"MASTER OF THEM BOTH."
"General McClellan's attitude is such that in the very selfishness of his nature he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will! And the secretary of war (Stanton) is in precisely the same situation. If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only the secretary of war, but myself, for the time being master of both, cannot but be failures."--(Speech, August 6, 1862, at Washington.)
"THE SKEERED VIRGINIAN."
A reviewing-party, of which the President was the center, was stopped at a railroad by Harper's Ferry, to let a locomotive pass, and look at the old engine-house where John Brown, the raider, was penned in and captured. The little switching-engine ran past with much noise and bustle, the engineer blowing the ludicrous whistle in salute to the distinguished visitors. Lincoln referred to the recollections of the scene, where old "Pottowatomie" thrilled the natives with panic lest he raised the negroes to revolt, and remarked, as the engine flew away:
"You call that 'The Flying Dutchman' do you? They ought to call that thing 'The Skeered Virginian!'"--(By General O. O. Howard, a hearer.)
"HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY--"
Shortly after the scandalous rout of Bull Run, the participants in the panic began to try to palliate the disgrace. The President, listening with revived sarcasm to the new perversion, remarked:
"So it is your notion now that we licked the rebels and then ran away!"
NO SUNDAY FIGHTING.
As the first Battle of Bull Run, a sanguinary defeat to the Unionists, was fought on the Sabbath day, the President forbade in the future important movements on the day desecrated. But with singular inconsistency in a sage so clear-headed, he did not see that the Southerners chuckled, "The better the day, the better the deed," in their victory.