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
At a Cabinet meeting once, the advisability of putting a legend on
greenbacks similar to the In God We Trust legend on the silver coins was
discussed, and the President was asked what his view was. He replied:
“If you are going to put a legend on the greenback, I would suggest that
of Peter and Paul: ‘Silver and gold we have not, but what we have we’ll
give you.’”
GOD’S BEST GIFT TO MAN.
One of Mr. Lincoln’s notable religious utterances was his reply to a
deputation of colored people at Baltimore who presented him a Bible. He
said:
“In regard to the great book, I have only to say it is the best gift
which God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world
is communicated to us through this book. But for this book we could not
know right from wrong. All those things desirable to man are contained
in it.”
SCALPING IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR.
When Lincoln was President he told this story of the Black Hawk War:
The only time he ever saw blood in this campaign, was one morning when,
marching up a little valley that makes into the Rock River bottom, to
reinforce a squad of outposts that were thought to be in danger, they
came upon the tent occupied by the other party just at sunrise. The men
had neglected to place any guard at night, and had been slaughtered in
their sleep.
As the reinforcing party came up the slope on which the camp had been
made, Lincoln saw them all lying with their heads towards the rising
sun, and the round red spot that marked where they had been scalped
gleamed more redly yet in the ruddy light of the sun. This scene years
afterwards he recalled with a shudder.
MATRIMONIAL ADVICE.
For a while during the Civil War, General Fremont was without a command.
One day in discussing Fremont’s case with George W. Julian, President
Lincoln said he did not know where to place him, and that it reminds him
of the old man who advised his son to take a wife, to which the young
man responded: “All right; whose wife shall I take?”
OWED LOTS OF MONEY.
On April 14, 1865, a few hours previous to his assassination, President
Lincoln sent a message by Congressman Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President
during General Grant’s first term, to the miners in the Rocky Mountains
and the regions bounded by the Pacific ocean, in which he said:
“Now that the Rebellion is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the
amount of our National debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make
the payment of that debt so much easier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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