On one occasion when Mr. Lincoln was going to attend a political convention one of his rivals, a liveryman, provided him with a slow horse, hoping that he would not reach his destination in time. Mr. Lincoln got there, however, and when he returned with the horse he said: “You keep this horse for funerals, don’t you?” “Oh, no,” replied the liveryman. “Well, I’m glad of that, for if you did you’d never get a corpse to the grave in time for the resurrection.”
DODGING “BROWSING PRESIDENTS.”
General McClellan, after being put in command of the Army, resented any “interference” by the President. Lincoln, in his anxiety to know the details of the work in the army, went frequently to McClellan’s headquarters. That the President had a serious purpose in these visits McClellan did not see.
“I enclose a card just received from ‘A. Lincoln,’” he wrote to his wife one day; “it shows too much deference to be seen outside.”
In another letter to Mrs. McClellan he spoke of being “interrupted” by the President and Secretary Seward, “who had nothing in particular to say,” and again of concealing himself “to dodge all enemies in shape of ‘browsing’ Presidents,” etc.
“I am becoming daily more disgusted with this Administration—perfectly sick of it,” he wrote early in October; and a few days later, “I was obliged to attend a meeting of the Cabinet at 8 P. M., and was bored and annoyed. There are some of the greatest geese in the Cabinet I have ever seen—enough to tax the patience of Job.”
A GREENBACK LEGEND.
At a Cabinet meeting once, the advisability of putting a legend on greenbacks similar to the In God We Trust legend on the silver coins was discussed, and the President was asked what his view was. He replied: “If you are going to put a legend on the greenback, I would suggest that of Peter and Paul: ‘Silver and gold we have not, but what we have we’ll give you.’”