to measure backs. "Sumner," said Mr. Lincoln, "declined to stand
up with me, back to back, to see which was the tallest man, and made a
fine speech about this being the time for uniting our fronts against the
enemy, and not our backs. But I guess he was afraid to measure, though
he is a good piece of a man. I have never had much to do with Bishops
where I live, but, do you know, Sumner is _my idea of a Bishop_."

A good story of President Lincoln and General Scott is reported by
Major-General Keyes, who at the beginning of the war was on the staff of
General Scott, then commander-in-chief of the armies of the United
States. "I was sent," says General Keyes, "by my chief to the President
with a message that referred to a military subject, and that led to a
discussion. Finding that Mr. Lincoln's observations were beginning to
tangle my arguments, I said, 'That is the opinion of General Scott, and
you know, Mr. President, he is a very able military man.' 'Well,' said
the President, 'if he is as _able_ a military man as he is _unable_ as a
politician, I give up.' This was said with an expression of the eye,
which he turned on me, that was peculiar to him, and which signified a
great deal. The astounding force of Mr. Lincoln's observation was not at
all diminished by the fact that I had long suspected that my chief
lacked something which is necessary to make a successful politician."

Among the numerous delegations which thronged Washington in the early
part of the war was one from New York, which urged very strenuously the
sending of a fleet to the southern cities--Charleston, Mobile, and
Savannah--with the object of drawing off the rebel army from Washington.
Lincoln said the object reminded him of the case of a girl in New Salem,
who was greatly troubled with a "singing" in her head. Various remedies
were suggested by the neighbors, but nothing seemed to afford any
relief. At last a man came along--"a common-sense sort of man," said he,
inclining his head towards his callers pleasantly,--"who was asked to
prescribe for the difficulty. After due inquiry and examination, he said
the cure was very simple. 'What is it?' was the question. 'Make a
plaster of _psalm-tunes_, and apply to her feet, and draw the singing
_down_,' was the rejoinder." Still better was his reply to another
delegation of New York millionaires who waited upon him in 1862, after
the appearance of the rebel ram "Merrimac," and represented to him that
they