The severe and dignified answer was, “The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster.”
Instantly the picket roared back, “We’ve got Major-Generals enough up here. Why don’t you bring us up some hardtack?”
GOT THE PREACHER.
A story told by a Cabinet member tended to show how accurately Lincoln could calculate political results in advance—a faculty which remained with him all his life.
“A friend, who was a Democrat, had come to him early in the canvass and told him he wanted to see him elected, but did not like to vote against his party; still he would vote for him, if the contest was to be so close that every vote was needed.
“A short time before the election Lincoln said to him: ‘I have got the preacher, and I don’t want your vote.’”
BIG JOKE ON HALLECK.
When General Halleck was Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, with headquarters at Washington, President Lincoln unconsciously played a big practical joke upon that dignified officer. The President had spent the night at the Soldiers’ Home, and the next morning asked Captain Derickson, commanding the company of Pennsylvania soldiers, which was the Presidential guard at the White House and the Home—wherever the President happened to be—to go to town with him.