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“You Can’t Put a Long Blade into a Short Scabbard”
I offered the President my bed, but he positively declined it, and elected to sleep in a small state-room outside of the cabin, occupied by my secretary. It was the smallest kind of a room, six feet long by four and a half feet wide — a small room for the President of the United States to be domesticated in, but Mr. Lincoln was pleased with it. He told me, at parting, that the few days he had spent on board the Malvern were among the pleasantest in his life.
When the President retired for his first night on board, he put his shoes and socks outside the state-room door. I am sorry to say the President’s socks had holes in them ; but they were washed and darned, his boots cleaned, and the whole placed at his door.
When he came to breakfast he remarked:
“A miracle happened to me last night. When I went to bed I had two large holes in my socks, and this morning there are no holes in them. That never happened to me before; it must be a miracle!”
“How did you sleep?” I inquired.
“I slept well,” he answered, “but you can’t put a long blade into a short scabbard. I was too long for that berth.” Then I remembered he was over six feet four inches, while the berth was only six feet.
That day, while we were out of the ship, all the carpenters were put to work; the state-room was taken down and increased in size to eight feet by six and a half feet. The mattress was widened to suit a berth of four feet width, and the entire state-room remodeled.
Nothing was said to the President about the change in his quarters when he went to bed, but next morning he came out smiling, and said: “A greater miracle than ever happened last night; I shrank six inches in length and about a foot sideways. I got somebody else’s big pillow, and slept in a better bed than I did on the Eiver Queen, though not half as lively.” He enjoyed it hugely, but I do think if I had given him two fence-rails to sleep on he would not have found fault. That was Abraham Lincoln in all things relating to his own comfort. He would never permit people to put themselves out for him under any circumstances.
Quoted in David D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1886), p. 286.
“Of All the Men I ever Met”
I know, when I left him, that I was more than ever impressed by his kindly nature, his deep and earnest sympathy with the afflictions of the whole people, resulting from the war, and by the march of hostile armies through the South ; and that his earnest desire seemed to be to end the war speedily, without more bloodshed or devastation, and to restore all the men of both sections to their homes. In the language of his second inaugural address, he seemed to have ” charity for all, malice toward none,” and, above all, an absolute faith in the courage, manliness, and integrity of the armies in the field. When at rest or listening, his legs and arms seemed to hang almost lifeless, and his face was care-worn and haggard ; but, the moment he began to talk, his face lightened up, his tall form, as it were, unfolded, and he was the very impersonation of good-humor and fellowship. The last words I recall as addressed to me were that he would feel better when I was back at Goldsboro’. We parted at the gangway of the River Queen, about noon of March 28th, and I never saw him again. Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other.
Quoted in William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1875; New York: Penguin Books, 2000), pp. 327.
Sherman,Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, pp. 682–83.
Letter to General Grant (Jan. 19, 1865)
Executive Mansion, Washington,
Jan. 19, 1865.
Lieut. General Grant:
Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long, are better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your Military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested, that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.
Yours truly
A. Lincoln
–Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 8.
Farewell Address at Springfield (February 11, 1861)
Farewell Address at Springfield, Illinois [1]
My friends:
No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now [2] leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, [3] let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.
[B. Version] [4]
My Friends:
No one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support, and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you an affectionate farewell.
[C. Version] [5]
Friends,
No one who has never been placed in a like position, can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed; here all my children were born; and here one of them lies buried. To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am.
All the strange, chequered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To-day I leave you; I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him, shall be with and aid me, I must fail. But if the same omniscient mind, and Almighty arm that directed and protected him, shall guide and support me, I shall not fail, I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To him I commend you all—permit me to ask that with equal security and faith, you all will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you—for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell.
Annotation
[1] AD, DLC-RTL. Written down in pencil after the event, as the train was leaving Springfield, the manuscript begins in Lincoln’s handwriting and concludes in Nicolay’s. Both Lincoln’s and Nicolay’s portions are, though cramped and irregular, very legibly and deliberately written. Henry Villard’s story that he at one time had the pencilled manuscript and lost it, may or may not be true. His statement that John Hay took notes and that a stenographer was present, may also be true, but these documents have not been found. The other versions given below may stem from these sources. For Villard’s account seeLincoln on the Eve of ’61, A Journalist’s Story, edited by Harold G. and Oswald Garrison Villard (1941) and Memoirs of Henry Villard (1904).
