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LINCOLNIANA

OR THE HUMORS OF UNCLE ABE

By ANDREW ADDERUP

1864

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Preface

Is Joe Miller "complete?" I doubt it, maugre the pretenses of
title-pages. An old joke is sometimes like a piece of painted glass in
a kaleidoscope--every turn gives it a new aspect, and the new view is
sometimes taken for the original phase. Perhaps this is true of some
herein, although I am unconscious of that being so. If the accusation be
made, try Uncle Abe first, for he is used to trials. As for me, I shall
plead my privilege of telling you "the tale as it was told to me." But
if these "little jokes" be not "sworn upon" for Miller, they shall stand
for Uncle Abe--the writer hereof claiming only a godfathership. And
others shall follow as fast as I glean them. To aid this purpose, let
everybody who has a "good thing" send it to the publisher of this, and
duly it will appear in the "complete" edition of Uncle Abe's jokes,
always excepting the last, for the act of dying over will remind him of
some little story with a _hic jacet_ moral.

ANDREW ADDERUP.

Springfield, Ill., April 1, 1864.




LINCOLNIANA; OR, THE HUMORS OF UNCLE ABE,



An Involuntary Black Republican.

Sometime after Mr. Lincoln's well remembered passage of the rebel
Rubicon at Baltimore, some radical Republicans, who thought they saw
some signs of the President's backwardness in vindicating the Chicago
platform, went in committee to the White House to beg him to carry out
his principles--or rather to stretch them in Queen Dido's style.

"I don't know about it, gentlemen," replied Uncle Abe; "with a pretty
strong opposition at home and a rebellion at the South, we'd best push
republicanism rather slow. Fact is, I'm worse off than old blind Jack
Loudermill was when he got married on a short courtship. Some one asked
him a few days after, how he liked his new position. 'Dunno,' said he;
'I went it blind to start with, and ain't had a chance to feel my way to
a conclusion yet.' So it is with me. Perhaps you can see further than I
can, to me the future is dark and lowering; and we have now got to feel
every step of our way forward. Making Republicans used to be hard work,
and I don't see as I could do much at it now, unless I proselyte by
giving fat offices to weak-kneed opponents; but that," continued
Uncle Abe, with a sly look toward several of his old Illinois friends,
"would'nt be quite fair to those who believe that 'to the victors belong
the spoils.' Your idea about pushing things reminds me of the first
_black_ Republican I ever made."

And the President threw his left leg over his right and subsided into
that air of _abandon_ which denotes his pregnancy of a good story.

"You see, gentlemen," he began, "in my boyhood days, I had a slim chance
for schooling, and did'nt improve what I did have. Occasionally a Yankee
would wander into Kentuck, and open a school in the log building that
was a church and school house as well, and keep it till he got starved
out or heard of a better location. One Fall a bald headed, sour-visaged
old man came along and opened the school, and my people concluded I must
go; as usual the big boys soon began to test the master, who, though he
was a patient Jeffersonian Republican, seemed very tyrannical to us. My
good nature singled me out soon, as the scapegoat of the school, and I
got more than my share of the birch: at least, my back was as good as an
almanac, for every day of the week was recorded there. But, though this
record of past time was no pastime to me, I could stand it better than I
could the taunts and jibes of the boys out of school.

"One morning when a half dozen of us were warming before the broad
logwood fire, I noted a big fellow (who had got me flogged the day
before) standing on the side opposite, his back to the blaze: both hands
were partially open, one laid in the other; some would lay it to the
devil, but it was only the spirit of revenge which prompted me to pick
up a live coal, covered with ashes, and drop it into his hands. For a
moment he did'nt mind it, but it burned all the deeper; when it did burn
he jumped and bellowed like a stuck calf.

"'Who made that noise?' Demanded old Whitey? the master.

"'I made it,' replied the big fellow, rubbing his hands.

"'Why?' more angrily demanded old Whitey.

"'Some one put a coal of fire in my hand and burnt me,' sniffled the
booby.

"The big fellow, however, didn't know who did it. Some of the boys, who
had a lurking pity for me, said it snapt into his hand; but the master
'couldn't see it;' and at last it leaked out that 'Abe Lincoln done it.'

"So you see, gentlemen," said Uncle Abe, moralizing, "I got the blame of
a long score of supposititious shortcomings by one act of my own, pretty
much as I had to bear the sins of my whole party in the late canvass,
because of a few sins of my own."

"'Abraham, come up here!' thundered the master, (By the way, gentlemen,
my people always called me Abe--my wife still calls me plain Abe--but
that old fellow called me _Abraham_ so often and so severely that I
early dropped all claim to a definite appellative, and chose to be
indefinitely 'A. Lincoln.') * But to go on. I got a deserved threshing
that time, and a reputation withal for wickedness that saved all the
little rogues in school. At last, however, I determined to be even with
old Whitey, somehow.

