"But I am all ready; and we are equipped, if it comes to the worst, to run!"
"Well, now, if you feel that way--start!"--(E. P. Mitchell, from Dana.)
FIGURES WILL PROVE ANYTHING.
Toward the finish of the Rebellion, Lincoln was asked to what number the enemy might amount. He replied with singular readiness:
"The Confederates have one million two hundred thousand men in the field."
Astonishment being manifested at the precision, he went on, smiling:
"Every time a Union commander gets licked, he says the enemy outnumbered him three or four times. We have three or four hundred thousand, so--logic is logic! they are three times that; say, one million two hundred thousand."
As a fact, at the grand review before the President (Johnson) the two armies of Grant and Sherman, May, 1865, two hundred thousand veterans filed past. Lincoln should have lived to see that glorious march past.
"I DON'T WANT TO--BUT THAT'S IT IF I MUST DIE!"
In the ferment, as the term of Lincoln's first office-holding was terminating, the old war fever returned by which "Little Mac (McClellan), Idol of the Army" was hailed as "the hope of the country." Only this time the presage was that General Grant had only to secure that phantasm, the capture of Richmond, to be nominated and elected. This reached the President's ears through the "hanged good-natured friend," as Sheridan--the wit, not the general--calls the stinging tongue.