Sketch of the life of Abraham Lincoln

Through New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, to Illinois, all the people followed the funeral train as mourners, but when the remains reached his own State, where he had been personally known to every one, where the people had all heard him on the stump and in court, every family mourned him as a father and a brother. The train reached Springfield on the 3d of May; and the corpse was taken to Oak Ridge Cemetery, and there, among his old friends and neighbors, his clients, and constituents, surrounded by representatives from the Army and Navy, with delegations from every State, with all the people, the world for his mourners – was he buried.

PERSONAL SKETCHES OF LINCOLN. 8

In the remaining pages, I shall attempt to give a word-picture of Mr. Lincoln, his person, his moral and intellectual characteristics, and some personal recollections, so as to aid the reader, as far as I may be able, in forming an ideal of the man.

Physically, he was a tall, spare man, six feet and four inches in height. He stooped, leaning forward as he walked. He was very athletic, with long, sinewy arms, large, bony hands, and of great physical power. Many anecdotes of his strength are given, which show that it was equal to that of two or three ordinary men. He lifted with ease five or six hundred pounds. His legs and arms were disproportionately long, as compared with his body; and when he walked, he swung his arms to and fro more than most men. When seated, he did not seem much taller than ordinary men. In his movements there was no grace, but an impression of awkward strength and vigor.

He was naturally diffident, and even to the day of his death, when in crowds, and not speaking or acting, and conscious of being observed, he seemed to shrink with bashfulness. When he became interested, or spoke, or listened, this appearance left him, and he indicated no self-consciousness. His forehead was high and broad, his hair very dark, nearly black, and rather stiff and coarse, his eyebrows were heavy, his eyes dark-gray, very expressive and varied; now sparkling with humor and fun, and then deeply sad and melancholy; flashing with indignation at injustice or wrong, and then kind, genial, droll, dreamy; according to his mood.

His nose was large, and clearly defined and well shaped; cheek-bones high and projecting. His mouth coarse, but firm. He was easily caricatured – but difficult to represent as he was, in marble or on canvass. The best bust of him is that of Volk, which was modeled from a cast taken from life in May, 1860, while he was attending court at Chicago.

Among the best portraits, in the judgment of his family and intimate friends, are those of Carpenter, in the picture of the Reading of the Proclamation of Emancipation before the Cabinet, and that of Marshall.

He would be instantly recognized as belonging to that type of tall, thin, large-boned men, produced in the northern portion of the Valley of the Mississippi, and exhibiting its peculiar characteristics in a most marked degree in Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. In any crowd in the United States, he would have been readily pointed out as a Western man. His stature, figure, manner, voice, and accent, indicated that he was of the Northwest. His manners were cordial, familiar, genial; always perfectly self-possessed, he made every one feel at home, and no one approached him without being impressed with his kindly, frank nature, his clear, good sense, and his transparent truthfulness and integrity. There is more or less of expression and character in handwriting. Lincoln's was plain, simple, clear, and legible, as that of Washington; but unlike that of Washington, it was without ornament.

In endeavoring to state those qualities which gave him success and greatness, among the most important, it seems to me, were a supreme love of truth, and a wonderful capacity to ascertain it. Mentally, he had a perfect eye for truth. His mental vision was clear and accurate: he saw things as they were. I mean that every thing presented to his mind for investigation, he saw divested of every extraneous circumstance, every coloring, association, or accident which could mislead. This gave him at the bar a sagacity which seemed almost instinctive, in sifting the true from the false, and in ascertaining facts; and so it was in all things through life. He ever sought the real, the true, and the right. He was exact, carefully accurate in all his statements. He analyzed well; he saw and presented what lawyers call the very gist of every question, divested of all unimportant or accidental relations, so that his statement was a demonstration. At the bar, his exposition of his case, or a question of law, was so clear, that, on hearing it, most persons were surprised that there should be any controversy about it. His reasoning powers were keen and logical, and moved forward to a demonstration with the precision of mathematics. What has been said implies that he possessed not only a sound judgment, which brought him to correct conclusions, but that he was able so to present questions as to bring others to the same result.

