On the Blister-Bench
At the taking of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1862, the steamer Valley City was saved from blowing up by a gunner’s-mate. This John Davis coolly sat on a powder-keg from which the top had been shot off, and was so found by an officer, who hastily censured him for his loafing—“bumming” during recess. But, on the reason for his taking his seat being pointed out, Davis was recommended for promotion. In countersigning the papers entitling him to the rank of gunner, at a thousand a year for life, the President mock-solemnly observed:
“Metaphorically, we occupy the same position; we are sitting on the powder under fire!”
“ABE, A THUNDERING OLD GLORY!”
Ex-Registrar Chittenden tells the following incident. It was the 14th of April, 1865. Captain Robert Lincoln, on General Grant’s staff, had brought the details of the victory of Appomattox, and the gratified chief had passed the day with the Cabinet revolving those plans of reconstruction which amazed all the world by their exclusion of all bitterness and retaliation. He was coming down the White House stairway to take his accustomed ride in the carriage when he heard a soldier in the waiting crowd say:
“I would almost give my other hand (he was one-armed) if I could shake Abe Lincoln’s hand!”
Lincoln confronted him. “You shall do that, and it shall cost you nothing!” interrupted the revivified President, grasping the lone hand, and, while he held it, he asked the man’s name, regiment, etc.
The happy soldier, in telling of this meeting, would end: “I tell you, boys, Abe Lincoln is a thundering Old Glory!”