Page:He Knew Lincoln and Other Billy Brown Stories.djvu/126

 Mr. Lincoln took so much interest in all them little things, but I said: "Don't you worry, Mr. Swett, Mr. Lincoln's got the right idee. An army that don't have its belly and feet taken care of ain't goin' to do much fightin', and Mr. Lincoln's got sense enough to know it. He knows diarrhea's a blamed sight more dangerous to the Army of the Potomac than Stonewall Jackson. Trouble so far has been, in my judgment, that the people that ought to have been seein' to what the soldiers was eatin' and drinkin' and whether their beds was dry and their bowels movin', was spendin' their time polishin' their buttons and shinin' their boots for parade."

"What I don't see," says Swett, "is how he learned all the things he knows. They ain't the kind of things you'd naturally think a president of the United States would be interestin' himself in."