His memory was capacious, ready, and tenacious. His reading was limited in extent, but his memory was so ready, and so retentive, that in history, poetry, and general literature, no one ever remarked any deficiency. As an illustration of the power of his memory, I recollect to have once called at the White House, late in his Presidency, and introducing to him a Swede and a Norwegian; he immediately repeated a poem of eight or ten verses, describing Scandinavian scenery and old Norse legends. In reply to the expression of their delight, he said that he had read and admired the poem several years before, and it had entirely gone from him, but seeing them recalled it.

The two books which he read most were the Bible and Shakespeare. With these he was very familiar, reading and studying them habitually and constantly. He had great fondness for poetry, and eloquence, and his taste and judgment in each was exquisite. Shakespeare was his favorite poet; Burns stood next. I know of a speech of his at a Burns festival, in which he spoke at length of Burns's poems; illustrating what he said by many quotations, showing perfect familiarity with and full appreciation of the peasant poet of Scotland. He was extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad, and plaintive music.

He was a most admirable reader. He read and repeated passages from the Bible and Shakespeare with great simplicity but remarkable expression and effect. Often when going to and from the army, on steamers and in his carriage, he took a copy of Shakespeare with him, and not unfrequently read, aloud to his associates. After conversing upon public affairs, he would take up his Shakespeare, and addressing his companions, remark, "What do you say now to a scene from Macbeth, or Hamlet, or Julius Cæsar," and then he would read aloud, scene after scene, never seeming to tire of the enjoyment.

On the last Sunday of his life, as he was coming up the Potomac, from his visit to City Point and Richmond, he read aloud many extracts from Shakespeare. Among others, he read, with an accent and feeling which no one who heard him will ever forget, extracts from Macbeth, and among others the following: —

"Duncan is in his grave;After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothingCan touch him farther."

After "treason" had "done his worst," the friends who heard him on that occasion remembered that he read that passage very slowly over twice, and with an absorbed and peculiar manner. Did he feel a mysterious presentiment of his approaching fate?

His conversation was original, suggestive, instructive, and playful; and, by its genial humor, fascinating and attractive beyond comparison. Mirthfulness and sadness were strongly combined in him. His mirth was exuberant, it sparkled in jest, story, and anecdote; and the next moment those peculiarly sad, pathetic, melancholy eyes, showed a man "familiar with sorrow, and acquainted with grief." I have listened for hours at his table, and elsewhere, when he has been surrounded by statesmen, military leaders, and other distinguished men of the nation, and I but repeat the universally concurring verdict of all, in stating that as a conversationalist he had no equal. One might meet in company with him the most distinguished men, of various pursuits and professions, but after listening for two or three hours, on separating, it was what Lincoln had said that would be remembered. His were the ideas and illustrations that would not be forgotten. Men often called upon him for the pleasure of listening to him. I have heard the reply to an invitation to attend the theater, "No, I am going up to the White House. I would rather hear Lincoln talk for half an hour, than attend the best theater in the world."

As a public speaker, without any attempt at oratorical display, I think he was the most effective of any man of his day. When he spoke, everybody listened. It was always obvious, before he completed two sentences, that he had something to say, and it was sure to be something original, something different from any thing heard from others, or which had been read in books. He impressed the hearer at once, as an earnest, sincere man, who believed what he said. To-day, there are more of the sayings of Lincoln repeated by the people, more quotations, sentences, and extracts from his writings and speeches, familiar as "household words," than from those of any other American.

