By Frank "Mickey" Robbins III
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My great-great-grandfather, Charles H. Kibler, a captain in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry and an adjutant general on Gen. Joseph Hooker's staff, fought in several Civil War battles in the area and afterwards wrote and spoke about his war experiences. Below are comments on his friend Abraham Lincoln, with whom he become acquainted, apparently in the late 1850s when Lincoln was campaigning for the presidency and Kibler was mayor of Newark, Ohio.
links of london charms A homely boy born in a little log building in Kentucky did not then promise to be different from any other poor baby. There were no omens, no horoscopes, no star to lead wise men to the place of his nativity, no gold, frankincense and myrrh, no herald to announce that a prince or a great man was born. The main things about him were poverty, humility, and winter. Yet this baby, so humbly born, was destined by the Almighty to be chief among all men and to guide and deliver his countrymen in a crisis then unsuspected. It is improbable that, even upon his election, he fully perceived the immensity of the task before him.
At the date of his inauguration as president, there was almost no army or navy; almost no arms, or powder or shot; no preparation for war; no generals of experience in war, other than General Scott, then over 80 years of age; no money in the treasury; no public credit. A great body of people was in political opposition to him. So that he was, at first at least, compelled to creep along, to educate public opinion, to call out and keep up the patriotism of the north; to experiment with generals; to test the soldierly qualities of the volunteers; to turn the resources of the people into money; to give courage to timid capital; to confound an enemy better prepared for war; to make harmless the clamor of newspaper generals like Horace Greeley and others; in a word, to bring order out of chaos and achieve success out of despair.
The fame of Mr. Lincoln rests also upon another firm foundation, as a writer and speaker of the English language, "pure and undefiled." It is wonderful that this man who had hardly any school education, was able, by self study and self training, to reach the high place in letters he did reach. His style or manner of writing exhibited that lucidity, appropriateness and force and depth of expression, and good judgment which mark the master. Take the Gettysburg address. There is no expression which is obscure, or to which the most advanced critic could object. There were "exhibited the purity and perfection of his language and style of speech." It has become a classic.
Observe the exquisite use of language in his first inaugural address and particularly the concluding sentence: "We are not enemies, but friends. Though passions may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battle field and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the union, when touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Clip on charms It was conspicuous wisdom, as it then appeared, to select Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Blair, Mr. Wells and others as members of his cabinet. Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase were his chief opponents for nomination by his party for president, were men of great experience and ability in public affairs, and had the confidence of the country.
Next, I refer to the call for 75,000 volunteers, and not then for a greater number. It would have shocked and benumbed the people of the north to have then called for a greater number, and the effect w
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