President Lincoln then rode through the lines of Gen. Benjamin Butler's Army of the James at Bermuda Hundred. Many of these soldiers took part in the two Battles of Fort Fisher, so I will write down some of their observations of their commander-in-chief.
One of the first camps they encountered was that of the 117th New York, where a soldier named John Humphrey recorded: "Prisedent Lincen and Gen Buttler rode along the lines visiting the troops." Another wrote his father the next day that there "is quite an object now for him to be familiar with the soldiers," probably referring to the upcoming elections in November as well as the huge losses Grant's Overland Campaign had experienced so fat in 1864.
Soldiers in the camp of the 7th Connecticut, another regiment that took part in the Fort Fisher Expeditions, had their fun when first spotting Lincoln toward them on his horse with his tall hat, joking that "it was a monitor's turret coming overland."
Especially if the mounted Lincoln was coming over the top of a hill and that was the first you saw of him.
That Top Hat Did Resemble a Monitor's Turret. --Old B-Runner
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