Mr. Lincoln enjoyed telling of the youth who emigrated to the West and wrote back East to his father who was something of a politician: "Dear Dad,—I have settled at —— and like it first rate. Do come out here, for almighty mean men get office here."
Thurlow Weed tells of breakfasting with Lincoln and Judge Davis while in Springfield in December prior to Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration. Judge Davis remarked Mr. Weed's fondness for sausage and said, "You seem fond of our Chicago sausages." To which Mr. Weed responded that he was, and thought the article might be relied on where pork was cheaper than dogs. "That," said Mr. Lincoln, "reminds me of what occurred down in Joliet, where a popular grocer supplied all the villagers with sausages. One Saturday evening, when his grocery was filled with customers, for whom he and his boys were busily engaged in weighing sausages, a neighbor with whom he had had a violent quarrel that day came into the grocery, made his way up to the counter, holding two enormous dead cats by the tail, which he deliberately threw onto the counter saying, 'This makes seven to-day. I'll call round Monday and get my money for them.'"
Mr. Lincoln read men and women quickly, and was so keen a judge of their peculiarities that none escaped his observation.
Once a very attractive woman consumed a good deal of Mr. Lincoln's time. He finally dismissed her with a card directed to Secretary Stanton on which he had written: "This woman, dear Stanton, is a little smarter than she looks to be."
CHAPTER IX.
THE ANTIETAM EPISODE.—LINCOLN'S LOVE OF SONG.
In the autumn of 1862 I chanced to be associated with Mr. Lincoln in a transaction which, though innocent and commonplace in itself, was blown by rumor and surmise into a revolting and deplorable scandal. A conjectural lie, although mean, misshapen, and very small at its birth, grew at length into a tempest of defamation, whose last echoes were not heard until its noble victim had yielded his life to a form of assassination only a trifle more deadly.
Mr. Lincoln was painted as the prime mover in a scene of fiendish levity more atrocious than the world had ever witnessed since human nature was shamed and degraded by the capers of Nero and Commodus. I refer to what is known as the Antietam song-singing; and I propose to show that the popular construction put upon that incident was wholly destitute of truth.