Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1871 — “Tad” Lincoln. [ARTICLE]

“Tad” Lincoln.

BY JOHN HAY.

Most of those who read the dispatch announcing thfe death of Thomas Todd Lincoln wiQ never think of the wellgrown young gwntleman who died on Saturday at Chicago. The name of "Tad” —a pet name given by himself with his first stammering utterances and adopted by his fond parents and the world—re calls the trickey., little sprite who gave to that sad and solemn White House of the great war the only comic relief it knew. The years that have followed, spent in study and travel, produced an entirely different person. The Tad Lincoln of our history ceased to exist long ago. The modest ard cordial young fellow who passed through New York a few weeks ago with his mother will never be known -outside—of—the—eirete-of his mourning friends. But “Little Tad” will be remembered as long as any live who bore a personal share in the great movement whose center for four years was at Washington. He was so full of life and vigor—so bubbling over with health and high spirits, that he kept the house alive with his pranks and his fantastic enterprises. He was always a “chartered libertine,” and after the death of his brother Willie, a prematurely serious and studious child, and the departure of Robert for college, he installed himself as the absolute tyrant of the Executive Mansion. He was idol ia d by both his father and mother, petted and induged by his teachers, and fawned upon and caressed by the noisome horde ot office-seekers that infest the ante-rooms of the White House. He had a very bad opinion of books, and no opinion of decipline, and thought very little of any tutor who would not assist him in 'yoking his kids to a chair, or in driving his dogs tandem over the south lawn. He was as shrewd as he was lawless, and always knew whether he could make a tutor serviceable or not. If he found one with obstinate-ideas of the superiority of grammar to kite flying as an intellectual employment, he soon found means of getting rid of him. He bad so much to do that he felt he could not waste time in learning to spell. Early in the morning you eould hear his shrill pipe resounding through the dreary corridors of the Executive residence. The day passed in a rapid succession of plots and commotions, and when the President laid down his weary pen toward midnight, he generally found his infant goblin asleep under his table or roasting his curly head by the open fireplace ; and the tall chief would pick up the child and trudge off to bed with the drowsy little burden on his shoulder, stooping under the doors and dodging the chandliers. The President took infinite comfort in the child’s rude health, fresh fun, and uncontrollable boisterousness. He was pleased to see him growing up in ignorance of books, but with singularly accurate ideas of practical matters. He was a fearless rider, while yet so small that his legs stuck out horizontally from the saddle. He had that power of taming and attaching animals to himself, which seems the special gift of kindly and unlettered nature. “ Let him run,” the easygoing President would say, "he has time enough yet to learn his letters and get pokey. Bob was just such a rascal, and now he is a very decent boy.” It was evident that, with all his insubordination and reckless mischief, the spoiled child was at heart of a t ruthful and generous nature. He treated flatterers and office seekers with a curious coolness and contempt, but he often espoused the cause of some poor widow or tattered soldier, whom he found waiting in the ante rooms and jl was most amusing to see the hearty little fellow dragging his shabby proteges into the Executive presence, ordering the ushers out of the way, and demanding immediate action from headquarters. The President rarely refused a grace of this kind, and the demands were not so frequent as to lose the charm of novelty. •One of the tricks into which his idleness and his enterprise together drove him, was the occasion of ’ much laughter to the judicious, and much horror to the respectable in Washington. He invested, one morning, all his pocket money in buying the stock-in-trade of an old woman who sold gingerbread near the Treasury. He made the government carpenters give him a board and some trestles, which he set up in the imposing porte-cochere of the White House, and on this rude counter’ displayed his wares! l . Every office seeker who entered the house that morning brought a toothsome luncheon of the keen little merchant, and when an hour after the opening of the booth a member of the household discovered the young pastryman the admired center of a group of grinning servants and toadies, he had filled his pockets and his hat with currency, the spoil of the American public. The juvenile operator made lively work of his ill gotten gains, however, and before night was penniless again. Although still a mere child at the death of his father, this terrible shock greatly sobered and steadied him. His brother Robert at once took charge of his education, and he made rapid progress up to the time of his sailing for Europe vC ith his mother. He has ever since remained with her, displaying a thoughtful devotion and tenderness beyond his years, and strangely at variance with the mischievous thought® lessness of his childhood. He came back a short while ago, greatly improved by his residence abroad, but always the same cordial, frank, warm hearted boy. In his loss the already fearfully bereaved family will suffer a new and deep affliction, and the world, which never did and never will know him, will not withhold a tribute of regret for the child whose gayety and affliction cheered, more than anything else

the worn and weary heart of the great President through the toilsome years of the war.—New York Tribune. <