Part 48 (1/2)

”ONE ON 'EM NOT DEAD YET!”

As communications were cut off with the North, intense anxiety was occasioned there by the situation in November, 1863, of General Burnside, packed in Knoxville, Tennessee, by Longstreet's dreaded veterans. At last a telegram reached the War Department, vaguely telling of ”Firing heard in the direction of Knoxville.” The President reading, expressed gladness, in spite of the remaining uncertainty.

”Why,” said he to the group of officers and officials, ”it reminds me of a neighbor of ours, in Indiana, in the brush, who had a numerous family of young ones. They were all the time wandering off into the scrub, but she was relieved as to their being lost by a squall every now and then. She would say: 'Thank the laws, there is one still alive!' That is, I hope _one_ of our generals is in the thicket, but still alive and kicking!”

Indeed, Burnside resisted a night storming-party, and Longstreet was not ”a lane that knew no turning,” but turned and retreated!

THE SOUTH LIKE AN ASH-CAKE.

At the end of 1864, the Confederacy was scotched if not quite killed.

Sherman had halved it by striking into Savannah. East Tennessee and southwest Virginia were cut by Stoneman. Alabama and Mississippi were traversed by Grierson and Wilson. In sum, the new map resembled that of a territory charted off into sections.

President Lincoln said that its face put him in mind of a weary traveler in the West, who came at night to a small log cabin. The homesteader and his wife said they would put him up, but had not a bite of victuals to offer him. He accepted the truss of litter and was soon asleep. But he was awakened by whispers letting out that in the fire ashes a hoe-cake was baking. The woman and her mate were merry over how they had defrauded the stranger of the food. Feeling mad at having been sent to bed supperless--uncommon mean in that part--he pretended to wake up and came forth to sit at the dying fire. He pretended, too, that he was ill from worry.

”The fact is, my father, when he died, left me a large farm. But I had no sooner taken possession of it than mortgages began to appear. My farm was situated like this----” He took up the loggerhead poker to ill.u.s.trate, drawing lines in the ashes so as to enclose the ash-cake.

”First one man got so much of it one side,” he cut off a side of the hidden dough. ”Then another brought in a mortgage and took off another piece there. Then another here, and another there! and here and there”--drawing the poker through the ashes to make the figure plain--”until,” he said, ”there was nothing of the farm left for anybody--which, I presume is the case with your cake!”

”And, I reckon,” concluded Mr. Lincoln, ”that the prospect is now very good of the South being as cut up as the ash-cake!”--(Telegraph Manager A. Chandler.)

”I COUNT FOR SOMETHING!”

The true lovers of the South were sorely wrung in 1864 by the Emperor Napoleon taking advantage of the ”lockup” of the United States, to set a puppet in the Austrian Archduke Maximilian on the imperial throne-- so called--of Mexico. It was said that the Cabinet of Lincoln were divided on the subject; whereon the Marquis of Chambrun, having the ear of the Executive, called on him, and inquired on the real state--would the United States intervene, if only by winking at a filibustering expedition from the South, with Northern volunteers accessory, to a.s.sist the natives against the usurper?

”There has been war enough,” was his rejoinder, with that sadness which Secretary Boutwell declares inseparable from him, but not due to the depression of public affairs. ”I know what the American people want; but, thank G.o.d! I count for something, and during my second term there will be no more fighting!”

It was left for his successor, with the two armies disbanded, but still whetted for slaughter, to expel the French by the mere threat of their union to restore the republic.

Pa.s.sES NO GOOD FOR RICHMOND.

A person solicited the President for a pa.s.s to Richmond. But the other replied caustically:

”I should be happy to oblige you if my pa.s.ses thither were respected; but I have issued two hundred and fifty thousand to go to Richmond, and not one man has got there yet!”

THE MAYOR IS THE BETTER HORSE.

The Lowell _Citizen_ editor partic.i.p.ated in a presidential reception in 1864, just before the fall of Richmond. The usher giving intimation that the President would see his audience at once, all were ushered into the inner room. ”Abraham Lincoln's countenance bore that open, benignant outline expected; but what struck us especially was its cheerful, wide-awake expressiveness, never met with in the pictures of our beloved chief. The secret may have been that Secretary Stanton--middle-aged, well-built, stern-visaged man--had brought in his budget good news from Grant.” After saluting his little circle of callers, they were seated and attended to in turn.

First in order was a citizen of Was.h.i.+ngton, praying for pardon in the case of a deserter.