“You tear up those regrets, Mary,” he said soberly. “Tear up every single one of ’em. And forget the names of the people who wrote them. That,” he added very solemnly, “is an order from the President.”
6
Robert Todd Lincoln was a young man trying sincerely not to be a snob, not to be blasé or obviously aware that his father was President of the United States. A medium tall, erect lad, Robert’s dark hair was sleeked down over a head rounded like his mother’s, but his long arms and still growing legs and feet he had from his father.
That long-tailed coat with braided collar was too old for Bob, Abraham Lincoln was thinking. So was his manner too old, a boyish kind of gravity that obviously he strove to keep from being condescending. His mother fluttered about him adoringly as they sat at the family breakfast table. She was continually straightening his cravat, feeling his brow anxiously, smoothing his hair. Lincoln, shrewdly sensitive, could see that his older son was a trifle annoyed by his mother’s solicitous attentions.
“Bob hasn’t got a fever, Mama,” he interposed cheerfully. “He’s the healthiest human being I’ve seen in a long time. Why don’t we all go and see what Tad got for Christmas?” He pushed back his chair.
“Robert must get some sleep,” argued his mother. “He says he didn’t get a wink on that train.”
“The cars were cold and smelly and they were jammed with soldiers, all of them cold and miserable,” stated Robert. “Most of them coming South to join Pope’s army and all sulky because they had to be away from home for Christmas. One chap sat with me—couldn’t have been any older than I am and he had been home to Rhode Island to bury his wife. They all talked and they were plenty bitter against the bounty boys—those fellows who bought their way out of the draft for three hundred dollars.”
“That was a compromise and an evil one, I fear,” said his father. “Everything about war is evil. You can only contrive and pray for ways to make it a little less evil.”
Robert stood up. His face was very white. “Pa—and Mama—I told lies coming down on that train. I told them I was coming home to enlist. I’ve got to get into the Army—I’ve got to! Those men on that train, they were dirty and shabby and some hadn’t shaved or washed in a long time, and most of them were rough and some ignorant but every one of them was a better man than I was! I could feel them looking at me—with contempt at first. It was in every man’s mind that I was a bounty boy. A shirker. Hiding behind a screen of cash! I was thankful nobody knew my name.”
“You could have told them your name,” insisted his mother. “You could have made them respect you as the son of the President.”