[2] Lincoln’s handwriting ends and Nicolay’s begins.
[3] The remainder of this sentence is in Lincoln’s handwriting.
[4] This version is from a broadside distributed in April, 1865, by The American News Company of New York (PHi; IHi). It is in all but a few marks of punctuation identical with that which appeared in Harper’s Weekly and various eastern newspapers on February 12, 1861.
[5] Illinois State Journal, February 12, 1861. Some authorities, beginning with Herndon, regard this text as the most accurate one. If this version was taken down as Lincoln spoke, this may be so. Unfortunately, however, no verification of this possibility, earlier than Villard’s, exists, and his account contains too many discrepancies to be accepted verbatim.
–Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4
The next morning, at half-past seven, the dilapidated old bus backed up to the hotel, and Lincoln and his family got in and jolted away to the Wabash station, where a special train was waiting to take them to Washington. It was dark and rainy, but the station platform was crowded with a thousand or fifteen hundred of his old neighbors. They formed a line and slowly filed by Lincoln, shaking his great bony hand. Finally the ringing of the engine bell warned him that it was time to go aboard. He entered his private car by the front steps and a minute later appeared on the rear platform. He had not intended to make a speech. He had told the newspaper reporters that it would not be necessary for them to be at the station, as he would have nothing to say. However, as he looked for the last time into the faces of his old neighbors, he felt he must say something. The words he uttered that morning in the falling rain are not to be compared with those he spoke at Gettysburg, or placed beside the sublime spiritual masterpiece that he pronounced on the occasion of his second inauguration. But this farewell speech is as beautiful as one of the Psalms of David, and it contains perhaps more of personal emotion and pathos than any other of Lincoln’s addresses. There were only two times in his life that Lincoln wept when trying to speak. This morning was one of them:
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown”，Carnegie-116-124-1
“But it is Well to be Humble”
When the channel was reported clear of torpedoes (a large number of which were taken up), I proceeded up to Richmond in the Malvern, with President Lincoln on board the River Queen, and a heavy feeling of responsibility on my mind, notwithstanding the great care that had been taken to clear the river.
Every vessel that got through the obstructions wished to be the first one up, and pushed ahead with all steam ; but they grounded, one after another, the Malvern passing them all, until she also took the ground. Not to be delayed, I took the President in my barge, and, with a tug ahead with a file of marines on board, we continued on up to the city.
There was a large bridge across the James about a mile below the landing, and under this a party in a small steamer were caught and held by the current, with no prospect of release without assistance. These people begged me to extricate them from their perilous position, so I ordered the tug to cast off and help them, leaving us in the barge to go on alone.
Here we were in a solitary boat, after having set out with a number of vessels flying flags at every mast-head, hoping to enter the conquered capital in a manner befitting the rank of the President of the United States, with a further intention of firing a national salute in honor of the happy result.
I remember the President’s remarks on the occasion. ”Admiral, this brings to my mind a fellow who once came to me to ask for an appointment as minister abroad. Finding he could not get that, he came down to some more modest position. Finally he asked to be made a tide-waiter. When he saw he could not get that, he asked me for an old pair of trousers. But it is well to be humble.“
Quoted in David D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1886), p. 294
Response to a Serenade, November 10,1864
Response to a Serenade
November 10, 1864
It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its own existence, in great emergencies.
On this point the present rebellion brought our republic to a severe test; and a presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion added not a little to the strain. If the loyal people, united, were put to the utmost of their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when divided, and partially paralized, by a political war among themselves? But the election was a necessity.
We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human-nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case, must ever recur in similar cases. Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.
But the election, along with its incidental, and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people’s government can sustain a national election, in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. It shows also how sound, and how strong we still are. It shows that, even among candidates of the same party, he who is most devoted to the Union, and most opposed to treason, can receive most of the people’s votes. It shows also, to the extent yet known, that we have more men now, than we had when the war began. Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, patriotic men, are better than gold.
But the rebellion continues; and now that the election is over, may not all, having a common interest, re-unite in a common effort, to save our common country? For my own part I have striven, and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom.
While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election; and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the result.
