Abe Lincoln Night at Stokes’ Store

It ain’t no fun to go to war

      Nor to be left behind;

I don’t see what they have ‘em for,

      But mebbie I am blind.

Go to the front an’ you git shot,

      Stay home an’ you’re a cur;

In any case a war is what

      Dad Sherman said it were.

                         – Sam Seller’s Soliloquy

‘Twas Lincoln night in Stokes’s store, an’ ev’ryone was there;

Each cracker bail was occupied, an’ ev’ry keg an’ chair.

Warn’t many nights in all the year of quite so much import;

Some went from patriotic mores, an’ some for mirth an’ sport.

Ol’ Gungy boasted three or four who’d wore the northern blue,

Who warn’t afreered to say a word for Grant an’ Lincoln too;

An’ when it come to goin’ through the battles they had fit,

There warn’’t no orators at large could talk a little bit.

Hamp Culver allus told ‘em how he fit at ol’ Bull Run,

How he just stood there like a tree a firin’ of his gun.

“I stood there rooted to the spot, I tell you boys,” said he,

“There warn’t a tree upon that field that stood more firm than me!

I don’t know how many I killed, a hundred I should say,

But it’s a wonder I’m alive to tell the tale today.”

Abe Crocket he spoke up an’ said: “It’s plain enough to me;

You prob’bly got the tree between you an’ the enemy!”

But Hamp was trained in discipline an’ answered not the shot,

He’d got to fight the war all through when he was good an’ hot;

His battles they had been so big, he’d seen so many dead,

He never noticed little shots from stay-at-homes he said.

“I tell you boys,” he shook his head, “it was a shame I swun,

To think we lost so foolish-like the battle of Bull Run;

I’ve allus said, an’ say it now, we would have won that day,

If we had had Abe Lincoln there a-leading of the fray!”

Hen’ Billings ‘lowed that Lincoln warn’t the hull blame shootin’ match,

That Grant an’ Sherman wuz the boys who made ‘em toe the scratch;

“I ain’t got nothin’ ‘gainst old Abe” said he, “except perhaps

He kept from off the firin’ line where there was any scraps.

My idée is, that any man who is the army’s head

Had orter be where the fightin’ is, instid of home abed!”

Hamp said he’d noticed lookin’ round, that when the call was sent

That there was others staid to home besides the President!

Jim Hall said he had helped to win a many lot o’ fights,

That when he once got started in he fit both days an’ nights;

He said he fit at Antietam, an’ Shiloh an’ Bull Run,

But Gettysburg was where he mowed the rebels down like fun.

He said he turned a rebel flank an’ turned it all alone,

That ev’ryone exceptin’ him was wounded or has flown;

That he jist stood there pumpin’ lead, as fast as he could sight,

An’ pretty soon the battle turned, an’ he had none to fight.

“An’ I will ne’er forget the day,” said Jim, his eyes aflame,

“When someone stepped into my tent – I didn’t ketch his name –

An’ took me by the hand an’ says: ‘Jim Hall, you’ve saved the day,’

An’ then he thanked me twenty times, an’ rode his hoss away.

He was a tall an’ skinny man, an’ wore a stovepipe hat,

An’ didn’t look uv much account, nor have his speech down pat,

I didn’t take much stock in him, till someone says, ‘Jim Hall,

That man wuz Lincoln,, you galoot, the father uv us all!’”

Then Jim remembered how his eyes had looked into his own,

An’ what a magic, kindly light from out them winders shown;

Jim ‘lowed that if the war had gone another year or two

That Lincoln would have made him a general, he knew.

Jim said of course that war is bad, but wisht it might have run

‘Till he had got some shoulder straps like other chaps had done;

But one thing he was mighty glad, he’d held Abe Lincoln’s hand,

An’ Abd had said that he could fight like one born to command!

Sam Sellers hadn’t said a word, Sam wasn’t much to talk,

But Sam had been at Piney’s Ridge, an’ showed it in his walk.

Of all the vet’rans in the town Sam was the only chap

Who showed by any hit or miss that he had seen a scap.

Sam he got wounded in the hip, an’ fellers said who knowed,

It wasn’t in the front at all, but in the rear it showed;

But whether that was true or not, Sam had to have his say,

An’ when Jim Hall had spoke his piece Sam opened right away:

“You feller talk of war,” says he, ‘but none of you kin show

A missin’ laig, or anything, as all the people know;

Hain’t even got a powder mark, but look at me, I say.

A-limpin’ up an’ down here with a bullet from the fray.

I never held Abe Lincoln’s hand, I never turned no fight,

His eyes they never looked in mine with all their wondrous light,

But I have got the marks uv war right on my hip I say,

An’ Kerry round a souveneer until my dyin’ day!”

Then Sam he stopped to ketch his breath, an’ Abe he butted in

As usu’l lookin’ at the crowd with his suspicious grin;

“Say, Sam,” says he, “it may be true you’ve got a battle scar,

But how is it it ain’t in front where other folk’s are?”

Sam bristled up. “Now looky here, I want you all to know

That bullet hit me fair an’ square while chargin’ at the foe;

I was ahead an’ turned to see if they was followin’ me,

When jest that minute I was shot, that’s how I got it, see?”

It’s hard to fight your country’s fight

      An’ get shot full uv holes

Then be belittled day an’ night

      By sech unfeelin’ souls.

If I was goin’ to war ag’in,

      I’d stay at home, I swun,

An’ set around the store an’ grin,

      An’ be a great big gun.

                        – Hamp Culver’s Conclusion

Feb. 9, ’10?