The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-02-10

world will not forget that you fought III.
battle of Stone river, and it will never care
fig whether you rank General Grant on paper
or he so ranks you"
When 1t happened, as it sometimes did.
that the jealousies between Generals became
open conflicts, and Lincoln was called upo1
by one or the other to interfere, he neye?
hesitated to refuse if he felt that his inter.
ference woulu comp11cate matters. Genera11.
he managed to put into his refusal word
good sense which if 1t had been needed woult
have saved the country much disagreeabl.
scandal and often would have saved the con-
testant his reputation. case to the poin
occurred In January, 1868, when McClernant
and Halleck were having trouble and Nc
Clernand appealed to Lincoln. The Presi-
dents reply was terse but sufficient:
Il have too many family controversies, 60
to speak, already on my hands to voluntarily,
or so long as can avoid it, take up another.
You are now doing vell-well for the coun-
try and we'll for yourself--much better thar
you could possibly be; If engaged in open W.
with General Halleck. Allow me to beg
that for your sake, for my sake. and for the
country's sake, you give your whole attention
TO the better work"
How Lincoln Wrote Letters.
t. It would not be: difficult to extend these
quotations to great length for throughout tho
war the President showed the same patience
and good sense in cases where it seemed to
him that his couHsels might be useful. He
never spared those to whom he wrote: he
never hesitated 10 lay bare their offenses and
their base motives, but he did it with an in
s1ght and observation-disclosures which softened
the unreasoning and impetuous and for the
time at least made them better soldiers and
wiser men. Though he wrote so large num-
Der Of these letters of counsel, he never wrote
one thoughtlessly. He realized the delicacy Of
giving unsought advice, and only when he felt
1t his duty did he write. Even after he had
written he sometimes was a long time in send
ing. Not long ago the War Department Sc
cured an admirable letter of good counsel
which the President wrote in December, 1861,
10 General David Hunter, who was dissatisfied
with his place in the West and was inundating
the War Department with what Mr. Lincoln
called ugly" letters. On the back of the let
ter in question General Hunter had written,
THE Presidents reply to my ugly letter."
This lay on his table month after it was writ
ten. and when finally sent was by a special
conveyance, with the direction that it was
only to be given to me when was in a good
tumor.''
There is in existence draft of a letter
dated Sept %. 1863, and addressed to General
A. e. Burnside, in which Lincoln reviews the
daily promises that the General had been
making to move to the aid Of Rosecrans, then
shut up in Chattanooga and his steady move
wrote the document he evidently felt that
Burnside's own reports were the severest wit
resGes against him, for in his opening SEN
terce be declared that Burnsides conduct
made him doubt whether he was awake OF
dreaming" Yet, justified as he undoubtedly
felt he was when he wrote the. letter, he
never sentit. He held it, hoping, as he always
DID, that something would happen to make 1t
unnecessary. The events of the next f..
weeks outlawed this particular document, and
Il exists today simply as proof of Lincoln 6
.unwillngness to criticise and advise unneces-
ssrily.
Sarcasm for General Mcclellan.
Although so uniformly kind even in his re-
Dukes, there is more than one case on record
where President Lncoln's patience failed anG
lie" fS.1it g. telegram of bitter sarcasm to Cen
eraE Such was his message to Mcclellan on
Oct. "a, 1862, when that General, after five
idle weeks, refused to pursue the enemy be-
cause his cavalry horses had sore tongues. 1t
waa drop too much for Lincoln.
Il have just read your dispatch about sore
tongued and fatigued horses" he wired. will
you not pardon me for asking what the horses
OF your army have done since the battle OF
Antieam that fatigues anything?'
Yet even for this telegram he half apol-
ogized two days later:
Most certainly l intend no inju5tice to
any, and if I have done any l deeply regret
total inaction Of the army, and during which
period we have sent to the army every fresh
horse We possibly could, amounting in the
whole to 1913, that the cavalry horses were
too much fatigued to move, presents very
cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the
future, and it may have forced something
Of Impotence in my Dispatch
One pleasant feature of Mr.. Lincoln's re-
lations to his Generals was the heartiness
with which he acknowledged every advance.
''God bless you and your army was the gist
of many a telegram many verbal message
which he sent. Perhaps of all these congrat-
ulatory messages none is pleasanter reading
in the light of later events than the Presi-
dents letter to General Grant after Vicks
burg. In way it may be called Lincoln's
first recognition Of Grant:
major General Grant-My Dear General
[ DO not remember that you and have ever
met personally. I write this now as a CRATE
full acknowledgment for the almost inestim-
able service you have done the country.
wish to say word further. When you first
reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, thought
you should do what you finally did--march the
troops across the neck, run the batteries with
the transports, and thus go below and I never
had any faith, except a general hope, that you
knew better than l, that the Yazoo pass ex-
petition and the like could succeed. When
you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand
Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go
NoWh IlIC 11fSl C-Ilu JUL dcHSI al DduNS, anu
when YOU turned northward, east of the Big
Black, feared it was mistake. 1 now wish
to make the personal acknowledgment that
you were right and I was wrong. Yours very
truly, A. LINCOLN"
Comparatively little of these close relations
of Lincoln with his Generals was known to the
public during the war. 1t was not until twenty
years after his death, when his secretaries,
Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, published their
great work, which must remain through all
time. the most important source for the his
tory Of Abraham Lincoln, that the greater
number of these wise, keen, kind letters were
given to the public. IDA M. TARBELL.
What the Beers Are Fighting For.
Kansas City Star: There are plenty of
sentimental reasons for sympathizing
with the Beers without resorting to clap
trap. The Beers are fighting to prevent
the strangers from ruling their country
by securing citizenship and outvoting
them and changing Boer customs to Eng
lish customs. They are not fighting for
republicanism, but for oligarchy. They
are not fighting for democracy, but to re-
tain their identity by denying democracy