"It wasn't long till I worked out an idea. Just over the master's desk
was a rude shelf, upon which he kept some books and a big-bellied bottle
of ink, which some admirer of his Jeffersonian-Republican principles had
presented him. I had observed that in stepping upon his desk platform,
he never touched or moved his chair, beyond leaning back in it, which
he always did, after taking his seat. So next day I robbed our old
long-tailed white horse of a few hairs and braided them in a three
stranded cord. While the master was gone out to his dinner, I put the
thin glass ink bottle upon the edge of the shelf propped a-cant, and
tied one end of the cord to the bottle, and the other end to the back
of his chair. The boys sympathized with me, and were in an extacy of
delight. Anon the master came. Without looking to the right or left, he
marched sternly to the chair, and hence saw not the repressed titter of
expectation that was ready to burst over the whole room. I stood just
outside of the door expecting the result; he sat down and then leaned
back. Down came the bottle, deluging the bald head in a shower
of Stygian blackness! Yes, gentlemen, I fancy that was the first
_black_ Republican ever made in Kentuck, but the conversion was too
sudden."

"How was that?" queried Cassius M. Clay.

"Why," replied Uncle Abe, "he afterwards married a widow and----twelve
<DW64>s."

     * When Mr. Lincoln was nominated, very many papers ran up
     the name of "Abram Lincoln."




The Wrong Pig by the Ear.

I never knew a flash phrase worse used up than was one by Uncle Abe
attending one of the neighboring Circuit Courts above Springfield. He
was employed to aid a young County Attorney to prosecute some reputed
hog thieves. The crime of hog stealing had become so common that the
people were considerably excited and an example was determined on. The
first person tried was acquitted on a pretty clear _alibi_ or pretty
hard swearing. As the fellow thus acquitted was lounging round the Court
House, Uncle Abe was passing, and he hailed him.

"Well Mr. Lincoln, I reckon you got the wrong sow by the ear when you
undertook to pen me up."

"So it seems," replied Uncle Abe, blandly, "but really you must excuse
me, pigs are so very much alike! In fact, people up here don't all seem
to know their own."




"Wilkie, where does Old Abe Lincoln Live."

In "Clay times," as the old farmers of Sangamon still recall the period
of Henry Clay's powerful canvass for the Presidency, Uncle Abe had a
wide circuit practice. In travelling to the various courts, he generally
drove a horse and vehicle that some people will still remember. The
horse had belonged to an undertaker, and the "funeral business,"
together with years, had made him a grave and staid animal. His
_physique_ presented those angularities that characterized his master,
but unlike his owner, he was never known to perpetrate a joke or indulge
in a "horselaugh." The vehicle was neither buggy, nor Jersey wagon,
but had become, by virtue of alterations and repairs, what Uncle Abe
afterwards described the Union under the plan of free and Slave States
"neither one thing or the other." There was in fact an "eternal
fitness" in horse and man that was not exactly a "standing joke," but a
peripatetic one.

I would give all my expectation of a brigadiership for a portrait of
Uncle Abe seated in this strange "turnout," as he "might have been seen"
wending his meditative way across the prairies.

About this time Uncle Abe was nominated for Congress in the Sangamon.
Yet he did not forego his business, but prosecuted his legal course, as
well as all evil-doers who chanced to fall into his hands. He had
just started on a circuit trip, to be gone a month. Often, since Mr.
Lincoln's nomination for Congress, had Mrs. Lincoln begged him to add
a second story to their humble dwelling, but he pleaded poverty. But a
relation of Mrs. Lincoln's having died in Kentucky leaving her a
small legacy, she determined her husband should have a house worthy a
candidate for Congress. Doubtless she felt an inward satisfaction at the
thought of furnishing a good surprise for her husband on his return. So
she at once bought material, set mechanics at work, and in three weeks
metamorphosed the dwelling into what political pilgrims to Springfield
in 1860 will remember as a neat, two-story, clay- residence.

Uncle Abe arrived home just after dark, and drove up to what he thought
to be Eighth street, but not seeing his house, and thinking he had made
a mistake, he drove round on to the next street. Recognizing the houses
there; he again drove around to Eighth, and, passing his own house,
recognized that occupied by W------n, a clever tailor, who was standing
at his own gate.

"Why, is that you, Wilkie?" (said Uncle Abe patronizingly.) W------n,
assured him of his own identity, "Wilkie, where does Old Abe Lincoln
live now."

"Well," said W------n, "The Loco's say he's so sure of his election that
he's gone to Washington to select his seat; but Mrs. Lincoln lives now
in that beautiful new two-story house you have just passed." Uncle Abe
indulged in a quaint laugh, and then turned his ancient horse around,
alighted and asked if Mrs. Lincoln lived in the house before which he
stood. Mrs. Lincoln received him as a fond woman should receive her
lord, and the return was the cause of much pleasant badinage in social
circles.




Too Literal Obedience.

