"OUR LINCOLN IS THE MAN."
Fifteen years have passed since the events described in the last chapter. It is the year 1860. A great political crisis is upon the country, and Abraham Lincoln has been selected to lead one great party of the people, because he had faith in the principle that right is might. The time came, as the Tunker had prophesied, when the people wanted a man of integrity for their leader—a man who had a heart that could be trusted. They elected him to the Legislature when he was almost a boy and had not decent clothes to wear. The young legislator walked over the prairies of Illinois to the Capitol to save the traveling fare. As a legislator he had faith that right is might, and was true to his convictions.
"He has a heart that we can trust," said the people, and they sent him to Congress. He was true in Washington, as in Illinois.
"He has a heart we can trust," said the people; "let us send him to the Senate."
He failed of an election, but it was because his convictions of right were in advance of the public mind at the time; but he who is defeated for a principle, triumphs. The greatest victors are those who are vanquished in the cause of truth, justice, and right; for the cause lives, and they live in the cause that must prevail.
Again the people wanted a leader—all the people who represented a great cause—and Illinois said to the people:
"Make our Lincoln your leader; he has a heart that we can trust," and Lincoln was made the heart of the people in the great cause of human rights. Lincoln, who had defended the little animals of the woods. Lincoln, who had been true to his pioneer father, when the experience had cost him years of toilsome life. Lincoln, who had pitied the slave in the New Orleans market, and whose soul had cried to Heaven for the scales of Justice. Lincoln, who had protected the old Indian amid the gibes of his comrades. Lincoln, who had studied by pine-knots, made poetry on old shovels, and read law on lonely roads. Lincoln, who had had a kindly word and pleasant story for everybody, pitied everybody, loved everybody, and forgave everybody, and yet carried a sad heart. Lincoln, who had resolved that in law and politics he would do just right.
John Hanks had brought some of the rails that the candidate for the presidency had split into the Convention of Illinois, and the rails that represented the hardships of pioneer life became the oriflamme of the leader from the prairies. He who is true to a nation is first true to his parents and home.
That was an ever-to-be-remembered day when, in August, 1860, the people of the great West with one accord arranged to visit Abraham Lincoln, the candidate for the presidency, at Springfield, Illinois. Seventy thousand strangers poured into the prairie city. They came from Indiana, Iowa, and the lakes. Thousands came from Chicago. Men came in wagons, bringing their wives and children. They brought tents, camp-kettles, and coffee-pots. Says a graphic writer who saw the scene:
"Every road leading to the city is crowded for twenty miles with vehicles. The weather is fine, and a little overwarm. Girls can dress in white, and bare their arms and necks without danger; the women can bring their children. Everything that was ever done at any other mass-meeting is done here. Locomotive-builders are making a boiler; blacksmiths are heating and hammering their irons; the iron-founders are molding their patterns; the rail-splitters are showing the people how Uncle Abe used to split rails; every other town has its wagon-load of thirty-one girls in white to represent the States; bands of music, numerous almost as those of McClellan on Arlington Heights in 1862, are playing; old men of the War of 1812, with their old wives, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, are here: making a procession of human beings, horses, and carriages not less than ten miles in length. And yet the procession might have left the town and the people would scarcely be missed.
"There is an immense wigwam, with galleries like a theatre; but there are people enough not in the procession to fill a dozen like it. Half an hour is long enough to witness the moving panorama of men and women, horses, carriages, representatives of trades, mottoes, and burlesques, and listen to the bands."
And among those who came to see the great procession, the rail-splitters, and the sights, were the Tunker from the Indian schools over the Mississippi, and Aunt Indiana from Indiana.
There was a visitor from the East who became the hero of the great day. He is living now (1891) in Chelsea, Mass., near the Soldiers' Home, to which he often goes to sing, and is known there as "Father Locke." He was a natural minstrel, and songs of his, like "Down by the Sea," have been sung all over the world. One of his songs has moved thousands of hearts in sorrow, and pictures his own truly loving and beautiful soul:
"There's a fresh little mound near the willow,
Where at evening I wander and weep;
There's a dear vacant spot on my pillow,
Where a sweet little face used to sleep.
There were pretty blue eyes, but they slumber
In silence, beneath the dark mold,
And the little pet lamb of our number
Has gone to the heavenly fold."
This man, with the approval of President Lincoln, went as a minstrel to the Army of the Potomac. We think that he was the only minstrel who followed our army, like the war-singers of old. In a book published for private use, entitled Three Years in Camp and Hospital, "Father Locke" thus tells the story of his interview with President Lincoln at the White House:
"Giving his hand, and saying he recollected me, he asked what he could do for me.
