No “Dutch Courage.”
After the miraculous intervention of the Ericsson Monitor, the President took a party aboard to inspect the little champion which had saved the fleet and, perhaps, the capital, where the captain received them. He apologized for the limited accommodation, and for the lack of the traditional lemon and necessary attributes for a presidential visit. But the teetotaler chief merrily replied:
“Some uncharitable persons say that old Bourbon valor inspires our generals in the field, but it is plain that Dutch courage was not needed on board of the Monitor!”
“IF I HAD AS MUCH MONEY AND WAS AS BADLY SKEERED——”
In March, 1862, after her terrifying exploits, the Merrimac ram was reported to have escaped to sea and was seeking fresh prey to devour. The Eastern seaports were in a panic. A deputation of New York’s merchant princes, bullion barons, and plutocrats generally, representing “a hundred millions,” was the rumor heralding their “rush” visit to the capital, arrived at the White House.
The spokesman faltered that the great metropolis was in peril, that treasures were involved by the apprehension, and that, in brief, the government ought to take measures to defend the Empire City from the spite of this irresistible ocean-terror.
At the conclusion, the patient hearer responded:
“Well, gentlemen, the government has at present no vessel which can sink this Merrimac. (They were not, for state reasons, to know what the sly fox had up his sleeve.) The government is pretty poor; its credit is not good; its legal-tender notes are worth only forty cents on your Wall Street; and we have to pay you a high rate of interest on our loans. Now, if I were in your place, and had as much money as you represent, and was as badly skeered as you say you are—I’d go right back to New York and build some war-vessels and present them to the government.”—(Authenticated by Schuyler Colfax, afterward vice-president under General Grant; and by Judge Davis, who presented the delegation.)
“IT PLEASES HER, AND IT DON’T HURT ME.”
April, 1862, closed brilliantly for the Union, as New Orleans was captured. General Porter Phelps issued a proclamation which freed the slaves. As on previous occasions, when this bomb was brought out, the President had directed its being stifled and reserved for his occasion, there was wonder that he took no official notice of the premature flash. Taken to task by a friendly critic for his odd omission, he deigned to reply:
“Well, I feel about it a good deal like that big, burly, good-natured canal laborer who had a little waspy bit of a wife, in the habit of beating him. One day she put him out of the house and switched him up and down the street. A friend met him a day or two after, and rebuked him with the words:
“‘Tom, as you know, I have always stood up for you, but I am not going to do so any longer. Any man may stand for a bullyragging by his wife, but when he takes a switching from her right out on the public highway, he deserves to be horsewhipped.’
“Tom looked up with a wink on his broad face, and, slapping the interferer on the back with a leg-of-mutton fist, rejoined:
“‘Why, drop it! It pleases her and it don’t hurt me!’”
“LET HIM SQUEAL IF HE WORKS.”
One of the Northern war governors was admirably loyal and devoted to the reunion, but he was set on doing things his own way, and protested every time he was called on for men or material. Lincoln saw that he was willing, and was only like the lady who “methinks protests too much.” So he told Secretary Stanton, who laid before him the objections:
“Never mind! These despatches do not mean anything. Go right ahead. The governor reminds me of a boy I knew at a launching. He was a small boy, chosen to fit the hollow in the midst of the ways where he should lie down, after knocking out the king-dog, which holds the ship on the stocks, when all other checks are removed. The boy did everything right, but yelled as if he was being murdered every time the keel rushed over him in the channel. I thought the hide was being peeled from his back, but he wasn’t hurt a mite.
“The shipyard-master told me that the boy was always chosen for the job, doing his work well and never being hurt, but that he always squealed in that way.
“Now, that’s the way with our governor; make up your mind that he is not hurt and that he is doing the work all right, and pay no attention to his squealing.”
To his confidant, General Viele, the President said:
“We cannot afford to quarrel with the governors of the loyal States about collateral issues. We want their soldiers.”