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.