Lincoln Calls A War Cabinet Meeting

     After the bloody battle of Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln called a War Cabinet meeting at the White House. The meeting was described by a serious, no-nonsense Secretary of War Stanton.
     "The President hardly noticed me as I came. He was reading a book of some kind, which seemed to amuse him. It was a little book. He finally turned to us and said:
     " 'Gentlemen, did you ever read anything from Artemus Ward? Let me read you a chapter which is funny.'
     "Not a member of the cabinet smiled; as for myself, I was angry and looked to see what the President meant.
     "It seemed to me like buffoonery. He, however, concluded to read us a chapter of Artemus Ward, which he did with great deliberation. Having finished, he laughed heartily, without a single member of the Cabinet joining in the laughter."
     The president had read "High-Handed Outrage at Utica" which follows:
     "In the fall of 1856, I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate sitty in the State of New York.
     "The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in her prases.
     "1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks in my usual flowry stile what was my skorn & disgust to see a big burly feller walk up to the cage containin' my wax figgers of the Lord's Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscarrot by the feet and drag him out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound him as hard as he cood.
     " 'What under the sun are you abowt?' cried I.
      "Sez he, 'what did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here fur?' & he hit the wax figger another tremenjis blow on the hed.
     "Sez I, 'You egregus ass, that air's a wax figger -- a representashun of the false 'Postle.'
     "Sez he, 'That's all very well fur you to say, but I tell you, old man, that Judas Iscarrot can't show himself in Utiky with impunerty by a darn site,' with which observashun he kaved in Judassis hed. The young man belonged to 1 of the first famerlies in Utiky. I sood him, the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson in the 3d degree."
     "I was considering," Stanton continued, "whether I should rise and leave the meeting abruptly, when he threw the book aside, heaved a long sigh, and said:
     " 'Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.'
     "He then put his hand in his tall hat that sat upon the table and pulled out a little paper...To my astonishment, he read the Emancipation Proclamation...."
     Read more in The Humorous Mr. Lincoln by Keith W. Jennison.