May I ask those who have not differed with me, to join with me, in this same spirit towards those who have?
And now, let me close by asking three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen and their gallant and skilful commanders.
–Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 8.
An evening later, in response to a serenade, he returned to an old problem, summarizing as follows his ideas on the problem of the State :
Not a word of triumph, not a gesture of victory, nothing but a simple expression of gratitude, and the thoughts of a skeptic who does not for a moment except himself from human imperfection. He appends a request, delicately uttered, spoken almost with embarrassment – a request that, in view of the common peril, his hearers shall cease to quarrel one with another.
From the mood that animates the victor in the electoral struggle, we may infer the friendliness and wisdom Lincoln would have displayed in his attempts, as victor in the war, to conciliate and reconstruct the South. He had already begun to work towards these ends.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” , Ludwig-406-18
Response to a Serenade, November 8,1864
November 8, 1864
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:
Even before I had been informed by you that this compliment was paid me by loyal citizens of Pennsylvania friendly to me, I had inferred that you were of that portion of my countrymen who think that the best interests of the nation are to be subserved by the support of the present Administration. I do not pretend to say that you who think so embrace all the patriotism and loyalty of the country. But I do believe, and I trust, without personal interest, that the welfare of the country does require that such support and indorsement be given.I earnestly believe that the consequences of this day’s work, if it be as you assure me and as now seems probable, will be to the lasting advantage, if not to the very salvation, of the country. I cannot at this hour say what has been the result of the election; but, whatever it may be, I have no desire to modify this opinion—that all who have labored to-day in behalf of the Union organization, have wrought for the best interests of their country and the world, not only for the present, but for all future ages.
I am thankful to God for this approval of the people. But while deeply grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one; but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people’s resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.
–Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 8. Ludwig-406-16
“It was Impossible to Detect In him the Slightest Feeling of Pride”
It was at City Point, on Wednesday, April 6 th, that a small party of invited guests, which comprised members of the Cabinet and distinguished Senators, and in which Mrs. Lincoln had been kind enough to include me, came to join the President. We found him established on board the River Queen.
He led us at once to the drawing-room of that handsome boat. Curiously enough, it was in that very drawing-room, two months previous, that there had taken place, between Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, delegates from the Richmond government, on the one hand, and Messrs. Lincoln and Seward, on the other, the conference called that of Hampton Roads.
Mr. Lincoln showed us the place that each delegate had occupied, and spoke a moment about the details of that historic interview, which took place, as he himself told us, unrecorded by any secretary, the five men present not even having with them a pencil or bit of paper to note down what had been said or done.
But he remained silent regarding the questions agitated during the conference. One of the few confidants of Mr. Lincoln’s thoughts, however, added, indicating the place occupied by Mr. Campbell at the interview : “ From there came the only serious proposition.” He was alluding to the proposed war with Mexico, which the rebel government had submitted, and which Mr. Lincoln’s political uprightness had made him decline.
Drawing then from his pocket a bundle of papers, the President read to us the despatches he had just received from General Grant. In the midst of this reading he paused a moment, and went to fetch his maps. He soon returned holding them in his hands, and spreading them on a table, he showed us the place of each army corps, indicating further the exact spot where, according to General Grant’s precise messages, it was certain that the rebels would lay down their arms.
It seemed evident that his mind was satisfied and at rest ; but in spite of the manifest success of his policy it was impossible to detect in him the slightest feeling of pride, much less of vanity. He spoke with the modest accent of a man who realizes that success has crowned his persistent efforts, and who finds in that very success the end of a terrible responsibility. He had visited Richmond, he said to us ; the reception given him there did not seem to be of good omen ; his only preoccupation appeared to be the necessity of wiping out the consequences of the civil war, and to drive the war itself from the memory of all, nay, even of its criminal instigators ; far then, from feeling any resentment against the vanquished, he was rather inclined to place too much confidence in them.
After having thus explained to us the state of affairs, which seemed so satisfactory, Mr. Lincoln left us and went ashore to the headquarters. He was obliged, he told us, to draw up instructions for the Lieutenant-General. We then spent the entire forenoon visiting the Federal encampments.
Quoted in Marquis de Chambrun, “Personal Recollections of Mr. Lincoln,” Scribner’s 13 (January 1893), p. 28.