“Do you know General A—?” queried the President one day to a friend who had “dropped in” at the White House.
“Certainly; but you are not wasting any time thinking about him, are you?” was the rejoinder.
“You wrong him,” responded the President, “he is a really great man, a philosopher.”
“How do you make that out? He isn’t worth the powder and ball necessary to kill him so I have heard military men say,” the friend remarked.
“He is a mighty thinker,” the President returned, “because he has mastered that ancient and wise admonition, ‘Know thyself;’ he has formed an intimate acquaintance with himself, knows as well for what he is fitted and unfitted as any man living. Without doubt he is a remarkable man. This War has not produced another like him.”
“How is it you are so highly pleased with General A—— all at once?”
“For the reason,” replied Mr. Lincoln, with a merry twinkle of the eye, “greatly to my relief, and to the interests of the country, he has resigned. The country should express its gratitude in some substantial way.”
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