Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-10-21
ONE OF LINCOLN'S STORIES.
Ho,u a Poor Woman Secured He,. Son
PGrfZon.

dotO a IO0T Woman Secured Her Sons
Pardon.
There was certain Missouri regiment COM
manded by Gen. Fisk. 1t was largely COM
posed of those chaps picked up on the levee
of st. Louis, rough uncouth, ready for almost
anything, in word, but good hearted fell
lows. Gen. Fisk was pious and good
man. He found he was the colonel of the
profanest regiment in the whole army. At
ter he had been with them long enough to
find them out, and they to find him out, he
called them together once and said: Now. I
want to make one proposition to you. One
of the first orders that Gen. Washington
issued to his army was one against profani-
ty. Now, / don't intend to issue any order
of that kind but intend to let Won vote
about it. I am the colonel of this regiment.
and I am going to do all the swearing for it.
Now, will you agree by vote that YOU will
not swear, but will leave mo to do all the
swearing? The boys voted that they would
do it, and there was a. diminution in the
swearing of that regiment FIR some time
But one night there was Kentucky mule
driver-and I can tell you Kentucky
mule-driver can swear some. His six-mule
team got stalled just as he was coming up
with the generals tents and headquarters
articles, and the stream of profanity that
poured out of the mouth of that Kentucky
mule-driver really freighted and burdened
the air. After it was all over Fisk called
him to his tent. He said to the soldier
Don't you know that it was agreed by vote
of the regiment that was to do all the
swearing of the regiment?' ''Yes,'' said the
man. swell, here you are swearing loud
enough to be heard through all the surround
ing camps s'That's all right, colonel;
that's all right" said the man. II know we
voted that way, but the swearing had to be
done then and YOU were not there'' One
day in the lecture-room in Washington city,
among the winters of 1864 and 1866, Col.
Fisk told that story in little lecture.
Abraham Lincoln was sitting in one of the
front seats with his hand clasped over his
knee, enjoying it very much, and laughed at
1t as he would at good anecdote. It hap
pened that there came to him an unfortunate
old lady who said she must talk with the
President. She told him her son in the
East, who had gone into. the union
army, when coming near his home, had gone
off TO visit his mother, or, perhaps, his
sweetheart, and the army, instead of march
ing on in the direction he supposed it would,
took another route, and he was gone three
or four weeks. He was finally arrested as
deserter, convicted and sentenced to be ex7,
ecuted, There had been a good deal of that
sort OF thing. There must be no more of
this weak-hearted policy. she told her
story, and Lincoln says: "There is good
deal in this; give me the papers you have; 1
sympathlze with you, and I will take the
papers and ask the secretary of war, Stanton.
to look into it, and we will see what we can
DO Tor you. But says she, stthe execu-
ton takes place next Friday, and YOU must
give me the pardon now.'' ssWhy," said
Lincoln, ''that reminds me of a little story
and then he went on and told her the whole
story, and the poor women stood there while
he told the story I have been telling you.
After enjoying the story as Lincoln did, he
picked up an old. yellow envelope and wrote
on it 'Let John Thomas be pardoned,'' and
sent it to the war department., and the
mother was happy.