An Abe Lincoln Story with a bang - or not

General Horace Porter - a member of General Ulysses S. Grant's staff during the Civil War - related this Abe Lincoln story in his 1897 book, Campaigning with Grant.

President Lincoln visited General Grant's headquarters at City Point, VA. toward the end of the Civil War. After a busy day reviewing the troops, visiting the wounded, and touring the fortifications, Lincoln, Grant, Porter, and some of Grant's staff were sitting around the campfire talking and telling stories. 

In the course of the conversation that evening, Lincoln spoke of the improvement in arms and ammunition, and of the new explosive powder made for the fifteen-inch cannons. He said he had never seen that type of powder, but he understood it differed very much from any other powder that had ever been used. Porter told him that he happened to have a specimen in his tent which had been sent to headquarters as a curiosity, and he went to get it. 

When he returned with a grain of the powder about the size of a walnut, Lincoln took it, turned it over in his hand, and after examining it carefully, said: “Well, it's rather larger than the powder we used to buy in my shooting days. It reminds me of what occurred once in a country meeting-house in Sangamon County." 

You see, there were very few newspapers then, and the country storekeepers had to resort to some other means of advertising their wares. If, for instance, the preacher happened to be late in coming to a prayer-meeting of an evening, the shopkeepers would often put in the time, while the people were waiting, by notifying them of any new arrival of an attractive line of goods. 

One evening a man rose up and said: ‘Brethren, let me take occasion to say, while we're a-waitin‘, that I have jest received a new invoice of sportin‘ powder. The grains are so small you kin sca'cely see 'em with the naked eye, and polished up so fine you kin stand up and comb yer ha'r in front of one o‘ them grains jest like it was a lookin‘--glass. Hope you'll come down to my store at the cross-roads and examine that powder for yourselves.’ 

[At that point] a rival powder-merchant in the meeting, who had been boiling over with indignation at the amount of advertising the opposition powder was getting, jumped up and cried out: ‘Brethren, I hope you'll not believe a single word Brother Jones has been sayin‘ about that powder. I've been down thar and seen it for myself, and I pledge you my word that the grains is bigger than the lumps in a coal-pile; and any one of you, brethren, could put a barrel o that powder on your shoulder and march squar‘ through the sulphurious flames o Hell surroundin‘ you without the least danger of an explosion.’ ” 

Porter then wrote: "We thought that grain of powder had served even a better purpose in drawing out this story from President Lincoln than it could ever serve in being fired from a fifteen-inch gun." [1]

This is another anecdote from Abe Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

 Works Cited

[1] Porter, Horace. (1897) Campaigning with Grant. New York, NY: The Century Co. pp. 221-222.