Gen. George H. Thomas v. Hood at Nashville - Dec. 1864

[David Lockmiller]

Here is President Lincoln's comment on Hood [after Thomas decisively defeated Hood at Nashville in December, 1864] and one of [Lincoln's] best stories according to Gen. James F. Rusling in his book Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days at page 379:

"Out in Illinois, in my country, there was a certain rough, rude, and bullying man, who had a bulldog, which was as rough, rude, and bullying as his master. Dog and man were the terror of the neighborhood. Nobody dared to touch either for fear of the other. But a crafty neighbor had a plan to dispose of the dog. Seeing Slocum plodding along the road one day, his dog a little ahead, this neighbor took from his pocket a chuck of meat, in which he had concealed a big charge of powder, to which he had fastened a Deadwood slow-match. This he lighted, and then threw all into the road. The dog gave one gulp at it, and the whole thing disappeared down this throat. He trotted on a few steps, when there was a sort of smothered roar, and the dog blew up in fragments--a forequarter lodging in a neighboring tree, a hindquarter on the roof of a cabin, his head in one place, his tail in another, and the rest scattered along the dusty road. Slocum came up and 'viewed the remains.' Then, more in sorrow than in anger, he said: 'Bill was a good dog; but, as a dog, I reckon his usefulness is over!'"

"Hood's army was a good army," the President added, with a twinkle of his eye. "We have been very much afraid of it. But, as an army, I reckon its usefulness is gone!"
-- Brooke's Washington in Lincoln's Time page 293.

I mean no disrespect to the fighting men of the South with this story. I mean to demonstrate, once again, only how Lincoln's mind thinks in parallel.