"He speaks of no duty--apparently thinks of none--resting upon Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump--live merely as passengers (deadheads, at that!)--to be carried snug and dry through the storm, and safely landed right side up! Nay, more--even a mutineer is to go untouched lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound."--(Letter to C. Bullitt, July 28, 1862.)
THINGS WERE TOPSY-TURVY ALOFT, TOO.
One evening, when Mr. Hall, astronomer, was working in the Naval Observatory, Washington, on the great equatorial telescope, he was startled to have his sanctum invaded by the gaunt, extenuated figure of the President. He was made welcome, of course, and the varied mechanism explained to him. As the crowning "treat," he was given a peer through the celebrated instrument. It was leveled at the moon, or, rather, arranged to have that orb in its focus at the time. The visitor was appalled, as well as wondering at the view, and slowly withdrew by the trap-door. But when the astronomer resumed his observations and calculations he was interrupted by the same sedate and absorbed caller. He returned, perplexed, as, on glancing up at the moon with unhindered vision, he saw it in another position to that presented in the spy-glass.
Mr. Hall made it clear to him that, as the telescope was pointed, not at the satellite but at its image in a mirror, he saw its reflection and consequently the reverse of the face we observe. The President went away with the satisfaction of a man wanting every novelty demonstrated.
HITCHING TO THE MOON.
Lincoln came to Washington,
To view the situation;
And found the world all upside down,
A rumpus in the nation.
(Topical song, 1860.)
A RED FLAG TO HIM.
A most remarkable prelude to the war was the performance through the Northern States of the Chicago Zouaves. The name came from the irregular regiment in the French Algerian service, composed of men worthy of being drummed out of the regular corps; they dressed like the Arabs in the small bolero jacket and baggy red, trousers familiar since. They drilled gymnastically, not to say theatrically. Ellsworth, a clerk in the Lincoln & Herndon law office, had a martial turn, and hearing daily in that quasi-political vortex of the impending crisis, determined to be forearmed in case of the differences coming to blows. He raised, uniformed à la Zou-zou, a score of young men like himself and proceeded to give exhibitions at home and then in the East. The writer retains a vivid memory of the odd and fantastic show, which, however, was regarded as "not war, though magnificent." But Captain Ellsworth was in earnest. Mustered in with his company, he started the Zouave movement which led to two or more regiments being formed. His being the first volunteers at the fore, he claimed the right of the reconnoitering force sent out in May, against Alexandria, to break up railroads held by the rebels. Seeing a rebel flag on a hotel top, he entered the building, and was shot by the landlord in coming down from cutting it away. He was slain instantly, and the like fate befell the murderer, the host, from Ellsworth's guard. Apart from four men killed at Sumter and two in the Baltimore riots, the Chicago Zouave was the first victim of the rebellion. But the position was regained by the secessionists, and the rebel flag replaced the removed one, to the grief of President Lincoln. He could see it from his residence, and Murat Halstead, without knowing the melancholy association of the young officer, being a familiar in his office, reports seeing him dwell with spyglass bent on the flag, for hours.
Elmer Ellsworth, in his last speech, made to the men he was leading out to the front, proves that he imbibed Lincoln's humanity with legal precepts in the office: "Show the enemy that I want to kill them with kindness."