I know no book, except the Bible and Shakespeare, from which so many familiar phrases and expressions have been taken as from his writings and speeches. Somebody has said, "I care not who makes the laws, if I may write the ballads of a nation." The words of Lincoln have done more in the last six years to mold and fashion the American character than those of any other man, and their influence has been all for truth, right, justice, and liberty. Great as has been Lincoln's services to the people, as their President, his influence, derived from his words and his example, in molding the future national character, in favor of justice, right, liberty, truth, and real, sincere, unostentatious reverence for God, is scarcely less important. The Republic of the future, the matured national character, will be more influenced by him than by any other man. This is evidence of his greatness, intellectual, and still more, moral. In this power of impressing himself upon the people, he contrasts with many other distinguished men in our history. Few quotations from Jefferson, or Adams, or Webster, live in the every-day language of the people. Little of Clay survives; not much of Calhoun, and who can quote, off-hand, half a dozen sentences from Douglas? But you hear Lincoln's words, not only in every cabin and caucus, and in every stump speech, but at every school-house, high-school, and college declamation, and by every farmer and artisan, as he tells you story after story of Lincoln's, and all to the point, hitting the nail on the head every time, and driving home the argument. Mr. Lincoln was not a scholar, but where is there a speech more exhaustive in argument than his Cooper Institute address? Where any thing more full of pathos than his farewell to his neighbors at Springfield, when he bade them good-bye, on starting for the capital? Where any thing more eloquent than his appeal for peace and union, in his first Inaugural, or than his defense of the Declaration of Independence in the Douglas debates? Where the equal of his speech at Gettysburg? Where a more conclusive argument than in his letter to the Albany Meeting on Arrests? What is better than his letter to the Illinois State Convention; and that to Hodges of Kentucky, in explanation of his anti-slavery policy? Where is there any thing equal in simple grandeur of thought and sentiment, to his last Inaugural? From all of these, and many others, from his every-day talks, are extracts on the tongues of the people, as familiar, and nearly as much reverenced, as texts from the Bible; and these are shaping the national character. "Though dead, he yet speaketh."

As a public speaker, if excellence is measured by results, he had no superior. His manner was generally earnest, often playful; sometimes, but this was rare, he was vehement and impassioned. There have been a few instances, at the bar and on the stump, when, wrought up to indignation by some great personal wrong, or by an aggravated case of fraud or injustice, or when speaking of the fearful wrongs and injustice of slavery, he broke forth in a strain of impassioned vehemence which carried every thing before him.

Generally, he addressed the reason and judgment, and the effect was lasting. He spoke extemporaneously, but not without more or less preparation. He had the power of repeating, without reading it, a discourse or speech which he had prepared or written out. His great speech, in opening the Douglas canvass, in June, 1858, was carefully written out, but so naturally spoken that few suspected that it was not extemporaneous. In his style, manner of presenting facts, and way of putting things to the people, he was more like Franklin than any other American. His illustrations, by anecdote and story, were not unlike the author of Poor Richard.

A great cause of his intellectual power was the thorough exhaustive investigation he gave to every subject. Take, for illustration, his Cooper Institute speech. Hundreds of able and intelligent men have spoken on the same subject treated by him in that speech, yet what they said will all be forgotten, and his will survive; because his address is absolutely perfect for the purpose for which it was designed. Nothing can be added to it.

Mr. Lincoln, however, required time thoroughly to investigate before he came to his conclusions, and the movements of his mind were not rapid; but when he reached his conclusions he believed in them, and adhered to them with great firmness and tenacity. When called upon to decide quickly upon a new subject or a new point, he often erred, and was ever ready to change when satisfied he was wrong.

It was the union, in Mr. Lincoln, of the capacity clearly to see the truth, and an innate love of truth, and justice, and right in his heart, that constituted his character and made him so great. He never demoralized his intellectual or moral powers, either by doing wrong that good might come, or by advocating error because it was popular. Although, as a statesman, eminently practical, and looking to the possible good of to-day, he ever kept in mind the absolute truth and absolute right, toward which he always aimed.