"'I want no office, Mr. President. I came to ask for one, but have changed my mind since coming into this house. When it comes to turning beggar, I shall shun the places where all the other beggars go. I am going to the army to sing for the soldiers, as the poets and balladists of old sang in war. Our soldiers must take as much interest in songs and singing as did those of ancient times. I only wished to shake hands with you, and obtain a letter of recommendation to the commanding officers, that they may receive and treat me kindly.'
"'I will give you a letter with pleasure, but you do not need one; your singing will make you all right.'
"On my rising to leave, he gave his hand, saying: 'God bless you; I am glad you do not want an office. Go to the army, and cheer the men around their camp-fires with your songs, remembering that a great man said, "Let me but make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."'"
The President then told him how to secure a pass into the lines of the army, and the man went forth to write and to sing his inspirations, like a balladist of old.
His songs were the delight of many camps of the Army of the Potomac in the first dark year of the war. They were sung in the camp, and they belonged to the inside army life, but were little known outside of the army. They are still fondly remembered by the veterans, and are sung at reunions and camp-fires.
We give one of these songs and its original music here. It has the spirit of the time and the events, and every note is a pulse-beat:
We are Marching on to Richmond.
Words and Music by E. W. Locke.
Published by the permission of the Composer.
"But yesterday, in murderous fray,
While marching on to Richmond,
We parted here from comrades dear,
While marching on to Richmond;
With manly sighs and tearful eyes,
While marching on to Richmond,
We laid the braves in peaceful graves,
And started on to Richmond.
4.
"Our friends away are sad to-day,
Because we march to Richmond;
With loving fear they shrink to hear
About our march to Richmond;
The pen shall tell that they who fell
While marching on to Richmond,
Had hearts aglow and face to foe,
And died in sight of Richmond.
5.
"Our thoughts shall roam to scenes of home,
While marching on to Richmond;
The vacant chair that's waiting there,
While we march on to Richmond;
'Twill not be long till shout and song
We'll raise aloud in Richmond,
And war's rude blast will soon be past,
And we'll go home from Richmond."
This song-writer had brought a song to the great Springfield assembly. He sang it when the people were in a receptive mood. It voiced their hearts, and its influence was electric. As he rose before the assembly on that August day under the prairie sun, and sang: "Hark! hark! a signal-gun is heard," a stillness came over the great sea of the people. The figures of the first verse filled the imagination, but the chorus was like a bugle-call:
"THE SHIP OF STATE.
"(Sung at the Springfield Convention.)
"Hark! hark! a signal-gun is heard,
Just out beyond the fort;
The good old Ship of State, my boys,
Is coming into port.
With shattered sails, and anchors gone,
I fear the rogues will strand her;
She carries now a sorry crew,
And needs a new commander.
"Our Lincoln is the man!
Our Lincoln is the man!
With a sturdy mate
From the Pine-Tree State,
Our Lincoln is the man!
"Four years ago she put to sea,
With prospects brightly beaming;
Her hull was strong, her sails new-bent,
And every pennant streaming;
She loved the gale, she plowed the waves,
Nor feared the deep's commotion;
Majestic, nobly on she sailed,
Proud mistress of the ocean.
"There's mutiny aboard the ship;
There's feud no force can smother;
Their blood is up to fever-heat;
They're cutting down each other.
Buchanan here, and Douglas there,
Are belching forth their thunder,
While cunning rogues are sly at work
In pocketing the plunder.
"Our ship is badly out of trim;
'Tis time to calk and grave her;
She's foul with stench of human gore;
They've turned her to a slaver.
She's cruised about from coast to coast,
The flying bondman hunting,
Until she's strained from stem to stern,
And lost her sails and bunting.
"Old Abram is the man!
Old Abram is the man!
And he'll trim her sails,
As he split the rails.
Old Abram is the man!
"We'll give her what repairs she needs—
A thorough overhauling;
Her sordid crew shall be dismissed,
To seek some honest calling.
Brave Lincoln soon shall take the helm,
On truth and right relying;
In calm or storm, in peace or war,
He'll keep her colors flying.
"Old Abram is the man!
Old Abram is the man!
With a sturdy mate
From the Pine-Tree State,
Old Abram is the man!"
These words seem commonplace to-day, but they were trumpet-notes then. "Our Lincoln is the man!" trembled on every tongue, and a tumultuous applause arose that shook the air. The enthusiasm grew; the minstrel had voiced the people, and they would not let him stop singing. They finally mounted him on their shoulders and carried him about in triumph, like a victor bard of old. Ever rang the chorus from the lips of the people, "Our Lincoln is the man!" "Old Abram is the man!"
Lincoln heard the song. He loved songs. One of his favorite songs was "Twenty Years ago." But this was the first time, probably, that he had heard himself sung. He was living at that time in the plain house in Springfield that has been made familiar by pictures. The song delighted him, but he, of all the thousands, was forbidden by his position to express his pleasure in the song. He would have liked to join with the multitudes in singing "Our Lincoln is the man!" had not the situation sealed his lips. But after the scene was over, and the great mass of people began to melt away, he sought the minstrel, and said:
"Come to my room, and sing to me the song privately. I want to hear you sing it."
