The President did not consider that every soldier who ran away in battle, or did not stand firmly to receive a bayonet charge, was a coward. He was of opinion that self-preservation was the first law of Nature, but he didn’t want this statute construed too liberally by the troops.
At the same time he took occasion to illustrate a point he wished to make by a story in connection with a darky who was a member of the Ninth Illinois Infantry Regiment. This regiment was one of those engaged at the capture of Fort Donelson. It behaved gallantly, and lost as heavily as any.
“Upon the hurricane-deck of one of our gunboats,” said the President in telling the story, “I saw an elderly darky, with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted upon his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently plunged into a state of profound meditation.
“As the negro rather interested me, I made some inquiries, and found that he had really been with the Ninth Illinois Infantry at Donelson. and began to ask him some questions about the capture of the place.
“‘Were you in the fight?’
“‘Had a little taste of it, sa.’
“‘Stood your ground, did you?’
“‘No, sa, I runs.’
“‘Run at the first fire, did you?
“‘Yes, sa, and would hab run soona, had I knowd it war comin’.”
“‘Why, that wasn’t very creditable to your courage.’
“‘Dat isn’t my line, sa—cookin’s my profeshun.’
“‘Well, but have you no regard for your reputation?’
“‘Reputation’s nuffin to me by de side ob life.’
“‘Do you consider your life worth more than other people’s?’
“‘It’s worth more to me, sa.’
“‘Then you must value it very highly?’
“‘Yes, sa, I does, more dan all dis wuld, more dan a million ob dollars, sa, for what would dat be wuth to a man wid de bref out ob him? Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me.’
“‘But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?’
“‘Different men set different values on their lives; mine is not in de market.’
“‘But if you lost it you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you died for your country.’
“‘Dat no satisfaction when feelin’s gone.’
“‘Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?’
“‘Nufin whatever, sat—I regard them as among the vanities.’
“‘If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the government without resistance.’
“‘Yes, sa, dar would hab been no help for it. I wouldn’t put my life in de scale ‘g’inst any gobernment dat eber existed, for no gobernment could replace de loss to me.’
“‘Do you think any of your company would have missed you if you had been killed?’
“‘Maybe not, sa—a dead white man ain’t much to dese sogers, let alone a dead nigga—but I’d a missed myse’f, and dat was de p’int wid me.’
“I only tell this story,” concluded the President, “in order to illustrate the result of the tactics of some of the Union generals who would be sadly ‘missed’ by themselves, if no one else, if they ever got out of the Army.”
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