Mr. Lincoln was an unselfish man; he never sought his own advancement at the expense of others. He was a just man; he never tried to pull others down that he might rise. He disarmed rivalry and envy by his rare generosity. He possessed the rare wisdom of magnanimity. He was eminently a tender-hearted, kind, and humane man. These traits were illustrated all through his life. He loved to pardon: he was averse to punish. It was difficult for him to deny the request of a child, a woman, or of any who were weak and suffering. Pages of incidents might be quoted, showing his ever-thoughtful kindness, gratitude to, and appreciation of the soldiers. The following note (written to a lady known to him only by her sacrifices for her country) is selected from many on this subject: —

"Executive Mansion, Washington,"November, 1864.

"Dear Madam: —

"I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I can not refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

"Yours very respectfully,"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts."

One summer's day, in walking along the shaded path which leads from the White House to the War Department, I saw the tall form of the President seated on the grass under a tree, with a wounded soldier sitting by his side. He had a bundle of papers in his hand. The soldier had met him in the path, and, recognizing him, had asked his aid. Mr. Lincoln sat down upon the grass, investigated the case, and sent the soldier away rejoicing. In the midst of the rejoicings over the triumphs at Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, he forgets not to telegraph to Grant, "Remember Burnside" at Knoxville.

His charity, in the best sense of that word, was pervading. When others railed, he railed not again. No bitter words, no denunciation can be found in his writings or speeches. Literally, in his heart there was "malice toward none, and charity for all."

Mr. Lincoln was by nature a gentleman. No man can point, in all his lifetime, to any thing mean, small, tricky, dishonest, or false; on the contrary, he was ever open, manly, brave, just, sincere, and true. That characteristic, attributed to him by some, of coarse story-telling, did not exist. I assert that my intercourse with him was constant for many years before he went to Washington, and I saw him daily, during the greater part of his Presidency; and although his stories and anecdotes were racy, witty, and pointed beyond all comparison, yet I never heard one of a character to need palliation or excuse. If a story had wit and was apt, he did not reject it, because to a vulgar or impure mind it suggested coarse ideas; but he himself was unconscious of any thing but its wit and aptness.

It may interest the people who did not visit Washington during his Presidency, to know something of his habits, and the room he occupied and transacted business in, during his administration. His reception-room was on the second floor, on the south side of the White House, and the second apartment from the southeast corner. The corner room was occupied by Mr. Nicolay, his private secretary; next to this was the President's reception-room. It was, perhaps, thirty by twenty feet. In the middle of the west side, was a large marble fireplace, with old-fashioned brass andirons, and a large, high, brass fender. The windows looked to the south, upon the lawn and shrubbery on the south front of the White House, taking in the unfinished Washington Monument, Alexandria, the Potomac, and down that beautiful river toward Mount Vernon. Across the Potomac was Arlington Heights. The view from these windows was altogether very beautiful.

The furniture of this room consisted of a long oak table, covered with cloth, and oak chairs. This table stood in the center of the room, and was the one around which the Cabinet sat, at Cabinet meetings, and is faithfully painted in Carpenter's picture of the Emancipation Proclamation. At the end of the table, near the window, was a large writing-table and desk, with pigeon-holes for papers, such as are common in lawyers' offices. In front of this, in a large arm-chair, Mr. Lincoln usually sat. Behind his chair, and against the west wall of the room, was another writing-desk high enough to write upon when standing, and upon the top of this were a few books, among which were the Statutes of the United States, a Bible, and a copy of Shakespeare. There was a bureau, with wooden doors, with pigeon-holes for papers, standing between the windows. Here the President kept such papers as he wished readily to refer to. There were two plain sofas in the room; generally two or three map-frames, from which hung military maps, on which the movements of the armies were continually traced and followed. The only picture in the room was an old engraving of Jackson, which hung over the fireplace; late in his administration was added a fine photograph of John Bright. Two doors opened into this room – one from the Secretary's, the other from the great hall, where the crowd usually waited. A bell-cord hung within reach of his hand, while he sat at his desk. There was an ante-room adjoining this, plainly furnished; but the crowd usually pressed to the hall, from which an entrance might be directly had to the President's room. A messenger stood at the door, and took in the cards and names of visitors.