Gen. McClellan was complaining to Uncle Abe of one of his division
commanders, who had literally obeyed an order publicly given for the
purpose of hood-winking the rebels through the aid of the numerous
undetected spies known to lurk in the camp as well as the capital.

"That reminds me of a little story--a little thing that happened to me
when I was out in the Black Hawk war," said Uncle Abe.

"You see, after we brought the Foxes to terms, they were as sweet as
wild honey. The women especially tried to make a good thing out of the
defeat of their braves, by selling us moccasins, deerskin breeches, &c.
One squaw in particular, made beautiful breeches, and I concluded to
have a pair made. How she was to fit my spindles, puzzled me at first,
as the Indians are no tailors in any _measurable_ degree. At last I
bethought me of an old pair which I had in my saddle bag, and these I
gave to her that she might rip them open and use the parts for patterns.
When she brought the new ones home, I was not a little angry to find
that she had exactly imitated the old patch on the nether parts of the
new breeches."

Little Mac smiled in his peculiar grave way, and remarked that when he
gave an order for a similar purpose, he would tell this story by way of
a hint.




How Uncle Abe Felt.

Soon after Uncle Abe's defeat by Judge Douglas in 1848, (whereby Douglas
unwittingly made a President) some one asked Uncle Abe how he felt over
the result.

"Well," said he, "I feel a good deal like a big boy I knew in Kentuck.
After he'd got a terrible pounding by the school master, someone asked
him how he felt? 'Oh! said he, it hurt so awful bad, I couldn't laugh,
and I was too big to cry over it.' That's just my case."

It is presumed the questioner got an idea how a defeated politician
feels.




P.P.P.

Soon after the advent of Uncle Abe at the White House, the pressure of
aspirants for official positions was perfectly crushing.

In fact, Uncle Abe sometimes got so flustered by their bedevilment, that
he not only failed to recollect an illustrating anecdote, but soon lost
his temper.

One of the Illinois applicants--a fellow named Jeff.

D------r, was particularly a bore, seeming to think it part of the
Chicago platform to give every village politician an office.

"Seems to me, Jeff," said Uncle Abe, "you got the Chicago platform
reduced to enormous brevity--in fact, just three p's would seem to
express your idea of it."

"How's that, Mr. Lincoln?" inquired-Jeff.

"Why, it looks to me as if it was patriotism, place and plunder, and a
mighty important plea is the last one, I reckon."

Jeff was silent for a while, but bored on until he "struck ile" in the
shape-of a clerkship.




Rattaned for a Rat Joke.

Just after the retreat of the rebels from Bull Run, when it leaked
out that our troops had been held at bay by wooden or Quaker guns, a
Pennsylvanian Congressman remarked to Uncle Abe--"Well, Mr. Lincoln, you
see that Quaker principles even embodied in wood may be of some service
in war."

"Yes, but as you see in that shape, they are only substituted
principles; such things may do once, but found out, they will avail
worse than nothing. Your remark, however,'reminds me of a little
story.'

"When I was a youngster of fifteen or so, I went to an 'Academy' for a
few weeks, just to brush up my old-field school learning. Such schools
are called Academies in the East, to distinguish their intermediate
position between colleges and common schools; but in Kentuck and
the West, generally the high sounding title merely meant that the
'principal' taught a few branches ahead of the old-field schools. Well,
the rats were thick about the old building where we daily gathered
to reap the fruit of knowledge; and as many of the boys brought their
dinners and threw the fragments under their old-fashioned box desks,
they soon grew as bold as they were thick. The teacher had a mortal
antipathy to rats, and as I didn't 'take' to the teacher, I naturally
encouraged the rats. Whenever one showed himself, he was sure to get a
whack from the old teacher's rattan. Sometimes he missed his aim at the
rats, but never at us boys, which was owing, perhaps, to the difference
in the size of the game.

"An industrious rat had made a hole from beneath the floor up under my
desk, and thence out through the end, and as I fed him well he was quite
tame. Often during school hours he would come up and peer out into the
aisles through his hole in the end of the desk, and whenever he was seen
by the teacher, he was sure to see the rattan whirling in the air. An
idea struck me one day. I got a dead rat--I did not like to kill my
pet--and stuffing it, made quite a good-looking 'Quaker' rat. Then I
fixed some springs so I could work my rat out and in at pleasure; so
whenever the teacher was looking up, my rat was always out; but when
the whack came down, he was in betimes. At last he seemed to think it
wondrous tame, and the ill-suppressed titter of the school boys finally
made him suspicious. The boys had been let into my secret, and relished
it hugely, and I was too prone to give a few exhibitions. At last the
teacher watched me sharper than he did the rat, and then caught me in
the act. He got hold of the rat and beat me alternately with rat and
switch, and you may well guess, I was well rattaned. If soldiers who use
wooden guns ever get worse usage, I pity them."

The 300 Pounder Parrot since used by the Government, shows Uncle Abe's
poor appreciation of Quaker guns and Quaker principles.




The State House Struck by Whiggery.

Soon after the State House at Springfield was