THE HUMANITY OF LINCOLN.
Some Memories of the Civil War. By George Haven Putnam. (G. P. Putnam's Sons. 10s.) Some Memories of the Civil War. By George Haven Putnam. (G. P. Putnam's Sons. 10s.) TIEERE is sure to be a hearty welcome in America and also in this country for Major Putnam's Some Memories of the Civil War. In the book are collected a great many war addresses given during the course of the last thirty or forty years by Major Putnam. His friends will be delighted with the reproduction of a charming old photograph by Brady of young Putnam in his uniform as 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant of the 176th Regiment of New York Volunteers. I recommend it to the cinema producers when they want to get the proper costume and general appearance for a film jeune premier of the Civil War. It is the beau ideal of youth answering the country's call to defend her.
The incidental word portraits of the great men of the great struggle are exceedingly interesting, and include at least one story about Lincoln which is new to me, though probably familiar enough to American readers. A deputation of ministers from the Middle West called on the President to communicate what they called "a message from the Lord to the President." Lincoln met them with that fascinating and kindly irony which was peculiar to him, the irony which laid the man against whom it was directed 'fiat and yet did not scorch him. Lincoln did not, like Cromwell, pray that the ministers should think it possible that they might be mistaken, but assured them that the counsel and guidance of the Lord was what he prayed for day and night. But he added, "I can but think, however, that if the Lord has a message or a word of counsel to give me in regard ter -the-discharge of -my responsibilities, He will give it direct and riot by way of Chicago." That is absolutely, hi the snub administered, superb of its own kind. There is no insult, no unfairness or brutality. It is even better than the famous retort of Holt, the Chief Justice, to the fanatic preacher who told him that he brought to him a word of command from the Lord Ali-nighty ".to enter a plea of none prosequi" in the case of a brother zealot who had fallen into the hands of the law. The Chief Justice's reply was as instantaneous as it was conclusive. "Now do I know thee to be a vain man and a liar, for the Lord God knoweth as well as,I know that.it lieth with the Attorney- General and not with the Lord .Chief Justice, to enter n nolle prosequi." When Will forgers and other impostors learn the extreme danger of using to experts technical terms which they do not properly* understand ?
An account of the interview which "Mayor Hewitt" had at Washington With Lincoln is very interesting. Mayor Hewitt had prepared thirty mortar beds for the Ordnance Department, but,- though the mortar beds were in .a. high degree satisfactory, Hewitt, (riving to some punctilio as to the form of the order to Supply them, was not paid. 'When Lincoln heard who his caller was, though his time was very fully occupied, he insisted on seeing Mr. Hewitt. Major Putnam says that the President came forward, holding out both hands, with the words : . `t Where -is Mr. Hewitt ? I Want to see the man who does things." Now, I some twenty- three years ago had the good fortune to spend a day at Hewitt's charming country house, Ringwood, New Jersey, about a fortnight before his death, and during the course of the conversation heard from his own lips this very same story. He added, however, a touch which though not recorded in Major Putnam's 'study of "the men behind the guns," is well worth putting on record. With appropriate action he described, as does Major Putnam, Mr. Lincoln coming forward with both hands held out. But Lincoln's first whrds were not "Where is Mr. Hewitt ? " but "Why, Mr. Hewitt, I thought you must be about seven feet high." Mr. Hewitt, a very short man, enjoyed the joke extremely. He was proud to be the little man who had done things so big that the President thought he must -be" a giant.
The rest of the conversation is excellently described by Major Putnam. . He tells us how Lincoln called Mr. Stanton to him and then with an admirable touch of that irony in which he excelled said to his Secretary of War, "Do you suppose that if I Should *rite on that 'bill" Pay thia bill-now ' the Treasury would make settlement ? " The stubborn Stanton would not admit that the endorsement would be in order, but all the same the bill was sent for, and Mi. Lincoln wrote at the bottom, "Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln." (Here again I may interpose that as Mr. Hewitt told the story to me, Lincoln said that he would O.K. it, " O.K." being, of course, the phrase which he had picked up from his favourite, Artemus kerekt.") But Lincoln was not content with writing this and under- scoring the " now " ; he added, "Now, Mr. Stanton, I want you to do me a service. I am going to .trouble you to go to the Treasury Department with Mr. Hewitt and to secure for this bill the signatures that are necessary to enable Mr. Hewitt to take back with him to New York a draft for the amount." Stanton, we arc told, shrugged his shoulders, but obeyed and walked with Mr. Hewitt, though "rather sulkily," to the Treasury Department, and actually got the money.
It is pleasant to think that Mr. Hewitt's descendants still live in the delightful house at Ringwood amid a kind of Scottish scenery of lakes and hills, a highland estate with some forty or fifty miles of private drives. Yet this piece of wild country, this urban paradise,- is not more than thirty miles as the crow flies from Jersey City; -New York's vis-à-vis.
Major Putnam tells shine interesting things in his article on "The London Times and the American 'Civil War," but in enumerating the f;iends of the North, he has made one or two omissions. He correctly puts among those friends Prince Albert, the Duke of Argyll, John Bright, and John Morley ; but he should have added the Baring family. Old "Tom Baring," though a Conservative member for the City, was strongly pro-North, as indeed were the rest of his family. It *Was_ because of these Northern Connexions that when Lord Cromer. its an artillery subaltern, went to sec the fighting, he saw it from the Northern side, and was the guest of the Artillery General at the siege Of Vicksburg. Again, Professor Dicey might have been added to the list. Curiously enough, Cobden, "the international man," was, at any rate at the beginning of the war, pro- South, as was Mr. Gladstone. I am proud to see that Major Putnam correctly records that the Spectator was pro-North and anti-Confederate in its sympathies from the first. The quotations from the Times are very . curious as showing the way in which Delane chopped- and changed his views in regard to the great struggle: Always something of an Oppor- tunist on principle, he here carried. hi opportunism to the furthest limit, if not indeed beyond it.
J. ST. Lou STRACHEY.
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