Here, in this room, more plainly furnished than many law and business offices – plainer than the offices of the heads of bureaus in the Executive Departments – Mr. Lincoln spent the days of his Presidency. Here he received everybody, from the Lieutenant-General and Chief-Justice, down to the private soldier and humblest citizen. Custom had established certain rules of precedence, fixing the order in which officials should be received. The members of the Cabinet and the high officers of the army were, of course, received always promptly. Senators and members of Congress, who are usually charged with the presentation of petitions and recommendations for appointments, and who are expected to right every wrong and correct every evil each one of their respective constituents may be suffering, or imagine himself to be suffering, have an immense amount of business with the Executive. I have often seen as many as ten or fifteen Senators and twenty or thirty Members of the House in the hall, waiting their turn to see the President. They would go to the ante-room, or up to the hall in front of the reception-room, and await their turns. The order of precedence was, first the Vice-President, if present, then the Speaker of the House, and then Senators and Members of the House in the order of their arrival, and the presentation of their cards. Frequently Senators and Members would go to the White House as early as eight or nine in the morning, to secure precedence and an early interview. While they waited, the loud ringing laugh of Mr. Lincoln, in which he was sure to be joined by all inside, but which was rather provoking to those outside, was often heard by the waiting and impatient crowd. Here, from early morning to late at night, he sat, listened, and decided – patient, just, considerate, hopeful. All the people came to him as to a father. He was more accessible than any of the leading members of his Cabinet – much more so than Mr. Seward, shut up in the State Department, writing his voluminous dispatches; far more so than Mr. Stanton, indefatigable, stern, abrupt, but ever honest and faithful. Mr. Lincoln saw everybody – governors, senators, congressmen, officers, ministers, bankers, merchants, farmers – all classes of people; all approached him with confidence, from the highest to the lowest; but this incessant labor and fearful responsibility told upon his vigorous frame. He left Illinois for the capital, with a frame of iron and nerves of steel. His old friends, who knew him in Illinois as a man who knew not what illness was, who knew him ever genial and sparkling with fun, as the months and years of the war passed slowly on, saw the wrinkles on his forehead deepened into furrows; and the laugh of old days became sometimes almost hollow; it did not now always seem to come from the heart, as in former years. Anxiety, responsibility, care, thought, wore upon even his giant frame, and his nerves of steel became at times irritable. For more than four years he had no respite, no holidays. When others fled away from the dust and heat of the capital, he must stay; he would not leave the helm until the danger was past and the ship was in port.

Mrs. Lincoln watched his care-worn face with the anxiety of an affectionate wife, and sometimes took him from his labors almost in spite of himself. She urged him to ride, and to go to the theater and places of amusement, to divert his mind from his engrossing cares.

Let us for a moment try to appreciate the greatness of his work and his services. He was the Commander-in-Chief, during the war, of the largest army and navy in the world; and this army and navy was created during his administration, and its officers were sought out and appointed by him. The operations of the Treasury were vast beyond all previous conceptions of the ability of the country to sustain; and yet, when he entered upon the Presidency, he found an empty treasury, the public credit shaken, no army, no navy, the officers all strangers, many deserting, more in sympathy with the rebels, Congress divided, and public sentiment unformed. The party which elected him were in a minority. The old Democratic party, which had ruled the country for half a century, hostile to him, and, by long political association, in sympathy with the insurgent States. His own party, new, made up of discordant elements, and not yet consolidated, unaccustomed to rule, and neither his party nor himself possessing any prestige. He entered the White House, the object of personal prejudice to a majority of the people, and of contempt to a powerful minority. And yet I am satisfied, from the statement of the conversation of Mr. Lincoln with Mr. Bateman, quoted hereafter, and from various other reasons, that he himself more fully appreciated the terrible conflict before him than any man in the nation, and that even then he hoped and expected to be the Liberator of the slaves. He did not yet clearly perceive the manner in which it was to be done, but he believed it would be done, and that God would guide him.