Toward the finish of the Rebellion, Lincoln was asked to what number
the enemy might amount. He replied with singular readiness:
"The Confederates have one million two hundred thousand men in the
field."
Astonishment being manifested at the precision, he went on, smiling:
"Every time a Union commander gets _licked_, he says the enemy
outnumbered him three or four times. We have three or four hundred
thousand, so--logic is logic! they are three times that; say, one
million two hundred thousand."
As a fact, at the grand review before the President (Johnson) the two
armies of Grant and Sherman, May, 1865, two hundred thousand veterans
filed past. Lincoln should have lived to see that glorious march past.
* * * * *
"I DON'T WANT TO--BUT THAT'S IT IF I MUST DIE!"
In the ferment, as the term of Lincoln's first office-holding was
terminating, the old war fever returned by which "Little Mac
(McClellan), Idol of the Army" was hailed as "the hope of the country."
Only this time the presage was that General Grant had only to secure
that phantasm, the capture of Richmond, to be nominated and elected.
This reached the President's ears through the "hanged good-natured
friend," as Sheridan--the wit, not the general--calls the stinging
tongue.
"Well," drawled Mr. Lincoln, "I feel very much like the man who said he
did not particularly want to die, but, if he had got to die, that was
precisely the disease he wanted to die of!"
* * * * *