Lincoln's yarns and stories : $b A complete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln famous as America's greatest story tellerMcClure, Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly)
History
Lincoln's yarns and stories : $b A complete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln famous as America's greatest story teller
McClure, Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Anecdotes
The resistance to the military draft of 1863 by the City of New York,
the result of which was the killing of several thousand persons,
was illustrated on August 29th, 1863, by “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper,” over the title of “The Naughty Boy, Gotham, Who Would Not
Take the Draft.” Beneath was also the text:
MAMMY LINCOLN: “There now, you bad boy, acting that way, when your
little sister Penn (State of Pennsylvania) takes hers like a lady!”
Horatio Seymour was then Governor of New York, and a prominent “the War
is a failure” advocate. He was in Albany, the State capital, when the
riots broke out in the City of New York, July 13th, and after the mob
had burned the Colored Orphan Asylum and killed several hundred negroes,
came to the city. He had only soft words for the rioters, promising them
that the draft should be suspended. Then the Government sent several
regiments of veterans, fresh from the field of Gettysburg, where they
had assisted in defeating Lee. These troops made short work of the
brutal ruffians, shooting down three thousand or so of them, and the
rioting was subdued. The “Naughty Boy Gotham” had to take his medicine,
after all, but as the spirit of opposition to the War was still rampant,
the President issued a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus
in all the States of the Union where the Government had control. This
had a quieting effect upon those who were doing what they could in
obstructing the Government.
WOULD BLOW THEM TO H---.
Mr. Lincoln had advised Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, commanding
the United States Army, of the threats of violence on inauguration day,
1861. General Scott was sick in bed at Washington when Adjutant-General
Thomas Mather, of Illinois, called upon him in President-elect Lincoln’s
behalf, and the veteran commander was much wrought up. Said he to
General Mather:
“Present my compliments to Mr. Lincoln when you return to Springfield,
and tell him I expect him to come on to Washington as soon as he is
ready; say to him that I will look after those Maryland and Virginia
rangers myself. I will plant cannon at both ends of Pennsylvania avenue,
and if any of them show their heads or raise a finger, I’ll blow them to
h---.”
“YANKEE” GOODNESS OF HEART.
One day, when the President was with the troops who were fighting at the
front, the wounded, both Union and Confederate, began to pour in.
As one stretcher was passing Lincoln, he heard the voice of a lad
calling to his mother in agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He
forgot the crisis of the hour. Stopping the carriers, he knelt, and
bending over him, asked: “What can I do for you, my poor child?”
“Oh, you will do nothing for me,” he replied. “You are a Yankee. I
cannot hope that my message to my mother will ever reach her.”
Lincoln, in tears, his voice full of tenderest love, convinced the boy
of his sincerity, and he gave his good-bye words without reserve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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