The Patriot Files Forums - Abraham Lincoln

Keith, here's a couple of the stories I recently read on Abe Lincoln. He truly was an honest and caring man..

GEORGE PICKETT'S FRIEND
BY CHARLES W. MOORES

GEORGE PICKETT, who had known Lincoln in Illinois, years before, joined the Southern army, and by his conspicuous bravery and ability had become one of the great generals of the Confederacy. Toward the close of the war, when a large part of Virginia had fallen into the possession of the Union army, the President called at General Pickett's Virginia home.
The general's wife, with her baby on her arm, met him at the door. She herself has told the story for us.
" `Is this George Pickett's home?' he asked.

"With all the courage and dignity I could muster, I replied: `Yes, and I am his wife, and this is his baby.'

" `I am Abraham Lincoln.'

" `The President!' I gasped. I had never seen him, but I knew the intense love and reverence with which my soldier always spoke of him.

"The stranger shook his head and replied: `No; Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend.'

"The baby pushed away from me and reached out his hands to Mr. Lincoln, who took him in his arms. As he did so an expression of rapt, almost divine tenderness and love lighted up the sad face. It was a look that I have never seen on any other face. The baby opened his mouth wide and insisted upon giving his father's friend a dewy kiss.
"As Mr. Lincoln gave the little one back to me he said: `Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of your bright eyes.' "

WHY LINCOLN WAS CALLED "HONEST ABE"
BY NOAH BROOKS

IN managing the country store, as in everything that he undertook for others, Lincoln did his very best. He was honest, civil, ready to do anything that should encourage customers to come to the place, full of pleasantries, patient, and alert.
On one occasion, finding late at night, when he counted over his cash, that he had taken a few cents from a customer more than was due, he closed the store, and walked a long distance to make good the deficiency.

At another time, discovering on the scales in the morning a weight with which he had weighed out a package of tea for a woman the night before, he saw that he had given her too little for her money. He weighed out what was due, and carried it to her, much to the surprise of the woman, who had not known that she was short in the amount of her purchase.

Innumerable incidents of this sort are related of Lincoln, and we should not have space to tell of the alertness with which he sprang to protect defenseless women from insult, or feeble children from tyranny; for in the rude community in which he lived, the rights of the defenseless were not always respected as they should have been. There were bullies then, as now.