Regulations of the Navy provide that medical officers shall exercise no military authority. If I give you a flag, the line officers will think I have… - David Dixon Porter

I had often heard of the wonderful power of the President in telling anecdotes, but no one could form an adequate idea of his ability in this line unless he had been alone with him for ten days as I was. He had an illustration for everything, and if anything particular attracted his attention he would say, 'That reminds me of something that occurred when I was a lawyer in Illinois,' or 'when I was a boatman on the Mississippi.' He was not at all ashamed of any business he had ever been engaged in, because it was honest business, and he made an honest living by it; and he told me many stories of his earlier life, which were as creditable to him as anything he was engaged in while occupying a higher sphere.

There was a small house on this landing, and behind it were some twelve negroes digging with spades. The leader of them was an old man sixty years of age. He raised himself to an upright position as we landed, and put his hands up to his eyes. Then he dropped his spade and sprang forward. "Bress de Lord," he said, "dere is de great Messiah! I knowed him as soon as I seed him. He's bin in my heart fo' long yeahs, an' he's cum at las' to free his chillun from deir bondage! Glory, Hallelujah!" And he fell upon his knees before the President and kissed his feet. The others followed his example, and in a minute Mr. Lincoln was surrounded by these people, who had treasured up the recollection of him caught from a photograph, and had looked up to him for four years as the one who was to lead them out of captivity.

By breaking up the great wooden navies of Europe, Ericsson helped to place us more on an equality with them as a naval power, and the distance is not so great between us but that we may hope to overtake them when the people of this country demand a navy commensurate with our national importance, and when the exigencies of politics can no longer prevent proper measures being taken for the defense of the nation, which should at all times be in a position to protect its citizens at home and abroad.