"FLY AWAY, JACK!"
At the end of 1860, South Carolina took the lead in seceding, and in the opening of the next year six other Southern States allied themselves with her. The timid feared hasty acting would precipitate the marshaling of the waverers under the same flag. To a committee urging a pause to see "how the cats would jump," the President observed:
"If there be three pigeons on the fence, and you fire and kill one, how many will there be left?"
The voices said: "Two."
"Oh, no," he corrected; "there would be none left; for the other two, frightened by the shot, would have flown away."
As a truth, the firing on Fort Sumter welded the seceders into their Union; at the same time as it likewise fused the Northerners into consistency.
The President said to General Viele: "We want to keep all that we have of the Border States--those that have not seceded and the portions we have occupied."
HIS PEN WANTED TO KEEP THEIR HOGS SAFE.
Just after the call for seventy-five thousand ninety-day men to subdue the outbreak after Sumter was cannonaded, a deputation of loyal Virginians waited upon the President. They expounded on this levy that the fair fields of the South would be overrun by the ragamuffins of the Northern cities, and the hen-roosts and pig-houses ravished, etc.
"But what would you have me do?" asked Lincoln, who did not then foresee his having to conduct the military movements.
"Mr. President, if you would only lend us your pen a moment--" meaning, of course, that he should write a line to calm the rising storm.
But the other pretended to misunderstand him, saying: "Lend my pen! my pen? What would you do with that?--keep your hogs safe with that?"