Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House

“‘ [234] Stonewall Jackson's funeral,’ was the ready reply. ‘What is the reason you “Johnnies” never have any decent clothes?’ hallooed the ‘Union’ boy back. ‘We-uns don't put on our best to kill hogs in,’ was the retort.”

I was sitting in the President's office with Mr. G. B. Lincoln, of Brooklyn, and the Hon. John A. Bingham, of Ohio,--who were there by appointment of the President,--the Sunday evening before the reinauguration, when Mr. Lincoln came in through the side passage which had lately been constructed, holding in his hand a roll of manuscripts.

“Lots of wisdom in that document, I suspect,” said he; “it is what will be called my ‘second inaugural,’ containing about six hundred words. I will put it away here in this drawer until I want it.”

Seating himself by the open grate, he commenced conversation in a familiar and cheerful mood, referring to his early life in Illinois. Nothing, he said, had ever gratified him so much as his first election to the legislature of that State, just after his return from the Black-Hawk war. In the election district a large majority were Democrats, and he was known as a “talking Whig.” Nevertheless, he said, in a vote of two hundred, he received all but three.