsula campaign terminated suddenly at Harrison’s Landing,”
rejoined Mr. Lincoln, “I was as nearly inconsolable as I could be and
live.” In the same connection Colonel Deming inquired if there had
ever been a period in which he thought that better management upon
the part of the commanding general might have terminated the war?
“Yes,” answered the President, “there were three: at ‘Malvern Hill,’
when McClellan failed to command an immediate advance upon Richmond;
at ‘Chancellorville,’ when Hooker failed to reënforce Sedgwick, after
hearing his cannon upon the extreme right; and at ‘Gettysburg,’ when
Meade failed to attack Lee in his retreat at the bend of the Potomac.”
After this commentary, the Congressman waited for an outburst of
denunciation--for a criticism, at least--upon the delinquent officers;
but he waited in vain. So far from a word of censure escaping Mr.
Lincoln’s lips, he soon added, that his first remark might not appear
uncharitable: “I do not know that I could have given any different
orders had I been with them myself. I have not fully made up my mind
how I should behave when minie-balls were whistling, and those great
oblong shells shrieking in my ear. I might run away.”
The interview at which this conversation took place, occurred just
after General Fremont had declined to run against him for the
presidency. The magnificent Bible which the negroes of Baltimore
had just presented to him lay upon the table, and while examining
it, Colonel Deming recited the somewhat remarkable passage from the
Chronicles: “Eastward were six Levites, northward four a day, southward
four a day, and toward Assuppim, two and two. At Parbar westward,
four at the causeway, and two at Parbar.” The President immediately
challenged his friend to find any such passage in _his_ Bible. After
it was pointed out to him, and he was satisfied of its genuineness, he
asked the Congressman if he remembered the text which his friends had
recently applied to Fremont, and instantly turned to a verse in the
first of Samuel, put on his spectacles, and read in his slow, peculiar,
and waggish tone: “And every one that was in distress, and every
one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered
themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them, and there were
with him about four hundred men.”