Lincoln's sense of humor delighted in any detail of an event which suggested comedy. His genial awkwardness amused himself quite as much as it amused the world. At his third public reception he wore a pair of white kid gloves that were too small. An old friend approached. The President shook hands so heartily that his glove burst with a popping sound. Holding up his hand, Lincoln gazed at the ruined glove with a droll air while the arrested procession came to a standstill. "Well, my old friend," said he, "this is a general bustification; you and I were never intended to wear these things. If they were stronger they might do to keep out the cold, but they are a failure to shake hands with between old friends like us. Stand aside, Captain, and I'll see you shortly."(8)
His complete freedom from pose, and from the sense of place, was glimpsed by innumerable visitors. He would never allow a friend to address him by a title. "Call me Lincoln," he would say; "Mr. President is entirely too formal for us."(9)
In a mere politician, all this might have been questioned. But Hawthorne was right as to the people's intuition of Lincoln's honesty. He hated the parade of eminence. Jefferson was his patron saint, and "simplicity" was part of his creed. Nothing could induce him to surround himself with pomp, or even—as his friends thought—with mere security. Rumors of plots against his life were heard almost from the beginning. His friends begged long and hard before he consented to permit a cavalry guard at the gates of the White House. Very soon he countermanded his consent. "It would never do," said he, "for a president to have guards with drawn sabers at his door, as if he fancied he were, or were trying to be, or were assuming to be, an emperor."(10)
A military officer, alarmed for his safety, begged him to consider "the fact that any assassin or maniac seeking his life, could enter his presence without the interference of a single armed man to hold him back. The entrance doors, and all doors on the official side of the building, were open at all hours of the day and very late into the evening; and I have many times entered the mansion and walked up to the rooms of the two private secretaries as late as nine or ten o'clock at night, without Seeing, or being challenged by a single soul." But the officer pleaded in vain. Lincoln laughingly paraphrased Charles II, "Now as to political assassination, do you think the Richmond people would like to have Hannibal Hamlin here any more than myself? . . . As to the crazy folks, Major, why I must only take my chances-the most crazy people at present, I fear, being some of my own too zealous adherents."(11) With Carpenter, to whom he seems to have taken a liking, he would ramble the streets of Washington, late at night, "without escort or even the company of a servant."(12) Though Halleck talked him into accepting an escort when driving to and fro between Washington and his summer residence at the Soldiers' Home, he would frequently give it the slip and make the journey on horseback alone. In August of 1862 on one of these solitary rides, his life was attempted. It was about eleven at night; he was "jogging along at a slow gait immersed in deep thought" when some one fired at him with a rifle from near at hand. The ball missed its aim and the President's horse, as Lincoln confided to his familiars, "gave proof of decided dissatisfaction at the racket, and with one reckless bound, he unceremoniously separated me from my eight-dollar plug hat . . . At break-neck speed we reached a haven of safety. Meanwhile, I was left in doubt whether death was more desirable from being thrown from a runaway Federal horse, or as the tragic result of a rifle ball fired by a disloyal bushwhacker in the middle of the night"(13)
While carrying his life in his hands in this oddly reckless way, he belied himself, as events were to show, by telling his friends that he fancied himself "a great coward physically," that he felt sure he would make a poor soldier. But he was sufficiently just to himself to add, "Moral cowardice is something which I think I never had."(14)
Lincoln's humor found expression in other ways besides telling stories and laughing at himself. He seized every opportunity to convert a petition into a joke, when this could be done without causing pain. One day, there entered a great man with a long list of favors which he hoped to have granted. Among these was "the case of Betsy Ann Dougherty, a good woman," said the great man. "She lived in my county and did my washing for a long time. Her husband went off and joined the Rebel army and I wish you would give her a protection paper." The pompous gravity of the way the case was presented struck Lincoln as very funny. His visitor had no humor. He failed to see jokes while Lincoln quizzed him as to who and what was Betsy Ann. At length the President wrote a line on a card and handed it to the great man. "Tell Betsy Ann to put a string in this card and hang it round her neck," said he. "When the officers (who may have doubted her affiliations) see this they will keep their hands off your Betsy Ann." On the card was written, "Let Betsy Ann Dougherty alone as long as she behaves herself. A. Lincoln."(15)
This eagerness for a joke now and then gave offense. On one occasion, a noted Congressman called on the President shortly after a disaster. Lincoln began to tell a story. The Congressman jumped up. "Mr. President, I did not come here this morning to hear stories. It is too serious a time." Lincoln's face changed. "Ashley," said he, "sit down! I respect you as an earnest, sincere man. You can not be more anxious than I have been constantly since the beginning of the war; and I say to you now, that were it not for this occasional vent, I should die."(16) Again he said, "When the Peninsula Campaign terminated suddenly at Harrison's Landing, I was as near inconsolable as I could be and live."(17)
Lincoln's imaginative power, the ineradicable artist in him, made of things unseen true realities to his sensibility. Reports of army suffering bowed his spirit. "This was especially' the case when the noble victims were of his own acquaintance, or of the narrower circle of his familiar friends; and then he seemed for the moment possessed of a sense of personal responsibility for their individual fate which was at once most unreasonable and most pitiful." On hearing that two sons of an old friend were desperately wounded and would probably die, he broke out with: "Here, now, are these dear brave boys killed in this cursed war. My God! My God! It is too bad! They worked hard to earn money to educate themselves and this is the end! I loved them as if they were my own."(18) He was one of the few who have ever written a beautiful letter of condolence. Several of his letters attempting this all but impossible task, come as near their mark as such things can. One has become a classic:
"I have been shown," he wrote to Mrs. Bixby, "in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I can not refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."(19)
All these innumerable instances of his sympathy passed from mouth to mouth; became part of a floating propaganda that was organizing the people in his support. To these were added many anecdotes of his mercy. The American people had not learned that war is a rigorous thing. Discipline in the army was often hard to maintain. Impulsive young men who tired of army life, or who quarreled with their officers, sometimes walked away. There were many condemnations either for mutiny or desertion. In the stream of suppliants pouring daily through the President's office, many were parents imploring mercy for rash sons. As every death-warrant had to be signed by the President, his generals were frequently enraged by his refusal to carry out their decisions. "General," said he to an angry commander who charged him with destroying discipline, "there are too many weeping widows in the United States now.-For God's sake don't ask me to add to the number; for I tell you plainly I won't do it."(20)