Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-11-13
A 'NcoLN ANecoo1E.
e'ienced Critlcisms Of Gener,
ran COursa

s'ienced Criticisms Of Genera,
"raD's Course.
o'ant,s successes brought with them
. .1. usual number Of jealousies and lfv-
sllles' Political Generals had their ad.
soeates IN Washington to. plead their
cause, while Grant stood without f,iends
at court. His ~detractors at times oath,
esed a great deal of strength in their
e.orts to supplant him with a General
VI ehe,r own choosing, and Lincoln was
oeset oy many delegation who in.
sls'eo mat nothing would harmonize
matters in the West but Grants remov.
a. This nagggging continued even after
MS great triumph at Vicksbure.
Lincoln always enjoyed telling the
uemnIai. after the two had become per-
sonally intimate, how the crossroads
HGlseacres had criticised his campaigns.
one Gay, after dwelling for some time
on ms subject. he said to Grant: "Af-
.er vicKsburg L thought it was about
s.n'e 70 shut down on this sort of thing.
90 day, when q delegation came to
see me and had spent half an hour trv-
ing to show me the fatal mis-.
C"ke you had made in
Paroling Pembcrton's army. and in
s,stlng that the rebels would violate
thelr paroles and in less than a month
confront you again in the ranks. and
have to be whipped all over arain. !
thought l should get rid of them best
9y telling them a story about Sykes
GoS. "Havc you ever heard about
Sykes yellow dog" said 1 to the
spokesman Of the delegation. He said
he hadn't. .'Wel), l must tell 81 ahont
him." said /. ''Sykes had q yellow doc
he set great store by, but there were 3
lot OF small boys around the village,
and that's always q bad thing for dogs,
you know. These boys didn't share
Sykes views. and they were not dis.
posed TO let the dos have a fair show.
even Sykos had to admit that the dog
was cutting unpopular in fact it was
soon seen that q prejudice was growing
up against that dog that threatened to
wreck all his future prospects in life.
The boys, after meditating how they
could get the best of him, finally fixed
up a cartridge with q long fuse, put the
cartridge in a piece of meat, dropped
the meat in the road in front of Sykes
door, and then perched themselves on q
fence a good distance off with the end
of the fuse in their hands. Then they
whistled for the dog. When he came
out he scented the bait and bolted the
meat. cartridge and all. The BOYS
touched off the fuse with q cigar. and
in about a second a report came from
that dog that sounded like a small clap
OF thunder. Sykes came bouncing out
OF the house, and yelled:
What's up! Anything busted?
There was no reply except a
smoker from the small boys roosting on
the fence, but rs Sykes looked up lie
saw the whole air filled with pieces of
yellow dog. He picked up tho biggest
piece he could find, q portion Of the
back with a part Of the tail still hang
ing to it, and after turning it around
and looking it all over he said, Well, l
guess he'll never be much account
again-as a dog And I guess Pember-
toms forces will never be much account
again-as an army"
The delegation began looking around
for their hats before 1 had quite got to
the end of the story, and 1 was never
bothered any more after that about SUI
perseding the commander of the Army
Of the Tennessee General Porter, ia
Century.