“More’n that they’ve got their own ideas about politics and military tactics and mighty clear ideas about all of us that are runnin’ things. You can’t fool ’em on an officer. They know when one ain’t fit to command, and time and time again they’ve pestered a coward or a braggart or a bully out of the service. An officer who does his job best he can, even if he ain’t very smart, just honest and faithful, they’ll stand by and help. If he’s a big one, a real big man, they can’t do enough for him. Take the way they feel about Thomas, the store they set by him. I met a boy on crutches out by the White House the other day and asked him where he got wounded. He told me about the place they held. ‘Pretty hot, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘Yes, but Old Pap put us there and he wouldn’t ’a’ done it if he hadn’t known we could ’a’ held it.’ No more question ‘Old Pap’ than they would God Almighty. But if it had been some generals they’d skedaddled. “They ain’t never made any mistake about _me_ just because I’m president. A while after Bull Run I met a boy out on the street here on crutches, thin and white, and I stopped to ask him about how he got hurt. Well, Billy, he looked at me hard as nails, and he says: ‘Be you Abe Lincoln?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘all I’ve got to say is you don’t know your job. I enlisted glad enough to do my part and I’ve done it, but you ain’t done yourn. You promised to feed me, and I marched three days at the beginning of these troubles without anything to eat but hardtack and two chunks of salt pork--no bread, no coffee--and what I did get wasn’t regular. They got us up one mornin’ and marched us ten miles without breakfast. Do you call that providin’ for an army? And they sent us down to fight the Rebs at Bull Run, and when we was doin’ our best and holdin’ ’em--I tell you, holdin’ ’em--they told us to fall back. I swore I wouldn’t--I hadn’t come down there for that. They made me--rode me down. I got struck--struck in the back. Struck in the back and they left me there--never came for me, never gave me a drink and I dyin’ of thirst. I crawled five miles for water, and I’d be dead and rottin’ in Virginia to-day if a teamster hadn’t picked me up and brought me to this town and found an old darkey to take care of me. You ain’t doin’ your job, Abe Lincoln; you won’t win this war until you learn to take care of the soldiers.’ “I couldn’t say a thing. It was true. It’s been true all the time. It’s true to-day. We ain’t takin’ care of the soldiers like we ought.