So he listened to it in private, while it was being borne over the prairies on tens of thousands of lips. Did he then dream that the nations would one day sing the song of his achievements, that his death would be tolled by the bells of all lands, and his dirge fill the churches of Christendom with tears? It may have been that his destiny in dim outline rose before him, for the events of his life were hurrying.
Aunt Indiana was there, and she found the Tunker.
"The land o' sakes and daisies!" she said. "That we should both be here! Well, elder, I give it up! I was agin Lincoln until I heard all the people a-singin' that song; then it came over me that I was doin' just what I hadn't ought to, and I began to sing 'Old Lincoln is the man!' just as though it had been a Methody hymn written by Wesley himself."
"I am glad that you have changed your mind, and that I have lived to see my prophecy, that Lincoln would become the heart of the people, fulfilled."
"Elder, I tell you what let's we do."
"What, my good woman?"
"Let's we each get a rail, and go down before Abe's winder, and I'll sing as loud as anybody:
"'Old Abram is the man!
Old Abram is the man!
And he'll trim her sails
As he split the rails.
Old Abram is the man!'
I'll do it, if you will. I've been all wrong from the first. Why, even the Grigsbys are goin' to vote for him, and I'm goin' to do the right thing myself. Abe always had a human heart, and it is that which is the most human that leads off in this world."
Aunt Indiana found a rail. The streets of Springfield were full of rails that the people had brought in honor of Lincoln's hard work on his father's barn in early Illinois. She also found a flag. Flags were as many as rails on this remarkable occasion. She set the flag into the top of the rail, and started for the street that led past Lincoln's door.
"Come on, elder; we'll be a procession all by ourselves."
The two arrived at the house where Lincoln lived, the Tunker in his buttonless gown, and Aunt Indiana with her corn-bonnet, printed shawl, rail, and flag. The procession of two came to a halt before the open window, and presently, framed in the open window, like a picture, the face of Abraham Lincoln appeared. That face lighted up as it fell upon Aunt Indiana.
She made a low courtesy, and lifted the rail and the flag, and broke forth in a tone that would have led a camp-meeting:
"'Our Abram is the man!
Our Abram is the man!
With a sturdy mate
From the Pine-Tree State,
Our Abram is the man!'
"Elder, you sing, and we'll go over it again."
Aunt Indiana waved the flag and sang the refrain again, and said:
"Abe Lincoln, I'm goin' to vote for ye, though I never thought I should. But you shall have my vote with all the rest.—Lawdy sakes and daisies, elder—I forgot; I can't vote, can I? I'm just a woman. I've got all mixed up and carried away, but
"'Our Abram is the man!'"
Abraham Lincoln.
From a photograph by Alexander Hesler, Chicago, 1858.
Six years have passed. The gardens of Washington are bursting into bloom. The sky is purple under a clear sun. It is Wednesday morning, the 19th of April, 1865.
All the bells are tolling, and the whole city is robed in black. At eleven o'clock some sixty clergymen enter the White House, followed by the governors of the States. At noon comes the long procession of Government officers, followed by the diplomatic corps.
In the sable rooms rises a dark catafalque, and in it lies a waxen face.
Toll!—the bells of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria! Minute-guns boom. Around that dead face the representatives of the nation, and of all nations, pass, and tears fall like rain.
A funeral car of flowers moves through the streets. Abraham Lincoln has done his work. He is on his journey back to the scenes of his childhood! The boy who defended the turtles, the man who stretched out his arm over the defenseless Indian in the Black Hawk War, and who freed the slave; the man of whom no one ever asked pity in vain—he is going back to the prairies, to sleep his eternal sleep among the violets.
Toll! The bells of all the cities and towns of the loyal nation are tolling. In every principal church in all the land people have met to weep and to pray. Half-mast flags everywhere meet the breeze.
They laid the body beneath the rotunda of the Capitol, amid the April flowers and broken magnolias.
Then homeward—through Baltimore, robed in black; through Philadelphia, through New York, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Chicago. The car rolls on, over flowers and under black flags, amid the tolling of the bells of cities and the bells of the simple country church-towers. All labor ceases. The whole people stop to wonder and to weep.
The dirges cease. The muffled drums are still. The broken earth of the prairies is wrapped around the dead commoner, the fallen apostle of humanity, the universal brother of all who toil and struggle.
The courts of Europe join in the lamentation. Never yet was a man wept like this man.
His monument ennobles the world. He stands in eternal bronze in a hundred cities. And why? Because he had a heart to feel; because to him all men had been brothers of equal blood and birthright; and because he had had faith that "right makes might."