your Christian duty, and have done more than enough.' 'Oh, no, father,' says the Indian, 'let me pray! I want to burn him down to the stump!'' Mr. Bleeker got the position.

"Mr. Lincoln," wrote one who knew him very well,1 'was a good judge of men, and quickly learned the peculiar traits of character in those he had to deal with. He pointed out a marked trait in one of the Northern governors who was earnest, able, and untiring in keeping up the war spirit of his State, but was at times overbearing and exacting in his intercourse with the general government. Upon one occasion he complained and protested more bitterly than usual, and warned those in authority that the execution of their orders in his State would be beset by difficulties and dangers. The tone of his dispatches gave rise to an apprehension that he might not co-operate fully in the enterprise in hand. The Secretary of War, therefore, laid the dispatches before the President for advice or instructions. They did not disturb Mr. Lincoln in the least. In fact, they rather amused him. After reading all the papers, he said in a cheerful and reassuring tone: Never mind, those dispatches don't mean anything. Just go right ahead. The governor is like the boy I saw once at the launching of a ship. When everything was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him under the ship to knock away the trigger and let her go. At the critical moment everything depended on the boy. He had to do the job

1 General Fry, in the New York "Tribune."

well by a direct, vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still while the ship slid over him. The boy did everything right; but he yelled as if he were being murdered, from the time he got under the keel until he got out. I thought the skin was all scraped off his back; but he was n't hurt at all. The master of the yard told me that this boy was always chosen for that job, that he did his work well, that he never had been hurt, but that he always squealed in that way. That's just the way with Governor Make up your minds that he is not hurt, and that he is doing his work right, and pay no attention to his squealing. He only wants to make you understand how hard his task is, and that he is on hand performing it.' ”

Time proved that the President's estimation of the governor was correct.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ANTIETAM EPISODE. LINCOLN'S LOVE OF SONG.

N the autumn of 1862 I chanced to be associated with

IN

Mr. Lincoln in a transaction which, though innocent and commonplace in itself, was blown by rumor and surmise into a revolting and deplorable scandal. jectural lie, although mean, misshapen, and very small at its birth, grew at length into a tempest of defamation, whose last echoes were not heard until its noble victim had yielded his life to a form of assassination only a trifle more deadly.

Mr. Lincoln was painted as the prime mover in a scene of fiendish levity more atrocious than the world had ever witnessed since human nature was shamed and degraded by the capers of Nero and Commodus. I refer to what is known as the Antietam song-singing; and I propose to show that the popular construction put upon that incident was wholly destitute of truth.

Mr. Lincoln persistently declined to read the harsh comments of the newspaper press and the fierce mouthings of platform orators; and under his advice I as persistently refused to make any public statement concerning that ill-judged affair. He believed with Sir Walter Scott, that, if a cause of action is good, it needs

no vindication from the actor's motives; if bad, it can

When I suggested to him that the slander

derive none. ought to be refuted, that a word from him would silence his defamers, Mr. Lincoln replied with great earnestness: "No, Hill; there has already been too much said about this falsehood. Let the thing alone. If I have not established character enough to give the lie to this charge, I can only say that I am mistaken in my own estimate of myself. In politics, every man must skin his own skunk. These fellows are welcome to the hide of this one. Its body has already given forth its unsavory odor."

The newspapers and the stump-speakers went on stuffing the ears of men with false reports " until the fall of 1864, when I showed to Mr. Lincoln a letter, of which the following is a copy. It is a fair sample of hundreds of letters received by me about that time, the Antietam incident being then discussed with increased virulence and new accessions of false coloring.

WARD H. LAMON:

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 10, 1864.

Dear Sir, - Enclosed is an extract from the New York "World" of Sept. 9, 1864: —

"ONE OF MR. LINCOLN'S JOKES. - The second verse of our campaign song published on this page was probably suggested by an incident which occurred on the battle-field of Antietam a few days after the fight. While the President was driving over the field in an ambulance, accompanied by Marshal Lamon, General McClellan, and another officer, heavy details of men were engaged in the task of burying

the dead. The ambulance had just reached the neighborhood of the old stone bridge, where the dead were piled highest, when Mr. Lincoln, suddenly slapping Marshal Lamon on the knee, exclaimed: 'Come, Lamon, give us that song about Picayune Butler; McClellan has never heard it.' 'Not now, if you please,' said General McClellan, with a shudder; 'I would prefer to hear it some other place and time.""

This story has been repeated in the New York "World" almost daily for the last three months. Until now it would have been useless to demand its authority. By this article it limits the inquiry to three persons as its authority, Marshal Lamon, another officer, and General McClellan. That it is a damaging story, if believed, cannot be disputed. That it is believed by some, or that they pretend to believe it, is evident by the accompanying verse from the doggerel, in which allusion is made to it :

"Abe may crack his jolly jokes

O'er bloody fields of stricken battle,
While yet the ebbing life-tide smokes
From men that die like butchered cattle;

He, ere yet the guns grow cold,

To pimps and pets may crack his stories,' etc.

I wish to ask you, sir, in behalf of others as well as myself, whether any such occurrence took place; or if it did not take place, please to state who that "other officer was, if there was any such, in the ambulance in which the President "was driving over the field [of Antietam ] whilst details of men were engaged in the task of burying the dead." You will confer a great favor by an immediate reply. Most respectfully your obedient servant,

A. J. PERKINS.

Along with the above I submitted to Mr. Lincoln my own draft of what I conceived to be a suitable